His calligraphy improved from persistent practice?
Only fools would believe such a dull explanation from Chu Kuang!
Just as Jin Mu predicted—
Any person with common sense knows that it's impossible for an ordinary person's calligraphy to escalate from a schoolboy level to master level in a short span of time!
How long has it been since "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" was published?
You practiced calligraphy for just that little while and it improved so significantly?
There could only be two explanations for this.
The first possibility: Chu Kuang had someone else sign for him.
The second possibility: Chu Kuang's previous schoolboy handwriting was just a prank on the readers.
Everyone believes it's the second reason.
There's no need to have someone else sign for him. Even if Chu Kuang's signature is ugly, it doesn't affect his popularity and prestige.
In fact, everybody finds it rather cute!
After all, Chu Kuang's writing prowess is remarkable. A weakness like "poor handwriting" only makes people find him more amusing.
How sensitive must one be to hire someone else to sign for them just because they were teased a bit by netizens?
Not to mention, Chu Kuang even posted a video of him signing.
Although the video didn't show his face, it made readers more willing to believe that it was Chu Kuang's real signature and that the previous time was just a joke he played on everyone.
"You old rascal! You've been exposed!"
"So all this while you were pretending to have bad handwriting?"
"Be careful, rascal, I might smash your windows. Others pretend to be weak to take advantage of the strong, while you pretend to be weak to play on your fans."
"Did you think we'd admire you by saying: Wow, Chu Kuang's handwriting is so beautiful? Dream on!"
"So it's another case of emphasizing the importance by underestimating first. No wonder you are the master of writing."
"This twist is so interesting. I'm learning so much."
"Although I don't want to admit it, that signature of the rascal is indeed beautiful. Any experts out there who can comment on his calligraphy skills?"
"His way of holding the brush seems quite professional."
"The writing looks even better than some of the calligraphy templates."
At this point, some netizens, who had been studying calligraphy, stepped up:
"I've been studying calligraphy for over a decade. I can say without bias that Chu Kuang's calligraphy is good enough to be used as a reference for people to imitate."
"Yes, judging by the signatures shown on the internet, Chu Kuang is quite accomplished in calligraphy."
"The only word we can analyze is Chu Kuang's name, so the analysis might not be that good. But based on his brush strokes and how he holds the brush, it's clear that Chu Kuang knows a lot about calligraphy."
"At least, the signature can only be written by a calligraphy master."
Only then did netizens realize that Chu Kuang's calligraphy skills were indeed very high.
A master calligrapher?
As anticipated, genius of GOAT level like Chu Kuang and devilish writers are all-rounders, even excelling in calligraphy.
However, the higher Chu Kuang's calligraphy skills, the worse his previous actions were.
"So, Chu Kuang was really fooling us?"
"He intentionally signed "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" with elementary school handwriting, he really is naughty."
"He has always been tricking us. Didn't you remember the genre of 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'?"
"If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have forgotten. 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' was originally a detective novel, aimed at trapping the reader with textual pitfalls. It created the trend of narrative trickery. Isn't it normal for the author to continue to trap readers even while signing?"
"So the childish signature had this intention?"
"Chu Kuang: After all, it's 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' that originated the narrative trickery. It would be strange to have a regular signature, so I might as well take it all the way and prank my readers."
"Hahaha, Chu Kuang is so naughty!"
"He intentionally made the signature ugly to match the narrative trickery genre. But everyone believed that was his real handwriting. With heated discussion, they felt Chu Kuang's wicked sense of humor."
Once again, thanks to Chu Kuang's fame, whatever he said or did would always be interpreted in a way to suit his statements by the public. And these explanations are flawless.
Even Jin Mu started to believe in these interpretations after seeing them.
The childish signature really matches the style of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" that makes fun of readers!
It's just that many people didn't expect Chu Kuang to fool readers so thoroughly by even including pranks in the signatures!
Now that they think about it.
If it wasn't for the narrative trickery trend that "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" initiated, why would Chu Kuang intentionally make the signature so ugly?
The ugly signature and the narrative trickery are a perfect match!
They both exist to fool the readers!
The netizens could only ridicule that Chu Kuang was becoming more and more of a prankster.
While everyone was laughing at Chu Kuang, someone noticed a rarely noticed detail in the calligraphy video Chu Kuang posted—
In this video, although Chu Kuang's face wasn't in the frame, his hand was, allowing netizens to analyze it frame by frame:
"Chu Kuang's hand is so beautiful!"
"It seems like the hand of a young person."
"The right hand is holding a pen, indicating Chu Kuang is not left-handed. His skin is fair and delicate, and his fingers are quite slender. Looks like the hand of someone who plays the piano. I wonder if Chu Kuang can play piano. Anyway, he should be young. Authors of fantasy novels are not likely to be old men."
"Just by looking at this hand, I want to lick it (I am a man)."
"Such a beautiful hand, I already assume, Chu Kuang is definitely handsome!"
"Oh my gosh, you guys can estimate looks based on a hand too?"
"Just associating thoughts. If a girl's voice sounds pleasant, we associate it with a goddess's face. If a boy's hand looks nice, we associate it with a male god's face. But in reality, beauty is often the opposite."
"How old is Chu Kuang this year? I am so into this hand."
"We know Chu Kuang and Xian Yu are best buddies, and Xian Yu still hasn't graduated this year. So it can be inferred that Chu Kuang's age isn't much different from Xian Yu's. Considering the appearance of this hand, Chu Kuang should be around thirty years old!"
"Everyone says Xian Yu is handsome. Chu Kuang is so young and has a good relationship with Xian Yu. Could he also be really handsome?"
"Handsome guy with another handsome guy?"
"I'm sorry, the scene that's playing in my mind has started to go awry."
Netizens' thoughts went round in circles, coming back to the initial point. And the 'rotten girls' discovered a new continent, with their eyes shining brightly!
Lin Yuan did not expect this.
When Jin Mu suggested filming a video , he didn't think too much about it.
But netizens actually inferred a bunch of truths very close to reality based solely on his right hand, which holds the pen!
Saying that his ugly handwriting earlier was intended to match the narrative trickery genre was just absurd. If Lin Yuan didn't know his own circumstances, he would almost suspect that what the netizens said was the truth.
It seems, that the ugly handwriting indeed matches with the narrative trickery genre.
My handwriting is absolutely beautiful.