Before she was jolted awake by her body clock, Jian Nian had already opened her eyes.
She got up, went to the bathroom to wash up.
The small mirror reflected her image back at her. A face tinged with a sickly pallor, water droplets sliding down her sharp, thin chin, calm amber eyes, long hair curling slightly as it fell.
Like a silent doll, meant to be posed however others liked.
She stared at her reflection for a moment, then looked away.
Breakfast-lunch was in the fridge. Jian Nian followed the way he’d taught her yesterday, turned on the gas, heated up the food.
After eating, she carried the plate to the sink to wash it. Maybe she’d used too much dish soap—the more she washed, the more bubbles there were. The spoon slipped from her hands as she scrubbed it and fell into the sink; she reached in to fish it out, and accidentally knocked the plate she’d just washed back in too.
“……”
After some struggling, she finally got the clean dishes onto the rack.
Jian Nian let out a breath and left the kitchen.
School had a lot of exams. Her stage test scores sat on the desk, barely passing. The textbook lay open, covered densely in markings, the scratch paper a mess of tangled work that led nowhere.
She changed into the clothes he’d laid out for her the night before, turned off the AC and the lights, and walked out of the apartment.
Head down, she sent him the one message besides the usual “checking up on you, what are you doing” copy-paste.
——[Let’s break up.]
Summer in Huai City was brutally hot, and the heat had already started building by morning. Some old folks sat in the shade of trees below the apartment complex, playing chess.
Jian Nian walked with her head down, following the map, down the street with no streetlights, waited a while at the bus stop, and got on.
The bus didn’t go straight there—she had to transfer once before reaching the high-speed rail station.
Half an hour before departure, she followed the person ahead of her, queuing, security check, waiting room, step by step finding her seat, setting off.
Outside the window, the scenery gradually left behind Huai City’s high-rises, entering a tunnel through the mountains.
…Would this count as running away from home?
Jian Nian wasn’t quite sure, but this was the first time she’d done something like this. Walking out the door, going to another city.
The train stopped at Wu City Station.
A backward little city nestled in the middle of the mountains. Craggy peaks rose all around, the mountain roads winding.
Wu City’s old town. Under blue-tiled roofs lining the streets, a row of vendors manned bright red snack carts, loudspeakers blaring a chaotic din of hawking.
Under the stone bridge, the river rippled with light. Children ran shrieking across it, chasing each other.
Jian Nian hadn’t reached her destination yet when the rain started.
The sky clouded over, thick and dark. At first it was just a fine drizzle drifting down, but within a few breaths it suddenly turned into a downpour.
Jian Nian had no choice but to stop, taking shelter under an eave by the roadside.
The air, stifling just moments ago, had dropped sharply in temperature. Weak-bodied as she was, getting caught in the rain left her a little chilled. Jian Nian pressed her lips together and coughed softly, her face turning paler still.
She was watching the rain fall in a fine drizzle when an old man’s voice suddenly rang out. — B L A C K L O T U S Novel Translations · Black Lotus
“Hey, the rain’s blowing in here—why are you standing out there for?”
Jian Nian turned her head. It was an old-fashioned sugar painting stall. Inside, shelves held finished sugar paintings—the twelve zodiac animals rendered lifelike, along with some sugar figurines. Amid the damp smell of rain, a hint of sugary sweetness drifted out.
The one speaking was a spry old man, his brows arching as he opened his mouth to grumble: “What’s wrong with you, girl, not running inside when it rains?”
Grumbling all the while, he pulled her into the stall, found her a towel, then fished a bottled Wahaha puppy drink out of a basin of hot water and shoved it into her hands.
Jian Nian cradled the warm little puppy bottle, staring at the dog on the label, a bit at a loss. She slowly stuck in the straw and took a tentative, small sip.
The label said yogurt, but it didn’t quite taste like it—very thin, the flavor leaning sweet and sour.
The old man was working an abacus behind the counter. He glanced up. “What, never had this before? You’re like a cat.”
“Mm.” Jian Nian let out a soft hum. “My mom doesn’t let me eat things like this.”
She raised her calm eyes. “How much is this? I’ll transfer you the money.”
The old man: “……”
He clicked his tongue and waved a hand. “It’s not worth anything. It’s on me, just drink it.”
Perhaps because it had been a long time since he’d had anyone to talk to, the old man sat behind the counter and struck up a conversation with her, chatting idly.
He said he had a granddaughter too, quite clever, cleverer than her—knew to come home when it rained, and helped him with the accounts. She was studying in a big city now.
He had a grandson too, but that one was hopeless—dumb as a rock, dumber than her, couldn’t even work out addition and subtraction.
Jian Nian sipped her puppy yogurt slowly, listening quietly.
A customer came in wanting an animal sugar painting. The old man began melting the sugar, his hand practiced and sure, lifting the sugar ladle and sketching a few strokes that brought a little animal vividly to life. The customer left satisfied, holding up a sugar fox with a charmingly dopey expression.
The old man looked up and caught Jian Nian staring. “Melted too much sugar, don’t want to waste it—want me to paint you something? A little pig? A tiger?”
Jian Nian stared at the sugar ladle. “Can I try?”
The old man let out a dry laugh and stepped aside, waving a hand. “Go on, then.”
Jian Nian held the ladle, scooped up a spoonful of syrup. The clear amber syrup was light as fine thread, falling in wisps onto the marble slab.
The old man’s expression, which had started out amused, like he was watching a kid play around, gradually shifted to surprise. “Lift it higher, it’ll come out thinner. Don’t let your hand shake. Move a bit faster.”
The clear amber syrup drizzled down in fine threads, slowly tracing out a corner of the old town’s scenery—a stone bridge, a willow-lined bank. By the river, a tabby cat carried a koi in its mouth, walking past with its head held high and chest puffed out.
On the stone bridge, passersby walked along as usual, willow branches trailing in wisps.
She hadn’t got the control right—it came out rough and unpracticed, the syrup threads too thin to even lift off the slab and stick to the stick.
But going by the eyes of an old man who’d been painting sugar art for decades, it was clear the skill behind it was no small thing—a genuinely beautiful piece. Being able to recreate the original scene of the stone bridge purely from memory, and with syrup that was this hard to control besides—that took real foundation.
“Not bad, I guess.”
The old man grunted. “You learn painting?”
Jian Nian shook her head, said softly, “I just used to teach myself, fooling around with it. Haven’t painted in years.”
“Taught yourself? Then why’d you stop? Isn’t that just a waste—” The old man suddenly seemed to realize something and shut his mouth.
After a moment, he clicked his tongue again, alone, tugging at his mustache.
Jian Nian set down the ladle and took another sip of her puppy yogurt.
There wasn’t really any special reason for it.
A few years back, her mom had decided she was wasting her potential on idle pursuits, and tore up her drawings. She hadn’t touched a paintbrush since.
The sky gradually darkened, but the rain never let up. — black lotus novel Novel Chapters | BlackLotusNovel
The old man lent her an umbrella—a child’s folding umbrella he dug out of a crumpled plastic bag, looking like it had seen some years.
Jian Nian opened the little red umbrella, shook off its musty smell. As she left the sugar painting stall, the old man stuffed another warm bottle of puppy Wahaha into her bag.
He waved her off, grumbling: “Go on, get going. Next time it rains, don’t forget to run home.”
