"Excuse me, let me through. Sorry for the trouble, let me through." Lü Tao pushed past the crowd and walked to the front, determined to see what sort of dragon Chen Mu could paint.
He had better not lack the skill and end up painting a snake instead of a dragon, making himself a laughingstock.
Even if his choice of subject fell short of Chen Mu's, Lü Tao remained confident that his childhood talent for painting would let him crush Chen Mu.
In Lü Tao's eyes, victory was already in the bag!
But gradually, as Chen Mu danced his brush through the ink and added more details to the dragon...
Lü Tao's smug smile slowly faded.
In truth, from those first few sparse strokes alone, Lü Tao had already recognized that his painting skills were far, far below Chen Mu's.
Precisely because Lü Tao was so accomplished at painting, he could see the depth of Chen Mu's mastery more readily than the other onlookers!
Seeing this, Zhao Wen and the others grew restless.
They realized that if this continued, the reputation the Four Talents had painstakingly built would sooner or later be ruined.
So many influential figures and women approached them because of their title as the Four Talents.
Without that title, they would once again become utterly useless, wretched scholars in everyone's eyes.
At that thought, Zhao Wen picked up a small flowerpot, intending to slip into the crowd and splash water over Chen Mu's painting to ruin it.
Unfortunately, getting out was easy; getting back in was hard.
He squeezed and shoved for ages but simply could not get through.
"Finished." Chen Mu put down his brush as well.
"Excellent! What a majestic, imposing dragon!"
"This dragon looks as though it's come alive."
"Yes, those scales! That head!