Wang Linzhou sent the other party an address and set a time for the interview. He got up, laughing it off with the group, and left the private room too.
He glanced at Lin Yi beside him, who still looked a bit under the weather, and jingled the car keys in his hand. “How’d you get here? Want me to drive you?”
Lin Yi was typing a reply without looking up. “No need. My girlfriend’s nearby, she’s coming to pick me up.”
Wang Linzhou: “Tch.”
He narrowed his eyes, voice dripping with feigned melancholy. “Yo, Old Master Lin here, mooching off his girlfriend and still so righteous about it.”
Lin Yi, unbothered: “Jealous you can’t get a taste?”
A certain single dog gritted his teeth in fury, gave him a punch, and drove back to the studio in a huff.
Seven years had passed. Linglang Studio had long since moved, no longer that cramped little room next to the materials-cutting workshop.
After the other three had left, Wang Linzhou ran the studio by himself, later hiring more people. Counting himself, the studio now had about a dozen people.
The address had moved a few more times along the way, and for the past two years it had settled into a floor of an office building in the center of Qinghuai District.
When the others all left, he’d thought about quitting too—going back to living an orderly life, graduating and getting into some big company, maybe even scraping together a promotion to some junior manager position.
Besides, back when they were coding, he’d been the weakest of the group, with worse results than the others too. With the core people all gone, what reason did he have to keep going?
But for some reason, there was just this drive in his chest. Restless, unbearable, some feeling he couldn’t quite explain.
He just didn’t want to leave.
Over the years, the studio hadn’t made money, and there’d been several times it nearly shut down, only barely scraping by. His family had scolded him more times than he could count.
Online and offline, it was always the same script—he wasn’t young anymore, better settle down soon, find a stable job, get married, live properly.
Wang Linzhou stepped into the elevator and suddenly let out a laugh.
Honestly, even he hadn’t expected himself to turn out to be someone with this much perseverance.
Back in the day, the others used to say he only had three minutes of enthusiasm for anything—whatever he did, whatever he liked, he’d toss it out of his mind the moment the interest wore off. Lazy, all talk, never serious about anything.
The elevator doors opened. Above the double glass doors past the reception desk hung the artfully lettered “Linglang.”
Wang Linzhou pushed the door open lazily and walked in. Lunch break had just ended, and a few “corpses” at their workstations were stretching stiff backs awake, faces waxy pale, dark circles under their eyes, like they’d had their life force sucked out of them.
“Yo, Young Master Wang’s back from goofing off.”
“Went out to eat something good by yourself, left us waiting here in the cold cellar. Sigh.”
Wang Linzhou glanced at them and set the milk tea he was carrying down on the table. The group immediately swarmed over, grinning, to divvy it up.
“Young Master Wang, so generous!”
Wang Linzhou braced a hand on the edge of the desk, bent over to look at the computer screen, and turned serious. “How’s it going right now?”
The delicate-looking young man had a red mark pressed into his face; he wiped his glasses and put them back on, the game screen reflected in the lenses. Calmly: “Still fixing the old ones, and we’ve found dozens more bugs. Working on it.”
Wang Linzhou stood up. “Alright, Lone Wolf, keep at it.” black lotus novel Novel Chapter | BlackLotusNovel
Sister Hua was handing out the milk teas, setting one down in front of him.
The young man glanced down—iced Americano. “Why’s mine coffee?”
Wang Linzhou patted his shoulder. “What’s a young man doing sleeping? Get up and get hyped.”
Lone Wolf: “…”
They messed around for a bit, tossed out some banter, and the mood lightened considerably before everyone got back to work.
Wang Linzhou went back to his own office and sat down in his chair.
While his computer was booting up, he casually picked up a novel from the bookshelf behind him.
It was a romance novel from many years back, the plastic wrap still unopened. The cover’s overall tone was grayish blue, dotted with the pale yellow of glowing moss.
A rainy night, dim and dark, passersby hurrying along.
In a dark, dilapidated alley, a boy covered in wounds leaned against the wall, sitting in the corner. The wet ground pooled with rainwater, reflecting the faint glow of a window peeking in from somewhere.
The rain overhead was blocked by an umbrella’s edge. The boy raised his head, and his gaze suddenly met that of the girl in a white dress standing before him.
