Chapter 98: The Black Pond, Sunflowers at Dusk

Lishui.

Hailanjing was at the old house construction site, talking with the designer about the house plans.

Then the phone rang.

"Sister Whale!"

"What is it, Tongtong?" Hailanjing asked the little front-desk girl at the Dali hotel.

"Sister Whale, the newest issue of Lonely Planet that you asked me to order last time has arrived... should I mail it to you, or would you like to buy a copy first?" the front-desk girl said.

"Right now I’m deep in the mountains. Where do you expect me to buy one? Do this for me: turn to the Dali page with Lin Shenlu’s piece in the magazine, then take photos of every page and send them all to me!" Hailanjing said.

"Oh, oh, right, of course... why didn’t I think of that?"

...

Not long after hanging up, Hailanjing received more than a dozen photos on WeChat.

The images were crystal clear, sending every line of text in the magazine and all the accompanying pictures.

Hailanjing moved aside, sat down on a little wooden stool, and began to use her fingers to enlarge the photos one by one. She studied each paragraph carefully, savoring every picture in detail.

After nearly twenty minutes, Hailanjing still had not said a word, only biting her lip in silence.

That damned Lin Shenlu.

As one of the people who accounted for a third of the Dali storyline... she had only gotten a single photo, and it was from behind?

That was extremely upsetting.

A little annoyed, Hailanjing closed her phone and tilted her head back to look at the sun.

Hmm... so now they were in Lishui, right?

The manuscript still wasn’t finished, was it?

An Muxi wasn’t in Lishui, was she?

Surely Lin Shenlu couldn’t use that silly girl Su Bao'er as a model, could he?

Hailanjing let out a soft snort and called Lin Shenlu.

"Lin Shenlu, I only have one demand!"

"What now?" Lin Shenlu on the other end sounded thoroughly baffled.

"I don’t care, but I want to be in the Lishui issue of Lonely Planet!" Hailanjing said fiercely.

Her voice was so fierce-cute it was adorable.

"Uh... what kind of request is that? I’m almost at the end of the article..."

"I don’t care. Tomorrow you’re taking me out to take pictures... and replace every photo in the entire piece with me!"

"Sister... I’m submitting this to a magazine. Do you think I’m setting up a QZone page? Replace every single photo with yours..." Lin Shenlu laughed.

"Lin Shenlu, just say whether you’re going to do it or not."

Hailanjing suddenly turned very serious.

"Well... replacing all of them is impossible. How about I add a close-up of you?"

Hailanjing gave a light snort, which was as good as agreeing to the idea.

But that one photo absolutely had to be stunning.

...

Lin Shenlu thought it over.

He seemed to recall telling An Muxi that the second Lonely Planet article didn’t need a model.

But Hailanjing was already furious. If it were only one photo...

Then Lin Shenlu had an idea.

They would wait until Hailanjing’s Whale-Deer Inn was built.

That would count as a bit of free publicity for her.

At the end of his Lishui piece, Lin Shenlu smiled.

Come to think of it, had the magazine already been published?

No wonder Hailanjing had reacted so strongly.

For now, Lin Shenlu had no way to buy a copy. He would wait until he left Lishui; in a few days, the editor Tiger Fang would send him feedback anyway.

Lin Shenlu was not worried. He believed in his article and his photographs.

Even within Lonely Planet, the world’s largest travel magazine, his work was distinctive and second to none.

The Dali chapter had been about love and pursuit.

The Lishui chapter, by contrast, was about nature and innocence.

They were completely different styles.

Once he had time over the next few days, he would finish the ending of the Lishui chapter as well, and then he could move on to the next place.

After all, he had already been living in Lishui for more than ten days.

Lin Shenlu was actually looking forward to setting out again.

...

That evening, when he returned to the courtyard, Xiaoshou finally woke up from his hangover. No one knew exactly how much he had drunk the night before; he rubbed his head groggily just as Lin Shenlu came back.

After greeting everyone, Lin Shenlu was immediately stunned by Qi Nai, who was still painting on the wall.

After a day of work, one side of the wall had already taken shape.

The overall composition had been set.

And only a third of the full image had been completed.

The very first thing Qi Nai had painted was that huge expanse of black wall.

It was as if she were continuing the theme of darkness.

That vast field of black had been transformed by her into a pond.

A black pond.

Inside the pond were several ink-dark lotus leaves, along with a few broken brown branches, and in the left third of the water there was a large blossom in full bloom.

A sunflower.

A black pond, dark green leaves, a yellow sunflower.

Several elements that should never have matched were now brought together.

The higher black area had been painted into a distant forest.

A black forest.

A moon shone from far away through the leafless black trees.

The small patch of black at the very top had been painted into an old crow.

The crow seemed to be crying out lonely beneath the moonlight.

And the sunflower waited in the black pond for dawn to grow.

This painting... truly shocked Lin Shenlu.

Of course, Xiaoshou was shocked as well.

"Qi Nai... what exactly are you painting?" Xiaoshou asked curiously.

Qi Nai gently set down her brush and turned to look at him.

"This old crow is you. This sunflower is me..." Qi Nai said quietly.

"Then what about this pond?" Xiaoshou asked.

"The pond is your book... I’m so deeply immersed in your book that I can’t pull myself out, and I can only wait for the sun to come." As she spoke, Qi Nai smiled.

Then she turned to Lin Shenlu.

"What do you think?" Qi Nai asked.

"Masterful," Lin Shenlu said, giving her a thumbs-up.

To create such a large work with such artistic depth and meaning was truly rare.

Especially the sunflower planted in the black pond—that was an extremely bold idea.

What was remarkable was how well Qi Nai had fused it all together.

"I don’t get it... art and art don’t necessarily merge. I’m just a romance writer for dog food; I can’t appreciate it," Xiaoshou said, shaking his head.

Qi Nai’s expression changed at once. In a swift motion, she flicked her brush toward Xiaoshou’s face.

Black ink ran straight from Xiaoshou’s forehead down to his chin.

A single black stroke split his face in two.

Xiaoshou jumped in alarm.

"I spent the whole day working on this, and you still don’t understand?" Qi Nai said indignantly.

"Uh... that’s not what I meant... I know you worked hard, so how about you go to bed early tonight?" Xiaoshou hurried to explain.

"Tonight I’m sleeping in Wu Heng’s room!" Qi Nai threw down her brush, snorted, and went back inside.

Xiaoshou looked miserable. "No way! I was drunk last night..."

...

Lin Shenlu smiled and shook his head.

Those two were rather amusing.

Looking closely at the mural on the wall, he nodded.

He was very much in favor of inviting Qi Nai to the new inn for a live painting exchange.

A random wild writer he had met could actually produce such a profound work.

Lin Shenlu could not help but look forward with great anticipation to the feast he had planned.

He only hoped that Hailanjing’s meeting with the cultural department that afternoon had gone well.

Only then would this journey through Lishui truly end on a perfect note.

Lin Shenlu suddenly realized that he had found the true meaning of travel.

That was to leave something behind in a city, proof that he had been there.