He put the thought into action.
Li Hao asked Uncle Zhao to prepare paints, brushes, ink, paper, and an inkstone for him. After each day's fishing with the old man, he would ask permission to return to his Mountains and Rivers Courtyard to rest.
Li Muxiu said little about it. His guiding principle in raising Li Hao was to let him roam free.
Although Li Hao had displayed an exceptional talent for body refining, he did not force the boy to train hard every day. If Li Hao wanted to ask him for guidance, he would teach him earnestly. If not, he simply took the little fellow sightseeing and fishing in the wild.
Inside the spacious Mountains and Rivers Courtyard.
Li Hao had two stools brought over, one tall and one short, and began drawing on the drawing board he had set up, imitating an art student.
Uncle Zhao pleaded with him until his mouth ran dry, but Li Hao turned a deaf ear. Completely helpless against this young master who loved frittering away his ambitions on amusements, Uncle Zhao could only leave him to Li Fu.
Li Hao already had a way to deal with Li Fu: he demonstrated the second level of the Dragon Body before him.
Li Fu watched, dumbstruck. Suspecting his eyes were playing tricks on him, he asked Li Hao to demonstrate it again. After getting a clear look the second time, the man became so excited that his eyes reddened with tears.
He assumed it was Second Uncle's nurturing and instruction that had allowed Li Hao to master the second level of this Body-Refining Ultimate Art in less than a month. Along with his gratitude toward Second Uncle, he felt astonishment and excitement at Li Hao's talent for body refining.
Such talent was far more impressive than mastering Wild Bull Strength in three months. He was unquestionably a first-rate body-refining genius.
Seeing his wild excitement, Li Hao secretly felt relieved that he had not demonstrated the third level, the Hundred Dragons Body, in front of him. After all, not everyone possessed the old man's breadth of experience or capacity to take things in stride.
In exchange, Li Hao promised Li Fu that he would train diligently under Second Master, on the condition that Li Fu no longer interfere when he did other things.
This delighted Li Fu, but also left him looking rather troubled. With Li Hao's talent for body refining so extraordinary, he now wished the boy would spend every moment outside eating and sleeping on cultivation. Only then could he catch up with those prodigies possessing ninth grade battle bodies. Yet Li Hao's disposition was maddeningly carefree, leaving him deeply helpless.
After much back-and-forth, Li Fu finally gave in to Li Hao and agreed.
Thus, Li Hao began painting openly in the courtyard.
As he put brush to paper, words soon appeared before his eyes.
[Painting Dao: Stage 0 (1/100)]
It worked, just as expected.
Li Hao smiled knowingly and began wielding his brush with abandon.
Drawing on his experience with the Chess Dao and the fishing Dao, Li Hao guessed that the better his paintings were, the more experience he would gain.
So he did not approach it too casually, but began drawing with some care.
Only, he had been a businessman in his previous life, steeped in commerce for decades. What did he know about painting?
Girls who could paint, on the other hand-he knew a little about those...
For his first drawing, Li Hao chose a portrait sketch and picked the prettiest maid in the courtyard to stand before his drawing board.
Then he confidently raised his brush. A person, right? First a circle, then a vertical line, then a stroke to the left and one to the right, followed by another stroke to the left and one to the right.
Hmm, still needs some hair.
Done!
[Painting Dao experience +1]
Hiss... painting really is hard.
Li Hao smiled bitterly to himself.
Beside him, Uncle Zhao stole a glance at the drawing board and asked in confusion, "Young master, what have you drawn?"
"Can't you tell? A person!" Li Hao snapped, embarrassed.
"How is that..." Uncle Zhao was baffled.
Li Hao huffed. "You're saying it doesn't look like one, aren't you? That's because you haven't understood the deeper meaning of my painting. Look at this circle. You think it's a head? No, it represents being smooth and adaptable. Look at this vertical line. You think it's a body? No, what it expresses is that if a person wants to stand tall, he has to be a little smooth. Uncle Zhao, you still have plenty to learn. Don't be so quick to blurt out whatever's on your mind!"
"Uh, then that clump on the circle isn't hair?"
"Not so. It is, yet it isn't. It's both hair and an ideal!"
"An ideal?"
Li Hao said calmly, "Ideals grow in your head. That's perfectly reasonable, isn't it? A thick head of hair is many people's ideal. That's perfectly reasonable too, isn't it?"
"??" Uncle Zhao looked blank.
Having finished spouting nonsense, Li Hao continued drawing.
What left Uncle Zhao and Li Fu exchanging bewildered looks was that, after dozens of drawings, they all looked much the same. Then they looked at the pretty little maid standing before the board... What was the point of having her stand there as a backdrop?
Clearly, this young master had no talent whatsoever in the Painting Dao. It could not compare with his chess skills.
Still, both were amusements that squandered his martial training, so they could not be bothered to delve into it.
Li Hao drew very quickly, and a pile of discarded paper soon accumulated on the ground. Before long, his experience reached a hundred.
