He sighed and walked away into the twilight.
Under the lamp, Xu Jiang was carving a palm-sized wooden plaque. Her mouth was tense as she concentrated on chiseling away the excess wood chips with the carving knife in her hand.
Not a single cut is wasted.
Before long, the wooden sign took shape, with curved water patterns on both sides, each side left blank. She changed the knife and carved two words on each side.
Folding clouds.
Cut off the spring.
After carving, it was ground, polished, and waxed, and a small hole was chiseled on the wooden plaque, and then it was pierced with decorations to make a waist plaque.
After finishing her work, she fell asleep and had a dream. In her dream, someone was teaching her how to write poetry. She thought she wrote well:
The empty steps are no longer ringing.
The old dreams and old sounds remain.
Once you go into the mist,
The floating light cuts through the spring.
The man groaned, his eyebrows raised, and scolded: "You are indeed an idiot, you are not cut out for this." After scolding her, he touched her head and said, "Since you are not cut out for this, you should learn some more skills to support yourself, so that you won't starve to death in the future."
They said her poetry was not good, but they wanted to give her a nickname based on her poem, "I'm Zheyun, you're Zhanchun, it sounds like master and disciple..."
Before he could finish, she burst into tears.
When Xu Jiang opened her eyes, she felt as if she had just opened her eyes for the first time in this room and had no idea what day it was.
She picked up the wooden plaque she had carved last night, rubbed it for a while, and then wore it around her waist.
It was snowing again today, so Hu Xu probably wouldn't come. She opened the door lazily, only to see a man standing in front of the door holding an umbrella.
She swallowed back the yawn she had just started.
"Tetsutsuki?"
Who else could be standing in front of the door if not Lou Yunchun? Lou Yunchun stepped forward and handed her the book.
"I'm here to return the book." Then his eyes fell on her waist badge and he asked, "Is Zhanchun your name?"
Xu Jiang paused, staring at him in disbelief, "How did you know that?"
"These two words are hidden in the printing plate."
Xu Jiang was speechless. Are all the people in the Dali Temple so observant?
She initially studied woodblock printing, hoping to emulate Mu Huisheng's method of hiding characters in printed books to prevent counterfeiting. However, she didn't expect the characters "砍春" (cut spring) to look even more like a blob of ink than Mu Huisheng's "悔" (regret). Rather than feeling ashamed, she was filled with pride, convinced she had inherited Mu Huisheng's true teachings.
The teacher sneered at her, then printed all of her copies into books and put them on sale. As a result, she was ridiculed countless times and shed countless tears.
Afterwards, only the word "Spring" was hidden in the engraved version.
These two printed books were the "masterpieces" of that time.
She said awkwardly, "It's just a clumsy childhood creation, please forgive me for laughing."
Lou Yunchun raised the corner of his lips slightly and said, "Borrow two more."
"Okay, okay, please feel free." She stepped aside to let the person in.
Lou Yunchun picked and chose on the bookshelf and soon selected two books, one was "The Broken Soul" and the other was "The Hate of Yan Qiu".
Xu Jiang stared at the two books for a long time without saying a word, then cast her gaze on his face, trying to find some clues.
As a result, a deeply hidden smile was revealed.
This person did it on purpose!
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