NOVPUBThe middle-aged man before me was none other than Hua Wuqing, once famous throughout the Eastern Continent.
As for the life and death of Hua Wuqing, Xu Zimei wasn’t very clear, but he knew that the middle-aged man before him was just a residual image of Hua Wuqing.
Speaking of Hua Wuqing, he was actually a man of deep passion.
Many people find it difficult to extricate themselves from the bonds of love in their lifetimes.
Hua Wuqing once loved Ancestor of Wind for a while, but Xu Zimei wasn’t really sure about the specifics.
All he knew was that Ancestor of Wind and Dustless Emperor had been childhood sweethearts, and they later became husband and wife.
At that time, Dustless Emperor hadn’t yet been chosen by Destiny, and someone wanted to use Ancestor of Wind’s life to threaten the Dustless Emperor.
In one pursuit, Ancestor of Wind preferred to leap off a cliff and die rather than burden the Dustless Emperor.
But few knew that Ancestor of Wind didn’t die after jumping off the cliff; instead, she was saved by Hua Wuqing.
Because of Ancestor of Wind’s severe injuries, Hua Wuqing took care of her for a long time.
Yet during that time, the two of them developed feelings for each other, growing fond of one another as the days passed.
However, Ancestor of Wind couldn’t let go of Dustless Emperor and chose him over Hua Wuqing in the end.
In her own words, her heart ached when Hua Wuqing left.
But when Dustless Emperor left, Ancestor of Wind felt as if her entire heart had died.
That’s probably the difference between liking and love.
Ancestor of Wind couldn’t be ambiguous with them both; she chose to leave Hua Wuqing, and it is said that on the eve of their parting, Hua Wuqing painted a portrait for Ancestor of Wind.
And he promised that if someone came to him with the painting, he would do his utmost to fulfill one condition for that person.
But Ancestor of Wind never intended to seek Hua Wuqing’s help; she accepted the painting but merely as a keepsake.
Even later, when she left and left the painting within her legacy, she didn’t tell people of the Immortal Spirit Sect about the origins and use of the painting.
For in her heart, the painting was just a beautiful memory of a chapter in her life.
She also didn’t wish for future generations to dredge up the past and seek Hua Wuqing’s help with the painting.
In later generations, there were many such claims that Hua Wuqing voluntarily gave up his Destiny because of Ancestor of Wind during the struggle with the Dustless Emperor.
Of course, the truthfulness of these rumors has yet to be confirmed.
...…
Hua Wuqing took the painting from Xu Zimei’s hands, cracked a grin, and chuckled softly, as if scenes of the past were flashing through his mind.
Throughout his life, he had only books and paintings for company, never contemplating marriage or having children.
But during one unintended sketching trip, he had met Ancestor of Wind and fallen in love.
It was his first love and also his last.
"You want the World Pearl?" Hua Wuqing looked at Xu Zimei and said.
"Yes," Xu Zimei nodded.
Hua Wuqing was silent for a while, and then with a few slight waves of his hands in the air, the air in front of him began to fluctuate.
Holding the Divine Brush in his hand, he swept it through the air, tearing the space, and a spherical pearl flew out from the rift.
This sphere was pure white, its structure highly clear, giving one the impression that it encompassed everything in the world at a glance.
Auspicious deer galloped, wild horses neighed, a hundred flowers bloomed, and a long river flowed.
Hua Wuqing retracted the Ancestor of Wind’s painting and then handed the World Pearl to Xu Zimei.
With a light laugh, "I hope it will shine brightly in your hands."
"It will," Xu Zimei said with a smile, nodding.
After obtaining the World Pearl, Xu Zimei was about to leave when the space next to him suddenly began to fluctuate.
A young man in a white robe stepped out.
"It seems the second heir has arrived," Hua Wuqing said with a smile.
The young man in white first surveyed his surroundings, and when he saw Xu Zimei, his expression froze, clearly not expecting someone to be earlier than himself.
However, seeing Hua Wuqing, the youth’s demeanor became excited, and he hurriedly stepped forward to bow and said, "Song Qianqiu, the seventeenth generation disciple of the Song Family, pays respects to the ancestor."
"Enough, stand up, I don’t care for these formalities," Hua Wuqing said with a smile, shaking his head.
Xu Zimei glanced at the young man, knowing that Hua Wuqing’s real surname was not Hua, and whether his surname was Song, he did not know in his previous life either.
But the youth’s face seemed familiar to him, as if he had seen it somewhere in his previous life.
Suddenly, a flash of realization struck Xu Zimei as he saw the familiar face of the youth, "Isn’t this guy the later Painting Saint Hua Qianqiu."
In his past life, many people said that it was only after receiving the legacy of Hua Wuqing that Hua Qianqiu changed his surname to Hua.
Now it seemed they must be from the same family.
"How is the Song Family doing?" Hua Wuqing glanced at the youth, asking with a touch of sentiment.
In truth, for Hua Wuqing, the current Song Family was no longer that important.
After all this time, his parents and friends most likely had reached the end of their lives, and the present-day Song Family, besides sharing a blood relation with him, basically had no one he knew.
Nevertheless, it was his family, and he naturally did not wish to see it decline.
"Ancestor, you left behind many legacies and cultivation techniques in our family. Although our Song Family has never surpassed your achievements, we have developed rapidly over the years and are now among the top families within Purple Sun City," Song Qianqiu replied hurriedly: "The reason I was able to pass the first three trials so quickly is that I came across some items you left behind by chance, which contained some information about the Painting Palace."
"Even though you are my clansman, if you want to inherit the Divine Brush, you must still pass the fourth trial," Hua Wuqing said, "I’ve been with this Divine Brush for many years; I must find it a suitable heir."
"I understand," Song Qianqiu replied earnestly.
"Paint a picture with a mood, and consider the fourth trial passed," Hua Wuqing nodded, saying so.
...…
Song Qianqiu approached the long table and took out a brush from his Storage Ring.
It was apparent that he was well prepared or, perhaps, he was also a lover of painting.
Upon spreading the white paper, his brush danced swiftly across it. Song Qianqiu was extremely quick, and what was more terrifying was that he painted with his eyes completely closed.
After some time, when the painting was completed, Song Qianqiu gently chopped down on the towering waves on both sides of the pebble walkway with his hands as if they were knives.
A spray of seawater splashed onto the white paper, giving the originally ordinary painting a few more hints of mood.
The ink in the painting seemed somewhat diluted, then, with the flow of the seawater, it appeared all the more natural, without the constraints and deliberate effort usually present in a painting.
The scene depicted in this painting was the summit of a mountain, with a pine or cypress tree growing solitarily on the edge of a cliff.
Without using any flashy techniques to embellish it, this simple painting still managed to convey the cliff’s steepness, the tree’s loftiness, and the tenacious spirit of life.
