Heaven and Earth Transformation

Only a day had passed, yet Yi Shuyuan's standing in the Yi household had clearly risen in a very real way. The moment his sister-in-law Zhao saw him return, she stood at the courtyard gate and greeted him with a beaming smile and newfound courtesy.

"Brother-in-law, where did you go so early? You haven't had breakfast yet, have you?"

"I told Baokang before I left. I went for a stroll on the northern mountain."

Carrying the bamboo container and supporting the mountain stone, Yi Shuyuan answered as he strode past Zhao into the courtyard, heading straight for the house.

Zhao's gaze followed him, and she continued to lavish attention on him.

"Oh, he didn't tell me. By the way, there are still a few cornmeal buns keeping warm in the pot. Would you like some?"

"Then sorry for the trouble. Oh, right, there are plenty of stone crabs in this bamboo container. Keep them alive until tomorrow, then clean them and simmer them with porridge. Sprinkle in a little salt, and they'll taste wonderfully fresh."

Zhao took the bamboo container, opened its stopper, and peered inside. There were indeed plenty of crabs, and she replied with a broad smile.

"I'll go fetch your buns first."

Yi Shuyuan nodded, then entered the main room and laid out his writing implements.

It was the same old table, the same brush, ink, and paper, except that today, the damaged old inkstone had been replaced by a pale yellow stone. Yi Shuyuan set it on the table, expecting to need something underneath to level it, but to his surprise, it sat without the slightest wobble.

"Tsk, tsk. Now that's a fated connection."

Yi Shuyuan took an ink stick and ground it with clean water. Ink slowly spread through the yellow stone like dark clouds shading the sky in layer upon layer, until it became a pool of fine, velvety black.

Compared with his first attempt at practicing at home, today Yi Shuyuan slipped into the right state of mind in an instant.

He lightly dipped the brush in ink and lowered it to the white paper. The wolf-hair tip traced graceful curves across its surface. If he had been able to write such fine characters yesterday, then with today's frame of mind, he could do even better.

His spirit truly followed wherever his intent led. Anything would do for calligraphy practice, but with his heart opened wide, Yi Shuyuan wrote on in one flowing breath. What emerged on the Xuan Paper was none other than "Heaven and Earth Transformation," the doggerel verse that had once earned all six students in his dormitory a public reprimand.

At this moment, Yi Shuyuan was no longer his old, troubled self. That yearning to roam the world and unfurl his heart and spirit seemed to swell with every word and line, stretching into a vision in which, beneath all the heavens, he alone remained.

Yi Shuyuan recited as he wrote, his brush moving faster and faster, as though he wielded it as a sword, carving out boundless heroic spirit. All the more clearly, his aspirations lay in the mortal world, while his heart wandered free!

"Know yin and yang, fathom the five elements, answer the northern dipper above and become myriad stars; heavenly stems and earthly branches harmonize with forms and numbers, four seasons and solar terms echo from afar; swallow sun and moon, shake heaven and earth, let the spirit roam ten thousand realms and gather fragments of the Dao; behold heaven and earth, comprehend the birth of fate, dream alone through eight directions and six reaches; arts of heavenly gang, transformations of earthly baleful forces, laugh as intent follows through dreams, yet sigh-it is only an infatuated heart, drunk..."

Crack! Yi Shuyuan's heart jolted. His final stroke never landed, and the piece broke off there.

As the writing implements tilted and slid, the brush tip dragged a long line across the paper. One leg of the old wooden table had collapsed.

Bang! Clatter!

The paperweight, ink stick, mountain stone, and Xuan Paper all tumbled to the floor as the table toppled. Yi Shuyuan stood where he was, still holding his brush, and only instinctively reached out with his left hand to catch the earthenware bowl of clean water.

"Oh dear, brother-in-law, what have you done-"

Zhao came in carrying a bowl of cornmeal buns just in time to see the table fall. She shrieked and rushed over, but the instinctively fierce look on her face quickly softened when she reached Yi Shuyuan, becoming all politeness.

"Brother-in-law, how did a perfectly good table fall over?"

Yi Shuyuan ignored her. After setting the earthenware bowl on the floor, he walked over to the overturned table and examined the broken leg. It turned out that insects had long since hollowed it out. This had not been obvious from the outside, but on the inner side near the top, only a thin bit of outer wood still connected it.

The wood-boring insects were long gone now, but the table, which had barely held on for so long, had finally given out.

"Heh."

Yi Shuyuan chuckled and pointed at the table leg.

