Blossom through the Cloud - Chapter 68

Chapter 68

Although the rain had stopped, the overcast weather persisted, and the cold wind carrying dampness felt piercingly chilly.

In weather like this, even someone so drowsy that their eyelids drooped wouldn't want to step outside.

When Fu Mingyu called Ruan Suxian, her voice sounded clear, bearing no resemblance to someone who had been sleeping.

"Didn't you sleep this afternoon?"

"No, I went out for lunch at noon and spent the afternoon working through a set of problem sets."

"..."

Fu Mingyu chuckled softly. "You really are something."

Stepping back from the gates of hell at dusk, pulling an all-nighter without sleep, getting tossed around in bed all morning, and still managing to read and study by the afternoon.

His girlfriend was truly formidable.

"I've ordered dinner for you. I won't make it back in time to eat with you."

"Oh..."

"How come you sound so disappointed? Did you really want me to keep you company for dinner?"

"When on earth are you ever going to cure this habit of yours of being a narcissist?"

"Hm?"

Seeing her own smiling reflection on the computer screen, Ruan Suxian touched the corner of her lips. "If there's nothing else, I'm hanging up."

"Alright."

After the dial tone sounded on the line, Ruan Suxian looked back at her computer.

She hadn't been studying; she had spent the entire afternoon searching the web for the name "Dong Xian."

Whether on web pages, Weibo, or professional forums, almost all content related to her was centered on oil paintings and awards, with very little concerning her personal life.

Ruan Suxian decided to look up information regarding art agents instead.

Even the finest wine fears a deep alley; furthermore, artists mostly devoted themselves wholeheartedly to creation, often retreating into seclusion for months at a time without spare time or energy to manage the sales of their works, solo exhibition planning, or other social activities. Coupled with the fact that artists were generally unfamiliar with commercial operations, genuinely talented artists could easily end up buried, leaving exceptional works devoid of a chance to enter the public eye.

Thus, artistic agency and management teams came into being.

Following that, for exceptional masterpieces of art to enter the art market for circulation, value retention, and appreciation, professional agents and institutions were required to handle the operations.

According to Baidu Encyclopedia, Guo Gaoyang was a veteran art agent who, relying on his extensive network of connections, had successively helped three obscure painters gain visibility, achieve recognition for their artistic accomplishments, and subsequently step onto the international stage to achieve widespread renown.

Yet aside from this encyclopedia entry, the internet held virtually no other information about this person.

Ruan Suxian combined "Dong Xian" and "Guo Gaoyang" into a joint search, but the relevant content remained sparse.

"Contemporary Oil Painting Artist Dong Xian and Mr. Guo Gaoyang of Jiangcheng Ftuoli Gallery Discuss Oil Painting Art."

"Guo Gaoyang of Jiangcheng Ftuoli Gallery on Dong Xian: Late to Bloom, but Never Too Late."

Looking through them, they were all standard official press releases.

Guo Gaoyang was also a relatively low-profile individual, with zero online presence regarding matters outside of his work.

By the seventh or eighth page of web results, the keyword relevance had grown increasingly weak.

Finally, amidst the vast sea of content, she spotted news regarding Dong Xian's marriage to Zheng Tai'an several years prior.

At that time, Dong Xian had already gained modest renown; though related reports were scarce, they still existed.

One such report had been reposted by an oil painting information blogger.

"The matchmaker was my boss. I've met Teacher Dong in person, she's super pretty hahaha."

Ruan Suxian clicked into this person's homepage to take a look; updates had ceased two years ago, but the profile bio still read: Professional Representative at Jiangcheng Ftuoli Gallery.--

The access control system installed indoors suddenly chimed. Ruan Suxian closed her laptop, shuffled over to the living room in her slippers, and messaged Fu Mingyu at the same time.

[Ruan Suxian]: The dinner you ordered has arrived!

The moment she sent it, however, she caught sight of Dong Xian's face on the surveillance monitor.

She was downstairs at the entrance of the building, not coming up.

"What's wrong?"

