I'm Already the Richest Man, Why Did My System Just Arrive?

Chapter 268: Chapter 169: Glimpsing the Path Again, a New Painter

Xie Luohe nodded at his words, her expression stiffening as she fell silent.

With a blush on her cheeks, Xiaotao ground the ink for her young master. Her nimble hands clasped the long inkstick, one over the other, as she moved it in circles across the Jade Inkstone.

With alternating heavy and light strokes, clockwise then counter-clockwise, her technique was clumsy, but earnest.

As Xiaotao rocked and ground the ink, her movements took on an almost musical grace, evoking the image of a musician’s fingers dancing over strings.

”Young Master, it’s ready.”

Zheng Xiu tested the consistency of the ink. ”Not bad,” he complimented.

”You flatter me, Young Master.”

Xiaotao lowered her head bashfully.

Zheng Xiu gave Xiaotao an odd look.

’You’re just grinding ink. Why the hell are you blushing?’

’This kid’s mind isn’t as innocent as it seems.’

As Zheng Xiu silently mused over Gongsun Mo’s luck with women, Xie Luohe, who had been watching them, cut in, ”Hurry up.”

”Young Master, Young Mistress, may Xiaotao... watch?”

Xiaotao had faintly heard her family say that the more talented the Painter, the more eccentricities they had.

Some Great Masters of Painting disliked being watched, some liked being watched, some liked to watch others, and some liked to watch together.

’Xiaotao understood.’

So she asked cautiously, feeling both hopeful and apprehensive, terrified that Zheng Xiu and Xie Luohe would refuse.

”That’s fine.”

Zheng Xiu smiled, rolled up his sleeves, and raised his brush. He glanced at Xie Luohe, but just as he was about to put brush to paper, he lifted it again. Looking at Xie Luohe’s ice-cold face, he said in a tone of resignation, ”Didn’t you used to love to smile? Why aren’t you smiling this time? Do you have any idea how much that expression of yours looks just like...”

”Shut up.” Yesterday, Xie Luohe had given the Scholar a vicious beating, hoping it would end this entanglement that spanned lifetimes. But to her surprise, the death-defying Scholar had crawled his way back to insist on painting her, which left Xie Luohe feeling inexplicably irritable today. When Zheng Xiu insinuated that her current expression looked just like the ”person from her dreams,” Xie Luohe sneered, ”If you get it wrong, you know the consequences.”

With that, Xie Luohe raised her hand and made a downward pressing motion in the air. Inexplicably, a long arrow pierced through the wooden door and embedded itself in the floor by her feet, its feathered tail trembling violently.

In truth, both Xie Luohe and Zheng Xiu understood.

Whether Zheng Xiu painted, or what he painted, wasn’t what mattered. They were at odds over the same issue—making a wager, fighting for control.

The act of painting was merely the medium.

Perhaps outsiders, like Xiaotao and Xie Yunliu, wouldn’t be able to understand what Zheng Xiu and Xie Luohe were fighting over, even if they heard the story.

Xie Luohe’s ”dream” had plagued her for years. One could only imagine her shock when she heard someone in the teahouse call out ”that name”—a shock she had managed to conceal at the time.

Xie Luohe’s situation was the exact opposite of Zheng Xiu’s.

She didn’t know that the world she inhabited was just a painting scroll left behind by Gongsun Mo.

Their memories had merged, and now Xie Luohe was the dominant one.

The situation was akin to having a dual personality. Xie Luohe was unaware of the danger, but Zheng Xiu understood it perfectly. If this battle of wills was lost, Feng Bei’s personality might be erased forever, leaving only Xie Luohe. That was not an outcome Zheng Xiu wanted to see.

Before entering the painting, Zheng Xiu had thought his only task was to ”bring out” Feng Bei. He’d even imagined the painting would be swarming with monsters and Demon Fiends, but he wasn’t afraid of that—he would just have to fight his way through. The reality, however, was far more complex and treacherous than he’d guessed. The danger was hidden beneath a veneer of peace.

That was why, after Xie Luohe had exposed his identity, Zheng Xiu had turned the tables on her, deliberately using a ”wager” to provoke her. He needed to unsettle her, to try and draw out Feng Bei’s personality.

’I really should have taken a psychology class in college.’

”Don’t move. Smile a little. Right, that’s good,” Zheng Xiu said calmly, putting brush to paper before Xie Luohe had a chance to fly into a rage.

The moment Zheng Xiu’s brush made its first stroke, he sensed something was wrong. Though he was no longer influenced by Gongsun Mo’s memories, Gongsun Mo’s understanding of the Danqing Painting Dao seemed to be etched into his very muscles. In the real world, Zheng Xiu was one of the Odd People, a self-taught [Painter] who had found his own Path. His Painting Skill wasn’t world-class, but it was far from bad.

But as the image under his brush gradually took shape, Zheng Xiu viscerally felt the gulf between his own amateurish skill and that of a ”Great Master.” Perhaps Gongsun Mo was not yet famous enough to be called a ”Great Master,” but he was a true scion of the Danqing Family, taught by the Painting Saint from a young age. Zheng Xiu was no match for him.

As Zheng Xiu continued to paint, he entered a state of complete focus. All other sounds faded away, and all other people vanished from his sight.

He could hear only his own heartbeat and breath. Before his eyes, there was only Xie Luohe and the ancestral paintbrush in his hand.

”What are you painting?”

Hearing the faint scratching sounds behind her, Xie Luohe couldn’t resist turning to look. The moment he’d grasped the brush, the Scholar seemed to have transformed into a completely different person.

It was the feeling of a top-tier Knight drawing his longsword, a world-renowned Military General mounting his warhorse, an imperial chef grasping his cleaver.

Xie Luohe had been about to ask Zheng Xiu what he was painting—from his angle, he couldn’t possibly see her face, only her back. But just as the question rose in her mind, the posture he held as he painted made her freeze, and she swallowed her words.

A single word vaguely formed in Xie Luohe’s mind—’Professional.’

’Obvious at a single glance.’

Immediately after, another figure surfaced in her mind, the one who appeared again and again in her dreams—Zheng Shan.

’Get out.’

’Get out.’

’Get out!’

’Get out of here.’

’I am Xie Luohe.’

’You are Feng Bei.’

’I am not you. You are not me.’