| THE REBIRTH OF THE MALICIOUS EMPRESS | LK ADAPTATION

Chapter 35|Understanding

The discussion continued while the examiners on stage showed the crowd the paintings to view and to display the fairness of the results.

Fan Liu-er's and Zhao Yan's painting was a road of a blooming garden scene. In all fairness, it was pretty but was too ordinary thus they naturally were ranked the last few.

Qin Qing painted a large 'red fairy' Chrysanthemum. Most probably she was most familiar of this breed of Chrysanthemum and the entire painting only depicted this one Chrysanthemum. Every fibre of it was drawn, making it look exceptionally lifelike. It can be considered that in a way that she totally ignored the artistic conception and focus totally on her drawing ability. A 'red fairy' draw that vividly on the paper was very beautiful but the academy examinations was not just to test one's painting techniques but also to examine the intention of the painting. Thus no matter how beautiful this Chrysanthemum was, it could only be ranked third.

Very quickly it was Shen Yue's piece. Shen Yue bit her lips as she sat by Chen Rou Qiu's side, with a barely maintained smile on her face but her fist was firmly tighten. If it was the usual, she would definitely smile lightly like clouds and breeze as she accepted everyone's sincere praise and envy. But now, this 'second rank' was like a deep sarcasm which made her feel that everyone was looking at her with eyes filled with taunts and ridicule.

Shen Yue's painting was on residual Chrysanthemum. The rain and wind came and many of the Chrysanthemum petals as fallen but there were still sporadic petals that were firmly attached to the bud and the stem still remained straight, as if it was the integrity of a great person. There was also two sentences at the side, 'Would rather die with fragrance on the branch, than fly away with the Northern wind.'

This painting's thoughts was considered lofty. Generally, painting was the extension of people and as the residual Chrysanthemum was noble, one could tell that the person drawing definitely had a lofty integrity. The chief examiners' favourite was such people with talent and character, thus if Shen Yue's painting was unable to achieve 'first rank', it was really impossible to imagine what Shen Lisa had drawn.

"The painting is that good? How was this at second rank?" Bai Wei cried out, "I really do not understand at all."

Chen Rou Qiu also did not comprehend. Initially she thought that Shen Yue was somewhat nervous and strayed off the path. Who knew that when the painting was brought out, she then knew that her own daughter did not do anything wrong. As in previous years, this would be indeed be a well-deserved first rank. But why was there a different result?

Ren Wan Yun was somewhat rejoicing in their misfortune. Shen Yue was outstanding in her talents and would suppress Shen Qing in the academy examinations in every category thus to see Shen Yue suffering this time, even though Shen Lisa winning first rank made her unhappy, it also did not matter to her. She was overall happy to watch the fun in front of her.

The examiner on stage instructed the two pages to open the painting scroll and the noises stopped short.

The drawing paper was very large and Shen Lisa's painting had many white areas. Her drawing skills were originally not outstanding so she only painted an vague scene but unexpectedly there was a magnificent atmosphere to it.

In the scroll, the yellow sand was endless with a bloody setting sun that seemed to overflow and a broken sword stood up in the middle of the yellow earth with a white Chrysanthemum at the end of it.

In there, the Chrysanthemum was just for show as it was so small that one cannot even see the flower petals. However in this picture it was like painting a dragon and dotting the eyes, making it bring out the desolate sense of desired gorgeousness.

Everyone present quieten down for a moment. The paper and ink separated it but one could feel the desolation and misery of a powerless struggle.

That was war.