Xie Luohe turned, presenting her back to him. Her mind was a mess of conflicting thoughts. She clenched her fists. The long arrow at her feet began to tremble faintly, mirroring the turmoil in her heart. With each slight tremor, fine cracks spread outward across the stone surface around the fletching.
Time passed quietly.
「In the blink of an eye, it was noon.」
Zheng Xiu took longer to paint than expected. But with one person immersed in his art and the other lost in unspeakable turmoil, neither noticed the time slip by.
"Done."
Zheng Xiu let out a long sigh, placing his brush upon its rest.
Xie Luohe opened her eyes. With a casual gesture of her right hand, the long arrow embedded in the stone wall trembled, pulled itself free, and flew into her grasp.
A smile on her face, Xie Luohe walked barefoot across the flowerbed toward Zheng Xiu.
'Let's see just who this Scholar painted.'
