Chapter 2: 02 – Useless Gift

Elder Pei loved calligraphy, but no one else in the apartment complex shared the same enthusiasm. He was delighted to see that a young boy was interested in calligraphy.

Beaming a toothy smile, he happily agreed to Lu Suyin's request. Li Yun didn't like his smile. He had some missing teeth and sharp fangs, which made him look like some sort of villain. It was the face of someone who wasn't used to smiling.

On the first day, Elder Pei explained to Li Yun the tools of the trade. He fondly held up the inkstone.

"This is a She inkstone. Ink is the medium that is very important to the quality and smoothness of the ink. If you can't produce good ink, your strokes will feel grainy and rough." Elder Pei then took out a brush and caressed it adoringly like his children. "This is a brush I got from my master, who got it from his master. I do not know the exact origin, I am told that it is made from horsehair. However, we won't be using this brush. "

Noticing Li Yun's strange look, Elder Pei set the brush down and handed to the little boy a plain piece of paper.

"This is just regular paper, use it to write down your name for me," said Elder Pei.

Li Yun gripped the brush like a pencil, and dabbled ink all over the brush. Afterward, he wrote out the word to spell "Li" and then "Yun".

Elder Pei glanced at the character, his teeth clenched, holding back the feeling of disgust over the blocky lines and splashy residues. Li Yun held his breath, afraid that Elder Pei would hit him.

"Your first time?" Elder Pei calmly asked.

Li Yun let out his breath and nodded.

"It couldn't be helped, the boy is only eight," Elder Pei thought.

Elder Pei took out a piece of xuan paper, and carefully set it down on the table. He grounded the ink, dabbled just enough ink on the brush, and stroke the character "Li" with light horizontal strokes and thick vertical strokes. He scribbled the word "Yun" quickly, creating fast strokes which were light and airy.

Standing on top of a chair, Li Yun watched in amazement by the side. He saw the word "Li" growing tall and stable like plum, and the word "Yun" floating out like clouds. He was beginning to understand what it meant for words to be beautiful.

"Wow!" Li Yun shouted with glee.

Elder Pei nodded with contentment. He, admittedly, was not particularly good at calligraphy, but what he lacked in talent, he made up with passion.

After giving Li Yun a quick example, Elder Pei instructed Li Yun on the basics and showed him different calligraphy from antiquities to modern times. It helped Li Yun to have someone who could answer questions or know a way to find the answers, but more importantly, imbued history and context that wasn't common in texts. This was something valuable that even Baidu could not replace.

Li Yun also learned that Elder Pei was a retired sergeant. His grim face was the result of pretending to appear strict and intimidating. In actuality, Elder Pei was the soft and emotional sort.

It took Li Yun over a year to rewrite the Zhuangzi, and he had rewritten the text over three hundred times, with many trial and error. In between copying each of the characters, he had to comprehend what each of the characters meant in order to correctly draw out their beauty. Beauty was a concept that was closer to the truth than to physical beauty. Over time, he acquired the ability to infer the meaning of the characters.

Once the copy was written to a small perfection, it finally gave him a reward.

+10 in charm.

"What a useless gift!" He exclaimed.

All he wanted was a remote control toy car. Worst of all, it didn't help him prove the existence of this heavenly edict to his friends.

"What's the use of charm?" Li Yun thought.

"Whatya complaining about?" asked Bufu while sorting through his deck of cards. "Charm is rather good. It is like a hidden attribute."

"What's the point if it's hidden? It's only fun if you can use a thunder palm on your enemies!" Fatty Fang disagreed with Bufu while performing the tiger fist palms with hands attacking the air.

Li Yun and Bufu both rolled their eyes.

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"+10 charm is a lot though," said Bufu, who had always been a bit more analytical. "Can you tell if anything has changed after you got the reward?"

Fatty Fang jumped in front of Li Yun and grabbed a hold of his face. "You don't look any different."

Like Fatty Fang, Li Yun had a big round face with skin as white as milk.

"Quit it!" Li Yun shoved Fatty Fang's hands away from him. "I can't tell if anything is different. No one looks at me any differently. Even if they do, how can I even tell?"

Li Yun sighed out a deep breath filled with disappointment as he grimaced over the purpose of charm.

"It still sounds cool though. It's like you have some sort of video game system installed in your head," remarked Bufu. "Can you see a task box?"

Li Yun shook his head. For him, it wasn't anything visible, but a mission that was instilled in his head. He wished it was a game, at least there would be some sort of manual. In a normal video game, stats and items were awarded after a quest or mission. Li Yun wanted items more than anything as it was the best way to prove the existence of the "system."

Aside from his friends, he regularly discussed the topic with his school nurse.

Once every month, the school nurse, Ms. Fan, invited Li Yun to speak with her. Li Yun thought she was friendlier toward him than anyone else, so it made him feel special. He would sit with her and talk to her about his progress with the mission.

"How are you Little Yun?" Nurse Fan greeted him with a bright smile.

Li Yun talked about playing with his friends in the playground, watching the elders chat, and playing tag with his cousins. The majority of the time, he spent either with Elder Pei or himself to write.

"So you can't feel the system until you finish a mission?" asked Nurse Fan with a bit of curiosity.

"Yep, but when I wait too long to do a mission, I feel like something is missing," said Li Yun. "My friend asked if there was a ding or beeping sound, but I thought that was ridiculous."

"If it doesn't say anything or give you any signal, how do you know if it thinks something you write is ugly?" asked the nurse.

"I feel empty and sad, like when mama takes away my toys. The first time I failed, I felt a sense of disgust and disappointment. That's how I know."

"That is interesting, so you would rewrite the copies until you feel the system awards you with a gift?"

Li Yun nodded.

"What have you been working on recently?" the nurse asked.

Li Yun cheerfully replied that it had asked him to rewrite the Liezi and there was even a bonus mission to create a lingfu, a talisman charm, called Luck Blessing.

The Liezi had eight chapters dedicated to the different figures in history and mythology. It was slightly less known than the Zhuangzi, and famously known for hedonist views displayed in chapter 7.

"Some of the stories are fun," said Li Yun. "There are a lot of hints about Qi, but it's still difficult to understand what it is. I think the key lies in chapter 7, but it is still difficult to write the word Qi without feeling like it is missing something."

"Chapter 7 is a bit controversial, how do you feel after reading it?"

"It would be cool to live life to the fullest, but it's also a form of distraction," said Li Yun.

The nurse smiled, trying hard not to laugh at him pretending to be mature. She nodded and jotted down some notes in her book.

After getting to know Little Yun, she thought he was a charming little boy with a lot of imagination. Boys his age were easily influenced by external factors and television. At times, he seemed mature for his age, and other times he acted like any other kid his age. As long as it didn't ask him to do something bad, she would mark in the health report that it was a normal childhood fantasy.

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