Chapter 103

The koi in the decorative pond splashed their tails, sending water flying.

Xiang Feiran maintained his usual calm despite the awkward situation. After coughing a few times softly and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, “How do you want me to respond to this?”

Shang Mingbao’s courage seemed to ebb away, but her face was unusually flushed: “Just answer honestly.”

Xiang Feiran gave her a sidelong glance: “No.”

Shang Mingbao lowered her face and was silent for a moment: “Alright, I guess so.”

Xiang Feiran turned his gaze away, watching the birds flying over the terraced fields opposite. The afternoon here was very quiet. He was someone who could enjoy solitude, but he suddenly found this silence unbearable, pushing him to say something: “Babe.”

“Hmm?”

“Back in New York, in the apartment on West 56th Street, when I saw you for the third time, I kissed you, and you didn’t reject me. You said that’s how dating culture is in New York. Actually, I’m not someone who can accept such a culture, but at that time, I was already determined to pursue you, which is why we shared so many kisses before officially defining our relationship. Now…” Xiang Feiran paused, “I can’t be sure if I can start a second round with you, so I can’t, even though I really want to.”

Shang Mingbao felt like she had been baked into an incurable optimist by the sun. She only caught the end of Xiang Feiran’s words: “so I can’t, even though I really want to,” and then reduced it further to “even though I really want to.”

So he wanted to, and he had some fluctuation—that was enough. Rounded up, it equated to having kissed him—

Their souls had already brushed against each other as gently as the upper and lower lips do.

But there was one thing that needed to be clarified.

Shang Mingbao looked at him seriously: “I’m not a proponent of dating culture either. I allowed you to keep kissing me before we defined our relationship because I knew I would accept you.”

Xiang Feiran curved his lips: “Then why did you keep me at a distance for so long?”

“That’s just how dating is,” Shang Mingbao said, involuntarily humming a song, “‘Lengthening the ambiguous period’…”

But now she regretted it. If she could go back to that November, she would have wrapped her arms around his neck and said, “Xiang Feiran, let’s not waste time.”

A lifetime only has over thirty thousand days; there’s not enough time for love.

After sitting in the cool shade of the corridor for a while, Shang Mingbao took him inside to show him around the house.

By the entrance, house slippers were neatly arranged for him—each entrance to the house had such a pair.

Once inside the living room, she saw that the side with the swimming pool had a continuous floor-to-ceiling window connected directly to the rice fields. If interested, one could simply open the glass door and walk onto the embankment, stepping into the rice paddy.

It was November now, and the rice had just been harvested, bundled and stacked. Farmers were plowing the fields with machinery, and the sound through the soundproof glass was reduced to a tranquil white noise.

“That’s my studio over there,” Shang Mingbao pointed in one direction, “The first floor is the archive and drawing area, the second floor has the metalworking station and material storage, and the third floor is for displaying works and my high-quality collections.”

She accompanied Xiang Feiran through each area slowly.

The archive on the first floor resembled a study in someone else’s home, with a spacious and open feel. In the central circular sunken sofa area, a natural stone column in the middle displayed a small piece of crystal-clear snow in a glass case. One wall had a transparent acrylic bookshelf displaying raw stones he had given her and collected from various peaks and mines—neatly arranged, exquisite and grand.

A large botanical scientific illustration dominated the space, depicting the entire plant and dissection of the primrose gentian. The artist’s name was handwritten in the lower right corner. This was by the most famous botanical artist in the country, whom Xiang Feiran had a brief encounter with in Qiu Yuan when he was sketching. He hadn’t disturbed him then. Seeing the original now, every detail was vividly portrayed.

“This is the birthday gift I wanted to give you this year,” Shang Mingbao’s tightly clasped hands were sweaty, “I remember you mentioned you admired his work.”

Such a giant scientific illustration took at least a month to complete, and since the artist was elderly, he rarely gave out his works. Shang Mingbao had gone through great lengths to contact him, offering a high price, but the artist remained unmoved. Even Liu Bei only visited the thatched cottage three times, and she had gone seven times. The artist, with a child’s temperament, was irritated and said, “Unless your boyfriend is dead and you want to commemorate him—still useless! I’ve heard this kind of broken story too many times!”

Shang Mingbao ended up trading all her macro photos taken in the wild to get it. Many rare and endangered species often only grow at the entrance of a karst cave or in the valley where two mountains meet. The high-definition photos she took were like official portraits or ID photos of these plants, precious to plant enthusiasts.

