Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Old Yan was a typical representative of the people who liked watching the fun. If Old Gu still worried if Yang Shuxin was well prepared, Old Yan became happier when he got to know Yang Shuxin and Yuan Zhou would sculpt their own Nine Dragon Sculpture respectively in a competing way.
“There’ll be a good show to enjoy,” Old Yan muttered in a low voice.
Anyway, the ice sculpting started.
Yang Shuxin had a complete range of carving knives in various models and even the rasps used for polishing. All the tools were placed in a row, which gave people a sense of professionalism.
On the contrary, Yuan Zhou had only one ordinary kitchen knife in his hand. On the aspect of professionalism, he was a little inferior, but actually, he wasn’t defeated at all. His confident demeanor was as if to say “With the kitchen knife in my hand, I can take control of the whole world.”
The carving knife emitted a sound of “Ca Ca” when it flashed across the ice block. Yang Shuxin had started. It was a good-sized carving knife in his hand. He was going to sculpt out the rough contour of the dragons first.
He got started quickly and boldly. Not long after that, the square ice block turned into an odd irregular polygonal shape.
Of course, it was of odd shape now as Yang Shuxin hadn’t started to sculpt the details. With a slight movement of his hand, Yang Shuxin had replaced the good-sized carving knife with a medium-sized carving knife swiftly. The whole course of actions looked as natural and smooth as the floating clouds and flowing water.
Even the surrounding customers who supported Yuan Zhou couldn’t help highly praising the swift action of changing knives. God knows how many years he had practiced to make it appear so smooth and natural.
Yang Shuxin gradually entered a concentrated state. And naturally, Yuan Zhou was unlikely to stare blankly at him. He also started to sculpt.
The distinction between an experienced person and an inexperienced one was greater than that between an academic person and an ordinary person, just like Yuan Zhou and Yang Shuxin.
Yang Shuxin first started with the rough contour of the entire sculpture while Yuan Zhou just began to sculpt the dragons one by one.
The kitchen knife in his hand was like a silver butterfly that gleamed with a cold light. With its wings flapping for a few times in the air, a long body of the Chinese dragon gradually took shape.
Everything was going well for both sides, especially with Yang Shuxin. The start was even better than ever.
“My teacher might actually be able to complete the Nine Dragon Sculpture alone this time.” Little Feng was longing for this result at the side.
“But what exactly is Master Yuan sculpting?” Little Feng looked at Yuan Zhou’s ice block and felt he could no longer understand him. If there had been a contour of the dragon, the body of the dragon looked as if it had been cut off now.
Although the Nine Dragon Sculpture could be nine Chinese dragons in various forms, a broken one was hardly justifiable, as it was way too inauspicious.
Little Feng was an assistant in name, but he had also learned under Yang Shuxin for many years. Even so, however, he had never seen anybody sculpt in this way.
That was really a mystery.
As the minutes ticked by, the onlookers were much quieter. However, the number of people didn’t become less, but instead, tended to become more and more.
Some onlookers left, but more joined, just like the mischievous kid who hadn’t filmed anything valuable last time. And because of the strict regulations of the Education Bureau, teachers give less homework now than before, which resulted in a lower turnover in the homework business and the tottering of the secondary market.
It was a competition of sculpting skills today. He could shoot a long film and then split it up before posting it to his live stream, episode by episode. This way, he could get donations from his audiences and earn some money.
“Teachers are giving less homework, the market is shrinking and the demand is decreasing. So I must film the video very well this time so I can earn some money. When I withdraw the donated money out of my account, I’m going to open up the market to Grade 1 and Grade 3 of the middle schools. Based on the homework that doesn’t require thinking but only writing and writing, I will try to open up the third market. In this way, there will be no slow-moving resources and I can build a simulation that completely avoids the NET system.” The mischievous kid muttered some technical terms excitedly.
One hour passed very soon while the mischievous kid was filming the video and the onlookers were watching the fun. By then, the two ice blocks had already taken on the quality of artworks.
Speaking of Yang Shuxin’s sculpture, the bodies of the nine Chinese dragons had all appeared in the eyes of the onlookers. And the sculpting work of the dragon scales had also been finished on four of the nine Chinese dragons. The progress was really gratifying.
