The life in the Calligraphy and Painting Hall was incredibly monotonous, and before he realized it, a month had already passed.
As a painter's apprentice, Li Mo could only move back and forth between the main hall and the side room.
Only formal painters could access the cultivation method, which led to most apprentices being relegated to odd jobs.
The Calligraphy and Painting Hall taught only the most basic painting techniques, occasionally interspersed with some rudimentary knowledge of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, but nothing in-depth.
If not for the oppressive atmosphere, Li Mo could almost mistake this place for the school in Niu Village.
He had already grown accustomed to the schedule of the Calligraphy and Painting Hall. Each night, as the faint sound of beastly roars subsided, he would naturally awaken from his bed.
The side room was certainly better than the accommodations he had when he first arrived at the pawn shop, though its furnishings were extremely simple, and he had to share the space with three others.
Communication between the painter apprentices was rare. Li Mo tried probing for clues from others, but the information he obtained was quite limited.
To this day, Li Mo still couldn't comprehend why cultivation involved painting, or why painting skills were so brazenly used as an assessment standard.
All he knew was this:
Most painter apprentices came from the children of Rong Town residents, so they were at least somewhat aware of cultivation methods.
With his ability to glean hints here and there, coupled with flashes of memory occasionally revealed by the Creation Book, Li Mo had barely managed to gain a bit of confidence in cultivation.
He had thought about branding his internal organs, but apparently, it was something taught personally by a manager once one became a painter, so he dismissed the idea.
Dawn broke. The chill of late autumn enveloped every corner of the Calligraphy and Painting Hall.
Li Mo lifted the quilt and rose, stretching his spine barefoot in the room. His heart began beating faster, as if a cold-blooded creature regaining its body temperature.
The other painter apprentices in the shared room gradually woke as well.
Among them, Li Mo only recognized Zeng Xiaoyi. The latter, nearly nineteen years old, was beginning to suffer the ravages of the childhood death disease.
Zeng Xiaoyi was the first to walk out of the side room, heading quickly toward the main hall under the faint light of candles.
Li Mo realized it was about time for him to approach cultivation. The childhood death disease loomed ever closer; continuing to conceal his abilities would clearly not be the wisest choice.
When he arrived in the main hall, many painter apprentices were already grinding ink.
A painter named Liu Qin paced about the main hall. She appeared to be in her forties, her body thin and frail, with only her swollen, blue-tinged right leg breaking the image.
She was merely fulfilling her routine duty, which rotated to a different painter every month.
Li Mo chose a spot near the corner, placed a suppressing stone over a sheet of xuan paper, poured some clear water into the inkstone, and retrieved an ink stick from his chest pocket.
Items like inkstones and brushes were provided, and replacements could be requested from the painters if damaged.
Only ink sticks needed to be preserved individually.
The ink stick was no larger than a finger but weighed three catties. Li Mo had no idea what was mixed into it. The resulting ink carried a peculiar, rusty smell—sharp and unpleasant.
Li Mo ground the ink at an unhurried pace.
He could feel that his photographic memory was subtly transforming his body.
This photographic memory gave Li Mo exceptional composition skills, and with the addition of famous paintings he had seen in his previous life, mastering coordination with his hands, shedding his status as an apprentice wouldn't be difficult.
Over the past month, he had been lying low while focusing on honing control over his arms.
Li Mo spent over two hours grinding ink before picking up his brush to start sketching. Before long, a wooden man's image emerged on the xuan paper.
Then he started grinding ink again, this time switching from his right hand to his left.
Liu Qin noticed Li Mo's actions and couldn't help but shake her head. After all, a painter's evaluation primarily focused on copying tigers and beasts, while the wooden man was only used to memorize acupoints and meridians.
Li Mo's daily routine consisted of repeatedly drawing the wooden man.
Liu Qin had seen Li Mo's wooden man diagrams before; the accuracy of the acupoints and meridians clearly demonstrated his extraordinary talent in painting.
But it was such a pity...
Liu Qin turned back to her tasks, closing her eyes to nourish her spirit, paying no further attention to Li Mo.
Occasionally, she would select a few paintings, not because of their excellence but because of the faintly eerie and inexplicable quality they emanated.
It was at that moment that Liu Qin noticed Li Mo suddenly lift his brush.
This time, Li Mo chose a brush with a shaft as thin as a long chopstick, made from leaf veins. Instead of repeatedly copying the wooden man, he began outlining a tiger beast.
His movements were astonishingly skillful, his breathing steady. It was hard to believe he hadn't painted tigers or beasts in an entire month, yet his brushwork showed no hesitation.
Liu Qin instinctively approached, her gaze drawn to the patterns on the xuan paper.
Li Mo was painting a tiger beast perched on jagged rocks, its body slightly tilted, its gaze fixed into the distance. The tiger's stripes flowed like water, exuding a primal hunger for the hunt, embodying the restless nature of the mountain lord.
As the painting took shape, Li Mo noticed the peculiar behavior of the ink stick.
The ink stick seemed to breathe life into the tiger beast, making the painting increasingly strange. The emaciated mountain lord within it carried an indescribable ferocity.
Li Mo was copying a work by the tiger-painting master Zhang Shanma, "Tiger Roar Painting." Yet perhaps due to the peculiar ink stick, the result was entirely different, filled with an indescribable terror.
"What a fine white-browed tiger," Liu Qin commented after Li Mo laid down his brush, her tone betraying a faint complexity.
It was not admiration for extraordinary talent—her reaction leaned toward apprehension, perhaps even fear.
Liu Qin, a cultivator well-versed in cultivation methods, felt a flicker of fear toward a mere apprentice, even for just an instant—a reaction not lost on Li Mo.
Li Mo realized then that the cultivation method of the Calligraphy and Painting Hall at the pawn shop likely had some connection to painting itself.
He understood there was no sense in hiding anymore. Though he couldn't act too outlandishly, he had to prove his value. Otherwise, he would have no place here.
"Li Mo, you..."
Liu Qin, realizing she had lost her composure, steadied herself and said, "This painting... I'll deliver it to Steward Hu. It has a certain spirit to it. She might find it praiseworthy."
"Thank you, Ms. Liu," Li Mo replied, exhaling a long sigh of relief upon seeing his goal accomplished.
The surrounding apprentices fell silent. Their gazes toward Li Mo were filled with a mix of emotions: envy, jealousy, resentment.
With "Tiger Roar Painting" in hand, Liu Qin departed.
Perhaps it was just a trick of the eye, but Li Mo noticed a faint black mist emanating from the hand with which Liu Qin held the painting.
The other apprentices couldn't see it; it was likely due to something different in Li Mo's brain.
On the surface of the "Tiger Roar Painting," the ink began to blur.
Within the painting, the mountain lord descending to hunt lost its gray-black fur.
The tiger's form grew increasingly alien, eventually resembling a naked man crouched on all fours, its tail transformed into an exposed spinal cord.
Li Mo blinked, and Liu Qin had vanished down one of the forked passages in the corridor.
His temples throbbed faintly as he gathered his belongings and returned to the side room.
Before leaving, Li Mo glanced at Zeng Xiaoyi.
Zeng Xiaoyi had collapsed in a chair, his hands bloody and torn, staining the xuan paper bright red.
The pawn shop didn't seem to be seeking suitable cultivation seeds; instead, it felt as though they intended to bar most people from entry.
Li Mo didn't know what it all meant, but he would rather die on the path of cultivation than endure the pain and despair of immortality.
For the next ten or so days, he continued to move between the side room and the Calligraphy and Painting Hall.
But Li Mo never saw Liu Qin again.