At the same time, more news regarding the calligraphy exhibit appeared on TV, in newspapers, and on the internet. After all, this was a national exhibit that only occurred once every four years, and it was a huge event in the calligraphy circle. Now that the upper ranks were advocating for reviving the old culture of the country, calligraphy was one of the categories that would be most capable of representing the Chinese culture; therefore, even if the calligraphy exhibit was unpopular, it was still put on the front page of the newspaper. It was one of those “main melody” head titles, and people would normally just glance at the title, too lazy to read the content.

There were already a lot of people who studied calligraphy as a hobby, gathering around inside the exhibit. They took lots of pictures and posted them on Wei Bo, and most of them were pictures of works they liked. One of the Hanfu Goddess’s fans was the first to discover that, within all of these pieces, one work was signed by “Liu Man”.

He copied the picture of this work and sent a Wei Bo post, asking everyone, “Please, I need my question answered. Was this written by my Goddess? Or was this written by someone with the same name? I’m waiting online and am in a hurry!”

At first, only a few people noticed this post. They were also curious about the answer, so they helped repost it. More fans saw it, and even more, fans helped repost it; this was how it all linked up. This post immediately went viral and received lots of attention from the netizens. Everyone commented their opinion on whether this was a treasure from the Hanfu Goddess.

Some said it was the Hanfu Goddess; others said it was just someone with the same name. Everyone had a different opinion.

Even netizens who never paid any attention to calligraphy started feeling curious about this National Calligraphy and Carving Exhibition.

“The name of this exhibit is way too long. Can someone teach us, the uncultured ones, a lesson about it?”

“I’ve read the description in the news. It says that this is a calligraphy evaluation activity hosted by the National Calligraphy Association. It’s the most outstanding batch put in the exhibition, chosen from all the calligraphy and carving works in the country. It can be compared to ‘The Voice of China’ in the singing industry.”

“There’s also a description in Baidu. It only occurs once every four years! Today’s its fifteenth anniversary.”

“It sounds high-tiered.”

“It’s too professional. Those people who don’t know anything about calligraphy won’t even know about it.”

“Today’s the opening of the exhibit, and the 300 pieces presented have already been chosen cautiously through a very difficult process. If this work is really from the Hanfu Goddess, then she’s crazily good at calligraphy.”

“So, can anyone tell me if this is written by her?”

“Just directly ping Princess Man and ask her.”

“I did ping her. She ignored me.”

“Let’s just go to the exhibit and see. There are exhibits in both the capital and Gudu. If we go to the Capital Art Center, maybe we can run into the Hanfu Goddess herself.”

“The Capital Art Center only showcases the carvings. The calligraphy works are in the Gudu Exhibition. To verify this, we can only rely on the netizens located in Gudu.”

“Fine. For the Hanfu Goddess, I’ll go to the exhibit right now.”

“I’m coming too. I live close to it.”

…

More and more netizens were getting intrigued by the calligraphy exhibit. To be more accurate, they wanted to join the fun and see if the Hanfu Goddess was there!

The number of visitors inside the exhibition got multiplied by two in the afternoon. These extra visitors were different from those who simply loved calligraphy. The first thing they did when they came in was to find Liu Man’s work, and when they did, they would madly take photos with their phone and send it on Wei Bo!

They would then wander around for a bit to see if any other works looked fine, randomly take a few photos, send them in moments, write a few words, and make themselves seem very sophisticated.

Liu Man’s clerical script, which originally got belittled, was now surrounded by waves and waves of crowds, each holding their phone, looking very excited. The other visitors assumed that this was a piece from a master, and they came to admire it as well. Everyone was raising their phone high over their head in the crowd that could not get any crowdier.

If one didn’t study closer, Liu Man’s words were pretty good-looking and were enough to be presented. Everyone only felt unfortunate because they didn’t see the Hanfu Goddess.

Was this “Liu Man” not the Hanfu Goddess?

At the same time, in the second half of the exhibit, all five judges were already seated. They were about to have a face-to-face evaluation with the work of the contestants in groups 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Group 6 was the running script, group 7 was the official script, group 8 was the clerical script, group 9 was the cursive script, and group 10 was the seal character.

Liu Man was in the eighth group, and Zhou Budai was in the ninth group. They had already arrived early to the second hall.

There were ten wooden tables, put into lines, in front of the judges. Each table was numbered off, and brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones were placed on every table.

Behind the wooden tables were fifty plastic chairs that were temporarily placed there. The contestants in the groups that would be evaluated later could sit there and wait for their round. The round was not open to the public, so only members of the calligraphy association could come in to spectate. Their chairs were even more high-tiered; they sat on the soft armchairs that were sat on by Su Yi and Ou Yangcen earlier.

There were around 20 of these soft chairs, spread around the tables. It was as if this was another way of judging.

Liu Man and Zhou Budai sat on the plastic chairs, and after watching the judging process of the first two groups, they already knew how the round worked.

First, the judges would evaluate each of the pieces in the sequence they were handed in at, then they would question each of the contestants. Everyone would get a different question, and nobody knew which judge would be the one to question them.

Questioning, here, was more challenging.

Just now, a contestant from the sixth group, the running script group, met a judge challenging him. He couldn’t come up with a response and be so anxious that he was blushing; however, the judge did not let him pass and forced him to say something. He had to quit the round.

No one in the five judges was generous. Everyone spoke sharply. Maybe this was a purposeful setting in the face-to-face round, so they could eliminate half of the contestants.

At last, the judges would come up with a sentence, a poem, or a short passage. The ten contestants in the group would have to write it all out right there in a limited time to decide the first and second place.

And the pieces they wrote write on the spot would be given back to the contestants, at their disposal, unless they were in the first place or second place — In which case, their works would get recorded.

After the face-to-face round was finished for the seventh group, the two people who passed had expressions that lit up as they were feeling glad, and the other eight people had different expressions; none of them had a good expression. One of them angrily ripped the piece he had just written on the spot just now in front of everyone.

He turned around and wanted to leave.

Su Xuezhen called his name to stop him.

“Please leave after you’ve cleaned up the floor so you won’t affect the next group’s evaluation.”

This person was very ambivalent. He still felt angry, but he dared not to vent his emotions.

If he had offended Su Xuezhen, his piece, which was currently being presented in the outside hall, would get immediately taken off. His name would also be permanently wiped in the Chinese calligraphy circle.

He started behaving well and walked back to his table, knelt, and picked up the ripped pieces of paper. He only left after making sure not a single piece of ripped paper could be seen on the floor. This time, his silhouette seemed lonely and defeated.

None of the five judges did anything about it. They lowered their heads to scroll through the overview of the works that were going to be presented by the next group. The staff quickly retrieved the works from the previous group, respread all the clean rice paper, and changed the name cards on the table so they matched the people in the eighth group.

All of this went on in silence; not a single person spoke.

Translated by: Sydney

Edited by: Michael