Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Spring comes early to Jiangnan.

The old Gu Family residence was located in a small town by the water. Half of the front gate had long since collapsed, but the loquat tree in the courtyard was still alive. The old servant’s surname was Zhou; he was over seventy years old, and while his hearing was poor, his eyes were still bright.

I told him I had been entrusted by someone to deliver an old painting.

Uncle Zhou’s hands shook violently as he took the portrait.

It was a painting of Gu Huaibi that I had recreated from memory. A sixteen-year-old youth in the cold garments of the Northern Prison, his eyes clear and bright. On the back of the portrait, I didn’t write “Returning Home” again. I simply wrote: Gu Huaibi has returned.

Uncle Zhou stared at it for a long time before suddenly falling to his knees, weeping like a child.

“It looks just like him, so much like him,” he said. “If the Young Master had been able to grow up, he would have been such a clean, upright person.”

I stood beneath the loquat tree and did not tell him that the Young Master had actually seen spring in another way. He had seen the snowy nights of the capital, seen the Grand Princess smile, and witnessed many sins he should never have had to bear.

As I was leaving the Gu residence, Uncle Zhou gave me a small bronze mirror, saying it was something Gu Huaibi had used when he was a child.

I initially didn’t want to accept it, but he insisted. “Sir, you delivered the painting for him. Please take this as a token of gratitude.”

I took the bronze mirror back to the boat.

The twilight fell upon the water’s surface like a layer of gentle, aged gold. I opened the mirror and saw my current face reflected within. Ordinary, unfamiliar, and belonging only to myself.

But just before I closed it, the light on the mirror’s surface shifted slightly, and the silhouette of the young Gu Huaibi emerged.

He stood behind me, still wearing those cold clothes from the Northern Prison, but he no longer seemed cold.

He said, “Shen Yan, this time, it really was delivered.”

I turned around, but the cabin was empty.

When I looked back at the mirror, there was only my own face.

After returning to the capital, I opened a small painting shop in the southern part of the city. The shop wasn’t large, and I only painted two kinds of portraits: those for the living, and those for people searching for lost kin.

When someone brought the old clothes of a child who had been missing for years, I would use my skills to reconstruct from memory what they would look like grown up; when someone brought a wooden hairpin belonging to a deceased wife, I would paint her as she looked when she loved to smile most. After finishing, I would always tell them, “A painting is just a painting. It cannot preserve a life, nor can it replace a person. You can look at it when you miss them, but do not let yourself be trapped inside.”

Xiao Lingyi would occasionally visit in plain clothes. She no longer asked if I dared to take her away, because we both knew that some people do not need to escape the palace walls to keep The Door open for themselves in their hearts.

Another year passed, and it was the Lantern Festival. The streets were as bright as day with lanterns.

A woman wearing a veiled hat walked into the shop. When she removed it, her face was covered in scars. It was Liu Ah Ruan.

She said she had gone home. At first, her mother had been frightened to tears, but later, as she touched Liu Ah Ruan’s face, she wept again. Her younger brother’s illness had improved, and he was now able to help others transcribe books.

“Sir,” she said, placing a plain white lantern on the table, “Miss Xie asked me to bring this to you.”

I was stunned.

Liu Ah Ruan said, “I dreamed of her. She said she doesn’t blame me. She also said that if I saw you, I should ask if that funerary portrait of hers has been burned yet.”

I looked toward the corner of the room.

A sealed wooden box sat there. Inside were the last three paintings I had kept: my mother Shen Yuan, the unfinished funerary portrait of the Grand Princess, and the duplicate of Xie Wanning.

I remained silent for a moment before taking out Xie Wanning’s portrait and lighting it over the lantern.

The silk paper curled, and the features of the woman in the painting gradually dissolved in the fire. As the last wisp of green smoke rose, I thought I heard someone let out a soft laugh.

After Liu Ah Ruan left, Xiao Lingyi stepped out from behind the screen.

She asked, “Can you bear to part with it?”

I replied, “I should have let go long ago.”

She looked at me and suddenly reached out to touch my face.

“What about this one?”

I took her hand.

“This one is not for loan, not for exchange, and not for sale.”

Outside the window, a river of lanterns flowed through the long street, illuminating countless faces passing by. Every single one was different, and every single one belonged only to itself.

I once thought my brush could preserve the final dignity of the dead. Only later did I realize that some forms of dignity are not about preserving a face, but about returning a name to a person, a home to a soul, and a life to the living.

As for the face I have now, it is quite ordinary.

But finally, I dare to use it to meet all my old friends.