Yan Tuo stated that money wasn’t important to him; what he valued was “respect.”
Nie Jiuluo brazenly replied to him, “Am I not respecting you?”
Yan Tuo was speechless—how could she call that respect?
But thinking again, she now carried herself with an air of superiority toward everyone, looking down her nose at them all without distinction. Perhaps she truly had no concept of what respect meant.
Well then, he’d have to teach her step by step. Yan Tuo said, “You never look at people properly…”
Nie Jiuluo, who had already been looking at him sideways, heard this and tilted her eyes even more dramatically. “Eyes are meant for looking at people. Isn’t it enough that I see them? Why do you care if I look sideways or straight?”
Yan Tuo said, “If you think there’s nothing wrong with looking at people sideways, then from now on, I’ll look at you the same way.”
True to his word, he leaned back in his chair, tilted his chin at her, and half-narrowed his eyes to one side. His whole demeanor perfectly embodied four characters—
Extremely arrogant.
After they looked sideways at each other for a while, Nie Jiuluo felt like she wanted to gouge Yan Tuo’s eyeballs out.
She finally said, “Oh, fine. I’ll look at you properly from now on.”
Yan Tuo pressed his advantage: “Not just me—Old Cai, Sister Lu, and all those people we meet outside—don’t look at them sideways. It’s not good.”
Nie Jiuluo snorted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. After a while, she cast a sideways glance at the corner of the wall.
Yan Tuo was both amused and exasperated, but he let it go. This was already progress—if she wanted to look sideways at wall corners, that was her business.
He continued, “Also, whenever I talk to you, you’re always impatient, your tone is hostile, and you try to drive people away after just a few words.”
Nie Jiuluo: “I’m busy!”
Yan Tuo: “I know you’re busy, which is why I never disturb you while you’re working. But when you’re free, surely you can chat with me?”
He summarized: “See, my demands aren’t high, right? Sister Lu gets paid by you, but I don’t want money. I have just two requirements: first, you need to look at people properly, and second, you need to chat with me for at least… a quarter-hour each day. If you can do that, we have a deal. If you don’t agree, I won’t force you—I’ll pack up and leave in a few days to serve someone else.”
Nie Jiuluo didn’t agree immediately. She dragged out the moment before finally standing up leisurely and saying, “Fine.”
After speaking, she was about to roll her eyes out of habit, but suddenly realized that wouldn’t be good—Yan Tuo would surely complain again. So she rolled her eyes at his collar instead and turned to leave.
Yan Tuo was both annoyed and amused. After a while, he walked to the door and watched Nie Jiuluo go upstairs.
Her mood must have been good, after all, she’d secured his services without spending money. Her steps were light, and her fingers tapped the stair railing like playing piano keys, creating a constant gentle rhythm.
The soft light from the wall lamps enveloped her, making her seem like an unreal dream or a nocturne in motion.
Yan Tuo called out to her: “A’Luo.”
Nie Jiuluo turned to look at him.
Yan Tuo was suddenly at a loss for words, forgetting what he had wanted to say. After a moment, he finally said, “Your exhibition will be very successful.”
Nie Jiuluo said, “Of course it will. Did you need to tell me that?”
***
From this point on, the relationship between Yan Tuo and Nie Jiuluo entered a relatively smoother second phase.
Yan Tuo seized every opportunity to instill in her the principles of social etiquette and various societal rules.
For instance, behaviors like hitting people with slippers were unacceptable.
Nie Jiuluo disagreed: “That kind of person deserves to be beaten to death. Why keep them around?”
Yan Tuo analyzed it for her in detail: “His behavior was indeed wrong, but your method was like killing ten thousand enemies while losing eight thousand of your troops. Think about it—what if he reports it to the police? Who suffers? You’re the one who committed assault, you’d be arrested, and you might even have to pay him compensation. Would you be happy with that?”
Nie Jiuluo fumed at the thought of paying compensation. That would happen in his dreams.
