7: Qingming Festival sceneries, the most popular poem

Inside the Purple Bamboo Garden, the atmosphere was lively.

Prefect Su Qing and the Clan Chiefs of the various Families of Prominence sat steadily at the head of the hall.

Below, a group of young people were writing furiously with great enthusiasm.

Some even had sweat breaking out on their foreheads, but others sat as steady as those fishing from a high platform.

Qin Chuan, however, paid them no mind.

He stepped forward to an unoccupied desk, and someone naturally brought over the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone.

Qingming

As the two large characters landed on the paper, they carried a unique charm.

He had his predecessor to thank for leaving behind such fluent brush calligraphy; otherwise, if he had to do it himself, who knows what it would have looked like.

There was another young man beside him who, during a spare moment, glanced at the title of Qin Chuan's poem, sneered, and shook his head.

Qin Chuan, however, ignored how others viewed him. His brush did not pause in the slightest, and as he wielded the ink, it was as if he were assisted by a divine force.

The entire poem was already in his heart, so Qin Chuan naturally did not need any time to compose his thoughts.

'During the Qingming Festival, the rain falls in torrents.'

As the first line was finished, it seemed as though a wind had risen from flat ground.

The students surrounding Qin Chuan were all astonished.

"What is happening?"

"Why has the wind started blowing? Were the doors not closed?"

"Could it be that the wind and rain outside have intensified?"

They were inside the Purple Bamboo Garden, so naturally they did not need to worry about being battered by the wind and rain, but this wind rising from flat ground was simply too absurd.

Qin Chuan still paid no attention to these things.

When the first line of Qingming was written, he seemed to have triggered some mechanism.

His entire focus was condensed upon the desk before him.

His brush moved like rain as the second line was written.

'The traveler on the road is heartbroken.'

As the line was written, a melancholy atmosphere seemed to suddenly fill the entire hall.

The emotions of the crowd inexplicably turned somber.

Even more absurdly, the humidity in the air seemed to be increasing.

"Drip."

Raindrops fell inside the room, startling the crowd.

They looked up, only to see the roof beams and tiles were perfectly intact.

Then where were these raindrops coming from?

When this question arose in everyone's minds, Su Qing and the others in the main seats could no longer sit still.

"Whoa!"

Su Qing suddenly stood up from his seat, his gaze sweeping back and forth across the entire hall.

Appearing with him were those few Clan Chiefs of the Families of Prominence.

At this moment, because of the sudden rain inside the room, the other students could no longer continue their poems.

Su Qing and his party very easily found Qin Chuan, who was still hunched over his desk, immersed in his poem.

'I ask, where can a tavern be found?'

As the third line was finished, Su Qing and the others had already arrived before Qin Chuan's desk.

They looked at Qin Chuan with solemn gazes, as if observing an extremely sacred ceremony.

Not only that, but Su Qing also sternly dismissed those around them, as if deeply afraid of disturbing Qin Chuan.

At this moment, inside the Purple Bamboo Garden, it was no longer just raindrops; slanted wind and fine rain had risen within the enclosed room, soaking everyone's clothes.

But at this moment, no one cared about that anymore.

They all looked in Qin Chuan's direction, as if puzzled by what was happening.

A few individuals who were somewhat knowledgeable seemed to have realized something.

Someone laughed bitterly and tore up their own poem.

Others muttered: "What kind of luck do I have? To actually encounter something like this..."

Regardless of what these people were thinking, Qin Chuan had already written the final line.

'A cowherd boy points to Xinghua Village from afar.'

"Hum!"

As the final character, 'Village', was written, the entire poem was completely formed.

Someone exclaimed: "Look outside the window, everyone!"

Everyone turned their gaze, and sure enough, they saw human figures appearing in the misty, rain-filled air above.

A traveler whose face could not be clearly seen was saying something to a cowherd boy.

Behind them was a tavern that appeared and disappeared, with three large characters written upon it.

Xinghua Village.

It seemed that the scent of wine was drifting through the air.

