That moment, the sheep renowned for her purity and kindness shed her outer garment, revealing an inner darkness blacker and more sinister than anyone’s.
Han Xuan tugged at the corner of her mouth, but no matter what, she could no longer muster the smile from before.
“But you want to tear off my disguise.”
Her voice had never sounded this pained before, like a dank plant growing in the corner, its roots tangled together.
Her head throbbed more and more, as if it were about to split open. Chu Susu clutched her head, momentarily at a loss for words. But she instinctively felt a twinge of fear and couldn’t help but take a step back.
She didn’t watch her footing behind her, and her right foot accidentally stepped on a painting easel covered in black cloth. With a light touch, it toppled backward.
The easel was enormous, seemingly fused with the darkness itself, far less conspicuous than the other paintings hung on the walls, so Chu Susu had overlooked it when she entered.
Now the black cloth flipped open, revealing the unfinished work inside.
The sudden noise made Chu Susu turn her head. Fixing her gaze, she saw a beam of moonlight shining just right on the canvas, reflecting off the not-yet-dry paint.
She saw her own face once again.
In the painting, Chu Susu held a wine glass, as if about to drink but not quite, her eyes as alluring and rippling as the wine in the glass, tinged with a touch of red.
The background was a bustling bar, the environment and layout utterly unfamiliar. Yet somehow, Chu Susu sensed a trace of familiarity. A few seconds later, she realized—this was a composite of several bars she had frequented.
Different styles of decor pieced together created a bizarre and mysterious vibe. Whether it was an illusion or not, the woman’s gaze in the painting seemed even deeper.
So this was Han Xuan’s true purpose for sketching at the bars.
Those countless pages of drafts and quick sketches had all been groundwork for completing this massive oil painting.
Chu Susu stared at it all in a daze, suddenly recalling the scene of her first meeting with Han Xuan.
It turned out that from that very moment, she had already been trapped in the painting, unable to escape.
In the bottom right corner of the canvas, the woman’s arm was entwined by rose vines, just like the intense, irrepressible emotions depicted in every line and color before her eyes—surrounding Chu Susu so tightly it felt overflowing, making it hard to breathe.
Turning back, she saw the same thing in Han Xuan’s eyes.
Atop that twisted, tenacious, yet cautiously tender love like vines, beautiful flowers had bloomed.
Before she could react, the disturbed easel righted itself and returned to the corner, the black cloth draping over it once more.
At the same time, Han Xuan took a step forward.
“Are you afraid of me?” she said, but her tone wasn’t a question—it sounded more like talking to herself.
Chu Susu didn’t answer. The current Han Xuan gave her a sense of losing control. It wasn’t outright fear, but it was certainly unsettling.
Han Xuan curved her lips; her usual serene and sweet smile now looked utterly bizarre, as if forcibly squeezed out, every arc meticulously designed.
Chu Susu stood frozen in place, feeling like the person before her was a delicate porcelain doll with a crack running through it.
Why hadn’t she noticed this before?
Or perhaps she had, but chosen to ignore it.
Beneath Han Xuan’s frail and innocent exterior—which seemed pitiable from inside out—there had always been a dissonant vibe that didn’t match reality.
For instance, the madness hidden in her eyes when she smiled at her.
Or the obsession barely noticeable when she blushed shyly.
This Han Xuan before her was the real Han Xuan.
She had torn off her own disguise of her own accord, standing candidly before Chu Susu.
Chu Susu remembered that girl who had once had a crush on her—Xu Jiao—and the look of utter terror in her eyes upon seeing Han Xuan. She had even cut off all contact with Chu Susu after that.
Looking back now, all the oddities made sense.
She finally understood—her previous view had been wrong, dead wrong.
Han Xuan wasn’t some pitiful little thing at all.
“Did you see it?”
Han Xuan’s hand on her shoulder tightened slightly, then gently forced Chu Susu to turn around, facing the paintings on the right half of the wall directly.
In every one, Chu Susu wore an expression of disheveled endurance, as if tormented by something unbearable, on the verge of surrender in the next second.
Beside her, another figure was faintly visible—it wasn’t hard to tell who it was.
Or rather, who else could it be but Han Xuan?
Undoubtedly, the artist had deliberately rendered the scenes provocative. No, it went beyond mere suggestion—gorgeous and lascivious, decadent and unrestrained.
