Chapter 6

"A struggle between free will and reality—lively and captivating, isn't it?"

The speaker was a woman with a gentle, intellectual air. Soft red hair cascaded over her shoulders, and she wore glasses. She approached from the side, smiling warmly at Gu Nianxi.

This painting isn't about freedom, Gu Nianxi thought.

"I'm in luck today—I actually get to meet Miss Gu," the woman said.

"You know me?"

"I had the fortune of meeting Miss Gu once before. Hongsheng's charity exhibition is my project, but this painting isn't a student's work—it's from my aunt's former student. I thought it was full of childlike charm, so I included it here. Call it a little personal indulgence. Does Miss Gu like it too?"

Like it?

Gu Nianxi stared at the expanse of blue.

She had been fourteen when she painted it.

If she didn't count her past life, this was the last painting she ever made. It represented a failed past, embodying that small, weak Gu Nianxi, and it pointed toward a failed future—her hand bones crushed to pulp, so that when she tried to end her life, she couldn't even hold a knife steady.

Gu Nianxi was the sort of person who lost interest in everything after a short while. Piano, violin, ballet—she never lasted three months with any of them. Only painting could hold her: give young her a brush, a few tubes of paint, and an empty room, and she could stay inside all day without emerging.

That was the purest joy she had ever known, and the satisfaction of completing a full piece was beyond compare.

The first painting she seriously attempted was called "Family." As the name suggested, it depicted Gu Hongzhuo, Jiang Man, herself, and a little Labrador she had picked up.

She drew herself and the dog in the center first, but no matter how she tried, she couldn't get Gu Hongzhuo and Jiang Man right. After endless revisions that never improved, she simply cut the two of them out of a newspaper and pasted them in place of her father and mother. Her art teacher had praised her collage skills at the time.

Later, she created this untitled work. When Gu Hongzhuo and Jiang Man came home, she showed it to them.

Jiang Man said she was tired, and Gu Hongzhuo snorted, saying she was wasting her time on this sort of thing.

"Paintings are all hype. Real art is a joke," he'd said, a little drunk, face flushed, words slurring. "Why do you have to waste time on things like this?"

After that, the brushes and canvases went the way of the piano, the violin, and the ballet shoes—abandoned to gather dust in the attic corner.

And this painting was left behind at her art teacher Cui Rou's home.

Later, Gu Nianxi was cast out of the Gu family. Cui Rou actually remembered her, found her, and gave the destitute girl some money along with this painting.

She told Gu Nianxi: Before, people treated you as the Gu family's daughter, but I only ever saw you as a talented student. Now you're no longer the Gu family's daughter, but I still see you as my student.

The path you take should be your own choice. Leaving the Gu family isn't necessarily a bad thing.

At the time, she thanked Cui Rou through tears, took the painting, rented a studio, and picked up a brush again.

A month later, she was kidnapped. Her captors didn't kill her—they just smashed the bones of her hands with a hammer.

She passed out from the pain and woke in a hospital, with Bai Jin at her bedside. She screamed at her to get out, kicking when she couldn't move her hands. Finally a doctor came, restrained her, and told her her hands could be saved.

And they were saved—twisted, scarred, but still there.

But they had lost their strength; any slight exertion made them tremble uncontrollably. She understood that what she'd lost along with them was her future.

Bai Jin seemed afraid she'd do something to herself or that bad news would leak, so she had people watch her for weeks.

Gu Nianxi played the obedient girl, and when the surveillance slackened, she found her chance and ended her life.

Now she was looking at this painting again, much earlier than in her past life.

There was someone watching, so she couldn't cry.

The corners of Gu Nianxi's eyes reddened slightly. "Your... aunt is Cui Rou?"

"Yes."

Was seeing this painting again a good start? Was this her new life, or the beginning of repeating the same mistakes?

Gu Nianxi felt she was standing at a crossroads in her fate.

She didn't know which path was right—whether to turn a blind eye or to start creating again.

If she started again, would she be kidnapped? Would those people break her hand bones again?

At the thought, fear gripped Gu Nianxi, her teeth chattering.

Then anger rose.

Why?

Why should she give up her dreams because of what others did to her?

"Miss Gu... are you alright?" The woman noticed the shift in her expression.

"I'm fine," Gu Nianxi said. "This is my painting. I'll speak with my teacher. Please send it back to the Gu residence."

At fourteen, she had painted the sky like an ocean, a fledgling unable to reach shore in the boundless sea.

Now, reborn, she was still that fledgling—fragile, alone, powerless. But at least she knew the path of her previous life's events; she still had a chance to turn the ocean back into a sky.

The woman smiled.

She seemed to sense the shift in Gu Nianxi's mood, and her gaze held undisguised interest.

"My name is Cui Xiaoyue, Miss Gu." She pulled out a business card and slipped it gently into Gu Nianxi's coat pocket. "I run an art gallery. If Miss Gu ever has need, you can contact me. That's my card with my contact information. As for the painting, it will be delivered to your home shortly."

She wore heels, making her taller than Gu Nianxi, and stood too close. A few strands of her hair caught on the buttons of Gu Nianxi's coat.

Gu Nianxi didn't like anyone this close. She frowned.

Cui Xiaoyue, by contrast, was perfectly at ease. She laughed softly, pressed one hand lightly on Gu Nianxi's shoulder, and with nimble fingers, focused on disentangling her hair.

