Their first meeting was in Venice.

At least, that was how Tian Xiuzhu remembered it.

That year, he had been invited to participate in the Venice Biennale — an artistic carnival celebrated alongside the Kassel Documenta and the São Paulo Biennial as one of the “World’s Three Great Art Exhibitions.”

The event drew hundreds of thousands of visitors, many of them tourists who had simply come to see the spectacle. At peak hours, several of the major viewing areas were packed beyond capacity. Among the visitors were many students — art school students made up the overwhelming majority — and a handful of others who had wandered in with nothing better to do.

She was one of them.

He could tell because he had been watching for some time. He was sitting in a café with two curators, making idle conversation, though the topic of sales commissions held little interest for him. He sipped his coffee and quietly withdrew from the discussion. Just then, a group of tourists passing outside caught his attention.

They were clearly students. Four girls — three of them blond-haired, blue-eyed Westerners — which made the one with black hair stand out all the more. They were trying to squeeze into the crowd to see The Tempest, the prized masterpiece of the Gallerie dell’Accademia. The painting was rarely lent for outside exhibition, and everyone wanted a glimpse of it, but the girls couldn’t push their way through.

She rose onto her tiptoes, realized she still couldn’t see, and quickly gave up. She began fiddling with her tablet, and soon became so absorbed in it that she didn’t even notice when her companions were carried away with the crowd.

She has absolutely no interest in art — that was the conclusion he reached at their first encounter.

But that afternoon, when he came across her again, she seemed like an entirely different person.

She was standing in front of one of his paintings.

For this exhibition, he had created a series of five oil paintings, intending to use color to represent the five human senses. Viewers were meant to move through them one by one to grasp the creative concept. Yet she stood only in front of the last one — and she wasn’t even looking at the painting itself. Her gaze was fixed on the label in the lower right corner, as if in a trance. If she had glanced at it for a few seconds and moved on, that would have been one thing — but she stood there for over twenty minutes, long enough that he was very nearly tempted to walk up and tell her exactly how the painting was meant to be read.

Unfortunately, someone called him away before he could.

Their third encounter came after the exhibition had ended.

Exhausted from a long day, he had turned down every dinner invitation and was wandering the streets with a clear and empty mind. He had been walking for some time when he gradually became aware that someone had been following him. Perhaps it was the gentleness of the night, but he felt no anxiety. He turned around, and there was that face — familiar, yet not quite; a stranger, yet not entirely.

She was standing behind him. The evening light fell across her cheek, making her skin appear soft and luminous, her eyes bright as if they held a light within them.

“Can I help you?” he said instinctively, in his mother tongue — something about her gave him a sense of familiarity.

She opened her mouth, a little hesitant. “Excuse me, are you… Tian Xiuzhu?”

Hearing his own name from her lips gave him a strange feeling.

“You know who I am?”

“It really is you! Oh — yes… well, I know of you, not — not exactly know you, I mean, I used to…” She looked a little nervous, as if she had a great deal to say, but perhaps felt the moment wasn’t quite right. In the end, she said only one thing: “I really love your paintings.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh? You couldn’t even be bothered to look at Giorgione’s The Tempest, and yet you love my paintings.”

She stared at him blankly. “Hm?”

The joke was too obscure for her. Tian Xiuzhu cleared his throat lightly, smoothing over the moment.

“That was… I’m so sorry for disturbing you out of nowhere. I just wanted to say — your paintings are wonderful. I’ll be going now.” She finished speaking, gave him a small bow, and turned to leave.

She was wearing a blue dress.

What shade of blue, exactly? Perhaps lake blue — or cobalt blue? Or perhaps Prussian blue? He couldn’t quite tell anymore. She had dissolved completely into the night.

There was something beautiful about the image. Tian Xiuzhu found himself thinking, in that thoroughly artistic way of his, of George Sand’s A Winter in Majorca — or rather, her Venetian Nights:

“On that clear night, the surface of the lake lay still as a mirror, and not even the reflections of the stars would tremble. All around was blue — peaceful, azure — a seamless union of sky and water that seemed to carry one into a wondrous dream, translucent and clear.”