“You…” She looked at her fragile, helpless self in the paintings, her voice trembling slightly. “Why did you paint these?!”
And so realistically—every stroke vividly lifelike.
Han Xuan took another step forward.
“Let me tell you a secret. I’m a realist.”
“Everything is something that really happened.”
Her voice was clearly close at hand, yet as she slightly lowered her head, it felt like it came from far away.
“Aren’t you trying to recover your memories? Then I’ll tell you, one painting at a time.”
Her fingertip hovered in the air, pointing vaguely.
“That one in the upper left is our first time.”
Han Xuan pinched Chu Susu’s chin from behind, lifting her head to the perfect angle to see that painting.
The instant their gazes overlapped, Chu Susu suddenly recalled a dream she had once had, as if instantly transported back to that spring day with its light drizzle.
Nervous her, clumsy Han Xuan—both green and inexperienced, fumbling to learn everything.
But the result had been surprisingly good.
Chu Susu’s patient gown had somehow come half-open, peeling away just like in her memory to reveal the skin beneath.
Pale to an extreme at first, but now faintly flushed from the other woman’s fingertips lightly tracing her collarbone.
“The one next to it is our first time changing positions.”
In the painting, a slightly younger-faced Chu Susu seemed half-kneeling somewhere, though her lower body was out of frame, leaving only guesswork to fill it in.
Her elbows dug into the wooden board before her as if embedding into it, but with such a small fulcrum, they still swayed unavoidably back and forth.
“You loved it back then. Want to try it again now?”
Caught off guard, Chu Susu shoved forward, her whole body leaning against the easel she had just knocked over.
She could feel the surroundings growing icy—not from the room temperature, but from the vanishing fabric.
Her tone was calm, yet surging with undercurrents:
“You’ll probably react the same way as back then—crying on the surface, but secretly enjoying it deep down.”
She couldn’t see Han Xuan’s expression, only feel her like a butterfly with wings fully spread, perched domineeringly atop her from above, utterly unrestrained.
“Not refusing?”
Chu Susu heard Han Xuan whisper this in her ear.
Her body against the easel trembled slightly, yet it didn’t shove her away as she had expected.
Chu Susu had thought she’d feel utter disgust and rebuke Han Xuan on the spot, but the instinct ingrained in her body—one accustomed to letting the other take the lead—made it impossible.
She closed her eyes in agony. She knew Han Xuan wasn’t lying—her own reaction proved everything.
Those paintings were real. Han Xuan’s words were real.
Things like this had happened between them countless times.
She had lost her memories, yet she just knew.
They were far more intimate than she had ever imagined.
An intimacy unrelated to lust or emotions, purely driven by a subconscious instinct buried in her blood.
So even as Han Xuan guided her to recreate every scene from the paintings one by one, Chu Susu didn’t refuse.
The rain outside grew heavier.
Midnight on New Year’s had passed; the public new year had just arrived, heralding the end of winter not far off, with spring within easy reach.
The studio windows were clearly shut, yet rainwater slowly seeped in.
No—that wasn’t right. They weren’t even inside a building. So where was this rain coming from, dripping down her fingers onto the floor?
As she sank into near-unconscious immersion, Chu Susu felt a warm liquid splash onto her back.
It was Han Xuan’s tears.
In her impressions, Han Xuan had never cried in front of her no matter what, not even in the fragmented memories that occasionally surfaced.
Even now, moved to tears, she held back and restrained herself, utterly silent.
Chu Susu gazed at her reflection in the window glass, eyes glazed over, yet still able to make out the person behind her. They pressed together, Han Xuan’s left hand wrapped tightly around her from behind.
“Why?”
Her breathing unsteady, fragmented.
“Back then, why did you send me that text, but never show up?”
High school-era Chu Susu had waited so, so long—even surrounded by teachers and parents, even after one disappointment after another, she never gave up, stubbornly clinging to hope for an answer.
“Where did my star go?”
The words fell like raindrops on the ground outside the window, reaching both their ears, yet no response came for a long time.
She knew Han Xuan had heard, but she still chose silence.
The only thing she could feel was the tears streaming down her neck growing more abundant, just like the increasingly thick layer of accumulated water outside the window, which she knew was building up even without looking.
After a very, very long time, Chu Susu finally heard a pained and despairing apology:
“I’m sorry.”
Chu Susu continued staring blankly at the window.
It seemed she herself had started crying too.
