The young people around them had all assumed Xie Jinhuan was a martial artist. Hearing this, they naturally turned their attention to the handwriting in the booklet.
Fan Li had thought Xie Jinhuan was merely flattering him, but when he saw the strokes, like iron bars and silver hooks, their strength penetrating the paper, his eyes narrowed. Taking it more seriously, he accepted the booklet for a closer look.
"Hmm... this handwriting really was learned from my master. But you can't quite call it Fan's Sinews and Ye's Bones. There's quite a lot of your own style in it. It looks more convincing than Huaiyu's..."
Everyone looked surprised to hear Mister Fan give such high praise.
Zhang Huaiyu was a direct disciple who had begun studying calligraphy at six. Finding that Xie Jinhuan's handwriting really did look more like that of a direct disciple than his own, he looked somewhat incredulous.
"Uh... Brother Xie, handwriting like this takes over a decade of practice. I don't mean to doubt you, but... hmm..."
As a martial artist, Wei Lu had thought Xie Jinhuan was a kindred spirit. Only now did he realize that was not quite the case, and he interjected:
"Brother Xie, with such formidable martial skills, you still have time to practice calligraphy? People say calligraphy is like swordsmanship, but that's just a saying..."
Xie Jinhuan had known from the age of three that handwriting was a person's "calling card." To outcompete the local natives to death, he had put in arduous effort. Now he replied:
"I copied a thousand characters a day from the age of three until I was sixteen. I learned my martial skills during these last three years in the mountains. In fact, I've spent considerably more time on brush and ink than on the Martial