Chu Ning glanced down at the half-filled teacup on the table, inwardly blaming Lu Zhidao for being so careless as to leave such a glaring flaw.
Hidden inside the wardrobe, Lu Zhidao pricked up her ears, one hand pressed against the door, ready to burst out at any moment.
She heard Chu Ning pause for a second before saying in a relaxed tone, “Both are my tea.”
“One person drinking two cups?”
“That’s right,” Chu Ning said with a smile. “I imagine that when one drinks alone under the moon with only their shadow for company, they probably pour two cups of wine as well. I’m just using tea as a substitute; the sentiment is the same.” She spun the nonsense effortlessly, though she didn’t believe a word of it herself.
Miss Shen looked at her suspiciously. Holding her sword, she circled the room repeatedly, inspecting every detail before finally stopping by the open window. She leaned halfway out, looked around, and asked tentatively, “Did Lu Zhidao run away?”
“Ah… yes!” Chu Ning nodded earnestly. Seeing that she couldn’t hide the truth much longer, she quickly followed the opening Miss Shen had provided.
Saying it out loud brought a sense of relief; inside the cabinet, Lu Zhidao also relaxed.
“It’s better that she’s gone.” Miss Shen didn’t seem to mind. She leaned against the window and began to size Chu Ning up.
After a long silence, she spoke slowly, posing a question she already knew the answer to: “Do I look like I’m easy to fool?”
“Hmm?” For a moment, Chu Ning didn’t understand her meaning.
“Nothing, just talking to myself.” Miss Shen held the sword across her chest and suddenly laughed. “If I may be so bold as to ask… why has Young Master Bai… come here?”
She spoke casually, but the emphasis fell awkwardly on the word “Young Master,” making the whole sentence sound strange.
“I was just passing through…”
“Passing through? What a coincidence!”
Chu Ning only had this one story prepared; whether the other woman believed it or not, she was sticking to it. Miss Shen acted as if she had seen through it long ago but simply didn’t care. She walked back to the table, sat down gracefully, pressed her long sword onto the tabletop, and picked up Lu Zhidao’s leftover half-cup of tea to take a sip.
Chu Ning hurried to stop her. “I’ll get you a fresh cup.”
“No need. Between her and me, there’s no need for such formalities.”
Chu Ning: When did things between you two move so fast?
Lu Zhidao in the cabinet: That never happened!
“I can guess a bit about your background and purpose, but I don’t care. I came to disturb you late at night because I have something urgent to ask of you.”
“Please, go on.” Hearing this, Chu Ning also became serious. She sat upright and looked at Miss Shen properly. Since Miss Shen said she didn’t care about the rest, Chu Ning wasn’t going to bring it up either.
“I want to ask you to repaint that damaged picture from today.”
This sentence nearly caused Lu Zhidao to fall out of the cabinet. Fortunately, her reflexes were fast, and she braced herself against the wooden wall to stay steady.
“What was that sound!” Miss Shen looked around alertly.
Lu Zhidao suddenly felt the guilt of a thief. She carefully adjusted her breathing, making sure not to produce another sound.
“A stray cat, perhaps… or maybe you misheard…” Chu Ning explained hurriedly before changing the subject. “That is your urgent matter?”
“Yes! Is it not urgent enough?”
Recalling the painting from earlier, Chu Ning felt a wave of regret. She had been driven by a very subtle, impulsive state of mind when she painted it; thankfully, Lu Zhidao had impulsively destroyed it. Now that she had cooled down, she really didn’t want to paint it again. However, given her current “identity,” it was hard to refuse. She decided to use Lu Zhidao as a shield: “But that Miss Lu seemed to dislike that painting very much.”
“Whether she likes it or not is her business. I only know that I like it.”
“I can’t paint it now.”
Lu Zhidao nodded silently in the dark, expressing her strong agreement.
“How much money will it take?”
“It’s not about the money,” Chu Ning waved her hand. “Painting requires the right state of mind.”