Someone exclaimed in shock: "This, this is imagery manifested from literary Qi. What great talent!"

Su Qing and the others on the scene also fell silent upon seeing this.

Qin Chuan finally awakened from his previous state.

Looking at the situation before him, he almost let slip a beautiful phrase in the Great Xia language.

Barely containing himself, he finally suppressed the urge to express some national essence.

He curiously glanced at the tavern appearing and disappearing outside the window, before speaking to the few people in front of him.

"Prefect, Clan Chief."

Su Qing nodded at him with a smile, then turned to look at the few people behind him.

"Whose child is this? Promising! Does he have any official rank? Why not come to my Prefectural Office to serve as a..."

Good heavens, he was starting to poach people already!

The Clan Chiefs of the various Families of Prominence from Ying Province behind him were not willing to have their own young people poached away.

However, as they looked him up and down, they found Qin Chuan to be quite unfamiliar.

Only the Chen Family Clan Leader looked at Qin Chuan hesitantly—mainly because Qin Chuan was staring at him.

He then slapped his forehead and said: "Oh, I remember now, you are, you are the child of Chen Zhong's Family, right? This child has been promising since he was young."

Qin Chuan corrected him speechlessly: "Chen Zhou, my father is Chen Zhou."

"Yes, yes, yes, Chen Zhou, I remembered it wrong." The Chen Family Clan Leader hurriedly corrected himself.

"So it is someone from the Chen Family; it is truly a scholarly heritage." Su Qing said with some regret.

—If it had been a descendant of those smaller Families of Prominence, he might have had a chance to trick him into working for him.

But for a clan like the Chen Family of Ying Province, that was highly unlikely.

At this time, the Chen Family Clan Leader finally recalled who Qin Chuan was.

"Prefect, you are being too formal. Young people should be allowed to see more of the world; entering officialdom too early makes them prone to arrogance." After saying this, he turned his head to look at Qin Chuan.

"Chen Chuan, Chen Wenyuan? I remember you, kid. At your 'grasping the week' ceremony, you beat up quite a few of your siblings. Haha, is your mother the one from the Zheng Family?"

Qin Chuan: "...Ah, yes, yes, yes, Clan Uncle is right."

—So, this person only remembered two things about him: his dark history as a toddler and his mother's background.

Truly realistic!

While the few were conversing, another anomaly appeared.

The paper that was originally placed on the desk suddenly rose without wind and floated in mid-air.

The fine rain falling inside the room, the cowherd boy, and the tavern outside the window seemed to be summoned by something at this moment.

They transformed into streams of light and merged directly into the paper recording the poem Qingming.

Subsequently, the paper slowly drifted down from the air and finally landed steadily in Qin Chuan's hand.

Qin Chuan looked at this scene in surprise, but upon noticing that Su Qing and the others had no reaction, he simply waited where he was.

—Looking at the scene before him, he knew that the poem he had written had apparently caused quite a commotion.

But what it all meant, he would need to understand slowly.

For example—go home and ask his own father.

If he remembered correctly, Chen Zhou seemed to have done something like this when he was young.

It was just that it wasn't raining, but snowing.

Qin Chuan withdrew his thoughts and looked at what was before him.

"Young friend Wen Yuan, right? Would you be willing to sell this manuscript of your Qingming? To tell you the truth, the Prefectural Office is currently empty and lacks a collection, so I am willing to offer three..."

Before he could finish his sentence, the Chen Family Clan Leader spoke up before Qin Chuan:

"Haha, Prefect, what are you saying? Does your personal fortune still lack this poem of imagery? It is just in time for Qingming, and for a Chen Family descendant to produce such a fine piece, it is meant to be offered to the ancestors."

"That is truly a pity."

Su Qing sighed, knowing that with this old fox present, he would not be able to take advantage of this today.

As such, he had no choice but to turn and look at the whole hall, saying:

"The first place of today's poetry gathering shall go to Chen Wenyuan of the Chen Family. Do any of you present have any objections?"

Who approves, who opposes?