Xiang Feiran was momentarily stunned, finding it hard to capture his feelings clearly.

It seemed as if she was burdened with emotions that didn’t belong to her.

“Babe,” Xiang Feiran said seriously, making her look up, “Over the past year, did you arrange and complete all this with a sense of atonement?”

Shang Mingbao was taken aback, a look of confusion and helplessness crossing her face: “No, I—”

Xiang Feiran interrupted her denial: “You told me that day that you wanted to make up for the things you didn’t do well in the last two years.”

Shang Mingbao was stunned: “What I meant was—”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Xiang Feiran said calmly, “Life is precious; don’t spend your time with a sense of debt and atonement.”

A string in her heart suddenly resonated—one that had not been played for a long time. The dust it stirred up covered her breathing, and her eyes and nose felt very sore. She suddenly hugged Xiang Feiran tightly, resting her face in his chest: “I always thought that if I made up for the things I didn’t do well before, I could lessen the burden you carried for those two years.”

She had been foolishly carving a boat to seek a sword in the river of time.

Xiang Feiran was caught off guard by her embrace. One hand supported the drawing table to steady himself, while the other hesitated for a long time before gently resting on her hair: “Didn’t you say your grandfather was strict with your Chinese studies? The Analects say, ‘The past cannot be admonished, but the future can still be pursued.’”

“But you won’t let me pursue.”

“I’m telling you not to dwell on regrets about the past; look forward. If you treated our time together in these past few hundred days with a sense of atonement, then I think you need to re-evaluate yourself.”

“Xiang Feiran…” Shang Mingbao wrinkled her nose, almost crying from anxiety: “Why are you so rational?”

Xiang Feiran’s lips curved slightly. Rational?

Not exactly.

“You can deny it,” he said softly.

“If I deny it, will you admit it?”

“If you deny it, I’ll admit it.”

Shang Mingbao looked up from his embrace, her eyes bright and filled with disbelief. Xiang Feiran raised his hand to cover her eyes: “Alright, you’re twenty-seven now. You can’t just cry and cling to someone anymore.”

“……”

Shang Mingbao was gently pushed away from his embrace and watched as he calmly crouched in front of the botanical painting, seemingly studying the brushstrokes on the paper with great concentration.

The large space fell silent for a while during his examination. Finally, his voice broke the quiet: “Will you still give it to me?”

“Hmm?”

Xiang Feiran glanced back: “The birthday gift—shouldn’t it still belong to me?”

A person’s eyes can light up quickly, like a lamp, even in such a bright room, they shone like stars.

“Sure! But the car might be a bit difficult…”

Shang Mingbao was flustered, “Sophie!”

“Sophie isn’t here.”

“Oh… right.” Shang Mingbao smiled and squatted next to Xiang Feiran. “Teacher Tang has blocked me.”

“Why?”

“Because he said some unpleasant things about my boyfriend. I forced him, ouch, he didn’t—” Shang Mingbao knelt down, resting her chin on her knees, mumbling, “I threatened him not to update the remaining material library for him. In a fit of anger, he spat and then kicked me out.”

Xiang Feiran smiled slightly and casually said, “You could retaliate, like putting this painting up for auction, starting at one yuan.”

Shang Mingbao blinked in shock: “… Would you really?”

“I wouldn’t.”

They then looked at her hand-drawn sketches, portfolio, and the metalworking station on the second floor. Gems from the world’s best workshops were cut and displayed individually, while fragments were categorized like buttons in glass compartments, making one feel amused, as if these were merely toys in her castle.

Next was the third floor’s exhibit room.

Every piece of finished art jewelry spent a month in this floor, unnoticed, before being sent to the store or uploaded to the website. The creative fervor can influence the careful judgment of the work. Shang Mingbao, being calm enough, left the pieces upstairs and ignored them. Only if she still found them stunning after a month would they be sent to the store.

The stairs were covered with thick carpets, absorbing her heavy heartbeat.

How intimate it was, letting her muse see her designs directly—more shameful than making love, the highest level of human honesty.

The door opened, and the walls wrapped in black velvet absorbed all light and sound, making the space feel like eternal night. The jewelry, sparkling under soft lighting, was her aurora.

Shang Mingbao was extremely nervous, as if presenting a failing exam paper to her parents. She hurriedly introduced without any preamble: “This is the series I’m preparing for winter… the Fir and Mimosa series.”

“Fir and Mimosa?” Xiang Feiran thought for a moment and couldn’t understand, “What’s the connection between these two?”