“Then tomorrow, she and I will recreate the scene again, and you can paint us just as before?”
Chu Ning’s heart screamed no. She shook her head like a rattle, thinking: Recreate it? Please, no. I’ve had enough frustration for one day.
Out loud, she politely made excuses. “It’s my own failing; I can’t paint it. Recreating the scene won’t help…”
Miss Shen looked up at her. With a sharp clang, she unsheathed her sword. Before Chu Ning could react, the blade was resting on her shoulder. Her martial arts were amateurish at best, but more than enough to handle Chu Ning.
“Can you paint it now?”
“It’s fine! It’s fine!” Chu Ning blurted out. This was specifically meant for Lu Zhidao’s ears.
Lu Zhidao, who had been on the verge of bursting out of the cabinet, stopped immediately upon hearing Chu Ning say she was fine. She pressed her ear against the wood, listening intently.
Miss Shen clearly had an interest in Lu Zhidao, so Chu Ning didn’t want them to meet again. She figured the woman only wanted a painting and wouldn’t actually hurt her.
“What do you mean, ‘it’s fine’?”
“Nothing, I was talking to myself.”
“You’ll soon find you were wrong!” The long sword slowly moved from Chu Ning’s shoulder toward her neck. Miss Shen wasn’t in a hurry to subdue her; instead, she watched her expression with a playful glint.
Chu Ning watched the blade creep closer from the corner of her eye. She sat rigid, not daring to move, but the sword showed no sign of stopping.
“Alright, alright…” Chu Ning reached up and carefully touched the other woman’s wrist. “I’ll paint one for you, okay?”
“But I have one condition!”
The sword that Miss Shen had just lowered was immediately leveled again. She looked at Chu Ning suspiciously.
“I really can’t do the two-person one again. I’ll just paint a portrait of Lu Zhidao alone…”
Miss Shen hesitated for a moment. “That works… the two people in the painting earlier did look a bit… embarrassing.”
In the shadows, Lu Zhidao also let out a sigh of relief. If it was just another portrait of herself, she could accept it.
However, the conversation that followed became stranger and stranger.
First, Miss Shen kept nitpicking, forcing Chu Ning to paint according to her demands:
“Like on that fan have her in the morning light. I think that looks beautiful.” “Make her hair more flowing.” “Too much ink here. I want a ‘vibrant’ black.” “Can you make this part bigger but also smaller at the same time?”
…And so on. Chu Ning gritted her teeth and agreed to everything. Hearing these bizarre requests, Lu Zhidao began to feel sorry for Chu Ning. She couldn’t fathom how an ink brush was supposed to produce “vibrant black.”
She quietly pushed the cabinet door open a crack to peek at Chu Ning’s expression. Seeing her face change colors like a kaleidoscope was quite a show.
Before Lu Zhidao could even laugh at her, the conversation took an even weirder turn.
“Forget it, don’t paint the clothes…”
“Huh?” Even Chu Ning couldn’t take it anymore. She set her brush aside. “That’s hardly appropriate! I don’t draw erotica!”
Miss Shen stared at the half-finished portrait for a long time before asking hesitantly, “Not even for extra money?”
“No!”
“A thousand taels?”
“No!”
“Gold?”
“Absolutely not. No amount of money will work. Even if you hold that sword to me again!”
In her heart, Lu Zhidao cheered for Chu Ning’s firm “integrity over wealth” attitude.
Miss Shen finally compromised. “Well then, can the clothes be thinner? The kind that is translucent… ‘holding a lute yet half-hiding her face’…”
Chu Ning leaned back against the chair, adopting a stance of “do with me what you will, I will not budge.”
“Fine… just start painting…”
Chu Ning shot her a look, then reluctantly picked up the brush again. She desperately wished she could paint Lu Zhidao in a thick, high-necked sweater.
Lu Zhidao let out a long breath, thinking she had dodged a bullet, but what came next made her scalp tingle.
