A modern master of Chinese ink painting awakens in the Tang dynasty. Using the power of ink and wash, he rises from a lowborn servant to become the unrivaled scholar of the Tang, ultimately attaining immortality through the Way of Painting and staining the ages with ink.
Su Mo is no ordinary lowborn boy. His birth father is Gu Changfeng, the former dynasty’s “Sage of Painting,” a peerless genius who challenged the Heavenly Dao through painting twenty years ago and died from its backlash. The blood of the “Sage of Painting” flows through Su Mo’s veins, forming the basis for his golden finger, “Ink and Wash Cosmos.” His mother sent him to the Su residence to hide his identity and protect him, and eventually died with regrets.
After writing Chapter 45, Su Mo finally stopped being passive and took the key step to break the game with the secret chess map in hand. The four clues of Tianjie, Cui family, Lu family, and Tiance Mansion laid out in the previous article are gathered here. The core foreshadowing of Liu Ping's contact painting came to fruition, and the past events of the guest who had been dusted for thirty years also quietly surfaced.
I deliberately used a chess game as a metaphor for the conflicts in troubled times. Painting is not only a means of cultivation, but also a weapon for the protagonist to detect conspiracies. Lu Huaijin's swing, and Lu Qinghe's ink heart stone and secret message, advance the plot in parallel, solving the current dilemma of Chang'an while laying the long-term foreshadowing of the Four Seasons Landscape Scroll of Zhongnan Mountain.
In the future, the plot will not be delayed. Su Mo will take advantage of the situation and stir up the chess pieces of all parties. The trump cards of the Lu and Cui families and the hidden secrets of Tiance Mansion will be gradually revealed. The grudges and truth will be revealed one by one.
When I wrote the chapter about the face to face in the Golden Palace, all the forces in the court were completely spread out. Su Mo stood alone in the Jinluan Palace. On the one hand, he had to deal with the emperor's hidden and probing questions, and on the other hand, he faced the series of traps set by Lu Yanzhi. The threads of Tianjie, Cui family, and court impeachment were intertwined and tightened here, and the conflicts were advancing layer by layer.
The emperor's sentence "Be the one who writes" is the foreshadowing of this chapter. It not only points out the opposition between the way of painting and the way of heaven, but also lays the foundation for Su Mo to break away from the shackles of various forces in the future. Lu Huaijin's confession was a key turning point. The Lu family was torn apart, and there would be another variable in the future court game.
The subsequent plot will revolve around finding irrefutable evidence that the Cui family is collaborating with the enemy. Su Mo no longer passively deals with calculations, but takes the initiative to break the situation with a paintbrush in hand. The three clues of the undercurrent in the court, the secrets of painting, and the hidden dangers of demons will gradually be gathered together. I hope everyone will continue to read on.
By the time I wrote Chapter 43, "Looking for Traces in the South", I finally laid out the core foreshadowing of the Four Seasons Landscape Volume. Lu Qinghe went into the mountains alone to look for the old man, which was a tender line I deliberately arranged. Su Moyuan went through disasters in northern Xinjiang, and she went there on his behalf, forming a contrast between softness and strength.
The foreshadowing of the life experience of the Four Seasons Living Paintings, Mo Xinshi, and Lao Mo Weng all pave the way for the subsequent main plot. Compared with the fierce fighting of heavenly calamity, this chapter focuses more on the collision of artistic conceptions between literary and painting. The resonance of the spirit of calligraphy and painting is also an attempt to escape from simple fighting and highlight the unique power of pen and ink.
The undercurrent of Chang'an's court and the crisis of family disputes have emerged, and the road ahead is still dangerous. In the future, when Su Mo returns, he will not only resolve people's plots, but also look for opportunities to go to the mountains to inherit the legacy of painting saints. Thank you for reading this. The subsequent plot conflicts and mysteries of life will be gradually revealed.
When I wrote Chapter 42, the hidden chess moves were made, all the undercurrents from all sides finally surfaced. Lu Yanzhi set up a plan step by step, using court impeachment and folk rumors to coerce Su Mo, dragging Tiance Mansion into the whirlpool of public opinion. Under the surface game, he also hid mysterious visitors from outside the heaven, and the foreshadowing was intertwined.