He told himself that the night had compelled him to go after her, to ask her name, to invite her to dinner.

*

They became friends.

The way it happened was both bewildering and somehow entirely natural.

The year after they met, Tian Xiuzhu came to the United States to hold an art exhibition, and he sought out Zhu Yun, asking her to fulfill her duties as the local host and show him around. They went out for two days together, and yet even standing at the foot of Mount Rushmore, Zhu Yun couldn’t stop herself from hunching over her keyboard, writing code.

Tian Xiuzhu was deeply displeased.

“Is this how you treat a genius painter?” Ever since Zhu Yun had once called him by that title, he often used it to mock himself.

“No, no — I’m almost done.”

“You’re going to pass out if you keep this up.”

“I won’t.”

“Suit yourself. My predictions are always right.”

Two days later, Zhu Yun very nearly collapsed right there at the base of Niagara Falls. Tian Xiuzhu finally had the excuse he needed to confiscate her laptop. No matter how much she protested and fumed, he refused to give it back until she returned to campus.

Later, due to a gallery contract, Tian Xiuzhu was required to stay in the United States for an extended period. He chose an address near Zhu Yun’s university.

As they saw each other more and more frequently, Tian Xiuzhu grew increasingly concerned about the way Zhu Yun lived. She completed all her coursework at the earliest possible opportunity — finishing a week’s worth of assignments in three days — and even in her free time, she never rested.

Her grades were exceptional enough that she had compressed her entire academic program by two full years. Yet she was always like a bowstring drawn too tight, as though a single day of rest would be a kind of crime.

“What’s the rush?” Tian Xiuzhu asked more than once. Zhu Yun could never quite answer.

“You’re very anxious,” Tian Xiuzhu observed, with that calm, knowing air of his.

Zhu Yun found herself making excuses. “Everyone in this field is like this.”

“Not everyone collapses from exhaustion.”

“That was an accident… I hadn’t eaten anything that day.”

“You’re going to burn yourself out.”

Zhu Yun didn’t believe him. “I worked much harder than this during my undergrad years back home, and nothing happened.”

Tian Xiuzhu shrugged, and repeated the same words as before.

“Suit yourself. My predictions are always right.”

At twenty-four — the age when the body is just beginning to reach its full strength, when every young person burns through life without restraint and feels utterly invincible — who would ever believe they could break down?

Time, impartial and absolute, gave everyone the same answer.

Years of mental overexertion, late nights, and endless hours in front of a computer wore Zhu Yun down with alarming speed. She knew the signs herself — insomnia, heart palpitations, cold sweats, hormonal imbalances. Her entire system had begun to unravel.

“You look ten years older than when we first met,” Tian Xiuzhu told her the next time he came over from home and saw her.

The words hit Zhu Yun like a blow. It didn’t matter what kind of woman she was — no woman wanted to hear she was aging fast.

Tian Xiuzhu seized the opportunity to invite her on a vacation.

They went to France, where Tian Xiuzhu’s parents lived. When Zhu Yun found out she would be meeting his parents, she was so alarmed she nearly threw herself from the car. Tian Xiuzhu caught her by the arm. “Calm down — if you jump out at this speed, it will cause me serious psychological trauma.”

“Why are we going to your family’s house?” Zhu Yun demanded.

Tian Xiuzhu replied as if the answer were obvious. “To save on accommodation.”

“You’re really worried about that kind of money?”

Tian Xiuzhu smiled faintly and said nothing.

Tian Xiuzhu was the second of three children — he had an older brother and a younger sister. His brother was a designer; his sister worked in photography. The household was steeped in art.

When Zhu Yun arrived, everyone was home. They welcomed her warmly — almost too warmly. The enthusiasm was overwhelming, and Zhu Yun found herself deeply on edge.

What’s more, as if sensing something in the air, the entire family began exchanging knowing looks and conspiratorial glances behind the two of them. By the end of it, it wasn’t only Zhu Yun who was uncomfortable — even Tian Xiuzhu couldn’t sit still.

