Chapter 17 He Sanlang
After hearing the news brought back by the spy, He Tingfang finally felt relieved.
Well, it’s fate, so he won’t have to send anyone else to do it.
When He Tingfang passed by the garden, he saw his son Sanlang sitting in the octagonal pavilion by the pond, painting at his desk.
He Sanlang was dressed in a royal blue brocade robe, his black hair was tied up with a jade crown with orchid patterns, his body was like a green pine, and his skin was as white as powder.
Everyone in Chang'an knows that He Sanlang is as handsome as a jade and has an elegant demeanor.
Although he is twenty-four now, no younger generation in the capital can match He Sanlang's demeanor.
Those who come to the He Mansion to flatter He Tingfang always praise the third son of the He family for his outstanding elegance.
But what He Tingfang couldn't stand the most was his youngest son.
"Father." He Sanlang caught a glimpse of He Tingfang's figure from the corner of his eye and called out coldly.
The tone was so unfamiliar that it seemed like he was an outsider.
"Painting again?"
He Tingfang was furious when he saw the half-painted orchid on the table.
"You waste your time doing nothing all day long. How could my He family raise a son like you?"
He Sanlang seemed to be accustomed to his father's attitude. His sleeves swept across the table like flowing clouds, and he poured tea to himself:
"I am not as good as my father. My father's methods are so ruthless that I am afraid of him."
A hint of sarcasm appeared on He Sanlang's lips.
The sarcasm was mixed with resentment, unwillingness and disgust.
He Tingfang's chest heaved with anger. He hated to see He Sanlang's expression the most.
"He Yanqing!"
He snatched the scroll from the table, tore it up and threw it into the pool.
"Why don't you learn something else in all these years? Why do you insist on learning from a dead person?"
What really made He Tingfang angry was not that his son was not motivated, but that he knew his son was imitating others.
He is imitating Pei Lingyun, the son of his arch-enemy Pei Dingli!
Pei Lingyun, the pride of Chang'an at that time, was the third place in the imperial examination at the age of seventeen. He was a talented writer and was known as a pair of literary and military geniuses together with Xue Yucheng.
He Sanlang is three years younger than Pei Lingyun. Since childhood, he has taken Pei Lingyun as his role model and followed Pei Lingyun to learn from him.
He Tingfang's repeated admonitions were ineffective in stopping him.
He Tingfang had three sons, and the youngest son, He Yanqing, was the most intelligent, so he had high hopes for him.
But after the incident in the Pei family, the relationship between father and son has never eased.
He Sanlang went against his family as if to take revenge.
His family allowed him to enter the government through family connections, but he spent his days idle and was only willing to stay in an idle position that no one cared about.
His family wanted him to marry a wife and take a concubine, but he ignored them, which led to their divorce in the end.
After Pei Lingyun died, He Sanlang became even more aggressive in imitating Pei Lingyun's every move.
He only used Yuezhou celadon to drink tea, which was as green as a thousand peaks.
He only uses the White Dew of Western Hills to make tea, which is warm and fragrant like orchid.
He was dressed only in brocade, which shone like the rippling surface of a lake.
He only painted orchids, and his paintings filled dozens of bookcases...
Everyone only said that He Sanlang was well-fed and well-clothed, but they forgot that Pei Lingyun only liked celadon, only drank Xishan Bailu, only wore brocade, and only loved orchids.
"Why are you imitating the bad luck of someone who's been dead for ten years? You still haven't come to your senses!"
He Tingfang wished he could scold his son to wake him up.
He Sanlang turned his head and looked at the scroll thrown into the pool. It was soaked by the water bit by bit and sank to the bottom of the pool.
As if stung by He Tingfang's words, despair and gloom crept into He Sanlang's eyes. He clenched his hands into fists, his hands hanging in his sleeves.
"Yes, Zixin is dead. You guys killed him."
He Sanlang sneered, and the raised look in the corners of his eyes was exactly the same as that of the young Pei Lingyun.
He followed in the footsteps of seventeen-year-old Pei Lingyun and lived out that person's shadow.
"There is no one else in this world, so I will be him."
"I am him."
He Tingfang was so angry that his face turned blue:
"You're completely crazy! Someone, come, enforce the family rules!"
"Master! What's going on?"
Mrs. He took her granddaughter to the garden to play, and as soon as she arrived, she ran into He Tingfang who wanted to ask for family discipline.
"Master, Sanlang is weak and can't stand this. If you want to vent your anger, don't vent it on Sanlang!"
Mrs. He hurriedly stood between the father and son, holding her youngest son tightly behind her.
Unlike her husband, Mrs. He loves Sanlang the most. No one in the mansion can touch a hair on Sanlang.
"You only know how to spoil him. You've spoiled him to the point where he's like this today!"
He Tingfang felt a headache when he saw his wife doting on her son. Seeing his little granddaughter beside him, he couldn't get angry and left angrily.
Mrs. He chased after He Tingfang to persuade him.
He Sanlang stood alone in the octagonal pavilion, his eyes reflecting the shimmering pond.
The spring breeze blows, and a few red petals fly by.
"Third uncle." The little girl who had just come with Mrs. He came forward and gently pulled He Sanlang's sleeve.
He Sanlang came back to his senses, and when he saw his little niece, his eyes softened a little:
"Wan'er is here, where is your mother?"
Murong Wan raised her head and said, "The palace has been busy these past two days, and my mother couldn't spare time. Today, I'm the only one visiting my grandmother."
