The heat rising from the concrete road was enough to cook a person alive.
Jiang Yan picked up her water bottle and took a tiny sip, just enough to wet her lips.
She couldn’t drink too much. The market charged to use the restroom.
“That’s her!”
A man’s voice rang out, followed by a jumble of footsteps. Before long, several young thugs had surrounded Jiang Yan.
Xu Kai stood right in the middle of them.
A thick gold chain gleamed around his neck, and the gold Rolex on his wrist flashed in the sunlight.
These days, an outfit like that wasn’t called tacky. It was called trendy. You had to be rich and powerful to dress that way.
Xu Kai pinched the portrait on the easel between two fingers and tilted his head, looking Jiang Yan up and down.
At first glance, she seemed a little haggard. But look again, and you could see that she had lovely features. There was a fragile, sickly beauty in her eyes and brows.
He would bet that when she was young, she must have been breathtakingly beautiful.
You’d think that with looks like hers, if they’d ever crossed paths, he’d definitely remember her.
But for the life of him, he couldn’t recall her at all.
“Do you know me?”
“No!”
“Then why do you have a portrait of me?”
“I painted Liu Furong!”
“Liu Furong? The Hong Kong star Liu Furong?”
That year, Liu Furong hadn’t yet become one of the “Four Heavenly Kings,” but he was already wildly popular.
His handsome looks had won over countless young women.
Xu Kai looked seven or eight tenths like Liu Furong, and was about the same height, too.
“Brother Kai, now that you mention it, you really do look like that star—like you were carved from the same mold!”
One of the thugs said it, and the others immediately chimed in:
“Seriously! They’re identical!”
“Brother Kai, you’ve got a star’s face!”
“As if! Our Brother Kai’s even more handsome than any star!”
The underlings kept piling on the flattery, getting more and more carried away. Xu Kai was speechless. He growled:
“Get lost! Quit talking shit!”
He was a little pleased to hear them call him handsome, but he knew perfectly well that the person drawn on that sheet of paper was him!
He planted one foot on the stool beneath Jiang Yan and rested a hand on his knee, sizing her up.
“With skills like yours, you draw Liu Furong looking like that and still dare set up a stall?”
Jiang Yan shifted to one side and brushed the dust off her trousers, her expression blank.
“I sell maps, not portraits. This one’s collateral. I’ll pay back the protection money I owe you once I’ve made some money!”
She gave a slight, polite bow, but her manner was cool and distant, with an air of hauteur—as if she looked down on people.
“You sell maps? Give directions?”
Xu Kai licked his lips, amused.
“What kind of brains do you bookworms have? Who’d pay to have you show them the way?”
He hadn’t gone to school, so he considered anyone who could write and draw a “bookworm.”
In other words, a “nerd.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a green twenty-cent note landed in the mooncake tin in front of Jiang Yan.
“Hey, which way’s the restroom?”
The man asking was young, with mousse in his hair. He looked like he had money.
Jiang Yan immediately stood up to answer.
“Turn at the third intersection on this street, then go another two hundred meters.”
As she spoke, she pointed to the spot on her map.
“You’ll know you’re there when you see a shop selling funeral supplies.”
The young man listened, glanced at the map, then hurried off, soon vanishing into the crowd.
Xu Kai looked at the money, then at the man walking away. He felt as if someone had slapped him, and he was a little embarrassed.
Seeing his reaction, Jiang Yan explained:
“Some people are shy and don’t like asking others for help. But if they pay to ask for directions, they don’t feel awkward about it. So I should still be able to make money by giving directions!”
She had barely finished when someone else came over to ask:
“Do you know which way to the button wholesale market?”
Jiang Yan took out another map and pointed.
“Follow this road, then turn into this alley. The whole street is full of button shops. But there’s one with a red sign here—their selection is comprehensive, and they have imported goods.”
“Oh, thank you! I don’t have any change. How about I just buy a map?”
The bill dropped into the tin. Jiang Yan had made another sale.
Xu Kai stood there like a lucky cat, and customers kept coming one after another.
This business really could make money!
After waiting a good while, the customers finally stopped coming. Xu Kai spoke up.
“Well, well! You know the market pretty well. But how come I’ve never seen you around?”
Jiang Yan tugged at the corner of her mouth in a polite smile and casually slipped the money from the tin into her pocket.
“If I didn’t know my way around, I wouldn’t dare give people directions, would I?”
“Hey, hey, hey!”
Xu Kai grinned and pointed at the hand she was using to pocket the money.
“Didn’t you just say you’d pay the protection money once you’d made some?”
“Ahem!”
Jiang Yan cleared her throat and put on a smile.
“Let me draw your portrait first. I’ll do it properly this time—I promise you’ll like it!”
Without waiting for Xu Kai’s answer, she pushed his leg off the stool and began sketching, quickly laying down one stroke after another.
She said she was drawing Xu Kai’s portrait, but she didn’t look at him once the whole time.
And she worked so fast that soon the handsome man in three-quarter profile seemed to leap off the page. Xu Kai and all his underlings were stunned.
You couldn’t exactly say it looked like him, because the portrait was much more handsome than the real thing—and had a distinctly artistic air.
Xu Kai looked at the nearly finished drawing, then at Jiang Yan. He was quite sure that her earlier claim that she’d drawn Liu Furong had been pure nonsense.
She must have his face completely memorized to draw him so skillfully!
But who exactly was this woman?
Could she be some old flame he’d carelessly left behind, now coming to his door?
“Brother Kai!”
Jiang Yan offered him the portrait with both hands. A chorus of “Wow!” rose around them.
The thugs crowded together, each trying to get a look. Their faces were openly filled with admiration.
“That’s a great drawing! Draw one of me, too!”
One of the underlings gazed at the portrait enviously, smoothed his hair, and grinned as he stepped in front of Jiang Yan, ready to have her draw him.
Who didn’t like having their picture taken or their portrait drawn? People were vain, after all.
Without makeup or proper lighting, an ID photo came out terribly.
A portrait was different. It could bring out a person’s good looks—and, while still looking like them, make them a little more handsome.
“Get out of here!”
Xu Kai kicked aside the underling who’d piped up asking for a portrait, then eyed Jiang Yan suspiciously.
“You’re this good at drawing. How’d you end up giving people directions? There are plenty of artists by the river. You could do business there!”
The wholesale market was near the river, where there was a Bund with beautiful scenery. Lots of foreigners liked strolling there, so there was a whole street of antique shops and calligraphy-and-painting stores.
Xu Kai had never gone to school. He didn’t know that Jiang Yan’s work was gongbi painting in a street style.
It had no distinctive style and no coherent system; she’d simply tinkered away at it on her own out of love for painting.
Likeness was its only strength.
Jiang Yan was very talented at painting; she’d just never had any formal training.
Maybe once she had some money, she could find a master to study under—and then make a name for herself.
Jiang Yan didn’t bother explaining. She only smiled faintly.
“If you’re satisfied, can we call this painting today’s protection money?”