Chapter 22: Getting Along Part 4

Nor could escape.

A few more minutes passed. Sheng Shubai received the key, thanked the deliverer, and turned to unlock the display room.

Lu Jia’s eyes immediately went to a painting on the left side.

It was the reference photo her undergraduate advisor had sent when she struggled with her thesis—the original.

Sheng Shubai hadn’t been here in years either, yet she knew the position of every piece by heart.

When the exhibition hall was first built and rooms planned, she and Sheng Shuyun were still young, with few works worthy of display.

So they’d helped plan Sheng Ling’s room, debating together how to arrange each painting by style and year in the perfect spots.

As they grew older, rearrangements every two years included Sheng Ling’s suggestions too.

Except once, when Sheng Ling wanted to include her lover’s works.

The family deemed it unsuitable; Sheng Shubai voted in favor and strongly supported it.

Back then, in her mid-teens, Sheng Shubai was at the age of romantic ideals.

She’d just begun feeling hazy affection for the same sex, and her admired, close little aunt’s longtime partner was a woman—the elders’ prized student.

She thought she’d witness a match made in heaven and had envied them.

“Later…”

Her voice dimmed.

Lu Jia’s gaze followed hers to the innermost piece, the most recent from over a decade ago.

It differed vastly in style from the others.

Crude horizontal and vertical gashes. Vermilion ink printed rough lines, as if unpolished after carving, scattered messily across the paper in indistinct shapes. Even the block below showed clear cracks.

Lu Jia knew well that a work revealed the artist’s state.

The expected words came.

“This was my little aunt’s final piece before she died.”

Sheng Shubai kept her tone even. “A month after finishing it, she slit her wrists in her bedroom with the carving knife Song Lan had given her.”

Song Lan.

Lu Jia froze.

The name was familiar too.

At that summer printmaking exhibition, she’d pointed out flaws in Song Lan’s breakout piece right in front of Sheng Shubai.

Song Lan had risen young, studied abroad under masters, and now commanded respect in the field.

With domestic printmaking booming lately, many overseas Chinese artists returned—yet she never did.

Old secrets, buried in time, gradually surfaced in the woman’s somber recounting.

A young woman with no background meticulously orchestrated her first meeting and romance with Sheng Ling. Perhaps there was some genuine feeling at first, but mostly it was to leverage the Sheng name for a meteoric rise.

Even as the elders’ prized student, Song Lan wasn’t satisfied—it fell short of the acclaim she craved.

Drowning in frustration day by day, her inspiration dried up.

Meanwhile, her lover, steeped in family tradition from childhood, produced works that awed all.

Song Lan turned crooked.

That year, an international youth printmaking competition debuted abroad, generating huge buzz.

Many young domestic artists entered; Sheng Ling and Song Lan both advanced to finals.

For the finals, Sheng Ling submitted her original woodblock.

But during first transport, fire destroyed it completely. With the deadline looming, she rushed a remake.

It coincided with an elder’s birthday banquet; Sheng Ling couldn’t go. Song Lan offered to fly to Country A and submit it personally.

“Trust me with it, don’t you?”

At the airport, Song Lan hugged her smilingly. “Ah-Ling carved it so well. I’ll bring back the gold.”

Sheng Ling believed her.

What came instead: blocked contacts, and headlines of Song Lan winning gold and honoring the nation, everywhere.

She sent a letter admitting she’d staged their meeting.

It was sanctimonious, thanking Sheng Ling and the Sheng family for their guidance that enabled her gold-winning work.

But now she’d found a better mentor abroad; oceans apart, no need to meet again.

Lu Jia frowned tightly. “Such academic misconduct—couldn’t it be exposed?”

Sheng Shubai shook her head. “Before leaving, Song Lan took everything proving it was my aunt’s original, under pretext of submission credentials.”

“My aunt trusted her completely, giving her the chance to destroy the rest of the evidence and records.”

Her gaze on that glaring painting, Sheng Shubai closed her eyes lightly. “After she slit her wrists, I was the first to find her.”

She’d seen blood pooling and snaking across the tiles, filling her vision. Rushing over, Sheng Ling’s body was already cold, drained of warmth like her last drop of blood.

Eyes shut tight, wrist slashed to the bone.

The carving knife on the tiles, half its blade red, so blinding she nearly collapsed.

Song Lan’s letter lay with Sheng Ling’s suicide note.

Sheng Shubai forced herself to read them, nausea rising.

For her own past blindness like Sheng Ling’s, and for this vile thief and indirect executioner’s shame.

She never wanted to touch printmaking again.

It happened just after college entrance exam choices were submitted.

The family elders sternly vetoed her idea of repeating a year to retake the exams and ordered her to study printmaking instead, inheriting the family tradition alongside Sheng Shuyun.

Sheng Shubai was powerless to resist.

It wasn’t until her junior year in college that Sheng Shuyun took over most of the family businesses, gaining real authority. After a long talk with Sheng Shubai, she finally had the confidence to break ties with the elders and switch to watercolors, which she didn’t hate as much.

Over a decade passed in the blink of an eye.

Those events from years ago no longer stirred much emotion in her heart.

When the girl’s soft embrace came toward her, Sheng Shubai didn’t refuse. She rested her chin on Lu Jia’s shoulder, the faint woody fragrance from Lu Jia’s body filling her nostrils.

“Thank you,” she said.

