With the menu decided, the only thing left was the decorations.
“The painter you asked me to find—I found him,” Song Bowen said. “He’s a scholar who specializes in flower-and-bird paintings. His name is Zhou Heng. Want to go meet him?”
“Let’s go,” Lu Yan replied.
Zhou Heng was a licentiate scholar who had never managed to pass the provincial examination. He usually painted fans to support himself and was especially skilled at painting flowers and birds. After seeing his work, Lu Yan had to admit that it was extraordinarily lifelike. Every single feather was painted in exquisite detail.
Soon they arrived at Zhou Heng’s home. He already knew why they had come and welcomed them inside, though he looked as if he wanted to say something.
“What’s wrong?” Lu Yan asked. “Do you have some concern?”
Zhou Heng hesitated for a while before speaking honestly. “To tell you the truth, I know why the three of you are here. But I’m only good at painting flowers and birds. I can’t paint people well.”
“Why do you say that?” Lu Yan asked curiously. “Can’t you use the same techniques you use for flowers and birds to paint people?”
“That’s exactly what I do, and that’s why my paintings of people are bad.” Zhou Heng smiled bitterly. “Everyone says my paintings are too mechanical and completely lacking in spirit.”
“Do you have any previous paintings of people? Let us take a look.”
Zhou Heng asked them to wait, then went back inside. A moment later, he returned with two paintings.
They were standard beauty portraits, and after looking at them, all three fell silent.
Though the reasons for their silence were somewhat different.
Song Bowen and Lu Sheng: As expected, they have absolutely no spirit.
Lu Yan: Good heavens, aren’t these basically traditional Chinese painting versions of Orange Game character portraits?!
Lu Yan suddenly became excited.
“This is exactly what I want! Though there are a few things you need to improve.”
At this time, traditional Chinese painting didn’t emphasize light and shadow. Perhaps people thought it absurd to paint dark patches on a person’s face. That was precisely where Zhou Heng’s paintings felt strange. If they were meant to be expressive, they were too rigid and mechanical. If they were meant to be realistic, they lacked any sense of light and shade, making the figures look as if they were simply pasted flat onto the paper.
Lu Yan’s own artistic skills were extremely amateurish, but she still understood some basic theory.
She placed an apple on the table, took a sheet of paper, and drew another apple.
“Look at this apple. How can we make it look more real? Have you noticed that the light is coming from the west side? The colors on the left and right sides don’t look the same.”
She lightly sketched a few shadowed areas onto the drawing.
“See? Doesn’t it look much more realistic now?”
Zhou Heng suddenly understood.
“You mean… when painting people, I can also paint these dark areas?”
“Exactly,” Lu Yan said. “You need to carefully observe the relationship between light and shadow, and the contrast between brightness and darkness.”
“This time, we want you to paint the Twelve Flower Goddesses. The more they resemble real people, the better. Start by painting three and we’ll come back to collect them in two days.”
Zhou Heng agreed immediately, eager to try this new method.
Two days later, when the three of them returned, Zhou Heng had already finished the three paintings.
He had thoroughly mastered the new technique. With the addition of light and shadow, the beauties in the paintings looked almost like living people.
The Plum Blossom Goddess wore a white robe and sat on a swing while snow-white plum blossoms fell around her.
The Peach Blossom Goddess hid behind a tree in a pink dress, peeking out from the trunk while holding a peach blossom branch.
The Chrysanthemum Goddess wore yellow clothing and lay among a bed of chrysanthemums, resting her chin in her hand with her eyes closed and a yellow flower crown on her head.
“Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!” Song Bowen exclaimed three times to express his delight.
Lu Yan looked at the paintings and seemed hesitant to speak.
“You…” she finally asked, “Why do all three goddesses have the same face?”
The three beauties differed only in hairstyle and clothing. Their faces were identical—and there was even a faint resemblance to Lu Yan.
Embarrassed, Zhou Heng scratched his head.
“I haven’t met many girls. This is the only face I can come up with.”
Realization dawned on Lu Yan, and she exchanged glances with Lu Sheng and Song Bowen.
Of course, they could wander around the streets looking for inspiration, but there really weren’t that many beauties in town. Besides, it was already winter, and everyone’s clothing looked rather monotonous.
Lu Yan felt a bit regretful. If Zhou Heng had met the novel’s heroine, Jian Hongling, he probably would have experienced an explosion of inspiration. Speaking of the heroine…
There was indeed one place with lots of beautiful women.
A wicked smile appeared on Lu Yan’s face.
The next day, Song Bowen and Zhou Heng were dispatched to the largest brothel in the county to gather inspiration. Lu Yan and Lu Sheng watched as the two men rode away in a carriage, both wearing complicated expressions.
“Ah…” Lu Sheng sighed as he watched the carriage disappear into the distance.
Lu Yan immediately turned to him suspiciously.
“What are you sighing about? I’m warning you—at your age, you’re absolutely not allowed to go to a place like that.”
Lu Sheng’s face instantly turned red.
“What are you thinking?! Who wants to go to that kind of place?!”
Only then did Lu Yan turn back around.
She couldn’t help thinking about Jian Hongling and wondered how she was doing now, and whether Song Bowen and Zhou Heng might run into her.
But then she remembered—that wasn’t possible.
The trafficker had once mentioned that the madam who wanted to buy the girls came from a brothel in the provincial capital. That meant Jian Hongling should now be in the provincial city, not the county seat.
The provincial capital…
It was so far away. She probably wouldn’t go there until Lu Sheng took the provincial examination. By then, would Jian Hongling still be there…?
Song Bowen and Zhou Heng were gone for three days.
When they finally returned, Song Bowen looked exhausted and dispirited, while Zhou Heng was positively radiant.
Lu Yan looked at Song Bowen in surprise.
“What happened to you?”
Song Bowen forced a bitter smile.
“Don’t ask.”
Zhou Heng had been shy at first, having never visited such a place. But the moment he stepped through the doors and saw the room full of beautifully dressed young women in bright colors, his eyes lit up.
It was as though he had plunged headfirst into an endless library of artistic references. Each day, he became more energetic than the last.
Since Zhou Heng had devoted himself entirely to painting, Song Bowen had been left to entertain all the ladies. In the end, he simply couldn’t endure it any longer and forcibly dragged Zhou Heng back home.
But regardless of everything, Zhou Heng truly had experienced a burst of inspiration.
Three days later, he delivered a complete set of Twelve Flower Goddess paintings that left Lu Yan completely satisfied.