Chapter 30: The Seal of the Humble and Cautious Studio

Three refusals and three yieldings is the etiquette of an emperor. Cheng Yunqi felt that he had already yielded twice, so there was no need to decline further.

He reached out and took the bracelet with the Tai Xu Cave Stone, saying, "With this one item alone, the weight is already enough. I dare not take the gold seal again."

Jiang Nan was anxious. "Could it be that the benefactor thinks my gold seal is not as precious as the Cave Stone?"

Cheng Yunqi waved his hand repeatedly. He didn't have this thought, but he truly felt the gift was too heavy. Being able to get a grain of Cave Stone was already an unexpected surprise, and he had played tricks to get it, so how could he be greedy for more.

Jiang Nan said again: "The Cave Stone was a gift from my elders, and the gold seal is my own intention. It's not a valuable thing, so please benefactor, don't decline again!"

He took out the gold seal himself. This gold seal was very small but extremely exquisite. The seal body was golden, but the seal knob on top was white. Even with Cheng Yunqi's eyesight, he couldn't tell whether this was one-body dual-color gold or two kinds of strange gold refined into one. However, judging from the color alone, it was neither jade nor stone, and it was definitely some kind of refined gold.

The seal face was only six-tenths of an inch square, and the seal edge was one inch and five high. This was a new seal with no side inscription or bottom inscription.

The knob on the seal was a beast knob, looking like a dragon lying on the seal body, its front claws resting on the edge of the seal, its dragon head raised and extended outside the seal body, its back claws pressing on the seal, arching its back and tucking its abdomen in a posture of soaring, its thin and extremely long tail hanging down from the top of the seal body, winding around most of the seal body.

This dragon was covered in white scales, but with crimson gold inlaid as eyeballs and horns.

White scales and red eyes, long tail and fire horns—this was the appearance of Fuxi, the son of the dragon.

The dragon's abdomen was soaring, and a white silk ribbon passed through it, like white clouds following the dragon. This was the ribbon.

Jiang Nan held the dragon-son knob seal upside down with his left hand, flipped his right hand, and produced a knife pen out of thin air. It seemed that he must also have a Cave Stone on his body.

He looked at Cheng Yunqi. "Yesterday I heard the benefactor say that you have not yet entered the life register, so you should not have a Daoist name yet. I dare not engrave the benefactor's name on the seal, so please tell me your alias or studio name, and I will engrave the bottom inscription."

Cheng Yunqi smiled and shook his head. "I am but a common man from the countryside, who by sheer luck was accepted into a sect. I have no such thing as a pseudonym or a studio name."

Jiang Nan's eyes lit up upon hearing this. "In that case, why doesn't the benefactor take one now? Taking a name from the seal—isn't that a beautiful story?"

Cheng Yunqi looked into Jiang Nan's eyes and couldn't help but lose. He thought this should be a beautifully shaped seal, and it shouldn't be any precious strange treasure, so he accepted it!

He thought for a long time before saying, "Let's take a studio name, let's call it 'Humble and Cautious Studio'."

Cheng Yunqi felt that he had been quite smooth since he started cultivation, and it was easy to develop arrogance, or perhaps he had already developed arrogance at some point without knowing it, so he took the words "Humble and Cautious" to serve as a warning.

Jiang Nan was stunned upon hearing this, then said, "Benefactor is not an ordinary person. It is rare to use 'Humble and Cautious' as a studio name at the age of fifteen."

Cheng Yunqi smiled. "Pride brings loss, humility brings benefit. It is never wrong to be more cautious. Please, Jiang Nan, make the seal with this."

Jiang Nan nodded, looked at the seal, thought for a moment, and also smiled. "Fuxi likes to climb high and look far. The bottom inscription 'Humble and Cautious Studio' on this Fuxi knob seal is just right, which happens to verify the principle of acting with confidence and sitting with humility."

"Then since there is a warning meaning, let the bottom inscription be engraved in the ancient Han mountain-mountain clerical script. Benefactor, what do you think?"

Cheng Yunqi nodded happily. This was very thoughtful.

He sat back in the chair, and Cheng Yunqi sat next to him. He saw him not making a draft, holding the engraving knife and starting to write on the bottom of the seal, one horizontal and one vertical, slow and steady.

He seemed to like engraving very much, and the whole person was immersed in it.

Gold shavings fell down. Taking advantage of this time, Cheng Yunqi also put the bracelet on his right hand, rubbing the beads with his left hand—Tai Xu Cave Stone.

This Cave Stone was about the size of a jujube pit, crystal clear, like water droplets, like frost and dew.