Yan Tuo continued: “That’s not all. If you get a criminal record, they might not let you hold your exhibition. And if you’re sentenced to three to five months in jail, what happens to our exhibition then?”
He had hit upon her weak spot—the “exhibition” was now Nie Jiuluo’s Achilles’ heel, everything had to give way to it.
Sure enough, while Nie Jiuluo had been listening carelessly at first, as soon as she heard that it might affect her exhibition, her expression immediately became serious.
Yan Tuo: “So, next time you want to get physical, think about the consequences first. Is it worth risking your exhibition over something like this?”
Nie Jiuluo thought long and hard before slowly nodding, feeling that Yan Tuo made a lot of sense.
She said, “Then next time I encounter such a situation, I’ll hold back first and find a way to hit them later.”
Yan Tuo: “…”
Well, it was progress of sorts—at least she’d learned about “restraint” and knew she needed to control herself.
***
Old Cai still visited the courtyard every few days. During his most recent visit, he brought an industry friend. They watched some videos, commented on some sketches, and finally spent a long time discussing a newly formed sculpture, their faces glowing as if they’d discovered a treasure.
Yan Tuo felt uncomfortable about this. Apart from initially suggesting that Nie Jiuluo see a psychologist, Old Cai had never shown any concern about her mental abnormalities.
With an outsider present, he couldn’t voice his complaints. He waited until the guest left before approaching Old Cai, speaking with a hidden meaning: “Do you think A’Luo is fine the way she is now?”
Old Cai was intently focused on the camera screen, responding excitedly without looking up: “She’s great! Great.”
Yan Tuo decided to be more direct: “You think it’s fine that her personality is so strange?”
Old Cai still failed to catch his undertone: “She’s an artist, isn’t she? They’re all a bit obsessive. Many geniuses are also madmen, and sometimes you have to admit that mental disorders can help creators produce more brilliant works.”
Yan Tuo thought, to hell with that.
He said, “So if she can only perform exceptionally well when she’s mad, would you prefer her to be mad?”
Old Cai paused.
He turned to look at Yan Tuo, pondered for a moment, and answered honestly: “As a friend, of course, I hope A’Luo recovers. But from an art dealer’s perspective, I would say that a genius artist is more precious—they only come along once every few decades. If she produces better work the madder she gets, then I’d support her becoming even madder.”
His frankness left Yan Tuo speechless.
He thought to himself that he didn’t understand art.
***
About half a month later, Yan Tuo called Yu Rong.
Speaking about Nie Jiuluo’s current condition, his feelings were mixed: “She’s much better than before, but something’s still missing.”
He used a very precise metaphor: Nie Jiuluo remembered all the people and events from before, but to her, they were like a deflated bouncy castle—soft, flat, two-dimensional, no longer three-dimensional.
They still needed a catalyst to pump air back into this castle, to make everything stand up again and return to how it was before.
Yu Rong said, “Oh, so she needs a breath of divine air, eh? Just wait. You know the old saying—’ After wearing out iron shoes in searching, what you seek comes effortlessly.’ You can’t find it by looking, but maybe when you least expect it, it’ll come.”
After a pause, she added: “Anyway, you have patience and can wait.”
Yan Tuo rolled his eyes at the end of the phone.
No wonder Nie Jiuluo liked rolling her eyes so much—he understood now: one roll of the eyes conveyed emotions perfectly, carrying thousands of meanings. It was indeed quite satisfying.
He changed the subject: “Where’s Que Cha?”
Yu Rong said, “She’s busy. Didn’t I tell you? She’s working at the archery range now, more popular than me.”
This was true. Yu Rong’s profession had limited employment opportunities in the country. Yan Tuo felt that only circuses and zoos might be suitable, but circuses weren’t common, and zoo staff tended to be relatively stable, with little chance of urgent hiring needs.
He asked, “Do you need my help?”
