The young ladies of the ng family spent their days either studying, making incense and ink, or crafting bookmarks and book racks, and sotis playing the zither or painting and calligraphy.
When Wufu saw the characters others wrote, they were beautifully neat. Compared to her own ghostly talismans, she truly felt inferior.
Her brush calligraphy was her weak point; her characters usually looked like ghostly talismans, such that even Purple Jade and the others found them hard to look at. She felt embarrassed to show them to others, so she often used charcoal pencils for writing.
"Let us see Wufu Shigu’s characters too," said the Third Miss of the ng family’s second house, ng Siqi, blinking her big eyes at Wufu.
Wufu laughed, "My writing is unpresentable and quite ugly. Better not to offend your eyes with it."
"How could that be? You are Grandfather’s Close Door Disciple," ng Siqi said.
"I just got lucky to beco that, but ask to sculpt, I can manage, but writing, no." Wufu said, "To be precise, I can’t handle a brush."
"Little Shigu, whether it’s good or not, we’ll be the judges," said another ng family Fourth Miss, from the side of Old Master ng’s brother, ng Siyan, with a laugh.
ng Siyu, seeing Wufu’s difficulty, stepped in to smooth things over, "Alright, you all, don’t make it hard for Little Shigu."
"Big Sister, we just want to see!" ng Siqi said.
Wufu said, "Fine, just don’t say later that I offended your eyes."
She picked up a brush and casually wrote a poem about spring, then handed it out.
Everyone who saw it was taken aback, awkwardly saying, "Is Little Shigu deliberately hiding her talents?" Even the youngest among them could write better than this.
Wufu also awkwardly said, "I did say it was a humble showing. I’m really not good with a brush, but as for charcoal pencils, those I can manage." Saying this, she took a charcoal pencil, sharpened it, thought for a mont, and spiritedly wrote out a full rendition of "Man Jiang Hong," silently paying tribute to the hero Yue Fei in her heart.
She liked this stirring composition, admired the hero, and having recited it most in her past life, reciting it now ca easily to her.
"Oh?" ng Siyu approached, reciting, "My wrath bristles through my helt, facing the railing, the drizzling rain stops..."
"Big Sister, what’s wrong?" Everyone saw ng Siyu clutching her chest, reciting while crying, and couldn’t help but be surprised.
"This poem, this poem..." ng Siyu realized, looked at Wufu, grabbing her hand, "Little Shigu, was this written by you?"
She seed to see a loyal hero on the battlefield, grieving the repeated loss of ground to the enemy, seeing the clash of arms, deeply empathizing, and feeling deeply stirred.
What kind of poem could move Big Sister so much?
Everyone gathered, seeing those ghostly talisman-like brush characters, but the charcoal-written cursive script was lively and vigorous, and soone read it aloud without knowing who it was.
The courtyard wasn’t large to begin with; the noble young ladies recited in unison, and the poem echoed outside, heard by passersby who paused to listen.
When the recitation finished, the courtyard fell silent, several young ladies quietly wiping their tears. Seeing this, Wufu inwardly thought, this is bad.
She just got used to reciting it from mory, not expecting people here hadn’t seen it before. But now, the young ladies’ reactions seed like they hadn’t heard it before. Oh no, she wouldn’t want to plagiarize a famous general’s work; it really wasn’t her composition.
"Um, don’t misunderstand, this isn’t my work, it’s soone else’s, haha." Wufu clapped her hand in self-reproach, chastising herself for not behaving and daring to show off willy-nilly.
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