Lanting Secret Files

Introduction to "Lanting Secret Files" During the Yonghe period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Shanyin in Kuaiji. Shen Yan, a female pen maker, left behind thirty-seven "pen debts" due to her deceased father. Xi Shu, the author of the collection of pens and ink, ordered her to remake the "Seven Styles of the Shen Family" within three months to pay off the debt, otherwise she would be expelled. She was born with synaesthetic hands, and she could read the emotions of the person writing with the touch of a pen, but she never used it for profit, only to detect forgeries. Wang Dan, the "pen keeper" of the Langya Wang family, came to the house with an old pen to ask for advice. Shen Yan sniffed out from the scraps the undercurrent of the Wang family's "pen skill contract" being inflated and reputation over skill. In order to repay her father's debt and find out the cause of his father's death, Shen Yan agreed to cooperate with Wang Dan: he taught her to read Wang's calligraphy book, and she helped him identify adulterations and detect forgeries. The two tested each other in the dark night of the workshop where they picked, boiled, tested and made paper, and gradually became involved in the pricing dispute between Xie's Cocoon Paper Shop and Xi's Pen and Ink Collection. When a remnant of a pen inscribed with "Guichou" pointed to the "Seven Paintings of Lanting" that had been lost before Lanting's consecration, in the ninth year of Yonghe, on the bank of Qushui, Wang Xizhi pushed away all the appraisal documents and wrote a preface. However, Shen Yan wanted to make the Qibi Fang public so that Lan Ting's pen essence would not be locked up by the wealthy family's deed book. The novel uses intangible cultural heritage crafts such as pen-making, paper-making, rubbing, and curing as its bones, and pen debt, postage, and pricing collection as its flesh and blood, unfolding the pen-and-ink financial secret war of the Eastern Jin Dynasty gentry. Pen and ink are valuable, but this heart is priceless. The scenery of the world is passed down from generation to generation.