She asked upon connecting the call.

Dong Xian raised her hand, holding up a food container. "I still couldn't sleep at all last night, so I wanted to come over and check on you."

The two of them gazed at each other through the tiny screen.

One wore a cautious expression, while the other remained lost in her own thoughts.

A moment later, the intercom call was interrupted by another dialing tone.

The actual delivery person had arrived.

"Hello, I'm the delivery driver from Xixiang Banquet, your dinner has arrived."

Ruan Suxian opened the door, accepted the food container, glanced back at the intercom, and pressed the unlock button for the main building door.

"Come on up."

Leaving the door unlatched, she carried the food straight to the dining room and arranged everything on the table one by one.

Three dishes, one soup, plus two bowls of rice.

Did Fu Mingyu take her for a pig?

Right on cue, Fu Mingyu called her.

"Eat your meal and go straight to bed, stop doing those problem sets."

"Oh."

Footsteps sounded from the doorway at that exact moment. Without turning back, Ruan Suxian said, "Don't bother changing into slippers."

"Do you have a guest?"

"Mhm, my mom is here."

The other end of the line fell silent for a moment before he said, "I'm hanging up then. Eat well."

Putting down her phone, Ruan Suxian picked up her chopsticks and turned around to see Dong Xian slowly walking in with the container, her head lifted as she surveyed the apartment.

Catching sight of the lavish spread on the table, a look of awkwardness crossed her face.

She walked over and opened the container, revealing a clay pot filled with soup.

"I figured you probably hadn't been sleeping well either, so I stewed some soup for you."

Holding her chopsticks, Ruan Suxian swallowed half a mouthful of rice, licked the corner of her lips, and said, "Have a seat."

Dong Xian nodded, sat down as instructed, and pushed the pot of soup toward Ruan Suxian.

"This is pigeon soup; your aunt went out early this morning specifically to pick out a fresh pigeon."

She extended her hand forward, the back of it rough and chapped, with noticeable cracks scarring her fingertips.

That was an occupational hazard brought on by years of handling paint, something no skincare product could ever reverse.

Seeing Ruan Suxian put her chopsticks down, Dong Xian immediately handed her a spoon.

"Want to try some?"

Instead of taking it, Ruan Suxian pushed the bowl in front of her away.

"I have something to ask you. Everything else can wait."

Dong Xian awkwardly withdrew the spoon. "Go ahead."

"What is your relationship with the owner of that Ftuoli Gallery?"

"What?"

Dong Xian blinked, startled. "You mean Guo Gaoyang?"

Lowering her eyes, Ruan Suxian gave a slight nod. "Yes."

"He's my agent, why?"

Ruan Suxian said, "I'll be blunt. Back when I was little, I frequently took a shortcut home along the path behind Nuxi Xixiang Alley—you probably didn't know that, did you?"

The words "Nuxi Xixiang Alley" felt impossibly distant; brought up so abruptly, they carried a surreal sense of unreality.

Looking at her in a daze, Dong Xian murmured, "I didn't."

"Mm, I figured you had no idea at all."

Picking up her chopsticks again without touching her food, Ruan Suxian gripped them tightly instead. "Every time I walked home that way, I saw you get out of a man's car on multiple occasions. That man also frequently gave you gifts, and I remember he had a very large mole right between his brows. That's your agent, isn't it?"

"Him!"

Dong Xian wasn't slow-witted, and possessing an innate sensitivity toward matters of this nature, the moment Ruan Suxian asked, she understood precisely what was being implied.

Her complexion flushed crimson at a visible pace. "He has a wife and a child in England! Are you out of your mind?!"

Before Ruan Suxian could reply, she stood up in a flurry of agitation. "And here I was wondering what kind of bizarre things you were saying back at the hospital—so that's what this is about! Where on earth did your mind wander?!"

"Don't get so worked up."

Ruan Suxian felt a throbbing ache in her temples. "I'm just trying to verify it with you, aren't I?"