“The clothes can definitely be a bit scanter…”
“They’re scant enough!”
“Here and here, she must be ‘exquisitely curved’!”
“She’s flat.”
Lu Zhidao instinctively looked down at her own chest.
“How do you know that!” Miss Shen stood up like a spring, backing away a step and staring at Chu Ning in shock. “You… you’ve already reached that stage?!”
“No, no!” Chu Ning waved her hands frantically, denying it flatly.
“Then how do you know she’s flat?”
Miss Shen stepped forward quickly, bracing her hands on the table and staring alertly. “I advise you not to harbor any crooked thoughts. She’s mine.”
Neither Lu Zhidao nor Chu Ning expected such a blunt declaration of affection.
Lu Zhidao froze. If she hadn’t been squeezed into a cabinet, she would have fled who-knows-where. She couldn’t understand how a deal for three hundred taels had led to this. She didn’t feel happy; she felt troubled. She thought: I wonder if I’ll even get that three hundred taels now.
Moreover, she was inexplicably worried that Chu Ning would misunderstand her. If Chu Ning was unhappy, Lu Zhidao never had a good time. First, the candy she had longed for was given away to a beggar, then that ambiguous painting was made—she had no idea what would happen next.
Lu Zhidao clung to the crack in the cabinet door, peering out anxiously. Seeing that Chu Ning’s expression was quite grim, her heart sank: I should have just stayed at the docks carrying sacks.
After a long silence, she heard Chu Ning ask, “How is she yours? She’s only after your money.”
Lu Zhidao nodded vigorously: Exactly right!
But Miss Shen didn’t care at all. “That’s even better. Feelings can change, but being after my money is much more stable.”
“She… she wouldn’t be with you just for money.”
“She would!”
Chu Ning was momentarily speechless. Hadn’t Lu Zhidao stayed exactly for those hundred taels?
In the shadows, Lu Zhidao wanted to burst out and shake Chu Ning by the shoulders: What are you being silent for? Are you agreeing?! I wouldn’t! I wouldn’t!
But no matter how frantic she was inside, she kept it all in her heart. When she actually faced Chu Ning, her face was always stoic; she had to build up her courage for a long time just to look her in the eye, let alone shake her shoulders.
After Miss Shen left with the painting, satisfied, Lu Zhidao remained huddled in the wardrobe for a long time.
Finally, with a creak, Chu Ning opened the cabinet door. A faint, slightly yellow candlelight flooded in, flickering across Lu’s face.
The room was lit by beeswax candles, which burned without black smoke and instead emitted a sweet, fragrant scent. As the door opened, that sweetness rushed in. In the awkward silence, the scent became remarkably prominent. Perhaps because their minds were more sensitive now, many details that had gone unnoticed became vivid.
The two remained silent across the cabinet door for a long time.
Lu Zhidao had just been imagining shaking her shoulders and shouting hysterically: Wake up! I’m not that kind of person! But in reality, she just felt inexplicably guilty, her eyes darting away to avoid contact.
Chu Ning, on the other hand, tilted her head and looked at her openly.
“Do you not plan on coming out?”
“Uh… no… I’m coming out now!”
Lu Zhidao scrambled out of the cabinet, trying to think of how to explain herself. But then she thought—this had nothing to do with her, right? It was Miss Shen’s business if she liked her; Lu was just there for the money. And she had already explained the hundred taels before.
Yet, for some reason, being looked at by Chu Ning made her feel guilty. She couldn’t even say what she was worried about. Was she worried Chu Ning was unhappy? Would she be?
Lu Zhidao sat silently at the table, picked up the cup she had used before, and took an awkward gulp of tea.
“You and her… you really don’t stand on ceremony.”
“Pffft Lu Zhidao sprayed the tea right back out and pushed the cup as far away as possible.
She scratched her head helplessly, wanting to explain but not knowing where to start.