The turning point came in the 17th year of the Guangzheng era. Wang Tuanhua finally laid eyes on the twelve Po…
The turning point came in the 17th year of the Guangzheng era. Wang Tuanhua finally laid eyes on the twelve Portraits of Twelve Immortals by Zhang Suqing, a renowned Tang painter. Unable to resist, he copied all twelve pieces. But the copies vanished without a trace until a scandal shook the Shu Kingdom.
That year, on the Shu King's birthday, Minister An Siqian presented the Twelve Immortals as a gift. Soon after, the King received a tip that the paintings were forgeries. Already plotting An's downfall, the King seized the opportunity to execute him, vowing to eliminate all "conspirators". And those forgeries? They were Wang Tuanhua's work. Overnight, rumors spread in Shu's art circles: a young man in his twenties had forged the paintings, and he became known as "the Twelve Immortals".
No one cared about his talent. Wang Tuanhua—now "Twelve Immortals"—was suddenly a hunted "conspirator." His family risked everything to smuggle him out of Shu, sending him to hide in the Central Plains. At last, no one called him "Wang Tuanhua" any more, but neither did he have a home to flee to.He began to see his gift as a curse. Why should he suffer? He'd done nothing wrong. In the Central Plains, he embraced the name "Twelve Immortals", too young to realize the Shu King's purge was a charade, and he merely a pawn. Of course, he didn't know who had arranged for him to "discover" Zhang Suqing's originals in the first place.
For months, Twelve Immortals spiraled. His paintings lost their vitality, as if their soul had been drained.