Chapter Ninety-Six: Spontaneous Verse, the Old House Exhibition

“Xiaoshou, do I look like the title of your book now...”

“What?”

“Wife, harder?” Qi Nai said as she tightened her grip on Xiaoshou’s ear.

...

One platter of smoked meats and braised delicacies, plus two pots of peach-blossom wine, was clearly nowhere near enough for this crowd.

Lin Shenlu rode the electric tricycle he had borrowed from Su Baoer earlier and went back to the main street to buy more food, along with two cases of liquor.

Tonight was turning into a proper old-village party.

Before darkness fell completely, the lonely woman painter Qi Nai began studying the charred wall.

“Xiaoshou, Xiaoshou, you really do know how to cause trouble! This whole huge wall will take me ages to finish...” Qi Nai shook her head as she looked at the somewhat awkward Xiaoshou beside her.

The current relations in this courtyard were a complete mess...

For one reason or another, Hai Lanjing could almost be called Lin Shenlu’s fan...

Xiaoshou was a fan of Hai Lanjing...

And Wu Heng and Qi Nai were also fans of Xiaoshou...

“If it’s too much trouble, just renovate it. That’d be fast enough,” Xiaoshou said awkwardly.

“No! Now that I know about it, I have to make it happen! From now on, this can count as one of Lishui’s lovely stories... The famous writer Xiaoshou’s home has been given a splash of color by me, Qi Nai. How interesting, how interesting!” Qi Nai could hardly contain her excitement.

Lin Shenlu found it rather strange. Qi Nai must have been Gemini with AB blood, surely.

Why did she seem to have multiple personalities everywhere she turned?

She was a completely different person from the one he had met before.

Could it be because she had fallen in love with the words Xiaoshou wrote, and in loving the writing, had fallen in love with the man himself?

Soon, Su Baoer and Hai Lanjing brought an old wooden table into the courtyard, and all the wine and food were placed on top.

The evening sky had already grown dark.

Lin Shenlu lit the old lamp in the yard.

At once, the atmosphere became wonderfully warm.

Everyone gathered around the table and prepared to eat.

Lin Shenlu poured Hai Lanjing a cup of peach-blossom wine, then got down to business.

“How is it, Boss Hai? Did you get any results from the inquiry I asked you to make this afternoon?” Lin Shenlu asked.

“Of course. I’ve already gotten in touch with the people in the cultural department that you wanted. What I’m curious about is what exactly you’re planning to do... When they asked me what I needed to consult them about today, I didn’t even know how to answer...” Hai Lanjing snorted softly and drank down a cup of peach-blossom wine.

Lishui’s peach-blossom wine really was sweet and delicious. Once it touched the tongue, fragrance filled the mouth and the aftertaste lingered endlessly.

“This isn’t really anything complicated. I just want the cultural department to help us with a round of publicity... Your old house being converted into an inn is about to be finalized, and after that we can hold a Lishui Art Festival, or perhaps the first Lishui Whale-Deer Inn painting exhibition, and so on... We can’t handle publicity like that ourselves, but the relevant departments certainly can!”

After hearing Lin Shenlu out, Hai Lanjing thought it over.

Then her eyes lit up.

What kind of move was this?

How had she not thought of it herself?

This would do a great deal to build momentum for the Whale-Deer Inn!

“This is only the first step. I haven’t yet thought through the exact form of the follow-up steps, but as long as this is done well, I dare say the next step will be no problem!” Lin Shenlu said with a smile.

After a pause, he went on, “I originally wanted to speak to the leaders in person, but now that I’ve told you all this, you can work through the plan yourself... Go tomorrow on your own. I haven’t been out these past few days anyway, and tomorrow I’m planning to continue traveling. My manuscript still isn’t finished...”

Hai Lanjing looked at Lin Shenlu with a deeply resentful air.

This guy never lifted a finger if he could avoid it. So lazy it was almost criminal...

At the dinner table, everyone drank happily, and the mood was excellent.

Especially the writer Xiaoshou. After a few cups of wine, he was clearly getting drunk.

At that moment, Xiaoshou was standing on a chair, his face flushed red, a wine cup in hand, suddenly seized by poetic inspiration.

As he swayed, wine sloshed from the cup.

“Ah... a wild goose flies ahead and keeps on flying
Another wild goose follows behind and keeps on chasing
Once it catches up, bang bang bang, a proper beating
And after that, nobody knows anybody anymore...”

Xiaoshou improvised a poem and had the time of his life.

More than half the wine spilled from his cup, trickling down his clothes and onto his trousers.

In the moonlight and the dim lamp glow, no one could tell whether the wet patch on his pants was wine or some other liquid.

...

At dawn the next morning, Lin Shenlu stepped out of the room, stretching.

The sky had only just begun to brighten. Last night he had drunk a little too much, so he had slept in half an hour longer than usual.

And in the quiet morning, a slender figure was busy at the wall.

Lin Shenlu looked more closely and saw that it was the woman painter Qi Nai.

It seemed she hadn’t gone home last night...

Where had she slept?

In Wu Heng’s bed, or in Xiaoshou’s?

Still, it hardly mattered.

Lin Shenlu was not one for gossip...

Besides, Xiaoshou had drunk himself into looking like a corpse; he probably wasn’t in any condition to go scattering sweat around.

And in any case, Lin Shenlu was certain Xiaoshou was not the kind of man who slept with his fans.

Qi Nai was preparing to paint on the blackened wall.

As though she had heard Lin Shenlu’s voice, she turned to look back.

“Well... do you have any good suggestions?” Qi Nai had returned to her usual quietness.

It seemed that whenever Xiaoshou was not present, she was always this solitary.

“The canvas is too large. It’s not easy to handle,” Lin Shenlu said with a nod.

Indeed, for a painter accustomed to working on smaller canvases, suddenly creating a work this huge was a challenge that tested skill as much as endurance.

It meant enlarging many of the objects within the composition.

And enlargement required detail.

Or else it exposed the lack of detail.

That was why so many murals in ancient churches and temples were painted by true masters.

Of course, in modern times, many large wall paintings were either graffiti or the sort of comic-style figures one often saw.

That could still preserve artistry and beauty.

But if it were an oil painting on an entire wall... to be honest, that was really quite difficult.

“It depends on your style, really. Do you want it bright and sunny, or dark and eerie?” Lin Shenlu said.

Qi Nai, as a painter, was still rather difficult for him to read.

“If it’s bright and sunny, you could paint a sea of sunflowers with a strong sense of depth and distance... This wall faces east. Every sunrise, the first rays of light will fall on it, and those sunflowers, all lifting their heads in bloom, would be beautiful.” Lin Shenlu thought of the sunflower fields he had seen a few days earlier.

“If you want it dark and eerie... I have no ideas. That’s not my field. You’d be far better off doing whatever you want.” Lin Shenlu smiled.

“Forget it. Asking you was pointless anyway...” Qi Nai snorted softly and returned to her sketching.

She seemed determined to preserve that stretch of blackened scorch mark.

Creating something on that foundation really was a bit challenging.

“Oh, right, Qi Nai!” Lin Shenlu called as he reached the doorway, ready to go for his morning run.

“Hm?” Qi Nai turned to look at him.

“How long will you stay in Lishui? In a few days, the inn we’re building will open, and there’ll be a painters’ exchange exhibition. I’d like to invite you to come and paint a piece on site... And that painting, of course, we’ll keep permanently in the room where you’re staying. Also, you’d be the very first person ever to stay in that room,” Lin Shenlu asked.