#ijsfdoijdiof

[traincarsandstars]

for the future yinyue-jun, dan feng leaves behind a few of his finest brushes and most expensive inks --- someday, a world of endless recitations will await her, but perhaps having something nice to write with will make the experience a little less painful.

alternatively, some of the finer-tipped brushes work well for doodling in the margins ...

"Huh? What's this thing?" Carefully, Bailu used her tail to pull the mysterious wood box closer; once it was close enough, she reached forward and dragged the box out from underneath her bed.

Bailu was currently in the Forbidden Residence- the ancestral home of all Luofu High Elders, doing one more sweep before reuniting with the others on the Express. She wanted to be sure that everything that was of personal importance to her was either on the Express or moved to her storage unit located in the Exalting Sanctum. As Bailu was rummaging through her nightstand, one of the spare pens she kept in the inner pockets of her zhaoshan fell out and rolled underneath her bed. She grumbled and got on her knees to retrieve it; that's when she noticed the box.

Bailu didn't know how long the box had been under there; however, judging by the layer of dust, it had to have been a while. The box itself was wooden, medium-sized, and relatively light. Yet, despite this, the little High Elder could make out a wavy blue design on the lid. Squinting, she wiped the top with her sleeve and found two burning eyes of an azure dragon staring up at her.

"Woaahh!" She blinked. Back then, imagery of the Azure Dragon was only for the High Elder, but now those stuck-up preceptors use it all the time. "This must have belonged to a previous High Elder," she said as she stood with the box in hand. She walked over to her desk and placed the box down before she continued to wipe the dust off; it wasn't long before she got most of the dust off- revealing the box's hidden splendor. The lid depicted an azure dragon with eyes made out of yellow gemstones swimming in a sea of carved waves and coral; both the right and left sides delineate a crane with its majestic wings spread as if to take flight. The front and back faces' featured both dragon and crane, with the crane flying high above and the dragon swimming in the sea below.

"This is really fancy," Bailu mumbled, almost in awe of what's in front of her. Curious as to what could be inside such an expensive-looking box, Bailu quickly lifted the lid to find--

"Brushes?" Fancy brushes, actually, with azure dragons carved on each handle. Bailu lifted a few out of the box to admire the craftsmanship when she noticed a small stack of- what she guessed to be high-quality inkstones. "This must have been some High Elder's calligraphy set," she mused.

Suddenly, her phone's alarm went off; Bailu scrambled to grab it, nearly dropping one of the brushes. She clinked her phone on and saw the time; the Express was leaving for Jarilo-VI for a festival, so they needed to go at a certain time to make it. Quickly, she placed the ornate brushes back into the box and closed it; she retrieved her medicine bag, which lay abandoned on the floor, and carefully slipped the box inside. No chance she was going to let the preceptors have these brushes! Even though she barely practices calligraphy and her penmanship isn't that great, it's still her inheritance. (Maybe?) And she's not giving them up for the world.

Besides, Dan Heng seems like the type to be into calligraphy, maybe he'll know what to do with them.

@astrcls