Chapter 265: Chapter 207: Qingzhou Has Passed Ten Thousand Mountains (Part 2)

"Even with your extraordinary talent, you should focus on your studies, not on being arrogant."

Pei Zhaoye pursed his lips and turned his head to look at Mr. Yue Ming and the others in the distance. "Got it," he said dismissively.

Whether he truly understood or was just pretending, only he knew.

Han Zhangping knew well that a personality like his wasn’t developed overnight, nor could it be corrected with just a few words.

"Zhaoye, I brought you to Shu State this time to confirm if Chen Qingzhou’s Calligraphy Dao is truly what the rumors claim."

"If it’s true, then as instructed by the headmaster, you will need to study at Guiyun Academy for a while."

"Once you’ve made significant progress in the Calligraphy Dao, you can return to Yuelu Academy..."

Before he could finish, Pei Zhaoye cut him off. "I refuse."

"His Calligraphy Dao is at the same Realm as my grandfather’s. If he’s the one teaching me, I’d rather just stay at Yuelu Academy."

"You..."

Just as Han Zhangping was about to try persuading him again, he heard several gasps of surprise from nearby.

Even Pei Zhaoye, who had just spoken, wore a look of utter astonishment, as if he had witnessed something unbelievable.

Han Zhangping turned his head, intrigued.

He saw Mr. Yue Ming and Mr. Zhuo Ying in the distance, unrolling a calligraphy scroll that was about six feet long.

Upon it were no longer the dazzling golden characters from before, but an illusory landscape.

Amidst rolling mountains, a city stood high above while a small boat sped along below, crossing treacherous peaks and ridges in the blink of an eye.

Faintly, a figure could be seen standing on the boat, a wide smile on their face.

Han Zhangping stared blankly at the scroll, his face filled with disbelief. "This... This is..."

If he had merely been intrigued upon seeing the Cursive Script earlier, now, witnessing the Mental Realm manifesting from the scroll, he found it impossible to maintain his composure.

His entire body trembled with excitement.

Beside him, Pei Zhaoye’s eyes were wide with shock. He was young, true. He was arrogant, true. And he certainly looked down on everyone. But that didn’t mean he was ignorant.

’Grandfather said that when a Calligraphy Dao Realm becomes like a painting, it has reached the Perfection Realm. So that scroll is...’

"Perfect Realm Calligraphy Dao!?"

Pei Zhaoye couldn’t believe his own eyes.

He refused to believe that the scroll was the work of the very live-in son-in-law he so despised.

But the brilliant, new style of Cursive Script on the scroll left him no room for doubt.

’How is this possible? He... he raised a new script style all the way to Perfection?’

Pei Zhaoye vividly remembered the longing on his grandfather’s aged face when he had explained how to identify the Perfection Realm of Calligraphy Dao.

’Even his grandfather hadn’t reached the Perfection Realm. So how... How could Chen Qingzhou possibly have managed it?!’

In contrast, the expressions on the faces of Mr. Yue Ming, Mr. Zhuo Ying, and the others were rather peculiar.

It was the look of someone who had just found gold in a pile of sand.

They had all thought that the twenty-odd scrolls Chen Yi had produced, all at the level of Great Success in Calligraphy Dao, would be more than enough.

Who would have thought he’d give them such a massive surprise in the end—Perfection in Calligraphy Dao!

Perfection in Cursive Script, no less!

"A new script... the Calligraphy Dao... the Perfection Realm... Qingzhou, this... your work..."

Seeing Mr. Yue Ming so excited he was babbling incoherently, Chen Yi smiled warmly.

"I just got lucky. I kept writing, and somewhere along the way, I broke through."

Mr. Zhuo Ying was flabbergasted. "You call that luck?"

"If you could advance in the Calligraphy Dao through sheer luck, our Great Wei Dynasty would have at least a dozen more Calligraphy Saints."

"Zhuo Ying, the key isn’t the first part of his sentence, it’s the second part. ’I kept writing...’"

"I’m going to go do some writing later myself."

"You? Write? Have you even reached the entry-level of the Calligraphy Dao?"

Seeing the masters of Guiyun Academy bickering amongst themselves, Chen Yi simply assumed they were too excited to contain themselves and spoke up.

"I believe these scrolls should be more than enough. I’ll have to trouble you with the rest, Headmaster."

"Enough! More than enough! It’s no trouble, no trouble at all..."

Each phrase came out in a different, excited pitch.

Mr. Yue Ming was grinning from ear to ear.

He had every reason to be ecstatic.

Chen Yi’s achievement of Great Success in Calligraphy Dao had already attracted many talented scholars from within Shu State.

Many more from outside Shu State had traveled great distances to seek instruction.

If word got out that Chen Yi had achieved Perfection in the Calligraphy Dao, he feared the number of prospective students would multiply several times over.

It wouldn’t just be people from Yan State and You State; he estimated that scholars would come from as far as the Capital Prefecture and the Northern State.

"Qingzhou, next time you have a breakthrough, please give us a heads-up."

"I was thankfully being extra careful just now. If I had damaged this scroll, I don’t know what I would’ve done."

Hearing this, Mr. Zhuo Ying chimed in, still shaken. "Indeed. It nearly scared me to death."

"Qingzhou, you know my health is poor."

"Without one of these scrolls of Perfected Calligraphy Dao to call my own, I’m afraid I’ll never recover."

"Hey! You old rascal, have you no shame? How can you be so shameless?"

"You all know my health has always been frail..."

Only then did Xiao Wan’er finally snap out of her daze. She looked at Chen Yi and couldn’t help but ask,

"’Qingzhou has passed ten thousand layered peaks’... is that line... about you?"

Chen Yi froze for a second, then answered vaguely, "Well, I suppose so."

’It was,’ he could only say, ’a beautiful misunderstanding.’

’But it did make a certain kind of sense when applied to him.’

Xiao Wan’er smiled and nodded. "It’s a wonderful poem."

She had learned long ago from Elder Master Xiao that Chen Yi had reached Perfection in the Calligraphy Dao, so her focus just now hadn’t been on the calligraphy itself.

Instead, it was the imagery within the Mental Realm that had caught her attention.

The overall Mental Realm of the poem was magnificent and grand, conveying a sense of breaking through a great barrier to find the light.

It was hard for Xiao Wan’er not to read more into it.

She carefully recalled everything that had happened to Chen Yi recently, a flicker of joy in her heart. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

’My brother-in-law... he must have finally stepped out of the shadow of marrying into the Xiao Family and regained his confidence, right?’

Of course, Chen Yi had no idea what Xiao Wan’er was thinking.

Even if he did, he could only let it remain a beautiful misunderstanding. He could never reveal his role in the burning of the summer grain in the Three Towns.