I became an immortal in the Tang Dynasty

Chapter 241 Poem Presented (+11)

Inside the Taoist temple, a guest courtyard has been sealed off this month. Except for invited distinguished guests, no one else is allowed to enter and disturb the peace.

Li Bai is playing chess with Yuan Danqiu.

Yuan Danqiu angrily said, "Didn't you say you wouldn't take back your moves?"

There were wine cups next to the chessboard. Li Bai poured a cup of wine for Yuan Danqiu to calm him down.

"Let me see how it goes here."

"You lousy chess player!" Yuan Danqiu said angrily.

Li Bai said he wanted to hone his chess skills, so he played chess with Yuan Danqiu for a month. Before long, the two reverted to their old ways, taking back moves and exchanging pieces.

During his month-long stay in the mountains, Li Bai and Sima Chengzhen had a very pleasant conversation and formed a friendship.

As for what the gentleman was writing, Li Bai and Yuan Danqiu had guessed dozens of times during this period.

Yuan Danqiu pressed down on the chess piece, his heart filled with curiosity.

"Won't it take several years to write?"

"It's hard to say."

Li Bai didn't care. Every morning, he would get up and do some exercises with the Taoists in the temple, and then practice his swordsmanship.

Occasionally, Yuan Danqiu and the Taoist priests would concoct medicines, and he would watch from the sidelines.

Every time they practiced swordsmanship, the two young disciples, Sanshui and Chuyi, would also take out their own swords and swing them with great force. The sword light was so sharp that the Taoist priests on the mountain were amazed. What kind of sword was this that could produce such a dazzling light when wielded by young people?

The two talked as they played chess.

Li Bai would drink a cup, and once it was empty, he would ask for another.

I'm broke.

Jiang She stood beside him, having arrived at some unknown time, holding a wine jug and pouring himself a cup. He observed the two men's chess game for a while.

He thought to himself, "The chess skills of Li Bai and Danqiu Zi are terrible."

It's almost the same as his paper-cutting and painting.

Seeing that Li Bai had noticed, Jiang She smiled. He was in a great mood and said casually, "Take your time going down, don't worry about it."

"gentlemen!"

Li Bai casually pushed the chessboard aside, and both he and Yuan Danqiu asked curiously, "What did you write?"

Yuan Danqiu also said, "Yes, it took a whole month to write."

“I’ve tried writing a kind of Taoist technique…you can call it supernatural power as you like,” Jiang She said. “It’s particularly interesting, and I have to thank Chen Hong and Daozi for that.”

Li Yuan and his companion wanted to know what it was, so they pressed for details.

Jiang She smiled.

"It's right there on that table in the courtyard. You'll see when you go."

Li Bai and Yuan Danqiu stopped playing chess, not bothering to clean up the game, and hurried back to the guest courtyard. Thanks to the care of their master, Sima Chengzhen, they hadn't been disturbed for the past month.

Jiang She strolled leisurely through the Taoist temple.

Few people knew him. He walked alone into the Lingguan Hall, and then strolled around the Wenchang Hall and the Caishen Hall behind it. Both of these halls were bustling with worshippers. No matter the time, everyone wants to get rich and become an official.

Jiang She's gaze fell on the murals in the hall, scrutinizing the brushstrokes with exceptional focus.

He suddenly remembered something.

I found a Taoist priest and asked him for advice.

"Has Chen Daizhao finished painting the murals for the temple?"

……

……

Li Bai and Yuan Danqiu hurriedly returned to the guest courtyard.

The courtyard was lush and verdant. The shadows of the trees formed a green mass, shimmering and sparkling in the breeze. Beneath the trees stood a table they had become familiar with over the past month.

The two had just pushed open the courtyard gate.

Then I saw the small black cat jump onto the table and stand still, its eyes fixed on something.

Li Bai and Yuan Danqiu exchanged a glance.

As they walked over, they curiously examined the cat. It seemed to be pressing a piece of paper under its body, tightly covered by its two paws. Li Bai knew that the cat could understand, so he stood aside and asked.

"This is……"

The cat didn't even lift its head.

"Rat!"

Yuan Danqiu wondered, "Sir, you've been writing for a month. Could it be that you've written about a magical ability to turn someone into a mouse?"

The cat pressed its paws firmly against the paper, as if afraid the mouse would escape.

The two men stood with their hands in their sleeves, observing from the side.

A short while later, they seemed to see something run out of the paper very quickly, and the cat chased after it, busy as bees.

Yuan Danqiu has sharp eyes.

"The drawing on the paper can actually move!"

The two men moved closer to the paper, and the cat uncomfortably moved aside, distancing itself from them. Li Bai and Yuan Danqiu finally saw clearly: there was a mouse moving on the paper!

The painting uses only black and white, and is done in a free and spontaneous style.

The two of them were shocked.

