Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Even the saying “The Eight Immortals cross the sea, each showing his own special talent” was insufficient to describe what Yuan Zhou and Yang Shuxin were doing.
Both of them put all their focus into it and tried their very best. The two hours of sculpting had greatly exhausted Yang Shuxin mentally. His forehead was filled with beads of sweat. For him to be drenched in sweat in such weather, it was clear how hard he was focusing.
Yuan Zhou wasn’t any better off either. He was drenched in sweat as well. He had also finally understood the words a certain hairstylist had told him in the restaurant before.
The hairstylist told him that when he asked a customer what hairstyle he wanted, the scariest answer was “anything”.
The customer might say “anything”, but in reality, this caused the hairstylist to take note of more details. The current Yuan Zhou was in a similar predicament.
When sculpting clouds, one had to be free and unrestrained, yet it was precisely this free and unrestrained characteristic that required more attention on the details. One could not sculpt as one wished and could not go overboard in any aspects of the sculpting process.
If too much force was used, the sculpture would give off a heavy feeling, but if he used too little force, the effect he wanted would not be achieved. Therefore, he had to maintain a perfect balance, causing his wrist to ache badly.
It was fortunate that he had been exercising every day without fail. Otherwise, such high-intensity sculpting would definitely be something his body couldn’t endure.
After the deep and profound clouds, Yuan Zhou focused on sculpting trees.
In Yuan Zhou’s Nine Dragon Sculpture, there were no heavens and earth, and there were no rivers or oceans as well. Because of that, the clouds he sculpted would not look like clouds.
One had to acknowledge the wisdom of the ancient people. The ancient people had come up with two methods to deal with this. As evidenced by many ancient paintings, whenever there were clouds, there would be trees.
“Hu… I still need more practice in ice sculpting. I’m still not at the level where I can do heavy work like it is light, let alone doing light work like it is heavy work,” Yuan Zhou sighed.
Without a doubt, Yuan Zhou was, in fact, feeling confident inside. It had not been two months since he started practicing ice sculpting. He was able to reach this level in two months, yet, he was still unhappy. If the others heard this, they would probably beat him to death.
Generally speaking, most trees used in accompaniment of clouds in works of art would be pine trees. But to actually put this into practice, there would still be a difference between painting and sculpting.
When painting, one could use the brush to outline the tree leaves and lush branches. But if one tried the same when ice sculpting, it would be very easy to cause the entire sculpture to melt instead. Simply put, leaves and branches were too thin and thin pieces of ice would melt very easily.
And thus, the day before, Yuan Zhou had decided to use peach trees instead. To be precise, peach trees during winter. Why peach trees? Because in winter, peach trees only had branches. With this, he could avoid sculpting those tiny leaves and reached a perfect balance.
A lot of craftsmen were, in fact, unaware that they were creating a piece of art when they were doing so. They were merely giving all their attention and working on every single tiny detail with all their heart. Once it reached completion, a masterpiece would be created.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Yuan Zhou waved his knife three times speedily, shaving chunks of ice away. Instantly, a fine forked branch was sculpted.
Although Yuan Zhou sculpted with an unorthodox technique he self-taught, he still had his own secret technique. What he demonstrated earlier was precisely a technique he had created after gaining inspiration from cutting watermelons. In a very narcissistic manner, Yuan Zhou named this technique The Phoenix Nods Thrice.
Why was this name chosen? Because Yuan Zhou thought it was cool.
In truth, the crowd around them were clueless in ice sculpting. But even so, they were endlessly impressed by Yuan Zhou’s demonstrated secret technique.
“Only Boss Yuan can use such exquisite knife technique.”
“It’s like he’s filming a movie. His technique is too over the top. Sculpting an ice block is unlike sculpting a carrot. Both strength and accuracy are required. That is way too difficult.”
“Boss Yuan can do everything holding a kitchen knife in hand.”
The crowd was completely bedazzled by Yuan Zhou’s demonstration of skill. But that was understandable. In their minds, it would only be weird if Boss Yuan wasn’t that great.