Yu Rong gave a dry laugh: “I’m not so desperate as to need your charity. I just need something temporary to pass the time, and I’ve already sorted it out.”
That’s good then. Yan Tuo casually asked, “What kind of work is it?”
Yu Rong remained silent.
In the strange silence, through the phone receiver, Yan Tuo suddenly heard a “meow.”
A cat?
Yan Tuo: “Are you pet-sitting?”
Yu Rong held back for a long time before irritably dropping the words “pet shop” and hanging up the phone with obvious annoyance.
It took Yan Tuo a while to process this. He put away his phone, thinking to himself that working at a pet shop wasn’t bad at all.
It was still a form of animal training, just with smaller subjects.
***
Peaceful days passed especially quickly, time flowing over like water, and in the blink of an eye, another half month had gone by.
But that breath of divine air Yu Rong spoke of, so crucial to Nie Jiuluo’s recovery, showed no sign of appearing.
Yan Tuo suspected he needed to prepare for a long-term battle. Sometimes, he tried to comfort himself: one should be content—the current situation was already a blessing from heaven. After all, if heaven had arranged for Nie Jiuluo to die back then, what could he have done?
***
That day, the weather was poor from morning on, with dark clouds pressing against the horizon visible from the window.
Sister Lu confidently told Yan Tuo that there would be heavy rain today.
But she didn’t need to say it—the city had been issuing warnings since midnight, first about affected flight paths, then raising the warning levels.
Yet the heavy rain was slow to arrive. At noon, Sister Lu spoke on behalf of the weather station again, saying the rain was still brewing, and when it finally came, it would be tremendous.
Yan Tuo smiled it off. These days, various events had worn him down to a very zen attitude: if it rains, let it rain; after it rains, it’ll pass. If the first floor floods, he’ll go to the second; if the second-floor floods, he’ll sit on the roof with an umbrella.
There’s always a solution.
However, Nie Jiuluo’s efficiency was particularly high that day. According to Old Cai, gloomy rain, strong winds, and heavy snow were especially inspiring, making it easier to produce artwork.
Yan Tuo couldn’t understand what was wrong with clear, sunny days.
Perhaps he just didn’t understand art.
By dinner time, Nie Jiuluo had completed all the exhibition sketches.
Yan Tuo had heard that the last piece was the grand finale, and he was curious about what theme she wanted to present.
While Nie Jiuluo was eating, he approached the workbench, hoping to get a preview.
He spotted it immediately—being the last one completed, it was actually on top of the pile of sketches. The scene was strange; it wasn’t a human figure but rather something that looked more like a landscape…
Yan Tuo’s heart stirred: “Is this…”
Nie Jiuluo said: “Black and White Ravine.”
It was indeed a Black and White Ravine, an all too familiar scene—high walls, earthen mounds, stone slabs, ravine waters. He hadn’t recognized it at first because he’d assumed all her works were human figures.
Black and White Ravine—she was using this as the exhibition’s finale?
Yan Tuo was somewhat surprised: “This can be an exhibit?”
“Of course, it’s landscape sculpture, like a sand table model. Haven’t you seen those before?”
Yan Tuo had a rough idea now: it should be similar to the courtyard model she’d made for him before—though miniaturized, it was meticulously detailed with extremely high accuracy.
The page also noted the planned dimensions: 2m*2m. Not small, and when recreated, it would be quite impressive.
Yan Tuo pondered: “Won’t others have trouble understanding this?”
Nie Jiuluo snorted: “How is that my problem? I’m responsible for creating exhibits, not for teaching them to understand.”
Yan Tuo couldn’t help but laugh, though she had a point. When he visited art exhibitions himself, he often couldn’t fully grasp the artists’ expressions, but that didn’t stop him from staring intently and trying to look appropriately impressed.
He put the sketch back and helped tidy her desk, inadvertently noticing a stack of thin silver paper strips pressed under a medium-sized sculpting knife.
Was this… paper for folding stars?