They were even from different plant classifications—gymnosperms and angiosperms. They diverged from the very start of their classification.

“Fir…” Shang Mingbao gestured with her fingers, desperately trying to indicate.

Xiang Feiran: “?”

Shang Mingbao closed her eyes and bit her lip: “Like you.”

“……”

So embarrassing! Shang Mingbao bit her lip, and amidst her tumultuous feelings, heard Xiang Feiran calmly ask: “There are over fifty species of fir. Which one do you mean?”

Shang Mingbao: “?”

Xiang Feiran, with a relaxed demeanor, pointed to his chin: “Not every fir is this tall.”

Shang Mingbao was stunned, thinking, Is Feiran brother joking with me? If he is, it’s to amuse me? Uncertain, she decided to humor him back.

Confidently, she said: “It’s the Abies bornmuelleriana, from Country II. You pulled it out from the stream and placed it in my palm.”

From the high mountain stream called “Grunt Drop.”

Unexpectedly, this was the answer and the reason. Now it was Xiang Feiran’s turn to cough: “Good memory.” He nonchalantly changed the subject: “And the Mimosa?”

“The plant’s nocturnal sensitivity, the first knowledge you taught me, and…” Shang Mingbao honestly admitted, “Mainly because its leaf arrangement has some similarities with the fir, giving a sense of continuity in the series after setting.”

Her handling of plants could be very concrete or abstract, depending on how she applied the materials, a flexibility achieved only by those who truly understand plants.

In the rectangular glass showcase, the “Fir and Mimosa” glowed with a cold light. The materials were primarily emeralds and transparent diamonds, with a very lush green. Shang Mingbao introduced: “This is green garnet, and this part uses hand-drawn micro-painting.” She was so accustomed to pulling out a magnifying glass from her pocket that she only realized today she had worn a beautiful halter dress just to meet him.

The soft cold light reflecting from the glass illuminated Xiang Feiran’s face as he bent down.

Everything was black; his profile seemed to float on the black velvet, so focused, with his lips naturally pursed.

“Brother Feiran… you should wear glasses.”

As she spoke, she had already stepped closer to him, first casually observing her work, and then turning her face away when Xiang Feiran lifted his own.

His shirt collar held a pair of half-frame glasses, which he kept for emergencies.

Shang Mingbao watched his eyes and delicately removed the glasses. Her breath was so close, her scent nearly permeating his collar.

“I’ll help you put them on.”

Xiang Feiran didn’t speak, his thin lips still pressed together, but his gaze fell on her face.

Shang Mingbao folded the glasses’ arms and maintained the close posture. In a tone that was both ambiguous and calm, she said: “Last time you said I used our past to inspire my work. I can’t deny that, but that statement should be rephrased as, ‘Without our past, my work wouldn’t look like this.’ Shena is a teacher I truly admire. At first, she asked me to find my own vitality and what I wanted to express. I was lost for a long time. Shena said I was too perfect, indifferent to life, so what I expressed was always lukewarm—just beautiful but lacking in power. Even the works in the mine and those planned for Fifth Avenue in New York seem shallow now, merely a tribute to natural colors and shapes.”

“Over the past year, I have been reflecting and searching.

I remember the lines of poetry you shared with me, from William Black: ‘Some people see a tree and are moved to tears, while to others, it is merely a tree blocking their path.’

The tears and hope I infuse into my plants come from you, Brother Feiran. My brand is called ‘Ming,’ not the ‘Ming’ from Mingbao, but ‘Ming’ as in always seeing oneself clearly. When Grandpa named us, the boys were given names related to ears, so the eldest brother is Shang Shao, and the younger brother is Shang Lu, corresponding to the left and right ears. My sisters and I have the character ‘Ming’ in the middle of our names. Grandpa said, ‘To listen impartially is to be enlightened.’ If a person can understand oneself, others, love, ideals, career, and marriage, it is both a fortunate thing and a difficult lesson. Over the years, my younger brother, eldest brother, and I have all walked through fog and pitfalls, but no one’s experience can prevent the other from taking detours.

In these works, in the lines of each stroke and each gemstone set, I always see the tears of these flowers and trees, perhaps sad, perhaps beautiful. Without you, a flower is just a flower. I have seen the truth of my own heart. Brother Feiran,”

Shang Mingbao tilted her head back, her face so clear and bright, “Please see me clearly as well.”

She stood on her tiptoes slightly, lifting her hands to delicately and steadily place the glasses on his nose.