This chapter also throws out three long lines: the backlash of the Taoist painter, Zhou Chongwen's longevity, and the hiding of the Taoist painter in the house. The sense of fate that none of the Taoist painters died well in the past three hundred years gradually unfolds. The two clues of court intrigue and ancient Taoist power are pulling together in parallel, and the contradiction continues to tighten.
Tomorrow's meeting with the Holy Spirit will be the first key confrontation. From now on, the hidden identities and dust-laden past events of all parties will be revealed one by one. Thank you for your patience in reading, the conflicts in the subsequent plot will continue to escalate, and all the hidden plots will be settled one by one.
Chapter 41 Returning to Chang'an, the smoke of gunpowder in northern Xinjiang has paused, and the chaos in the court has officially begun. When Su Mo returns from the catastrophe, what awaits him is not praise, but the layers of traps laid by the family. Public opinion frame-ups and court impeachments follow one after another.
Lu Yanzhi planned every step of the way, using Su Mo to target Tiance Mansion. People were suspicious and the city was on guard, putting the young man at the forefront of the storm. At the same time, Lu Qinghe was stranded in Zhongnan Mountain and lost contact. New worries were weighing on Su Mo's shoulders. The meeting with the Holy Spirit in Jinluan Hall the next day was another test.
Northern Xinjiang is facing the fight between demons and heaven, but Chang'an is full of undercurrents of literary intrigue. On one side is the heaven-defying power of Hua Dao, and on the other side is the intertwined family court. The conflict in the story has been transformed. In the follow-up, Su Mo must not only resolve the crisis in the court, but also find his old friend, and face the storm in the city of Chang'an with a body of ink.
By the time I write Chapter 40, "Going Back", the chapter of Desert Pass in Northern Xinjiang has finally come to an end. Su Mo returned south in a bandage, endured three catastrophes, and glimpsed the vitality of painting in the scorched earth. The struggle and epiphany along the way are the core that I want to convey when I write.
Painting the Tao is never a leisurely pursuit of escaping from the world, it is the confidence to dare to confront the Tao of Heaven. The young man is faced with a certain fate, but he refuses to compromise. He guards the border, saves his comrades, and realizes the art of painting in a desperate situation. This tenacity is the soul of the character. Lu Qinghe ran to Zhongnan with concern, Gu Qingyi revealed the secret of heaven, and the bonds between the characters were tightened here.
On the road ahead, the wind and rain in Chang'an have not stopped, the hidden dangers of disaster are still there, and the power of the third dimension of the painting path has begun to emerge. The story in the second volume is far from over. From now on, let's look at Su Mo moving forward with his ink, using his own body to draw ideas, and draw a path forward that is not shackles of heaven.
I felt deeply when I wrote the chapter about Su Mo going to the wilderness alone to defeat the third level of heavenly calamity. Su Mo's body was covered with scars along the way, his fingers were broken, his veins were broken, and his spiritual power was exhausted. At this moment when he was at his weakest, heaven still sent down thunder and calamity, which really made people feel unsatisfied.
I didn't want to write that he carried it with brute strength, so I gave it a unique artistic conception of painting—taking oneself as a painting, using the meaning of painting to transcend the entity, and tearing apart the laws of heaven with the last stroke. This is the romance and stubbornness unique to painting monks. Three fingers can be broken, but the heart of writing is immortal, which is the core of this chapter.
Although the natural calamity has temporarily retreated, the crisis is not over yet. The demons are afraid, the heavens still have murderous intentions, Su Mo is seriously injured and recuperating, and the subsequent turmoil will only become more violent. Thank you for accompanying Su Mo all the way to defend the desert pass. The story in the second volume is not finished yet, with more pictures and disasters, and the follow-up will slowly unfold.
When I wrote about the bloody battle at Damoguan, I felt a lot of emotion in my heart. Su Mo wrote with a broken finger, guarding the city gate with his whole body of painting, not relying on shocking magic weapons, but only relying on the three obsessions in his heart to fight against the demons. This is the best interpretation of the word "unyielding" in my heart.