"Why are you only asking me about this now? How many years has it been—almost ten years! You're only asking me now, so is this the reason you've refused to see me all this time? I honestly don't know what to say, how could you possibly—"

Ruan Suxian abruptly stood up and walked into the kitchen.

Dong Xian followed her in. "Are you going to say something?!"

"Drink some water first."

Ruan Suxian shoved a glass of warm water straight into her hands. "Calm down and talk properly."

Taking the water handed to her by Ruan Suxian, Dong Xian closed her eyes and chugged it all in one go, taking a long while to steady her breathing.

"Fine, I'll talk to you properly."

Setting down the glass, she walked out of the kitchen and sat on the sofa.

"I met Guo Gaoyang at an art charity event when I took my students to participate."

"He wanted to sign me, but I kept hesitating. Those times you saw him drop me off, it was entirely his insistence, and because I didn't want your father to know I was in contact with an agency, I kept dodging him."

"As for the gifts, he was merely trying to express his sincerity."

Very well.

Ruan Suxian couldn't even describe what she was feeling right now.

She had bottled this up for a full decade, never speaking of it to a single soul while enduring people who continually failed to understand why she couldn't accept her parents' divorce.

She had figured that no matter how angry she felt, a scandal of this nature was the final shred of dignity she was preserving for Dong Xian.

And so she had shouldered the suffocating grievance entirely on her own.

Only to find out it had all been a product of her own imagination.

She felt like an utter fool.

Seeing Ruan Suxian stay silent, Dong Xian asked, "Why did you only ask me about this now?"

"How was I supposed to ask?"

Ruan Suxian said, "I was only fourteen years old back then, how could the words have possibly come out of my mouth?"

To a junior high school student like Ruan Suxian, a situation of that caliber had completely transcended her scope of understanding.

It wasn't until a year later, when her parents divorced, that she hazily began to piece together what had actually been going on.

In the years that followed, Dong Xian rushed from place to place, appearing perpetually frantic. On the rare occasion she returned to find her once or twice a year, she wouldn't even visit the house, choosing instead to wait at the school gates.

As though she loathed that former home of hers.

Judging by her attire and styling during those times, Ruan Suxian could sense that she was living better and better, whereas her father's health at home steadily deteriorated.

He went from being a head teacher to teaching solely Mandarin.

Eventually, the number of classes he taught dwindled further, and the family's financial situation naturally declined in tandem.

The stark contrast seemed to pit the adults against each other in opposing camps.

Initially, Dong Xian and Ruan Suxian's father could still maintain a veneer of civility and exchange a few words.

Later on, they stopped talking altogether.

"Fine." Dong Xian raised a hand to signal an end to the topic, her eye sockets turning red. "For you to misunderstand me over this matter for so many years... I really feel... so heartbroken..."

Walking over to the dining table, she picked up the pot of soup, rubbed her eyes, and said, "Eat something first."

Ruan Suxian remained sitting by the sofa, unable to pull herself out of the emotional backwash, with zero appetite to eat.

Feeling utterly helpless, she didn't know what to say.

The two of them sat in silence, one seated and one standing.

Even with the living room heater running, no warmth could be felt.

The steam rising from the meal on the table slowly faded into chilliness, and a wave of painful cramping squeezed Dong Xian's heart as she choked out, "Ruanruan, let me accompany you for the New Year, alright?"

It had been nearly twelve years since the two of them had stayed up to ring in the New Year together, watched fireworks, or shared a New Year's meal.

By a hair's breadth, Ruan Suxian almost gave in and nodded amidst her tender immersion.

"I was wrong to misunderstand you about this, and I apologize."

Lifting her chin abruptly, she continued, "But you abandoning me when I was fourteen years old—that is true. Only coming to see me a total of five times across four years out of your own initiative—that is also true. My dad going out for a walk in low spirits and getting hit by a car the moment he learned you had remarried—that is true as well. You have no idea how I managed to grow up after turning fourteen; what gives you the right to waltz in and demand we celebrate a joyous New Year together just because I don't lack anything anymore?"