Wang Linzhou stared at the cover for a moment, then picked up his phone, opened Weibo, scrolled for a while, and found that account with tens of thousands of followers.
The latest post was still frozen at ten years ago.
When he was a teenager, just starting high school and not yet enlightened, he’d had a bit of a chuunibyou phase, liked reading novels and watching anime, went around online acting tough with everyone.
The reason he knew Jan was because of this very novel. Back then he’d been a diehard fan, reading it under the covers late at night, crying his eyes out.
Naturally he bought it when it got published. When he saw the cover and the accompanying illustrations, he was stunned speechless.
At the time there was only one thought in his head: holy shit, incredible.
How could someone draw like this? It hit him right in the heart, even more astonishing than the images he’d imagined while reading.
Then he wanted to know who’d drawn it, traced it back, and found Jan.
And then he was hooked.
You know what? This person would even draw for fans for free sometimes, drawing their favorite characters, with a style so exquisitely beautiful, never half-assed. Wasn’t that basically raising loyal retainers?
Back then, every time Jan posted new artwork, he’d be right there with the crowd, screeching along underneath, gushing praise like crazy.
The first month after Jan disappeared, he figured real life must just be busy, no time to manage the account. Then half a year passed, then two years, and he’d made it to college.
Just like that, waiting and waiting, ten years had gone by.
Probably drawing was just a small part of Jan’s hobbies, he thought.
Jan’s art style always gave off a sense of calm, of steadiness—dense, fine details piled up without ever feeling cluttered, delicate brushwork, imbued with a kind of stillness like the settling weight of years, every piece bursting with narrative.
Though Jan had never revealed age or gender, he figured the person was probably a mature woman in her thirties or forties who’d been through a lot.
As for what that person on the job app had said—he hadn’t believed it at all.
The resume said the age was eighteen. Ten years ago, already taking commissioned work at this level? What, an eight-year-old prodigy?
Obviously just some inexperienced kid, worried about not finding work, who’d dug up some old images online to pad things out. He just happened to know better.
In his years running the studio, he’d seen plenty of that kind of thing and hadn’t thought much of it.
At three o’clock, when the person came in for the interview, Wang Linzhou was in the middle of gesturing and discussing something with the concept art team. He glanced over sideways.
She was wearing a light blue dress, her slightly wavy long hair falling behind her shoulders, amber eyes calm and steady. She looked like a fairly quiet kid.
Too busy to step away, Wang Linzhou sat down with her at a nearby empty workstation and started chatting. “Jian Nian, right?”
“We’ve already covered the other questions online, so I won’t beat around the bush—I mainly want to see what level you’re at.”
He turned on the computer and pulled up some promotional images made by the previous artist, walking her through them. “The usual work here is making promotional art for games—atmospheric watercolor pieces, plain silhouette art, chibi characters, comic strips, that sort of thing.”
He clicked around and pulled up a few game character models and concept art. He circled one watercolor silhouette atmosphere piece made by the previous artist.
He slid the tablet over to her and got out of the way. “Give it a try, going by this standard.”
With that, he left her the space and went off to handle other things.
Jian Nian had been a little nervous about the interview beforehand. These past few days she’d gotten quite familiar with the art of packaging a resume, but the art of talking hadn’t quite clicked yet.
Watching him leave, she relaxed slightly.
She sat down at the computer, stared at the watercolor-style ancient-fantasy silhouette figure on the screen for a moment, opened the drawing software, and started a new canvas.
Seven years on, the drawing software had changed quite a bit too, with lots of new features. Jian Nian picked up the tablet pen, took a moment to adjust, picked out a suitable brush, and began drawing.
Her workstation was in the corner, and she drew there quietly, alone. black lotus Novel Chapters | Black Lotus Novel
In between his busy tasks, Wang Linzhou glanced over as he passed.
She’d gotten through less than half of it, drawn properly and methodically, stroke by careful stroke. Clearly inexperienced, copying the silhouette image on the other screen like tracing a gourd from a template.
He couldn’t quite put his finger on what he was feeling—like some stone had settled into place—and Wang Linzhou let out a sudden laugh.
That she’d managed to find Jan’s art at all said she had decent taste, at least.
As he looked away, he suddenly noticed the red string tied around her wrist… and suddenly remembered—Brother Lu used to always wear a red string like that too.