Defending the city never determines victory or defeat with one move. Secret attacks on the ground, disparity in strength, exhaustion and overdraft, and layer upon layer of crises only bring out the flesh and blood character of the border officers and Su Mo. The demon general's foreshadowing of the catastrophe before his exit also foreshadows that the protagonist's road ahead will no longer be smooth. The stronger the power, the heavier the constraints of heaven.
There is never an easy victory in the war. Every inch of the city wall is the peace gained with human life and pen and ink. The subsequent natural disaster is approaching, and Su Mo's road to painting will face the greatest test. I hope everyone will continue to accompany him and watch him break the shackles of the heavenly way with his broken pen.
As I write this chapter to an end, my heart is full of solemnity. There is no astonishing genius in Damoguan who can turn the tide on his own. There is Su Mo who uses painting as a shield and writes to defend the enemy, and there is also an ordinary soldier like Zhao Hu who guarded the border for eleven years and turned into a nail that nailed the northern Xinjiang. Compared with the magical writing and ink, the perseverance of ordinary people without retreating is the most touching.
The battle is coming, and the darkness before dawn is the silence before the storm. All the preparations are gathered here, and all the five layers of the city defense map are laid out. The layout of both offense and defense is a risk-taking effort by Su Mo who has invested all his cultivation. The demons are approaching the city, and no one knows the outcome, but the people guarding the gate have no way out.
The pen and ink are the blades, and the lonely city is the home. From now on, we will face a bloody battle. I hope all readers will wait for dawn together and watch a painter guard this heroic pass in the northern border with thousands of soldiers.
The plot of "Thousands of Miles of Rivers and Mountains" was a key turning point that I had been preparing for Su Mo for a long time. Previously, he had been limited by his cultivation and time, and it was difficult for him to fully display his painting skills. Therefore, he designed a space with ten times the speed of the painting to allow him to retreat and accumulate strength.
The bloodline of the painted saint, the early warning of the natural disaster, and the large-scale city defense barrier are all gathered together here, which not only strengthens the protagonist's combat power, but also lays the foundation for the crisis of overcoming the subsequent disaster. I deliberately integrated memories into the painting process, using Zhongnan Mountain, Chang'an, and Damoguan to connect his two life experiences, making this long scroll of mountains and rivers not only a training prop, but also a microcosm of his progress along the way.
The preparation for tomorrow's decisive battle with the demons has fallen. The contrast between thirty days of training and only three days and nights in the outside world amplifies the sense of urgency. The subsequent war will not be won solely by barriers, but the war picture in which all living beings are represented by pen and ink is the core foreshadowing of this chapter. I look forward to seeing you in the future.
After writing Chapter 45, Su Mo finally stopped being passive and took the key step to break the game with the secret chess map in hand. The four clues of Tianjie, Cui family, Lu family, and Tiance Mansion laid out in the previous article are gathered here. The core foreshadowing of Liu Ping's contact painting came to fruition, and the past events of the guest who had been dusted for thirty years also quietly surfaced. I deliberately used a chess game as a metaphor for the conflicts in troubled times. Painting is not only a means of cultivation, but also a weapon for the protagonist to detect conspiracies. Lu Huaijin's swing, and Lu Qinghe's ink heart stone and secret message, advance the plot in parallel, solving the current dilemma of Chang'an while laying the long-term foreshadowing of the Four Seasons Landscape Scroll of Zhongnan Mountain. In the future, the plot will not be delayed. Su Mo will take advantage of the situation and stir up the chess pieces of all parties. The trump cards of the Lu and Cui families and the hidden secrets of Tiance Mansion will be gradually revealed. The grudges and truth will be revealed one by one.
When I wrote the chapter about the face to face in the Golden Palace, all the forces in the court were completely spread out. Su Mo stood alone in the Jinluan Palace. On the one hand, he had to deal with the emperor's hidden and probing questions, and on the other hand, he faced the series of traps set by Lu Yanzhi. The threads of Tianjie, Cui family, and court impeachment were intertwined and tightened here, and the conflicts were advancing layer by layer. The emperor's sentence "Be the one who writes" is the foreshadowing of this chapter. It not only points out the opposition between the way of painting and the way of heaven, but also lays the foundation for Su Mo to break away from the shackles of various forces in the future. Lu Huaijin's confession was a key turning point. The Lu family was torn apart, and there would be another variable in the future court game. The subsequent plot will revolve around finding irrefutable evidence that the Cui family is collaborating with the enemy. Su Mo no longer passively deals with calculations, but takes the initiative to break the situation with a paintbrush in hand. The three clues of the undercurrent in the court, the secrets of painting, and the hidden dangers of demons will gradually be gathered together. I hope everyone will continue to read on.