Yan Tuo’s heart jumped, his gaze unconsciously falling on the cabinet by the wall.
That cabinet decorated with Yu Lei and Shen Tu contained two large glass jars of stars.
Yan Tuo tried to sound casual, though his voice was noticeably different: “A’Luo, it’s been a while since you folded stars, hasn’t it?”
Nie Jiuluo made an “ah” sound, her brow slightly furrowed. She remembered she used to have a habit of recording things by folding stars and had done it for many, many years.
She hadn’t folded any for some time and had forgotten about it.
Yan Tuo walked to the cabinet and opened the door: “There are so many in these two jars, want to unfold some and look?”
He suddenly felt that perhaps looking at these folded stars might help her: it couldn’t just be him reminding and telling her things. These paper stars were her most real and vivid past—reading them one by one might help her gradually rebuild everything that had become flat.
Nie Jiuluo showed no interest: “What’s there to see?”
Yan Tuo persisted: “Even just one? We’re free now anyway.”
Seeing that Nie Jiuluo didn’t object further, he reached in and casually grabbed one, tossing it to her.
The star was made of fluorescent paper, tracing a thin arc of light through the air as it flew.
Nie Jiuluo caught it casually, absently unfolded it, and read aloud: “Sister Lu is not bad, can keep her. The Three Figures of Fortune, Prosperity, and Longevity sold for 300,000…”
After reading, she pursed her lips and carelessly tossed the paper aside: “Boring.”
Yan Tuo felt slightly disappointed, but he didn’t close the cabinet door.
Let her close it herself—the open door was eye-catching, and when she saw it, she would come to close it. Perhaps when closing it, on impulse, she might unfold another star.
One more star was one more chance—unfold enough of them, and perhaps the starry sky would rise again.
***
The heavy rain Sister Lu had predicted arrived furiously at midnight.
By then, Yan Tuo was sound asleep, dreaming—coincidentally, of heavy rain that had caused a flood.
It was probably because his thoughts during the day carried into his dreams, but everything in the dream was miniaturized—a tiny courtyard, a tiny him.
He lay on a leaf, drifting with the current, dizzy from the surging waves. Nearby, the water line had already submerged the second-floor windows of the small courtyard, and Nie Jiuluo sat properly on another leaf, floating out from the window.
She was so calm—holding an umbrella in one hand while still molding clay figures with the other. The clay figure had two stark white eyeballs, probably a white-eyed ghost.
Yan Tuo shouted hoarsely: “A’Luo!”
Afraid Nie Jiuluo would drift away, he desperately tried to grab the stem at the back of her leaf.
Nie Jiuluo rolled her eyes at him and said: “What are you yelling about? Can’t you see I’m working?”
It was truly anxiety-inducing.
Yan Tuo was startled awake from the dream by his anxiety.
When he woke, he found his window hadn’t been closed properly and had been blown open by the strong wind at some point, rattling noisily, with dense, bright rain lines visible outside.
Yan Tuo got up to close the window, and finding himself unable to sleep, he opened the door to go out.
He had intended to stand under the eaves for a while to get some fresh air, but as soon as he opened his guest room door, he instinctively looked toward the stairs.
There was a faint light coming down from there—clearly, the lights in the studio were still on.
At this hour, was Nie Jiuluo still working? She was pushing herself too hard.
***
Yan Tuo climbed the stairs quietly, and when he entered the second floor, he was truly startled, thinking he had entered some magical world.
Nie Jiuluo’s windows weren’t closed either, though being latched, they didn’t rattle. But due to the strong wind, her sketches were scattered all over the floor.
Not just sketches, but countless colorful paper strips—those were the unfolded stars, bearing old creases, floating and swirling around the room.
The wind and rain were heavy, the light dim yet soft, and the room was full of sculptures of varying heights—Buddhas with merciful faces and fierce-looking guardian deities. The sketches and star strips seemed alive as they danced through the room, occasionally making the very soft, distinctive rustling sound of paper.