He squeezed it, and the texture of the Cave Stone was very hard.

The Cave Stone was wrapped in a silver net, which held the Cave Stone and tied a knot at the top of the Cave Stone. A white woven thin rope passed through the knot to form a bracelet.

Cheng Yunqi projected his thoughts over, wanting to go in and take a look.

"Huh?"

His thoughts slid over, but did not enter the Cave Stone's illusory realm. Jiang Nan, who was engraving the seal on the side, heard his voice and probably guessed what Cheng Yunqi was doing.

"Benefactor, attach your thoughts to the silver net on the outside. The secret key is the circle of nodes on the silver net. Just walk a full circle with your thoughts. Then, benefactor, refine the silver net and set a new secret key. If someone forcibly breaks the silver net prohibition, the Cave Stone will shatter, and the illusory realm inside will re-integrate into the great heaven and earth, while the things inside the illusory realm will randomly appear in any corner of the great heaven and earth."

Cheng Yunqi nodded, indicating he had learned it. He was a bit embarrassed, as if he had been too eager, but he was truly curious.

Seeing that Jiang Nan hadn't even finished engraving the first character "Humble," he went to try again with his thoughts.

This time, his thoughts attached to the silver net, as if falling onto a spider web, and every node on the spider web was flashing with light.

It was not much different from the secret keys commonly used on jade slips. Cheng Yunqi's thoughts dialed the light points on the outermost circle of the spider web. After one circle, all the light points on the silver net went out. At this time, Cheng Yunqi was not in a hurry to refine the silver net, but directly projected his thoughts into the Cave Stone—

This was a clean and bright space, as if coming to a sunny alley in winter. This alley must be very clean, thickly painted with white paint, and the ground was spotless, completely reflecting the winter sun. It must be the winter sun, giving people the feeling that this whiteness was soft, as if refracting many colorful light spots, absolutely not as scorching white as summer, making people unable to open their eyes.

This was the feeling Cheng Yunqi saw.

This space seemed to have no boundaries, and everywhere was equally bright.

But when he channeled his thoughts to explore, he hit a wall everywhere. After several attempts, Cheng Yunqi finally determined that this was a space about three zhang square.

=9+Book_Bar

Not small.

Cheng Yunqi withdrew his thoughts, feeling very happy. From now on, he would never have to carry a large pack again. If he had any good things or large things, he could put them inside.

This Tai Xu Cave Stone had another benefit: the illusory realm inside the Cave Stone was attached to the great heaven and earth while being isolated from it. His thoughts entering and exiting were actually crossing two worlds that were far apart, which was of great benefit to his comprehension of the Tai Xu magic intent and was of great benefit to his understanding of the "Guangcheng Decree Void Heart-Following Mantra."

Just that one entry and exit was enough for Cheng Yunqi to have some realization.

At this time, Jiang Nan's engraving was also completed. After cleaning the seal face, he took out a wooden box from his personal Cave Stone.

The wooden box was placed on the desk, almost half the size of the desk. After opening the box, there were dozens of small jars neatly arranged inside, red, orange, yellow, green, dazzling.

Only to see him take out a small red persimmon-shaped porcelain jar. The persimmon calyx was the jar lid. He opened the lid, and inside was red and warm yellow seal ink. After opening the lid, the fragrance overflowed. He didn't know what kind of precious material this seal ink was made of, or what kind of complicated process it was made with.

Jiang Nan held the persimmon jar with one hand and the seal with the other, gently touching the seal face on the round light on top of the seal ink, touching and leaving, then rotating the seal face, repeating this, first reddening the four sides, and then filling the middle. At the same time, he said in his mouth:

"Benefactor, don't be fast when applying vermilion, it's better to do it many times. Once the seal eats the seal ink, the vermilion will naturally grow on the seal. In the future, you won't need to use ink for stamping."

Jiang Nan applied the first seal ink and handed the gold seal and the persimmon jar of seal ink to Cheng Yunqi.

Cheng Yunqi thanked him sincerely.

Jiang Nan put away the engraving knife and the wooden box full of various seal inks, and then took out a booklet.

"Please leave this first seal as a souvenir for me!"

Jiang Nan opened the booklet to the title page and asked Cheng Yunqi to stamp it.

Cheng Yunqi happily agreed and stamped it.

It was red background with white characters, Han mountain-mountain clerical script:

"Humble and Cautious Studio".

The new book has rushed to second place in the Xianxia category, and the total list is 34th at its highest. Thank you for your support!

Continue to ask for votes and recommendations, welcome comments and messages!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 31 =====