The He family had three sons and one daughter. The only daughter, He Yan, married the Seventh Prince and is now the Seventh Princess.
Murong Wan is smart and cute. She is only six years old this year, but she is already the Princess of Hengyang with a fiefdom and food.
"Third uncle, who did grandpa just say you were imitating?"
He Sanlang spread the drawing paper on the table again, picked up the brush and dipped it in ink:
"I'm talking about the most outstanding young man in Chang'an."
Murong Wan: "That's my third uncle. Everyone says that my third uncle is so unique and handsome, Dayu can't find another one."
The brush and ink move on the rice paper.
A simple and elegant orchid grows under the pen.
He Sanlang's cold and bitter voice fell:
"I'm not."
"Even if I study all my life, I still can't catch up with him."
…
Black Bandit Mountain.
After a few spring rains, green grass grew wildly on the mountains.
Su Zhizhi and Xue Che were lying on the big stone slab drawing.
The large stone slab was polished very flat, and several smaller stones were placed underneath to raise and secure it.
In this way, the large stone slab becomes a large open-air table.
What we are going to learn today is the art of painting.
Su Zhizhi mainly studies reading and writing in school, but she also has one day every month to learn painting.
This is what Su Zhizhi started wanting to learn last year. She thinks drawing is more fun than writing.
Old man Qin knew nothing about painting, so the responsibility fell on the village chief Hao Ren.
Kong Wu only needs to be able to read and doesn't need to learn painting, so he is not coming today. There are only two students, Su Zhizhi and Xue Che.
Hao Ren first drew a picture for Su Zhizhi and Xue Che as an example:
"...have a picture in mind before you start painting. Remember that the real and the imaginary complement each other, and don't move the brush too quickly..."
Xue Che saw that with just a few strokes of Hao Ren's brush, the terrain around Black Bandit Mountain came to life on the paper.
Green mountains, streams, fields, and flowing clouds.
The scenery of heaven and earth is all captured in this small scroll.
Xue Che followed Hao Ren's composition techniques and also began to paint mountain scenes.
The heights are staggered and the distances are orderly.
Hao Ren took a look and showed admiration.
Although Su Zhizhi's left arm was injured, he was busy drawing on the paper, holding the pen in his right hand.
Hao Ren leaned over to take a look and was speechless.
It cannot be said that Zhizhi's painting style is quite similar to his, it can only be said that they have nothing to do with each other!
She drew a mountain on the paper, and a huge cloud fell on the mountain.
The clouds are bigger than the mountains.
There was actually a village on the clouds, with many houses scattered around and wild flowers growing as tall as trees.
Further up, there are many bighead carps flying in the sky.
On the contrary, there are many birds swimming in the stream at the foot of the mountain.
Hao Ren pointed at the village and asked: "Zhizhi, why are the houses on the clouds?"
Su Zhizhi smiled with her white teeth: "Because the clouds are very soft, it must be very comfortable to live on them."
Hao Ren: "Why are flowers and plants taller than trees?"
Su Zhizhi: "In this case, if you pick a flower, you can make a shed to block out the sun."
Hao Ren: "Then why are fish in the sky and birds in the water?"
Su Zhizhi: "Because fish may want to go up to the sky, and birds may want to go down to the water."
Hao Ren was forced to laugh at Su Zhizhi, and said sarcastically:
"Good, good, it's really lifelike."
Su Zhizhi continued painting without even looking up, thinking she had received a compliment, and said modestly:
"Thanks to my father's good teaching, he said that the virtual and the real should complement each other, so I can draw like this."
Hao Ren: ...
Hao Ren recalled that when he was a child, he was criticized for his unconventional paintings. But now when he saw Zhizhi's paintings, he found them to be extremely unconventional!
That's all.
Since he wasn't aiming to become a famous calligrapher or painter, Hao Ren just followed Su Zhizhi and started painting.
The clouds scattered and the sun was high in the sky.
Hao Ren picked up the bamboo tube beside the stone slab and drank the water.
The way he drinks water is very elegant and beautiful.
Even though what is held in the hand is just a scratched bamboo tube, the fabric of the cuffs is washed white, which is still pleasing to the eye.
There was no expensive tea in the bowl, only a few dried yellow wintersweet flowers.
Su Zhizhi picked wintersweet flowers last winter, dried them in the yard, and sealed them in a jar. She put a few petals in the water when drinking, and the water was filled with the cool fragrance of plum blossoms.
Xue Che was halfway through his painting when he looked at Hao Ren for advice:
"Village Chief Hao, there's too much white space here. What should I add?"
He drew the general composition, but there was still a blank space in the lower right corner.
Hao Ren took the pen from Xue Che and made a few strokes on the blank space.
Xue Che looked at Hao Ren's brushwork and thought he was going to paint orchids, but what Hao Ren painted was a bunch of seedlings.
Small and tough, it contains vigorous vitality in the soil.
Xue Che's eyes lit up, and he suddenly understood:
"I see."
Su Zhizhi was tired of painting, so she put down her pen for a while and picked up her small bamboo cup to drink water.
Her bamboo tube cup was smaller than the one Hao Ren used, and there were also wintersweet flowers in it.
Su Zhizhi took a big gulp, and the breeze playfully lifted the hair around her face:
"Dad, is plum blossom water delicious?"
The sun is warm.
The wind is also warm.
The tall and graceful gentleman turned his head, his hair dyed like ink, and the spring light in his eyes urged thousands of peach and plum blossoms to bloom.
"Mm, it's delicious."
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