Yet countless people were still willing to spend fortunes for a beauty's smile, and quite a few had even squandered their entire fortunes for the chance to be alone with her in a room... After all, only two people in all of Yangzhou could compare with her, and neither of them was ordinary.
"Hmm..."
Hongyu, who had not been particularly interested and had thought today would be much the same, suddenly came across the third-to-last work. Her gaze was instantly drawn to it.
"This script... I've never seen anything like it!"
Hongyu herself was a master calligrapher and naturally familiar with all kinds of calligraphy. Yet the script before her was something she had never seen or heard of...
It was a script with an exceptionally strong character, completely different from traditional styles such as Jin regular script and Tang regular script. The distinction was immense; it was practically an original creation in the history of calligraphy.
Tracing the script with her fingers, Hongyu could see that its strokes were relatively lean and hard, exposing the brushwork. The movements of the brush—its turns, lifts, and pauses—were clearly visible. It was a style unlike any other.
The brush moved with nimble speed, the strokes slender yet vigorous. Though lean to the extreme, they did not lack fullness, and its larger characters especially possessed a graceful elegance.
The script alone had already astonished Hongyu, but after she carefully finished reading the poem, she was even more shocked.
"Jinshe Wuduan Wushi Xian, Yixian Yizhu Si Huajian. Zhuang Zhou dreamed at dawn, lost in butterflies; the Emperor Wang entrusted his spring heart to cuckoos.
In the vast sea, bright moonlight brought tears to pearls; in Lantian's warm sun, jade gave rise to smoke. Could these feelings wait to become memories? Even then, they had