Chapter 269 — Style Name
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 2 of 4
"Carve a seal with this?" Song Yan excelled at calligraphy, and since he said he could carve seals, his technique was presumably good. But seal carving demanded not only calligraphy but also composition; at Song Zhi's age, no matter how gifted, he likely still had shortcomings. She felt that such a precious piece of tianhuang stone should be saved until Song Yan's blade work was more seasoned, so it might be put to its full use—it would be a pity otherwise. "When I was little, I once sneaked a few of my father's chicken-blood stones, and I brought them with me when I married. Why not use chicken-blood stone? Keep this tianhuang for later, and carve me a leisure seal then."
That tone, tinged with a certain doting indulgence, made Song Chu start, and then break into a delighted smile.
"Our family has several more little stones like this," he said, not having expected Dou Yan to like seal material. "Only this one's knob is suited to you, which is why I thought of it. If you like them, just take them all." As he spoke, he called loudly for Chen He.
Chen He darted in at once.
Song Yan instructed him, "Go fetch the storeroom keys. The madam and I are going to look for some seal material."
Chen He answered and went to get the keys.
Dou Chi's heart stirred.
She went to the storeroom with Song Chu.
The young servant held the lantern high, lighting the storeroom brightly.
Beads of sweat broke out faintly on Dou Yan's forehead.
There were five pieces of tianhuang stone in all, scattered carelessly in a box. Two were raw stones, but their veining was clear and their quality excellent; the other three already had carved knobs—one a tiger, one a lion, one a deer.
No wonder Song Yan had said only the material in her hand was suitable for her.
Dou Yan muttered to herself, and with a pang of distress wiped clean one by one the dust-covered white ginkgo jelly Qingtian stone, the lotus-root-pink jelly chicken-blood stone, and the white hibiscus Shoushan stone.
Seeing this, Chen He hurried forward to help, and explained, "These are all small pieces with nowhere to go, so they were put on the shelves of this curio cabinet. If you like tianhuang stone, there's still a Guanyin figure carved from tianhuang in the storeroom—it's a bit small, but if you don't mind, I'll find it and let you have a look?"
Carving a Buddha figure from tianhuang stone—whose idea was that?
Dou Yan nodded.
Chen He took the ledger and went to look for the figure. In an old box, Dou Yan discovered two inkstones. One made clever use of a stone eye, carved into a lotus leaf and frog, the stone clear and moist. The other was purple, its underside dotted with stone eyes of every size, which at first glance seemed like watery vapor, extraordinarily round and smooth. One look told her they were no ordinary pieces.
Dou Yan drew in a sharp breath and asked Song Yan, "How many more things like this does your family have?"
"I don't know." Song Yan seemed to be seeing these two inkstones for the first time as well. He turned them over in his hands. "There's too much stuff, page after page of ledgers, dense as can be. Some things that left a deep impression I just took out and used..." As he spoke, he raised the inkstones toward Chen He and said, "Take them off the ledgers. I'm taking them back to the study."
Chen He answered, still there sweating over the ledgers with the storeroom manager and muttering, "I remember clearly it was in this storeroom... how could it be gone..."
Out of sight, out of mind. Dou Yan could not be bothered to wait there any longer, so she said a word to Chen He and returned to their rooms with Song Yan.
Both of them were covered in dust, so they called the maids to wash and change afresh.
When Dou Yan came out, Song Yan was examining the two inkstones by lamplight.
Hearing the commotion, he raised his head and said with a smile, "Tell me, if I give these two inkstones to my father-in-law, do you think he will like them?"