"This table was hollowed out ages ago. If it hadn't broken today, it would have broken tomorrow. Fortunately, no one was hurt."

Following Yi Shuyuan's gaze, Zhao now saw the leg too and understood that he was telling the truth. Patting her chest, she handed him the buns.

"Oh my, so that's what happened. It gave me such a fright just now. I'll have my husband find a wooden pole and patch it up later. Here, brother-in-law, have your buns. Just leave the tidying to me."

Yi Shuyuan nodded. He picked up the paperweight, some larger fragments of the ink stick, and the yellow stone he had used as an inkstone. Then he rinsed his wolf-hair brush in the bowl of water and put everything into the lacquered wooden box. Taking the earthenware bowl of buns, he set it on top of the box and carried the box to the room opposite.

Zhao had said she would clean up herself, but as soon as Yi Shuyuan left, she called over her daughter-in-law Li and went off to attend to other things.

Of course, Yi Shuyuan saw it all. He shook his head and sighed inwardly. No wonder there was a saying that a daughter-in-law endured until she became a mother-in-law. What had been hard to understand in his previous life was perfectly clear when he looked at this one.

Li bore the work without complaint. She took a broom to sweep the floor, but had barely begun when the sheet of Xuan Paper on the ground caught her eye.

There was more on the paper now than the line left by Yi Shuyuan's last stroke. A puddle of ink had splashed across it too, spilled when the yellow stone struck the floor.

"This handwriting is so beautiful..."

Although Li could not read at all, she instinctively felt that sweeping the sheet away as rubbish would be a terrible waste. She set down the broom, picked up the Xuan Paper, and carefully patted off the dust. After glancing toward Yi Shuyuan's room, she hung the paper over the overturned table to let the ink dry.

Toward evening, Yi Baokang and Yi Yong'an returned from helping some villagers lay a foundation. A Bao, who had gone with his little friends to watch the excitement and play, came home with them.

"Husband, you're back? The table in the main room was ruined by insects. Find something to prop it up for now!"

Zhao called outside from the kitchen.

"Huh? The table broke?"

Yi Baokang exclaimed in surprise and went with his son to examine it in the main room. Sure enough, the table leg had been hollowed out by insects.

But from the moment Yi Yong'an entered the main room, he kept staring at the sheet of Xuan Paper, its ink now dry.

"Uncle's handwriting is gorgeous. It feels much more beautiful than last time!"

Yi Baokang smiled and said with a touch of pride,

"Of course it is. Back then, your uncle was a famous child prodigy throughout all the villages for miles around. The teacher at the county school was so fond of him, he practically cherished him like a son. No, that's not right-you can scold your own son as you please, but that teacher couldn't even bear to strike your uncle's palm with a ruler! Ah, if only he hadn't fallen ill back then..."

Yi Baokang's voice sank.

"All right, stop standing there. Turn the table over first. I'll find a wooden pole."

"Mm."

Yi Yong'an agreed, but his eyes remained fixed on the Xuan Paper. Last time in town, there were so many paintings and calligraphy pieces at those stalls, but none of them seemed worth even a single character of Uncle's. Good grief, that stallholder dared to ask ten taels. Wouldn't Uncle's writing be worth more than a hundred?

Although he knew stallholders demanded outrageous prices, Yi Yong'an genuinely felt that none of those supposedly valuable paintings and calligraphy pieces could compare to what was on this sheet.

"Uncle-do you still want this paper you wrote on? If not, I'll burn it!"

Yi Yong'an called toward Yi Shuyuan's room. The door stood ajar, and Yi Shuyuan's voice came from within.

"I don't want it anymore."

"Oh. Uncle, what did you write here?"

Yi Yong'an called out again.

At that moment, Yi Shuyuan lay on his bed with his hands pillowing his head, and he answered leisurely,

"Heaven... and Earth... Transformation..."

Back in the main room, Yi Yong'an hesitated again at those words. In the end, he could not bear to use the paper as kindling, even though it was stained with ink. He carefully folded it and put it away.

Yi Baokang came over with a wooden pole, an axe, and hemp rope. He measured the length and cut the wood at an angle that could fit against the break in the table leg. After binding it securely with hemp rope, the table would serve for a while longer.

Meanwhile, Yi Shuyuan lay on the bed with his eyes closed, still savoring the state of mind he had experienced while composing those inked lines. Who knew where his thoughts had drifted?

PS: It has admittedly taken a little while to get to the main theme, but going by the book's title, we're actually already in it, haha. Still, please send monthly votes and recommendation votes, and support the book!