She sorted out her emotions quickly. Sheng Shubai released Lu Jia and leaned half against her soft body. “Standing for so long made my feet hurt.”

Lu Jia instinctively looked down at her shoes. “Miss Sheng, did your feet get blisters again?”

“No.”

Sheng Shubai straightened up. “Take your time looking. I’ll keep you company.”

It was already past mealtime.

Perhaps because breakfast had been late, neither of them felt hungry.

They stayed in Sheng Ling’s display room until after one o’clock, when Sheng Shubai had lunch delivered. They simply made do with it in the lounge on the first floor.

Those words still echoed in her ears, and Lu Jia suddenly lost her appetite.

Seeing that Sheng Shubai had returned to her normal state, her every gesture as composed as usual.

Lu Jia glanced at her several times without a word, a faint bitterness rising in her heart.

How long had it taken her to convince herself that she could mention the death of such a close relative so casually?

She had even deliberately lightened the mood several times, afraid of dragging Sheng Shubai into negative emotions.

Lu Jia remembered the day she had been cut by the carving knife—the woman’s reaction to the wound and the blade, and her inexplicable instruction to cover the passcode and not trust anyone easily.

Lu Jia’s straightforward nature didn’t mean she was oblivious.

The hug in the display room had been her instinctive reaction without thinking.

At that moment, the woman’s solitary, tall figure stood in the center of the room, exuding a rare trace of gloom.

She had just suddenly felt… an urge to hug her.

“Eating so little?”

Sheng Shubai picked up a piece of rib with her chopsticks and placed it in Lu Jia’s bowl.

Lunch had been prepared on Auntie Xie’s orders, tailored to Lu Jia’s preferences and suited to both their tastes.

Lu Jia held her chopsticks. “I was a bit distracted just now.”

“Still thinking about those works?”

Sheng Shubai glanced at the time. “No rush. We can take our time this afternoon. Focus on eating first.”

Lu Jia shook her head. “I was thinking about you…”

Sheng Shubai’s chopsticks paused, and she looked at her intently, a subtle scrutiny in her expression.

“…and what you said.”

Lu Jia met her gaze and hurriedly finished the sentence.

It wasn’t wrong to say it that way. She was indeed thinking about Sheng Shubai—and the words she had spoken.

She glossed it over in a few sentences and didn’t look at her.

Lowering her head, she focused on the rib Sheng Shubai had given her. It was stewed tender and flavorful, the bone coming off effortlessly.

Sheng Shubai knew the person across from her was too honest to lie, so she didn’t dwell on it. “You don’t need to take it too seriously. Just think of it as a story you heard. After all, it’s been so long, and there’s… nothing we can do about it anymore.”

Of course there was resentment. No one in the Sheng family wanted to see that sanctimonious villain live freely forever, but they couldn’t reach abroad.

Back then, Sheng Ling had tried to find evidence, but Song Lan had covered her tracks perfectly, who knew how long she had planned in secret.

In her suicide note, Sheng Ling told them not to trouble themselves over it anymore. It was her own spirit that had completely collapsed; she couldn’t hold on any longer.

It was her fault for misjudging people; no one else to blame.

Sheng Shubai lowered her eyelashes.

Back then, she had wanted to fly abroad directly and confront Song Lan face-to-face, but Sheng Shuyun had confiscated her passport and forcibly kept her from going.

Later, at Sheng Ling’s funeral, that fiery anger was extinguished by the heavy rain at the graveside, turning into helplessness.

In the afternoon, they finished viewing most of the remaining collections. A few had been lent out, and some were stored separately in the negative first floor, unavailable to see today.

Lu Jia noted them one by one in her phone’s memo, marking which pieces to focus on in the coming days and in which exhibition halls, remembering every detail.

At six in the evening, Sheng Shubai took her hand to leave.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want Lu Jia to stay longer.

That afternoon, Rong Yi had unusually added her on her contacts and asked when she planned to send Lu Jia back.

The reason was impeccable: There was a small gathering in the hotel’s conference hall tonight, with many printmaking major students from various schools attending. She wanted Lu Jia to go and perhaps make some friends her age.

If it was about connections, Sheng Shubai could provide better ones than any gathering.

After all, she was a connection herself.

But these were peers, so Sheng Shubai couldn’t refuse Rong Yi’s kind intentions on her behalf.

She also knew that the girl spent her days buried in printmaking, with only a few senior sisters and classmates she talked to regularly—aside from herself.

As they descended from the third floor via the rotating escalator, Lu Jia remembered her bag was in the lounge. Sheng Shubai went with her to retrieve it.

Leaning against the door while Lu Jia got her bag, Sheng Shubai straightened her laces and collar, unable to resist ruffling her hair again.

They clasped hands to turn away when footsteps approached from behind.

“Shubai, long time no see.”

The newcomer was tall and slender, her heels clicking crisply on the tiles.

Sheng Shuyun spoke warmly, looking at her sister whom she hadn’t seen in a while. “Auntie Xie said you were back, so I came to see you.”

Five years older than Sheng Shubai, she exuded a steady demeanor, every movement carrying the air of someone in authority.

The biological sisters shared similar features, but their styles were worlds apart.

“And this is your—girlfriend?”

Seeing the intimate way their fingers intertwined, Sheng Shuyun spoke warmly. “Sorry, I came back in a rush this time and didn’t bring any gifts.”