By the time I wrote Chapter 43, "Looking for Traces in the South", I finally laid out the core foreshadowing of the Four Seasons Landscape Volume. Lu Qinghe went into the mountains alone to look for the old man, which was a tender line I deliberately arranged. Su Moyuan went through disasters in northern Xinjiang, and she went there on his behalf, forming a contrast between softness and strength. The foreshadowing of the life experience of the Four Seasons Living Paintings, Mo Xinshi, and Lao Mo Weng all pave the way for the subsequent main plot. Compared with the fierce fighting of heavenly calamity, this chapter focuses more on the collision of artistic conceptions between literary and painting. The resonance of the spirit of calligraphy and painting is also an attempt to escape from simple fighting and highlight the unique power of pen and ink. The undercurrent of Chang'an's court and the crisis of family disputes have emerged, and the road ahead is still dangerous. In the future, when Su Mo returns, he will not only resolve people's plots, but also look for opportunities to go to the mountains to inherit the legacy of painting saints. Thank you for reading this. The subsequent plot conflicts and mysteries of life will be gradually revealed.
When I wrote Chapter 42, the hidden chess moves were made, all the undercurrents from all sides finally surfaced. Lu Yanzhi set up a plan step by step, using court impeachment and folk rumors to coerce Su Mo, dragging Tiance Mansion into the whirlpool of public opinion. Under the surface game, he also hid mysterious visitors from outside the heaven, and the foreshadowing was intertwined. This chapter also throws out three long lines: the backlash of the Taoist painter, Zhou Chongwen's longevity, and the hiding of the Taoist painter in the house. The sense of fate that none of the Taoist painters died well in the past three hundred years gradually unfolds. The two clues of court intrigue and ancient Taoist power are pulling together in parallel, and the contradiction continues to tighten. Tomorrow's meeting with the Holy Spirit will be the first key confrontation. From now on, the hidden identities and dust-laden past events of all parties will be revealed one by one. Thank you for your patience in reading, the conflicts in the subsequent plot will continue to escalate, and all the hidden plots will be settled one by one.
Chapter 41 Returning to Chang'an, the smoke of gunpowder in northern Xinjiang has paused, and the chaos in the court has officially begun. When Su Mo returns from the catastrophe, what awaits him is not praise, but the layers of traps laid by the family. Public opinion frame-ups and court impeachments follow one after another. Lu Yanzhi planned every step of the way, using Su Mo to target Tiance Mansion. People were suspicious and the city was on guard, putting the young man at the forefront of the storm. At the same time, Lu Qinghe was stranded in Zhongnan Mountain and lost contact. New worries were weighing on Su Mo's shoulders. The meeting with the Holy Spirit in Jinluan Hall the next day was another test. Northern Xinjiang is facing the fight between demons and heaven, but Chang'an is full of undercurrents of literary intrigue. On one side is the heaven-defying power of Hua Dao, and on the other side is the intertwined family court. The conflict in the story has been transformed. In the follow-up, Su Mo must not only resolve the crisis in the court, but also find his old friend, and face the storm in the city of Chang'an with a body of ink.
By the time I write Chapter 40, "Going Back", the chapter of Desert Pass in Northern Xinjiang has finally come to an end. Su Mo returned south in a bandage, endured three catastrophes, and glimpsed the vitality of painting in the scorched earth. The struggle and epiphany along the way are the core that I want to convey when I write. Painting the Tao is never a leisurely pursuit of escaping from the world, it is the confidence to dare to confront the Tao of Heaven. The young man is faced with a certain fate, but he refuses to compromise. He guards the border, saves his comrades, and realizes the art of painting in a desperate situation. This tenacity is the soul of the character. Lu Qinghe ran to Zhongnan with concern, Gu Qingyi revealed the secret of heaven, and the bonds between the characters were tightened here. On the road ahead, the wind and rain in Chang'an have not stopped, the hidden dangers of disaster are still there, and the power of the third dimension of the painting path has begun to emerge. The story in the second volume is far from over. From now on, let's look at Su Mo moving forward with his ink, using his own body to draw ideas, and draw a path forward that is not shackles of heaven.