“Shuxin has really exerted himself to sculpt today.” Old Gu couldn’t help sighing.
Old Yan nodded his head, “Flying Dragon, Ascending Dragon, In-Cloud Dragon, Coiling Dragon, Curling Dragon, Crouching Dragon, Combating Dragon, Soaring Dragon and finally, the River-Stirring Dragon. None of them is identical. Such a Nine Dragon Sculpture is really of true value.”
From the perspective of the dragon shapes sculpted by Yang Shuxin, the sculpture was simply a dazzling light in most people’s eyes, just as mentioned before. Fundamentally speaking, there were only five basic dragon shapes and others were all derived from them.
Just like the River-Stirring Dragon. On the bottom of the sculpture was a river. The dragon hid its tail in the river and flew up with its head exposed to the air. It was actually the combination of both the Ascending Dragon and Soaring Dragon.
Most people could understand the difficulties even just by thinking about it. The Nine Dragon Sculpture originally wasn’t easy to sculpt, let alone nine dragons in different forms. On Yang Shuxin’s Nine Dragon Sculpture, the bottom part was the river while the upper part was the sky and Longpan Mountain. The contents were abundant but not messy.
“Little Boss Yuan’s sculpture is a little difficult to understand,” said Old Yan, “But I have to say the head of the Chinese dragon is really nice. It really requires genuine capabilities to be able to sculpt such a complicated and vivid head of Chinese dragon.”
As an inexperienced sculptor, Yuan Zhou started to sculpt the dragon head after he finished the dragon body halfway.
There were many varieties of dragons in the Chinese legend, like Ying Dragon, Wang Dragon or even Pan Dragon. But actually, the dragons in the Nine Dragon Sculpture were all Xing Dragons. Like the old saying, “The snake evolves into Jiao 1 after it lives for one thousand years; Jiao evolves into Dragons after one thousand years; and Dragons evolves into Xing Dragons after another one thousand years.
Neither Yang Shuxin or Yuan Zhou spent time and energy on the varieties of the Chinese dragons. So it was also a difficult job to sculpt out the differences between the nine dragons.
Yang Shuxin used a very ordinary method, which had been used in almost all multi-dragon sculptures. The dragons were differentiated by the eyes, dragon horns and, sizes. For example, the double dragons on the ornamental pillars in the Imperial Palace. They were different in their eyes and sizes.
When Yuan Zhou thought about this matter yesterday, he felt people seemed to be unable to tell the differences if they didn’t observe it carefully. Therefore, Yuan Zhou decided to change another way.
That was through emotions, including happiness, anger, sorrow, delight, anxiety, longing, sadness, terror, and astonishment.
Nine emotions. That was right. Of the nine Chinese dragons sculpted by Yuan Zhou, their eyes, dragon horns or sizes were all the same. The only difference was the emotions of the dragons.
The most common emotion evoked by Chinese dragons was majestic. Nothing else. But Yuan Zhou just wanted to add emotions in the eyes of the dragons.
So Yuan Zhou’s Nine Dragon Sculpture could be considered as Nine Cloud Dragon Lines, or more specifically, A Dragon In The Clouds That Turned Into Nine Dragons.
Just because they were far from the sculpture and couldn’t see it clearly, Old Gu, Old Yan, and other onlookers found it hard to understand. If they stayed closer, they could nevertheless see the emotions in the eyes of the three dragons that were being sculpted.
For example, one of the dragons had extraordinarily protruding brow ridges; the eyes were big and vigorous; the teeth were slightly open; and the dragon’s whiskers moving by itself. That was anger.
And for the next one, the mouth was a little more curved. That was happiness.
It had to be admitted that all the nine emotions of the dragons were very hard to tell if they were true or not. The Chinese dragon itself was a fiction, no one had ever seen any. Nor could they imagine what it looked like when it smiled.
The only disadvantage was that he must imagine all of them alone without any reference. However, everything had two sides.
If nobody had ever imagined that, Yuan Zhou could do whatever he wanted to create one.
Nine forms of dragons. Anyhow, Yuan Zhou stayed up all night yesterday once in a blue moon and did nothing but watch Animal World.
All in all, Yuan Zhou did his utmost today in order to defeat Yang Shuxin.