The two stood before the painting—the tall, elegant woman leaning over to envelop the petite, delicate Gu Nianxi, her straight red hair intertwining with black curls, the distance between them intimate to the point of ambiguity.

When Bai Jin came down, this was what she saw.

Her hands clenched at her sides. That suffocating feeling of air being sucked away returned. Something black seemed to be seeping out inside her chest, corroding her heart, making even breathing carry a thick, aching pain.

She stood rooted to the spot, staring at them without moving.

Finally, the two figures separated.

Gu Nianxi turned her head, and their gazes met.

Gu Nianxi blinked, startled.

Had Bai Jin finished so quickly? She'd thought she'd be talking with her agent for a long while.

She exchanged a few words with Cui Xiaoyue, said goodbye, and walked toward Bai Jin.

Bai Jin stood in the shadows, still as a sculpture, only her eyes tracking Gu Nianxi's movement.

Gu Nianxi felt a strange unease. Stopping at a middling distance, she lifted her chin. "Well, Second Miss Gu?"

The sculpture moved.

Bai Jin walked straight up to her.

They were in the corridor beside the exhibition hall, a stretch of space cloaked in shadow cast by the display boards.

For reasons she couldn't name, Gu Nianxi felt Bai Jin seemed especially oppressive right now.

How to describe it? Bai Jin's eyes reminded her of last night, when she had been refusing, crying out in pain, yet Bai Jin had gripped her ankle without question and smoothed the medicine on.

Remembering last night's ache, Gu Nianxi instinctively wanted to retreat.

But she didn't escape.

As her heel moved back, Bai Jin reached out and caught her. Bai Jin's fingers were long and strong, seizing her wrist, then sliding down, tightening, five fingers inserting forcefully between her own, gripping her from palm to fingertip.

"Sister," Bai Jin said, her voice low.

Unlike that night, Bai Jin's hand was warm now.

Heat kept transmitting from their touch, and Gu Nianxi couldn't help stepping back again. Bai Jin advanced a step in pursuit, like a tango.

"Sister."

She called again.

"Wha—what are you doing?"

Gu Nianxi felt uncomfortable with this sudden assertiveness.

What was Bai Jin up to now? Hadn't refusing to let go of her hand this morning been enough? And now this?

Bai Jin said nothing, just fixed her pale eyes on her. Her silence made Gu Nianxi uneasy. "I'm asking you! Did you finish looking at the project?... Your hand is so hot—let go!"

Bai Jin finally spoke. "I looked at the project."

Gu Nianxi was baffled. "And so?"

"It's a very good project." Bai Jin paused. "But it's not enough."

"Wh—what?"

"Sister bullied me for an entire month." Bai Jin lowered her gaze. "Did you think one project could settle the score?"

Gu Nianxi's eyes went wide.

What did Bai Jin mean?

In her past life, she had bullied Bai Jin for far longer than a month, and Bai Jin had never pressed her like this or made demands of her!

What was this—she treated her better in this life, and Bai Jin got bolder?

"I—you—don't go too far! That was—"

She tried to explain, but Bai Jin's new complaint cut her off. "Every time Sister treated me like that, it hurt me deeply. I wanted to be friends with Sister, but Sister always said cruel things, and yesterday you left me alone at Drifting Emerald."

"I was really scared then."

Bai Jin pressed even closer, nearer than Cui Xiaoyue had been. Her hand was firm, and Gu Nianxi felt like a sinner bound before a tribunal, body fixed in place, forced to look up and hear the judge pronounce her crimes.

"Then what do you want?"

Bai Jin's gaze burned. "I've always wanted to be friends with Sister. Since Sister bullied me for a month... then be my friend for a month."

"Huh?"

Gu Nianxi froze.

She went silent.

Such a simple request?

Her hesitation made Bai Jin's fingers tighten, and the smile on her face nearly faltered.

Gu Nianxi winced, snapped back to herself, and shot Bai Jin a glare.

"It's just a small wish." Bai Jin's voice remained gentle, with no hint of the dark, frenzied thoughts churning inside her. "Sister has so many friends; one more or one less wouldn't make a difference, would it?"

"Besides... we were born in the same year, same month, same day, with the same zodiac sign and the same Chinese zodiac animal. If we talk about compatibility, there's no one more suited for each other in this world than us."

Gu Nianxi seemed startled by her, her watery eyes blinking like a kitten's, staring without blinking.

Bai Jin knew she should let go.

She knew she should be polite, keep her distance as Gu Nianxi had said—stay clear of each other, don't interfere.

But she couldn't help it.

She couldn't bear Gu Nianxi leaving, and she couldn't bear Gu Nianxi being close to anyone else... even standing together with someone else grated on her.

Heaven knew how much effort it had taken Bai Jin to stay rooted where she was when she saw Gu Nianxi nearly overlapping intimately with that woman.

She didn't just want to hold Gu Nianxi's hand; she wanted to kiss her. She wanted to suck her lips until they were broken and red, to leave unmissable marks on visible parts of her body, so that everyone would know Gu Nianxi belonged to her.

What stupid, base animal instinct. For the first time, Bai Jin realized she was no different from a dog.

If Gu Nianxi refused her...

Bai Jin thought she might become a demon she herself wouldn't recognize.