After her third follow-up appointment, Yinghua Xu returned home.
The studio was as quiet as ever.
The air was thick with the mingled scents of paint and turpentine, and unfinished paintings filled the room.
She set her art bag aside and stood before the easel, motionless for a long time.
The words Tingmian Shen had spoken before leaving kept resurfacing in her mind.
“Before you come back next time, try painting who you are now.”
She picked up a brush and laid the first stroke across the blank canvas.
Before long, she stopped again.
Frowning, she took the canvas down, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it into the corner.
Then she put up a second.
A third.
A fourth.
The discarded sheets piled higher and higher across the floor.
She could paint the rainstorm.
She could paint the shattered car window.
She could paint the car accident that had trapped her for twenty years.
But she could not paint who she was now.
Yinghua Xu stared at the person in the mirror.
The person before her felt strangely unfamiliar.
She knew her name.
She knew her profession.
She knew she was the genius painter everyone called her.
But…
If she stopped painting that rain,
what would she have left?
Just then, the phone on the desk suddenly rang.
It was her agent.
“Yinghua, preparations for next month’s exhibition have already begun.”
“A lot of collectors are waiting for your new work.”
“If possible, everyone still hopes you’ll continue painting the ‘Rainstorm Series.’”
Yinghua Xu was silent for several seconds.
In the end, she answered quietly:
“…I understand.”
After she hung up, the studio fell silent again.
She stared at the pristine white canvas before her.
For the first time, she did not pick up her brush.
She slowly closed her eyes. She didn’t know how much time had passed.
Tingmian Shen’s voice echoed through her mind once more.
“You don’t have to paint the seven-year-old you.”
“Paint who you are now.”
Yinghua Xu took a deep breath and picked up her brush again.
This time, she did not paint the rain.
She did not paint the car accident.
And she did not paint the little girl standing in the rainstorm.
Slowly, a cup of warm water appeared on the canvas.
A soft sofa.
A window spilling sunlight into the room.
And the lush green monstera beside the window.
Only when she laid down the final stroke did she stare blankly at the painting before her.
She had not set out to paint it.
Yet, little by little, she had painted that therapy room.
Yinghua Xu gazed at the painting for a long time without saying a word.
At last, she carefully set it aside.
Then she said softly,
“Next time… I’ll show it to her.”
A light rain was still drifting outside the window.
She walked over to it without drawing the curtains.
She simply gazed at the sky in silence, letting the weak sunlight pass through the clouds and fall into the studio.