Of course, a part of the crowd was filled with doubt instead.
“Yeah, that seems impressive. But look at Yang Shuxin, he only needs the nine dragon heads to complete his sculpture. Why is Boss Yuan’s sculpture still feel so vague? Won’t he lose if this continues?”
“What bullshit? How will Boss Yuan lose? Have you seen Boss Yuan losing?”
There were four camps among the crowd: restaurant customers, nearby residents, frequent visitors of Taoxi Road, and pedestrians that were attracted by the crowd.
Apart from the final camp, the first three camps considered Yuan Zhou a family. For them, Yang Shuxin was an outsider. Therefore, they were rooting for Yuan Zhou.
As mentioned, Yuan Zhou’s sculpture was still rather vague-looking. Thus, after he was done with a peach tree, he started adjusting the entirety of his sculpture.
“With the trees, the clouds appear more prominent now.”
“And the dragons follow behind the clouds.”
“Finally, the dragons and the clouds shall converge.”
By the side, Yang Shuxin was also at the final step of his sculpture. He had already completed eight dragons. The final dragon was a coiling dragon, with the dragon head still lacking. This coiling dragon would be the center of all nine dragons, also the largest of the dragons. In short, it was the hardest dragon to sculpt.
It might look like Yang Shuxin was only a step away from completion, if he failed to sculpt the final dragon properly, the entire piece would be ruined. At this time, his pressure was accumulating, and that mixed together with his exhaustion.
The Nine Dragon Sculpture was acknowledged by many ice sculptors since ancient times as the hardest to complete piece. They had already spent three hours thus far.
Forgetting everything else, even if one was told to stand there holding a knife up in the air for 180 minutes, one would be extremely exhausted. One could imagine how exhausting ice sculpting would be when one had to focus all attention on it.
And thus, this was an extreme trial for both Yuan Zhou and Yang Shuxin. To be completely honest, if it wasn’t for the fact that Yang Shuxin was unwilling to lose to Yuan Zhou, he would have given up by now. As for Yuan Zhou, he had always been a stubborn person. He felt like he could not surrender just like that. His mentality was that he would never be afraid of meeting force with force. If his opponent was not surrendering, he would never surrender.
And just like that, three and a half hours passed.
The world was divided in nine, and the nine transformed into nine dragons that gazed upon the world. This was the main theme of Yang Shuxin’s piece. The dragons he had were Flying Dragon, Ascending Dragon, In-Cloud Dragon, Coiling Dragon, Curling Dragon, Crouching Dragon, Combating Dragon, Soaring Dragon, and River-Stirring Dragon. Up in the sky were the Flying Dragon, In-Cloud Dragon, and Soaring Dragon while down on the ground were Curling Dragon, Crouching Dragon, and Coiling Dragon.
In the river were the Combating Dragon, Ascending Dragon, and River-Stirring Dragon. The Combating Dragon was ferocious with its claws brandished before it, as if the entire piece of the sky would be cleared with a single swipe of its claws. The Crouching Dragon lied quietly on the ground, seemingly fusing with the mountains, as if the mountains were part of the dragon itself, also looking like the dragon had arisen amid the mountains.
Finally, there was the Coiling Dragon, that also looked like a coiling serpent at times. Since dragons shared the similar body of serpents with an addition of claws, Yang Shuxin’s solution for the resemblance with serpents was by revealing the tail of the coiling dragon. Although there was a saying that when a dragon’s head could be seen, the tail would be hidden, Yang Shuxin’s Coiling Dragon had both its head and tail revealed, looking incomparably mighty.
The nine dragons encompassed the sky, the ground, and the ocean, giving off a feeling that a tenth dragon would never exist, as nine was the complete number.
Finally, Yang Shuxin sculpted the eyes of the coiling dragon, signifying the completion of his piece.
At the same time, Yuan Zhou joined his dragons and clouds, also signifying the completion of his piece.
