Boom... boom... boom...
The war drums sounded atop Two Worlds Mountain, their desolate, lingering thunder like flames that set every soldier's blood boiling.
An old man in purple robes stood in the sky upon Walking the Blue Clouds, holding a mixed-bristle brush that shone with golden light. Apart from its glow, the brush looked ordinary in every respect, except that a translucent white goose perched at its top, flapping its wings and honking at full throat, seemingly eager to peck at the demon barbarians.
The spirits manifested by powerful Literary Treasures were usually fierce creatures such as dragons and tigers, yet the spirit formed by this Literary Treasure Brush was a goose. It looked somewhat ridiculous, but Fang Yun was overjoyed at the sight of the brush. He had never expected to encounter a Half-Sage Literary Treasure as soon as he ascended Two Worlds Mountain.
It was the Goose-Exchange Brush, one of the three Sacred Brushes of Wang Xizhi, the Calligraphy Saint.
Wang Xizhi adored geese. Once, in Kuaiji, he saw a beautiful flock and sought out their owner to buy them. The owner was an elderly Academy Student. Seeing that his visitor was Wang Xizhi, he asked for no money, requesting only that Wang Xizhi copy out the Changes of Zhou in his own hand in exchange for the geese. Wang Xizhi agreed, leaving behind the celebrated tale of exchanging calligraphy for geese.
When the Goose-Exchange Brush first appeared, its golden light illuminated only a radius of ten feet. The instant the purple-robed elder raised it to its highest point, the white goose spread its wings. Fang Yun seemed to see those white wings stretch over ninety thousand miles, darkening heaven and earth with a suffocating weight.
Then the Goose-Exchange Brush descended. Fang Yun's heart clenched as he instinctively