Chapter Ninety-One: The Resemblance and the Lack of It

On the side of it was an exquisite poem by Li Yannian of the Han dynasty: “In the north there is a beauty, solitary and apart from the world. One glance topples a city, a second glance topples a kingdom. How could one not know of a city-toppling, kingdom-toppling beauty? Such a beauty is hard to find again!”

“Wonderful!”

“The poem is fine, but the painting is even better!”

At once, Longsun Chong and the others burst into applause, while Qin Huaiyu and the rest turned ashen and looked thoroughly dejected.

“Many thanks, Young Master Yan!”

Even Gongsun Yue’s eyes shone with delight, feeling deeply honored as she repeatedly expressed her gratitude.

Yan Xingjian wore a proud smile. To outshine the Mo family’s scion in artistry today would surely raise his reputation to a new level. As for painting, so long as none of the long-established masters stepped forward, he had complete confidence.

“May I ask how Brother Mo finds this painting of Miss Gongsun’s sword dance? I would be grateful for your guidance,” Yan Xingjian pressed, step by step.

Mo Dun had just set down his teacup when, upon hearing this, he spat out a mouthful of tea. “Pff! Who did you say this painting depicts?”

Everyone was stunned. No one had expected Mo Dun to react in such a way.

“Miss Gongsun, of course!” Yan Xingjian said, utterly bewildered.

“Oh? Aside from the clothing, what part of this looks like Miss Gongsun?” Mo Dun said lightly, pointing at the hanging scroll. In an instant, everyone was left dumbfounded.

“It doesn’t look like her at all!” Qin Huaiyu muttered, then looked at Gongsun Yue beside him and burst into laughter.

“Not only does it not look like her, it’s practically not even the same person!”

Fang Jun, Cheng Chumo, and the others also joined in the mockery. You say the painting is of Miss Gongsun, but not a single feature on the canvas resembles the real person—how can you claim it depicts Miss Gongsun?

“I’d say the woman in this painting must be Lady Liu; she’s merely wearing Miss Gongsun’s clothes,” Fang Jun said with a grin.

“You...?” Yan Xingjian’s face flushed a dark, furious green. He very much wanted to argue that for thousands of years Chinese painting had always been done this way, but he could not refute the one undeniable fact.

The features did not match.

Gongsun Yue was right there, and the hanging scroll was right there. Even he himself now felt that the woman he had painted did seem, in truth, somewhat unlike her.

No— not somewhat. She really did not look like her at all.

From ancient times to the present, the finest painters had always valued artistic conception. Perhaps a master such as Yan Liben could harmonize mood and likeness, but at the very least, Yan Xingjian could not.

“So, Brother Mo seems to think he can capture Miss Gongsun’s spirit in a painting?” Longsun Chong asked with deliberate interest, instantly jolting Yan Xingjian out of his confusion.

Yes. So what if his own painting lacked likeness? Could Mo Dun, the Mo family’s scion, do any better? So long as he painted worse than Mo Dun, victory would naturally be his.

“Then I shall await Brother Mo’s masterpiece,” Yan Xingjian said coldly.

Qin Huaiyu and the others fell silent at once, all eyes fixed on Mo Dun, hoping the miraculous scion of the Mo family could work another wonder.

Soon, brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone were brought forth. Everyone watched Mo Dun, Qin Huaiyu and the others full of expectation, while Longsun Chong and his crowd wore mocking smiles, utterly unconvinced that Mo Dun could produce anything of consequence.

Mo Dun shook his head. “I do not need these things to paint. I only require some help from Miss Gongsun.”

“Young Master Mo, just say the word,” Gongsun Yue replied.

Mo Dun leaned close and whispered a few words into her ear. Gongsun Yue’s face instantly flushed crimson; she shot him a coy glare, then rose and left.

“Excellent,” Fang Jun murmured, secretly giving a thumbs-up. Beside him, Du He and Yan Xingjian looked as though they could spit fire.

Before long Gongsun Yue returned, carrying an elegant box. She set it gently on the table, cheeks still red, and stepped aside. “Young Master Mo, the things you requested.”

Mo Dun stepped forward, snapped the box open, and revealed a riot of brilliant colors within.

“Rouge and cosmetics?” Yan Xingjian cried out.

In that instant, everyone stared at Mo Dun in astonishment. No one had expected the tools he needed for painting to be rouge and makeup.

Even Qin Huaiyu and the others were stunned. Everyone felt Mo Dun was being utterly unreliable this time, actually intending to paint with rouge and cosmetics—what a complete and absurd joke.

“Rouge and cosmetics?” Mo Dun thought with a smile. No, to be precise, what he wanted was a brow pencil.

He picked up a slender black item and examined carefully the closest thing this era had to graphite: snail-shell eyebrow paint.

He had no means of making graphite himself, so he could only use this instead. Brought from Persia, it was exceedingly expensive and beloved by the women of the capital. As a famed favorite of the Music Bureau, Gongsun Yue clearly lacked nothing of the sort.

The eyebrow paint was very soft. Mo Dun carefully wrapped it in a layer of fine paper to avoid staining his hands, then spread the paper out neatly on the tabletop.

Once all this was done, Mo Dun flashed his trademark smile and said, “The work from here on will be rather dull. To keep everyone from waiting idly, might Miss Gongsun dance again?”

Gongsun Yue was shrewd enough to understand. What appeared to be a contest of jealousy between two sides would, after this round, most certainly make her the greatest beneficiary. After today, her reputation would surely rise still higher; what was one more dance?

Drums sounded once more, and Gongsun Yue began to dance again. Compared with the fervor of her first performance, this time she chose a lighter, more flowing sword dance that consumed less strength.

Even so, sword light flashed again and again throughout the Music Bureau, while Mo Dun, following her movements, guided the snail-shell eyebrow paint across the paper without pause, leaving trails of black strokes that dazzled the eye.

With a final beat of the drum, Gongsun Yue swept through the air and brought the performance to a close. The two styles of sword dance, one fierce and one柔, were displayed by her to perfection, each reaching the utmost of its beauty.

“Even if we lose today, just seeing Miss Gongsun’s dancing would make it worthwhile,” Fang Jun said with contentment. His words made it clear that he had no confidence whatsoever in Mo Dun’s victory.

At the same time, Mo Dun set aside the snail-shell eyebrow paint.

“In such haste, this is all I could manage,” he said, looking at his work with a trace of regret.

“Putting on airs,” Yan Xingjian snorted inwardly. He did not believe Mo Dun could paint anything worth mentioning.

He thought the reason he still stood here was simply so that, after defeating the Mo family’s scion, he could thoroughly mock him.

But the moment he looked at the paper, he froze.

Across the fine white sheet, countless black lines intertwined to form hair, eyes, and nose, gathering into a three-dimensional woman whose robes billowed like a dragon in flight.

More importantly, this woman, rendered with the simplest of lines, was astonishingly nine parts similar to Gongsun Yue.

“Is this me?” Gongsun Yue stared at the woman in the painting in disbelief, unable to recover for a long while.

“We’ve lost. Lost utterly and completely,” Yan Xingjian staggered, now tasting the bitter fruit of his own schemes.

He had wanted to stand on another man’s shoulders to make a name for himself, only to become the very stepping-stone beneath someone else’s feet.