Li Dai held the guqin and examined it closely. The entire instrument was a dark, obsidian black—yet not a pure black, but rather a shade laced with a faint reddish hue that spread across the surface like a blurred, ink-wash painting of mingled blacks and reds. The black predominated so heavily that the red was barely perceptible unless one looked very closely.
Purely from its appearance, the Demon-Subduing Guqin possessed an archaic and majestic aura. Li Dai liked it instantly, and unable to resist, she produced the "Song of God-Slaughtering", eager to try playing it.
Only upon taking it out did she awkwardly realize that she could hardly read the characters of the score. She could tell just from looking at it that it was indeed a musical score, but those bizarre characters gave her a strange sense of both familiarity and alienation. Li Dai did not dwell on it, assuming she simply didn't recognize them.
Chapter 577