Chapter 37: Live-streaming Calligraphy Once Again
“Except for things about cats, doesn’t this live-streamer have any other talents to show us?” A new viewer who had just come in commented.
“Yeah. To those of us who don’t keep pets, we’re not really interested in this.” — Quick! Call me bro.
“Then, why are you here?” — Peach is a fairy.
“Your live-streamer is number one on the application’s leaderboard, and this application had recommended her to us. We don’t want to watch, but we kind of have to. However, I waited for a long time, and I still haven’t seen how she really looks like. There aren’t any other talents to see, and the entire live-stream gets very boisterous too as if everyone’s feeling really angry or something.” — Quick! Call me bro.
“These few days, everyone’s discussing the fake cat food. It’s normal for us to argue over things.”
“So, what’s so prominent about this live-streamer? We, who have just entered this stream, need a reason to follow her.”
There were a lot of people in Liu Man’s audience who didn’t know a lot about her since Liu Man had gotten popular too fast. A lot of the old users on this application, especially the male ones, didn’t know her at all.
TL’s Note: By old users, it’s not literally age-wise old, but more of that they’ve been using the application for already a long time.
“Hmph. You guys are underestimating her. Sis, show them one of your talents, write a few words for them to see.” — I’m Tingting.
Liu Man had been too busy to write calligraphy during the last few live-streams. She checked the time and realized that there was still a lot of time left.
“Wait for me for a moment, let me go and prepare.”
Liu Man stood up to fetch her brush, ink, paper, and inkstone.
“Oh, so she knows a little bit about Chinese calligraphy. There’s nothing special about that.”
When Liu Man first live-streamed herself writing in Qin Seal, she had only had around 1000 viewers. However, at this moment, she had already gained 20000 viewers, and the number continued to increase.
Yu Zhan held his phone and stared at the screen attentively. He was the one who had helped Liu Man fetch the delivery containing her calligraphy utensils. Nobody would be more excited than him to see Liu Man write calligraphy.
What should she write?
Liu Man pondered for a while, and then the Chinese customed song that Coco had sang, ‘The Untrammeled Traveler,’ popped into her mind. So, she lifted her brush and bent over to write on the paper:
In the northern part of the sea, there’s a fish. Its name is Kun. They all say Kun’s huge, but we don’t know how many kilometers of the ocean it can fill. Turns into a bird, its name is Peng. Peng’s size is big, but we don’t know how many kilometers of the air it can fill. It flies when it’s angry, it’s wings as if the clouds in the sky. It migrates to the southern part of the sea when the wind starts to blow on the waves. The southern part of the sea, is the ‘sky pool.’ ‘Qi Xie’, is a book about strange things…
From the first word she wrote, someone started to comment,
“She’s writing ’The Untrammeled Traveler’ by Zhou Zhuang!”
Because of how famous ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ was, this was much easier to read than that ‘Yue Ren Song’ from last time. A lot of people recognized the word from the first moment.
The old fans continued to spam in the comments section and also spam presents.
The new fans repeated what the old fans had done when Liu Man had first shown her calligraphy skills. They first asked what font the live-streamer was writing in, then went to search for the entire passage of ‘The Untrammeled Traveler.’ They all felt completely awed.
However, as time passed, all the fans, whether new or old, we’re all thinking of the same thing.
“Fuck!”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“How is she still writing!”
Liu Man’s hand had never stopped moving. It continued writing ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ the whole time. The tip of the brush was steady and smooth. It had never stopped like it had done this several times before.
The entire ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ contained 1982 words.
Not to talk about how anyone in the modern world could completely memorize ‘The Untrammeled Traveler,’ even if normal people looked at the passage and read, they could misread words, and not to mention that they would have to copy it.
But Liu Man, at this moment, wrote from her memories – Not using any outside hints, and just wrote from her memories. It was obvious how familiar she was with ‘The Untrammeled Traveler.’
Everyone who watched the stream was shocked. There was a single moment of composure in the comment section that had been spamming the entire time, and then what followed were countless comments along with gifts.