“This is entirely unexpected,” he said, breaking into a cold sweat.

They lasted one night before they fled under cover of darkness.

After that, they visited many places together.

They went to Colmar, taking in the fairy-tale scenery imbued with an Alsatian spirit, then traveled fifteen kilometers to Riquewihr, where quiet, painterly vineyards stretched across the hillsides. They visited a terracotta village perched high on cliffs, and the most beautiful balcony in the world beneath the Alps.

At last, they came to the famous village of Giverny, just outside Paris.

“Monet spent the rest of his life here,” Tian Xiuzhu told Zhu Yun. “He was in his forties, passing through on a train, when he was so captivated by the sight that he bought a house and settled here. He adored gardening — all of this was shaped by his own hand.”

The garden stretched across nearly a hectare, thick with flowers and trees. There was a pond crossed by several small green bridges, their banks draped in weeping willows and trailing blooms. Looking down from one of the bridges, the water below shimmered a deep, vivid green, blanketed with water lilies.

Even Zhu Yun, who cared nothing for art, had heard of Monet’s Water Lilies.

Tian Xiuzhu led her to a particular spot and stood behind her.

“Would you like to know a secret?”

“Not especially.”

“Come on, humor me.”

Zhu Yun smiled. Tian Xiuzhu pointed to the ground beneath their feet and said: “One of the paintings in the Water Lilies series was painted right here.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“…”

“You don’t believe me? All right, the truth is — I saw it.” He spoke with a quiet, mysterious air. “The scenery has changed, of course, but the light is still the same. I stood right where we’re standing now, staring out at the water, lost in thought — and then, for just a single moment, the play of light and shadow before me aligned perfectly with that painting.” He looked at her, his eyes bright. “Can you believe it? For just that one moment, every color fell into place — identical to the painting.”

Zhu Yun understood nothing of art.

“Really? That remarkable? Are you sure you weren’t just daydreaming for too long and starting to hallucinate?”

Tian Xiuzhu let out a soft, disgruntled sound, reached out, and lightly pinched her cheek.

The gesture brought them both to a sudden stillness.

There was no wind in Monet’s garden. Time seemed to have stopped entirely. Neither of them knew how long they stood that way.

“I have a boyfriend,” she said.

“So?”

Zhu Yun looked up. Tian Xiuzhu smiled and said: “Be a little bolder.”

“What?”

Zhu Yun felt a wave of confusion.

Tian Xiuzhu said quietly: “I suspect things aren’t going well between you two.”

“Why would you say that?”

“You’ve never once mentioned him to me. There’s not even a shadow of him in your life.”

“There are reasons for that.”

“Oh, they’d have to be very good reasons, then,” he said, leaning slightly toward her, following her averted gaze. “Good enough to explain why he never seems to care about the toll you’re taking on yourself. Good enough to explain why he never comes to see you.”

Zhu Yun said nothing.

Tian Xiuzhu folded his arms. “I’ve always felt you push yourself too hard. You’re always in such a hurry, as if you can’t wait to get through your own life. But life is meant to be felt, not consumed. The world is full of beauty, and no one is required to make themselves suffer through it. You’ve locked yourself in a cage.”

Zhu Yun had no words. Tian Xiuzhu’s gaze didn’t leave her for a single moment.

“I like you,” he said, and having said it, he seemed a little embarrassed himself — a faint flush crossed his face. Zhu Yun made no reply. He didn’t seem to mind, and said gently: “Whether or not you feel the same is beside the point. But there’s one thing you need to know — a person has the right to be free.”

She bowed her head lower, low enough that he could no longer see her expression.

He wrapped his arms around her.

The quiet here was absolute — so still that even a memory would feel like an intrusion.

Tian Xiuzhu stroked her soft, long hair, offering silent comfort. For a fleeting moment, he thought that if Monet had truly stood on this very spot all those years ago, tracing in his mind the water lilies he would one day paint, then the hand that held the brush must have been just as tender as his own was now.