Walking a few steps further in, he saw Nie Jiuluo wrapped in a blanket, lying on the large sofa, already asleep. By her drooping hand was an almost empty large glass jar, with only about ten unopened stars still clustered together, glowing golden.
Hadn’t she said she wasn’t interested in looking? She had ended up curious enough to look after all, though she shouldn’t have stayed up all night catching up like this.
Yan Tuo smiled wryly, first closing the window, then bending down to clean up the mess, gathering the sketches and securing them with paperweights, and then collecting the star strips.
The star strips came up in handfuls, feeling like strips of cloth in his hands.
Yan Tuo gathered all the paper strips by the glass jar, sat down right there, and listened to the rain sounds now muffled by the windows, feeling that the night was actually exceptionally quiet.
He picked up a star strip at random, trying to fold it back along the creases, and soon the paper returned to its star shape.
***
Nie Jiuluo opened her eyes hazily.
She had slept well during the strong wind and rain, but after the window was closed and the room became quiet, she felt uncomfortable and naturally woke up.
She woke up somewhat confused, unable to distinguish for a moment whether what she saw was real or a dream.
She saw Yan Tuo sitting on the floor, like a child, folding the star strips back into stars, throwing them high into the air, and then watching as they fell into the glass jar.
As if playing some self-entertaining game, he was thoroughly engrossed—after throwing one, he would fold another.
Nie Jiuluo watched for a while, then called out: “Yan Tuo.”
Yan Tuo was startled, taking a moment to react: “Did I wake you?”
Nie Jiuluo shook her head. Her hair was disheveled from sleep, a mass of long hair half-covering her eyes. Looking at Yan Tuo through the countless fine gaps between her hair strands felt strange—he seemed both far away and very close.
She said: “Why aren’t you reading them?”
Yan Tuo didn’t understand: “Read what?”
Nie Jiuluo raised a finger, pointing at the star papers: “Those.”
The papers were covered in dense writing, but she had observed for a long time that Yan Tuo only folded, never stopping to read.
Yan Tuo said: “Aren’t these your diary? Why should I read them? Besides, if you don’t mind me reading them, I can just ask you for them later. If you do mind, wouldn’t it be like stealing if I read them now?”
Then he said to her: “It must be uncomfortable sleeping hunched over like that. Why don’t you go sleep in your bed?”
Nie Jiuluo made an “oh” sound, and after a while reluctantly sat up. Yan Tuo got up to help her, and she used his support to stand, still a bit dazed and swaying slightly.
Yan Tuo was a bit worried: “Are you dizzy?”
Nie Jiuluo randomly ran her hand through her hair and said: “It’s nothing.”
She left Yan Tuo behind and walked toward her bedroom on her own, moving slowly, lost in thought, her heart full of confusion.
She felt that tonight’s Yan Tuo seemed somewhat different, or perhaps she was different tonight. Her heart felt empty yet full as if something was about to become clear, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.
At the doorway, she turned back to look at Yan Tuo.
Yan Tuo was watching her leave, and seeing her turn back, he waved at her, seemingly urging her to go to sleep quickly.
As if possessed, Nie Jiuluo asked: “Yan Tuo, we used to fight a lot, didn’t we?”
Yan Tuo was startled—they had fought, but not “a lot.”
Seeing Yan Tuo not answer, Nie Jiuluo’s interest waned, and she was about to turn and enter her room when Yan Tuo called out to stop her.
When she looked back, Yan Tuo was staring at her with an odd expression, asking: “A’Luo, do you want to fight?”
Nie Jiuluo said: “Now?”
Yan Tuo’s heart was beating so hard it felt like it might jump out of his chest, his palms gradually becoming sweaty.
He nodded and said: “Right now.”
If it’s a fight she wants, then so be it. Nie Jiuluo lowered her head, undid her loose clothing ties, and retied them tightly.
She said: “You’re the one who asked for this. Don’t cry if you can’t beat me.”