Plate Ninety: Experimental Creation of Life

The dormitory was brand new. Ten minutes earlier, the loft with its pavilion and winding galleries had been nothing more than an image on paper.

From dozens of architectural drawings that the teacher had brought, Sansan had picked this one. Then she watched as the teacher placed the picture of the loft onto the open ground and poured several buckets of water over it. Like bamboo shoots thrusting up from the earth, the building model rose from the page, growing the instant it met water. In less than three minutes, the entire loft stood before them, with tables, chairs, beds, and curtains already inside, bearing a faint resemblance to the way temple house-seeds worked. The only difference was that house-seeds could be turned back into seeds and reclaimed, whereas the creation painting could not.

The loft was made of wood and stone, with no seams or joints visible, as if it had been formed whole in a single breath. Large cabinets for beds and stored paintings seemed to have grown directly out of the floor or walls, immovable. Only one studio stood empty, but soon the accompanying teachers filled it with pigments, paper, and brushes.

Sansan inspected each item one by one and found that their materials were no different from naturally occurring trees and stones in the wild. If one had to point out a flaw, it was structural: there were no load-bearing walls, yet the entire first floor had been hollowed out into a studio; the ceiling was very thin; the second floor was divided into several rooms; and those pieces of furniture were not light. Once the spiritual energy dispersed, the whole house would collapse like a set of blocks whose foundation stone had been pulled away.

On the table in the sitting room were piled several images of everyday household items, along with exquisite pastries.

The Celestial Emperor picked up a picture resembling a flower-shaped cake, eager to try it. “Do I put this in water too, or just pour water over it?”

“I remember the teacher said there were support trays, for holding things during creation.”

Sansan was still sensing the spiritual energy concentration in the paintings. Hearing the Celestial Emperor, she stopped simply holding the images and studying their principles, and took down several round platters that looked like tea trays from the wall. The Celestial Emperor, thrilled, fetched the same bucket they had used to water the house and drew a pail of water from the one-meter-wide pool in the middle of the sitting room.

Like children who had discovered a new toy, the two of them watered the paintings spoon by spoon, watching tray after tray of pastries sprout up like mushrooms after rain.

Sansan was still examining the ingredients when the Celestial Emperor had already tossed down several one after another. “The taste is ordinary. Too bland.”

“Like a mixture of flour and rice flour with honey. The vitamin content isn’t low either, and there’s even a touch of spiritual energy.” Sansan broke off a small piece and chewed it slowly. “Not too sweet, not greasy at all, just right. But it can’t be eaten as a staple food.”

“I still have plenty of fresh dishes here.” The Celestial Emperor immediately produced a large basin of Tom’s special red-braised, pan-fried, and roasted delicacies, taking out only a little of each and storing the rest away under temporal stillness.

Creation. This was the hallmark of the Danxia School of Painting.

Beyond the brushes, paper, and pigments used for painting, they claimed there was nothing, living or dead, that could not be created. Painters who depicted inanimate things were called object painters, while those who painted living things were called spirit painters.

Object painters were responsible for the Danxia people’s clothing and dwellings: garments, accessories, daily utensils, furniture, houses, and all other lifeless things. Spirit painting was responsible for food and travel: grain, fruit and vegetables, livestock, and all kinds of riding beasts.

Danxia painting came in many forms, from pale and graceful freehand work to richly colored realism. Yet they all shared one thing in common: the amount of spiritual energy contained within a painting was the sole standard by which its quality was judged. If there was little spiritual energy, what was created would be low in grade; if there was much, then what emerged would be of high quality. A painting with no spiritual energy, no matter how beautiful, could only serve as decoration.

Therefore, anyone who wished to become a Danxia painter had to possess affinity with spiritual energy.

Sansan’s perfect affinity sent the teachers of Qinghe Painting Academy into raptures. Yet after entering the academy, she did not attend classes according to the timetable like ordinary students, but spent two days in the library. Then, following the schedule, she chose only the classes that interested her. If a teacher objected, she would simply smash down a spiritual energy crystal to buy the elective course outright. Even the dean, lowering himself to recruit her as his disciple, was refused by Sansan. Such willfulness was truly enough to make one sigh in regret.

Under ordinary circumstances, such behavior would certainly have made people furious. But just then, the appearance of the “Law Heavenly Pill” was spreading with overwhelming momentum, and the dean, together with some teachers and elite students, hurried off to seize the opportunity and compete for the “Law Heavenly Pill.” The remaining teachers at Qinghe Painting Academy, seeing Sansan’s royal identity tablet, simply allowed her to come and go from classes as she pleased. Thus Sansan became even freer.

Of course, Sansan did not choose her courses randomly. She was different from the other students. The spiritual condensation and infusion that others valued were no problem for her; as for color and composition, she could teach the teachers in reverse. What she needed was to make up for the basics of theory, as well as the techniques of creation painting.

Interest was the best teacher. In scholar mode, Sansan quickly came to understand the relevant theories of creation painting through self-study and after-class Q and A, and then discovered that the key to creation painting was consciousness infusion. In an instant everything clicked into place. Wasn’t this just a variant of mind-painting?

Consciousness infusion determined only the form of what was created, not its essence.

So the key to creation was not the painting itself, but air and water?

Sansan came to the edge of the gestation pool.

As the name suggested, the gestation pool was the place where paintings were transformed into real objects and brought to life.

The gestation pool was nothing rare; at the very least, there was such a small pool in the sitting room of Sansan’s dormitory. It had not come with the building itself. Rather, the teacher had simply dug a deep pit in the sitting room, then lined the walls with purification and soul-gathering sigils. The water in the pool was groundwater.

In fact, in the Danxia realm, any water could be used for creation; only river water, spring water, and stream water from outside contained less energy, requiring a greater volume.

Sansan put her hand into the pool and felt the nature of the water.

The Danxia realm also called the energy in water spiritual energy, but Sansan found that water likewise held a powerful vitality. Yet where the spiritual energy in the air was the earth-born vitality of the primordial chaos, this was the vitality of water.

“Water and earth—the two most important factors in the germination of life. Is that how it works? Try it and we’ll know.”

Sansan thought for a moment, drew a bucket of water, and took out one of her old practice pieces: the silver mecha suit she had painted for Little Gold. She placed it into the water.

The painting remained a painting, unchanged.

“Plain water alone isn’t enough?”

Sansan turned her finger and guided spiritual energy into the painting, but no matter how much energy she infused, it still did not change.

“So water and spiritual energy alone won’t do it. Is it that the painting itself is unsuitable as a seed? Must it be made with the paper and brushes from here? Or is it enough that it was painted within the world covered by the source of creation?”

Sansan began to paint.

Ten paintings in all: three made with ordinary ink, paper, and brushes; three with liquid energy dye and energy paper; and four using the pigments, paper, and brushes of the Danxia painting world.

Into each painting she infused Danxia spiritual energy in an equal amount, standardized to one ordinary energy crystal.

These ten paintings were, respectively: clothing, a jade pendant, a toothbrush, a two-story villa, rice, steamed buns, grapes, fish, a meat pig, and a horse.

One by one, the ten works were placed into the gestation pool.

The drawing paper absorbed the water of the gestation pool, and the design titled High-End Custom Hand-Embroidered Silk Cross-Collar Formal Wear Design dissolved within it. If one was quick enough, one could fish out a lump of paper pulp; if one was slow, probably nothing would remain at all.

“Ordinary paper and ink without energy can’t be used.”

As expected, the second and third, the Jade Pendant and the Toothbrush, also turned into paper pulp.

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