Ma Zhibin froze, then asked Chen Xun, "That line has quite the presence. Where did it come from? Old Xunzi, aside from you, everyone in your Chen Clan is elegant and free with words, wandering unrestrained through literary grace. Who wrote that line? I don't believe for a second that you could produce poetry like that."
The third-generation ancestor, Chen Shihua, had built on the foundation of the Sword Shadow Body created by her father, the second ancestor Chen Qian, and developed the advanced application of the Sword Shadow Body—the Chanting Method—which used poetry as incantations.
Chen Shihua loved reading, adored writing, and had even concealed her identity to spend a very long period of time at the Wen Hua Academy of the Heaven Dou Empire.
Before her death, she left behind the couplet, "A Martial Soul passed down keeps the clan long-lived; poetry and books carry the generations far," telling the descendants of the Chen Clan that the inheritance of the Seven Kill Sword Martial Soul not only required extensive reading, which could strengthen mental willpower and effectively suppress the Seven Kill Sword's erosion, but also that one should keep learning, carry forward what came before, and forge ahead. Only such a family would prosper and flourish, enduring for a long time without decline.
From then on, the Chen Clan upheld the family tradition of passing down poetry and books, and to this day, the entire family had benefited greatly from it.
The Chen Clan's people received an education from childhood, gradually beginning to study poetry, songs, rhapsodies, and fine prose. The Chen Clan mainly studied five things: first, literary composition; second, textual research; third, principles and meaning; fourth, exegesis; and fifth, statecraft and practical governance.
So the people of the Chen Clan had always carried the refined air