He shook his head to clear the thought and turned back to his work.
As it turned out, he got busy enough that the sun went down and the sky turned dark before he remembered Jian Nian again.
He went over to the concept art area to check, and the girl was still at the computer, drawing away quietly, pen in hand.
Just a simple watercolor silhouette, and she still wasn’t done?
Wang Linzhou walked over, puzzled, and cast his gaze at the computer screen—then froze once he made it out clearly.
The canvas was filled with ink-wash black and white, real and unreal intertwined, a style startlingly, achingly familiar.
A zither player sat beneath a pavilion playing, a girl in tight martial attire biting a bamboo leaf between her teeth, hands cushioning the back of her head, lounging carelessly against the pavilion’s edge.
A spear stuck in the soft mud, bamboo leaves scattering freely, lifted by the wind, drifting along with the stream’s current.
Neither figure had a face—just a hazy ink-wash silhouette—and yet somehow you could still see the lively expression in it.
Jian Nian saw him coming and quickly set down her pen, closed out the side project she’d been doodling to pass time, and pulled up the piece he’d actually asked for.
It had taken so long that, having finished the watercolor silhouette, she’d gone ahead and also drawn chibi versions of the two ancient-style figures, all according to the previous artist’s standard.
“Does this work?” she asked, pressing her lips together, unusually nervous.
The man standing beside her said nothing.
He just stood there, mouth slightly open, looking at her with a strange expression: “…”
Jian Nian grew even more nervous.
The man took the mouse and pulled up her side project—the ink-wash painting—staring at it intently, as if studying it. That familiar art style, that familiar sense of story.
After a long moment, he looked at her, disbelieving. “Wait, that piece—you really drew that?”
Jian Nian nodded honestly on reflex.
Two seconds later, she suddenly realized the problem. That’s right—in her own mind, those pieces had been drawn back when she was a teenager, but to everyone else, it looked like…
“Holy shit.” Wang Linzhou muttered lowly. “There really is an eight-year-old prodigy.”
Jian Nian: “…”
She silently looked away and pinched her fingers together. So embarrassing.
Still, in the end, the interview went well. Wang Linzhou discussed it with her, and she’d start work on Monday.
Wang Linzhou glanced at the darkened sky outside. “It’s getting late, better head home.”
The rest of the studio staff had already left. The two of them rode the elevator down together and walked out of the office building.
This area bordered a commercial street, night market food stalls already set up down below, the air thick with fragrant smells.
It had been raining a lot in Wu City these past few days, and today was overcast too.
The temperature was dropping tonight, and this spot was a wind tunnel besides. Before they’d even made it out the door, a cold gust blew through and Jian Nian couldn’t help but shiver.
Wang Linzhou glanced at her, took off his jacket, and held it out to her. “Here, put this on. It’s always windy around here.”
Before Jian Nian could refuse, he’d already stuffed it into her hands.
Wang Linzhou looked at Jian Nian—he really hadn’t expected Jan to be this kind of young girl, unbelievable. Recalling his own chuunibyou phase back then, he couldn’t help laughing.
“I used to be your fan too, you know. Always rolling around in your Weibo comments. Hey, why’d you stop updating after that?”
Jian Nian was silent for a moment. “Went to study.”
Wang Linzhou: “…”
Oh right. Eight years old—about the age to start elementary school.
He used to imagine all sorts of dramatic, tortured life circumstances behind it, never expecting the real reason to be this reasonable and mundane.
The more Wang Linzhou thought about it, the funnier it got, until he couldn’t hold it in anymore, leaning his head against the glass door, laughing so hard his stomach hurt.
Jian Nian didn’t particularly like wearing other people’s jackets. She was holding it out, about to give it back to him, when she heard the sound of a rooster crowing.
She turned her head: ?
Wang Linzhou waved his hands frantically, turning to walk out the door. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing, let’s go.” · BLACK LOTUS Novel · Black Lotus Novel
Jian Nian meant to catch up and hand the jacket back to him, when she suddenly heard his voice, shocked.
He’d stopped in place, staring in one direction.
“Brother Lu?”
Jian Nian startled, raised her eyes, and followed his gaze.
The night was dim, and amid the clamor of the surrounding shops, she found herself, unprepared, meeting a pair of dark, gloomy eyes.
