Nightfall

The First Guest of Old Brush Pen Shop

This was Ning Que’s ideal lifestyle: a fantastic night accompanied by a good set of writing brush, inkstick, paper, inkstone and a beautiful handmaiden, enjoying a cup of light tea, three burning incenses besides the table, and a bright moon outside the window. He could roll sleeves to write as much as he wished and could stop to raise his head, lightly flicking a finger to swiftly shoot a hiltless flying sword suddenly from the beam traveling thousands of miles to kill a general.

The first night spent in Lin 47th Street made him feel infinitely closer to his dream state, despite the cheap calligraphy stationery, despite the night being still but not yet deep, despite there was only water instead of light tea, and only porridge and sesame seed pancakes to satisfy his hunger, despite there being no burning incenses on the table and no moonlight outside the window, despite his handmaiden being too tiny, dark-skinned and ugly, and despite the fact that he now thought of cultivation as a very stinky fart…

Despite all of these things, he still felt very happy to be able to let his brush dance presumptuously on the snow-white paper, so much so that he even considered Sangsang’s proposal of selling calligraphy as a rather genius idea.

In City of Wei, their life was neither poor nor rich, but only bitter. The military shipments would not include goods such as calligraphy stationery. So it was costly for him to write a few volumes of calligraphy. But right here and right now, he had at his disposition infinite amount of writing materials with which he could produce as much calligraphy as he wished. And Sangsang would have nothing to complain about since he could sell the calligraphy for money. In his mind, there could be nothing that made him happier in this world.

Painful and torturous times always dragged on like years, but happy and enjoyable moments flew by quickly. When he finally looked up, downed the bowl of water, and rubbed his aching wrist and shoulders getting ready to rest, it was already early dawn out there and he could hear faint sounds of water-pouring as well as vendors yelling from a distance.

After a whole night of calligraphy, he had already been surrounded by paper volumes. Even though he began with two Kuangcao calligraphy works to vent his feelings, eventually he strove to carefully write what would sell better according to Sangsang. They were seemly unplanned works but in fact included vertical, horizontal and long scrolls as well as a massive full sized Dazhongtang scroll. Random piles of paper volumes of different sizes and shapes piled up all around him waiting to be framed.

Having been copying thousands of calligraphy volumes for many years, Ning Que was rather confident of his own skills. However, it was a pity that here in Chang’an he could not make use of certain masterpieces [TN: referring to the famous calligraphy work of Collected Poems from the Orchid Pavilion] that he was most proud of given that his true home was another time and another place with a different history. And there was no answer if any spectator asked about the ninth year of Yong He and the Kuaiji Mount which obviously did not exist in this world. As a result, he had to copy some existing collections of poems and some widely-circulated scriptures. Even so, he still believed that after the paper volumes were hung on the wall, there must be countless high-ranking government officials, celebrities and men of letters who would come to appreciate his calligraphy as soon as they heard about it.

“Alas, the threshold will be trampled off in two days, so we’d better get ready to get it repaired in advance.”

Immersed in this sense of vanity, Ning Que stretched his right hand and casually ripped off the paper volumes left by the original house owner as if they were a pile of rubbish. Just as he was about to call Sangsang to find a frame shop to frame and hang his own masterpiece, he found the little handmaiden sound asleep in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees.