I couldn't take it anymore; when I went home for Chinese New Year, the family genealogy book ha

Jiang Chen walked straight up to his grandfather, Jiang Wanshan.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, he slowly squatted down and looked up at the old man's deeply lined face.

"Master."

Jiang Chen's voice was soft, yet it carried an undeniable respect.

"Everyone's almost finished writing, how about... you show off your skills?"

The moment those words were spoken, the entire village committee compound fell silent.

Everyone was stunned.

A barrage of surprised, astonished, and even somewhat sympathetic gazes all focused on the elderly Jiang Wanshan.

Should we have the old man write?

Has Chenzi gone mad?

Everyone in the village knows that Old Master Jiang is highly respected and senior in the family, but when it comes to culture...

That's absolutely not the case.

The old man has spent his whole life working the land, and he doesn't know a single character.

That is, after liberation, I followed the village's literacy class and learned how to write my own name for a few days.

Should we have him write the inscription for the factory?

Isn't this making him look bad in public?

Jiang Jianwen and Jiang Qiming, who had been arguing fiercely just moments before, have now stopped arguing.

Both of them looked at Jiang Wanshan with extremely complicated expressions.

Jiang Jianwen's eyes held a hint of disdain and schadenfreude.

He felt that Jiang Chen had run out of tricks and was trying to use the old man to save face, but it was bound to make a big fool of himself.

Jiang Qiming's eyes, however, held a hint of worry and reluctance.

He felt that Jiang Chen was being incredibly inconsiderate; how could he let the old man lose face in front of so many people?

But Jiang Wanshan, who was at the center of the storm, had no expression on his face.

The old man seemed oblivious to the surrounding chatter and the strange looks he was receiving.

He simply tapped the copper pipe in his hand three times on the sole of his shoe, emptying the ashes inside.

Then, he tucked the pipe into his waistband, and with his hands, rough like old tree bark, he supported himself on his knees and slowly stood up.

At that moment, everyone in the courtyard seemed to stop breathing.

"That……"

Jiang Wanshan spoke, his voice hoarse yet unusually calm.

"I'll just... make a fool of myself."

After saying that, he strode over to the largest, still empty table.

On the table are various sizes of calligraphy brushes.

There are delicate and small wolf hair brushes, and there are mixed hair brushes with sharp tips.

Jiang Wanshan didn't even glance at them.

He reached out and grabbed the largest, thickest, and somewhat split wool brush from the pen holder.

That pen was specially prepared by Jiang Chen; he originally intended it for someone like Wang Dagou to scribble around for fun.

But at this moment, this clumsy brush, held in Jiang Wanshan's hand with its thick knuckles and prominent veins, looked surprisingly harmonious.

The old man held the pen, but did not write anything immediately.

He closed his eyes.

I took a deep breath.

With just this one simple movement, his entire demeanor changed dramatically!

Suddenly!

Jiang Wanshan opened his eyes!

Two terrifying beams of light shot out from those cloudy old eyes!

The large brush in his hand, dipped in thick ink, was slammed onto the snow-white Xuan paper!

Grandpa's wrist was as steady as a rock.

The muscles in his arms bulged out from overexertion, like coiled dragons!

Every stroke of his pen seemed to be made with all his strength!

It stretches horizontally, like an ancient pine tree that has stood for a thousand years, across the mountain peak!

Vertical, like a cliff ten thousand feet high, piercing straight into the clouds!

The stroke, like a giant axe splitting a mountain, powerfully cleaves Mount Hua!

The downward stroke is like a river bursting its banks, flowing a thousand miles in one go!

The crowd even had the illusion that the pen strokes seemed to pierce through the thin paper and carve the thick black ink deep into the heavy solid wood table below!

The whole process was lightning fast!

It only took a few seconds.

Jiang Wanshan stopped what he was doing and slammed the large writing brush heavily into the inkstone.

The four large characters leap off the page.

Everyone craned their necks to look at the paper.

On the paper were four crooked, even ugly, characters.

The strokes are uneven in thickness, and the structure is loose and scattered.

It looks like something a child would have just cobbled together with firewood sticks.

From any calligraphic perspective, this cannot be called a "work of art," or even a "character."

however.

These four ugly characters, however, carry an overwhelming and unreasonable aura!

That kind of simplicity!

That sense of weight and depth!

That unquestionable sincerity!

Like the loess soil, it is silent yet vast.

Like an old ox, they are diligent and tenacious.

It's like holding a bowl of the most substantial white rice in your hands after a lifetime of hard work!

Everyone present fell silent.

The villagers, who had been chattering just moments before, were now completely silent.

Those intellectuals who were just shaking their heads were now dumbfounded.

They stared at the four words on the paper, as if an invisible force had choked them, leaving them unable to utter a single word.

Those four words are—

Jiang Zemin's Conscience