I felt deeply when I wrote the chapter about Su Mo going to the wilderness alone to defeat the third level of heavenly calamity. Su Mo's body was covered with scars along the way, his fingers were broken, his veins were broken, and his spiritual power was exhausted. At this moment when he was at his weakest, heaven still sent down thunder and calamity, which really made people feel unsatisfied. I didn't want to write that he carried it with brute strength, so I gave it a unique artistic conception of painting—taking oneself as a painting, using the meaning of painting to transcend the entity, and tearing apart the laws of heaven with the last stroke. This is the romance and stubbornness unique to painting monks. Three fingers can be broken, but the heart of writing is immortal, which is the core of this chapter. Although the natural calamity has temporarily retreated, the crisis is not over yet. The demons are afraid, the heavens still have murderous intentions, Su Mo is seriously injured and recuperating, and the subsequent turmoil will only become more violent. Thank you for accompanying Su Mo all the way to defend the desert pass. The story in the second volume is not finished yet, with more pictures and disasters, and the follow-up will slowly unfold.
When I wrote about the bloody battle at Damoguan, I felt a lot of emotion in my heart. Su Mo wrote with a broken finger, guarding the city gate with his whole body of painting, not relying on shocking magic weapons, but only relying on the three obsessions in his heart to fight against the demons. This is the best interpretation of the word "unyielding" in my heart. Defending the city never determines victory or defeat with one move. Secret attacks on the ground, disparity in strength, exhaustion and overdraft, and layer upon layer of crises only bring out the flesh and blood character of the border officers and Su Mo. The demon general's foreshadowing of the catastrophe before his exit also foreshadows that the protagonist's road ahead will no longer be smooth. The stronger the power, the heavier the constraints of heaven. There is never an easy victory in the war. Every inch of the city wall is the peace gained with human life and pen and ink. The subsequent natural disaster is approaching, and Su Mo's road to painting will face the greatest test. I hope everyone will continue to accompany him and watch him break the shackles of the heavenly way with his broken pen.
As I write this chapter to an end, my heart is full of solemnity. There is no astonishing genius in Damoguan who can turn the tide on his own. There is Su Mo who uses painting as a shield and writes to defend the enemy, and there is also an ordinary soldier like Zhao Hu who guarded the border for eleven years and turned into a nail that nailed the northern Xinjiang. Compared with the magical writing and ink, the perseverance of ordinary people without retreating is the most touching. The battle is coming, and the darkness before dawn is the silence before the storm. All the preparations are gathered here, and all the five layers of the city defense map are laid out. The layout of both offense and defense is a risk-taking effort by Su Mo who has invested all his cultivation. The demons are approaching the city, and no one knows the outcome, but the people guarding the gate have no way out. The pen and ink are the blades, and the lonely city is the home. From now on, we will face a bloody battle. I hope all readers will wait for dawn together and watch a painter guard this heroic pass in the northern border with thousands of soldiers.
The plot of "Thousands of Miles of Rivers and Mountains" was a key turning point that I had been preparing for Su Mo for a long time. Previously, he had been limited by his cultivation and time, and it was difficult for him to fully display his painting skills. Therefore, he designed a space with ten times the speed of the painting to allow him to retreat and accumulate strength. The bloodline of the painted saint, the early warning of the natural disaster, and the large-scale city defense barrier are all gathered together here, which not only strengthens the protagonist's combat power, but also lays the foundation for the crisis of overcoming the subsequent disaster. I deliberately integrated memories into the painting process, using Zhongnan Mountain, Chang'an, and Damoguan to connect his two life experiences, making this long scroll of mountains and rivers not only a training prop, but also a microcosm of his progress along the way. The preparation for tomorrow's decisive battle with the demons has fallen. The contrast between thirty days of training and only three days and nights in the outside world amplifies the sense of urgency. The subsequent war will not be won solely by barriers, but the war picture in which all living beings are represented by pen and ink is the core foreshadowing of this chapter. I look forward to seeing you in the future.