“A slap in the face, huh? Who said our princess didn’t have any talents just now?”
“Haha, this is really face slapping. I think, probably on the entire platform, not one live-streamer can write the entire passage of ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ from memory.”
“Alright, alright, I’m now scared. Why was I being such a jerk? Let me just send some gifts. New viewers, let’s all start giving gifts.” — Quick! Call me bro.
Quick! Call me bro gifted you 100 Hearts;
Keeping watch for bliss gifted you 100 Hearts;
Trying my best to earn money gifted you 100 Hearts;
Tsundere blue fattie gifted you 100 Hearts;
The prince under the deep ocean gifted you 100 Hearts;
…
‘Quick! Call me bro’ gave a good start, and everyone followed him. They all sent Liu Man 100 Hearts.
Interestingly enough, whenever a live-streamer received presents, the platform would set up a really good sound, something like a coin dropping into a piggy bank, “Ding, ding, ding, ding!” It was as if huge amounts of cash dropped into Liu Man’s pocket.
But Liu Man’s brush never stopped. She didn’t even raise her head. It was as if she would never stop unless the entire poem is done.
As Liu Man wrote, she didn’t put on any background music. She didn’t talk either. It felt very quiet, but it didn’t make anyone feel drab. Everyone could only see, from the camera, her thin wrist, moving incessantly from up to down, from right to left. Every word she wrote down seemed heavy, and they were all created 2000 years from the now modern world.
Most of the viewers didn’t know anything about calligraphy, but they could feel the state of mind from this live-streamer. It was a really calm state of mind. Just now, they had claimed that Princess Man’s live-stream had been very messy and boisterous, but now, this moment had been where everyone enjoyed the peacefulness. Nobody was arguing anymore.
Some viewers were timing her, some were counting the number of words she wrote, and some were translating the words. The viewer count on the top right corner of the screen kept on jumping upwards, and it was close to 30000.
“Forty-three minutes.”
“A thousand and four hundred sixty-two words already.”
“There are only a bit more than 300 words left, it’s almost done.”
“As someone who watches lots of live-streams on different social media platforms, I need to say that this live-streamer is a really talented woman. We’ve all read ‘The Untrammeled Traveler’ in our Chinese textbooks before, but that was only an excerpt, rarely anyone would go online to search for the content following that excerpt, not to mention that no one would try to memorize it.”
“Also, this sis is writing it in Seal characters! There are a lot of people around me who study calligraphy, but I’ve never heard of anyone who’s studying the lesser seal characters. Is that font going to go extinct soon?””
“Every swipe of each character seems so complex, and it’s so hard to recognize them. I can say nothing else except that I admire how well she can write it.”
“Maybe she studies calligraphy in college? I hear that some universities make calligraphy a major.”
“No, I think sis mentioned it before. She’s studying in the piano major.”
“!!!”
“She also knows how to play the piano? Is she going to leave anyone else any chance to get talent?”
“Yeah, and during a few live-streams before, if you guys examine closely, you would be able to see that there’s a piano at the very corner of her room. I just don’t understand why she never live-streams herself playing the piano.”
“I remember her first live-stream, which was in her dorm. She live-streamed with her roommates. Hehehe, no wonder they’re studying in an art school. All three of them have really pretty legs.” — Otaku Boy.
“You can go die, you satyr.” — HeheHaha
TL’s Note: Yes, she’s Li Xiaoru. :] The author included (Li Xiaoru) behind HeheHaha’s username as an author’s note, but we thought that that might confuse you because Li Xiaoru isn’t included in the actual username.
“Huh, this tone sounds so familiar.”
The otaku boy on the other side was confused for a moment, but immediately reacted.
“You’re Princess Man’s roommate!”
“Whoa, our live-streamer’s real-life friend is here.”
“She’s definitely talented too. Quick, let’s follow her too!”
“I feel like today’s live-stream is too splendid.”
…
Credits: Sydney & Kathrien