Every bit of it had been accumulated one point at a time.
Li Hao felt thoroughly drained.
[Painting Dao advanced to Stage 1] [Art Skill Point +1]
As the notifications appeared, insights into the Painting Dao surged through his mind. Li Hao closed his eyes for a moment and gradually absorbed them all. In an instant, he understood just how much of an amateur he had been.
He put brush to paper again, his strokes seeming to possess a spirit of their own. Soon, a graceful, lovely figure appeared on the paper, brought to life by his deft brushwork.
Li Fu and Uncle Zhao, who had been looking around in boredom, happened to glance over. They froze, their eyes widening in astonishment.
Before long, Li Hao lightly dotted the vermilion lips with his brush, then dipped it into his paints to add color. In an instant, a lifelike beauty stood gracefully upon the board.
[Painting Dao experience +13]
Li Hao could not help feeling delighted. As expected, the more careful and exquisite the painting, the more Painting Dao experience he gained.
And he could finally say that he knew how to paint.
"Young master, this..." Uncle Zhao stared blankly at the board. A moment ago, he had been drawing crude stick figures, and now he had jumped straight to this standard?
Could the young master be an extraordinary genius who had learned it all in mere moments?
Or had he been pretending earlier?
Or perhaps... could those little figures really have depicted "deeper meaning," just as the young master had said?
He felt his entire understanding of the world being shaken.
"Basic stuff. Hold the applause," Li Hao said casually.
Uncle Zhao did not understand, but that did nothing to stop him from being deeply awed.
Li Hao made a few more paintings. Once he felt increasingly proficient, he had Li Fu and Uncle Zhao stand before the board as well and painted a portrait of each. Their eyes were expressive in the paintings: one face weathered and kindly, the other stern yet faintly awkward, looking off to the side. Both were lifelike.
Looking at the finished portraits in their hands, the two men wore different expressions, their feelings complicated.
The young master's gifts were rare in this world. Had he been born into an aristocratic clan of civil officials, he would surely have been cherished as a treasure.
Unfortunately, this was the Divine General Residence, a military family whose members were bound from birth to defend Great Yu.
Once the paint and ink had dried, both men unconsciously rolled their portraits up slowly and put them away with considerable care.
They would remember that, when the young master was seven, he had painted a portrait for each of them.
It was the first time in their lives that anyone had given them a portrait of themselves.
Time flew. Half a year later.
Along a tranquil stretch of Blackwater Demon Lake's shore, three figures sat fishing more than ten meters apart: two old men and one child.
The child was naturally Li Hao. Besides Li Muxiu, the other old man was one of Li Muxiu's fishing companions. From the old man's introduction, Li Hao learned that this was the Thief Saint, whose name was rather interesting: Feng Boping.
According to the Thief Saint, he had chosen the name himself. It did not mean that he only acted when the wind and waves were calm, but rather that even after he acted, the wind and waves remained calm.
Between casts, Li Muxiu also smilingly recounted the Thief Saint's exploits to Li Hao, who discovered that the name truly suited him.
Many of the factions robbed by the Thief Saint only discovered that their treasures had been stolen months, or even years, later.
Usually, they noticed nothing at the time, leaving them no way to investigate who had stolen them or when. They did not even know whether the culprit was a thief within their own ranks...
Keeping his deeds and name deeply hidden, seeking treasures throughout the mortal world-this was the Thief Saint, Feng Boping.
On the shore, Li Hao deftly set up a large pot. As he cleaned and butchered the fish demon he had just caught, he glanced at his Fish Float from time to time.
The other end of his fishing rod was secured on the bank, with a rope threaded through a hole and tied to a large rock. If anything stirred, he would still have time to react.
At that moment, Li Hao was using a sword to remove the fish demon's innards, his movements practiced.
Neither Li Muxiu nor the Thief Saint found this surprising anymore. Although he was only preparing fish, both had long since recognized Li Hao's exceptional talent for the Sword Dao. When Li Muxiu first saw Li Hao wield a sword, he had even mocked Sword Wudao for having eyes yet failing to see, and letting a true treasure slip away.
The Thief Saint, Feng Boping, was also very fond of this lively little fellow who loved fishing and showed no unusual reaction to his sensitive identity. He had once earnestly said that he would search far and wide for precious medicine capable of opening Li Hao's meridians.
Soon, the snow-white fish meat went into the pot.
Li Hao crushed some coriander and chili peppers and tossed them in as well. A fragrant, spicy aroma immediately spread, drawing frequent glances from the two old men on the shore.
Their lines had been cast far out into the lake's depths. They used their own bodies as rods, their lines all but invisible, without even a float. They could sense any movement through the lines alone.
"Gentlemen, it'll be ready to eat in three minutes," Li Hao said with a smile.
After spending so much time together, Li Hao had come to call Li Muxiu Second Master and Feng Boping Old Feng. The two old men had also given Li Hao a nickname they considered wonderfully apt:
Little Mouse.
(End of chapter)
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