Villain Transmigration: Transcendence to Immortality [1]

Chapter 4: The Summon

Seeing Du Qiang scribbling something, Feng Lei's eyes noticeably lit up. He suddenly remembered the storage pouch his father gifted to him the night before. His hand automatically went to his waist where the pouch was and mentally summoned a notebook that he placed in it to appear in his hand with a quill and an ink stick.

Noticing his master's plan, Du Qiang took the ink stick when it was handed to him and started grinding it in an ink plate on top of a desk beside Feng Lei's bed. Feng Lei took the quill and dipped it on the ink as gracefully an immortal, appearing incredibly used to the action.

It's a good thing I studied calligraphy in arts during high school and college. If not, I would be dead by now.

Feng Lei inwardly sighed in relief as he started writing on the notebook in elegant and dignified strokes, unintentionally gaining Du Qiang's admiration with his writing.

Du Qiang discretely glanced at his own writing and compared it to Feng Lei's, finding the difference as vast as heaven and earth.

As Feng Lei stopped writing, he passed the notebook to Du Qiang for him to read. As the System may alter his words, Feng Lei chose to write poetry instead to avoid the circumstance and nodded his head to his own genius idea.

'A king desires for loyal subjects.
A knight desires for honor and glory.
A merchant desires for wealth and riches,
but a man such as I only desires for air to breathe and comrades to share the world with.'

"A great poem, young master!" Du Qiang exclaimed as he was incredibly awed when he realized that Feng Lei answered his previous question with a poem. Upon rereading it again, Du Qiang was filled with praises in his heart and the gaze he used to look at Feng Lei changed and showed hints of respect.

Knock knock.

"Gongzi, his royal highness, the emperor summons you to the imperial hall." Suddenly, the head eunuch's voice said from the hallway.

Feng Lei opened the door and sent a questioning gaze to the eunuch. "Gongzi, this summon is a tradition of the imperial palace. It is to welcome new disciples to the palace and also to show their talents to imperial family and their senior brothers. This should have been informed to you by your clan before you went here." The eunuch explained.

This... I was suddenly pulled into this by the emperor yesterday so my father probably forgot about this... System, do you have any information about this tradition?

[None. In the original novel, the protagonist never encountered this.]

Well that's weird.

Probably sensing Feng Lei's confusion, the eunuch decided to continue explaining.

"Actually, gongzi doesn't need to prepare much. You only need to show a bit of your cultivation and your special talents. For example, your eldest apprentice brother, Lin Xueqin-gongzi, chose to demonstrate a sword dance for the imperial family."

Oh... So that's how it is. Choosing to study arts is becoming the best decision I've ever made during my youth. I think I'll choose dancing but just that isn't going to get the imperial family's attention. System, what do you think?