“The rat’s whiskers are trembling!” Yuan Danqiu said, pointing.

Why does ink and brush possess a spirit?

Both of them found it fascinating and stared at it intently. Even when Sanshui and Chuyi returned with their hair in messy buns, they were still watching intently.

Two children poked their heads through the door.

"Master Yuan, Layman Li, what are you doing?"

Yuan Danqiu beckoned them over and said with a smile, "The master has written an interesting spell. Come and take a look."

Sanshui and his junior brother leaned closer, watching with the same intensity as the cat. The two children were greatly surprised.

"The senior can turn into a mouse!"

"Drawn by a senior..."

Chu Yi thought about it for a moment, finding it hard to describe; in her opinion, the drawing wasn't very good. But how could someone as skilled as her senior not be good at drawing?

He must have misread it.

"It has a rustic feel."

Sanshui watched from the side. The painting was clearly newly painted; you could see that some ink had smudged when it was first painted, and the mouse's back was a little black. But it was still very lifelike.

"It's very well drawn!"

Now it was the other three people's turn to look at her.

The cat thinks so too.

Jiang She slowly walked to the courtyard gate and smiled at Sima Chengzhen, saying, "Thank you for taking me in for a month, Master."

Sima Chengzhen laughed.

"I should thank you, sir. I've learned a lot these past few days."

This was the first time he had ever seen a practitioner meditate and enter a state of deep concentration, which could last for a whole month.

Listening to the children's excited chatter in the courtyard, Sima Chengzhen couldn't help but wonder what the thing he had been writing for a month was all about.

Just thinking about it.

He suddenly heard someone next to him ask a question.

"I have a favor to ask."

"Chen Daizhao previously painted murals for the Taoist temple, and a month has passed since then. They should be finished by now. I wonder if you could add a stroke?"

A stroke?
Sima Chengzhen felt puzzled. What could a single stroke of a pen possibly do?
He smiled and said, "Perhaps you feel there is something wrong with it? This was painted by Chen Daizhao, so I'm afraid I should tell him."

“The guru is right.”

Jiang She thought for a moment, then called Li Bai and his two sons and asked the three of them to go down the mountain to invite Chen Hong.

Sanshui and Chuyi were quite excited.

"What do you want to do, sir?"

The less Jiang She said, the more curious they became.

……

……

Before going down the mountain.

Li Bai suddenly hesitated. The journey from the foot of the mountain to Yuezhou and back would take about ten days. After thinking for a moment, he borrowed the brush and ink from the temple and wrote down a few lines.

Blow dry the ink and fold it neatly.

He said to Sanshui:

"Could you please deliver this letter to that female Taoist priest for me?"

For the past month, Sanshui had known that a princess from the imperial family was practicing asceticism in the Taoist temple. The maids accompanying her were all fragrant and their robes fluttered in the breeze.

"Okay!"

Without much thought, she readily agreed.

Princess Yuzhen was listening to her maids chatting and laughing.

Wang Wei did not stay on the mountain for long. His trip to Tiantai Mountain was merely to express his gratitude for the princess's past patronage. He also wanted to discuss the Dao with Master Sima Chengzhen, but upon hearing that the master was entertaining distinguished guests and did not have much time, he bid farewell and descended the mountain.

The maid smiled and said:

"I heard there's a guy at the Taoist temple who likes to wear white and looks very smug. He's always refining elixirs with the Taoists. We've seen him several times."

Princess Yuzhen also remembered that person.

It seems he often spends time with Master Yuan Danqiu.

"What's his name?"

"I heard his name is Li Bai," the maid said more intimately in private, "the same name as the poet of the poem that you liked before, Madam."

This name is simple, and there are countless people in the world with the same name.

Princess Yuzhen smiled.

As they were chatting, a young girl with slightly disheveled hair and a somewhat heroic air suddenly burst into the courtyard, carrying a long sword on her back.

"Someone asked me to deliver a message!"

He ran off as soon as he finished speaking, as if he was in a hurry.

Reckless.

A maid was surprised. A folded piece of paper was stuffed into her hand. It was ordinary paper for reading and practicing calligraphy. She hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to hand it to the princess.

Princess Yuzhen waved.

"Let me see."

He was just a young and impetuous child, and he was wearing a Taoist robe. Princess Yuzhen wouldn't blame him for such disrespect.

She opened the letter.

The few lines of handwriting, arranged in a neat and orderly manner, look elegant and graceful.

"Good words."

Princess Yuzhen gave a thumbs-up and then read the contents of the book.

"The clouds think of my clothes, the flowers think of my face, and the spring breeze blows on the threshold and the dew is thick. If I hadn't seen you on the top of a jade mountain, I would have met you at Yaotai under the moon."

"Summer of the seventeenth year of Kaiyuan, Mount Tiantai, Taibai."

【Ask for monthly ticket】

(End of this chapter)