Dragging my legs as if they were made of lead, I finally shuffled to my front door. The tension of the competition, the ups and downs of my entanglement with Lin Yuehan, and the inexplicable, complex emotions during the award ceremony had nearly drained all my strength. I pulled out my keys and poked at the keyhole several times before finally lining it up.
Luckily, Sister Yueran said there weren’t many customers tonight and gave me the night off. Otherwise, I really wouldn’t have known how to handle work at the cat cafe.
‘Great, tonight I’ll just cosplay as a corpse the whole night!’
Just as I pushed open the creaking wooden door and before I could even put down my heavy art bag, a pink figure darted in front of me like a gust of wind.
“Guiyun! You’re back!” Ling Xiaoxiao’s rabbit ears vibrated at high speed with excitement, and her eyes sparkled. “Congratulations on winning the bronze prize! That’s amazing!”
Her sincere cheers were like a warm current, slightly dispelling the fatigue in my body. I managed a weak smile. “Thank you, Xiaoxiao…”
“Let me tell you! Great news!” She didn’t notice my exhaustion at all. She grabbed my wrist and started shaking it, her pink-and-white tail wagging behind her like a small cyclone. “My sister! She saw your drawings and absolutely loved them! She told me to bring you to see her the moment you got back! She said she has something very important to talk to you about!”
‘Wait, you… you let her see my drawings?’
‘The illustrations for Sister Beina’s novel… if she could really use my art…’
“Yeah! Otherwise, how could she decide whether to use them or not?” Ling Xiaoxiao replied without a second thought.
Thinking about it, that made sense.
I knew what this meant. It was real exposure, a chance for my name to be seen by more people. But that manga I had made up based on her… She shouldn’t have discovered that yet, right?
I looked into Ling Xiaoxiao’s eyes, which were filled with pure joy for a friend, and my claws quietly tightened around the strap of my art bag.
‘Right now?’ My voice felt a bit dry.
“Yeah, yeah! It’s rare for my sister to be so proactive! Let’s go, let’s go.” Ignoring my hesitation, Ling Xiaoxiao pulled me toward the door.
My whole body was screaming for rest, but the opportunity was right in front of me. I took a deep breath and finally moved my aching legs.
I hoped it was just about the illustrations…
—
Pushed and pulled by the exuberant Ling Xiaoxiao, I stepped into Ling Beina’s home. The living room was as tidy and comfortable as ever, and the air held the familiar scent of grass-scented incense.
“Sister! I brought him!” Xiaoxiao shouted.
“I heard you. With that voice of yours, the whole building knows,” a lazy, smiling voice came from deep within the sofa.
Ling Beina was the same as always, curled up on the sofa like a cat basking in the sun. A thin blanket covered her down to her waist, and she held a tablet in her hands. She looked up, her long hair a bit messy and her face showing some fatigue from staying up late, but her eyes were clear.
“Little Guiyun, long time no see.” She curled the corners of her mouth and greeted me naturally, her gaze sweeping over my face. “Xiaoxiao said you went to a competition today? You look exhausted.”
I nodded subconsciously, and my tail relaxed a bit without me realizing it. Every time I saw Sister Beina, she was always like this. Her tone was as casual as if she were chatting about daily life, making my tense nerves relax involuntarily.
“Sister! Did you see Guiyun’s drawings? Aren’t they amazing?” Xiaoxiao couldn’t wait to chime in.
“I saw them, I saw them.” Beina smiled and gave her sister a playful glare before her eyes settled back on me with a hint of admiration. “The drawings are really good. Much better than some professional artists who miss their deadlines.”
My cheeks felt a bit hot, and my claws picked at the strap of my art bag. “Thank you, Sister Beina…”
She put down the tablet and stretched lazily, the thin blanket sliding down slightly. “Speaking of which, there’s something I want to discuss with you.” She picked up a bag of potato chips from the coffee table and naturally offered it to me. “Want some?”
I shook my head, my attention entirely on what she was about to say next.
“My new book is coming out soon, and I need an illustrator. Xiaoxiao insisted I look at your work, and now that I have, I think you’re quite suitable.” She said this while crunching on potato chips, her tone as casual as if they were discussing what to eat for dinner.
My heart skipped a beat. The opportunity had really come.
“Your style is very clean, and you capture emotions accurately,” she continued, though her gaze lingered thoughtfully on my face. “Especially that… feeling of being a bit nervous and a bit shy. You portray it very vividly.”
My ears perked up quietly.
She slowly swallowed a potato chip, patted the crumbs off her hands, and a faint smile played on her lips. “Actually, it’s quite a coincidence. The tone in your drawings… I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before. It feels very familiar.”
The air seemed to freeze for a moment. I felt the tip of my tail go stiff.
‘Does she… know something? Like, for example, that manga…’
Ling Beina looked at my suddenly tense body, her eyes crinkling slightly. Her tone remained relaxed and natural. “Maybe people in the arts just share similar sensibilities.” She brushed it off lightly, as if it really had been a casual remark.
“So, are you interested in giving it a try?” She leaned back into the sofa and took a sip from her water glass. “But commercial illustrations have much more specific requirements, especially…” She paused, her gaze sweeping lightly over my tail, which had involuntarily fluffed up. Her tone held a hint of something hard to pin down. “Certain scenes that require a grasp of ‘atmosphere’ might need some careful thought.”
I stood there, the sweat on my palms quietly dampening the strap of my art bag. Sister Beina still seemed so easygoing, even a bit lazy, but every word she spoke was like a feather lightly brushing against my most sensitive nerves.
On the surface, this conversation was about a job opportunity, but underneath, it felt like a silent interrogation. And as a tenant who owed rent and had secretly drawn a manga about her, I could only grit my teeth and stand there, praying she truly was just speaking offhandedly.
I took a deep breath, my claws unconsciously tugging at the hem of my shirt. My voice was barely louder than a mosquito’s hum. “Sister Beina, what you just said… the atmosphere that needs to be captured, what specifically does that mean?”
Ling Beina was picking up her water glass, and her movements paused at my question. She slowly set the glass back down on the coffee table with a soft clink, then looked up. Those eyes, which always held a lazy smile, were exceptionally clear now, as if they could see through a person’s heart.
She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, studying me with an inquisitive look. The gaze wasn’t sharp, but it made me feel like I had nowhere to hide. My cheeks began to heat up uncontrollably.
“Well…” She drew out the word, her lips curving into a mischievous arc. “For example… that push-and-pull ambiguity between two girls.”
My ears shot straight up.
“Not blunt intimacy,” she explained slowly, her voice soft, yet every word drilled clearly into my ears. “But the moment when fingertips are about to touch and then pull back. The flush on a cheek when eyes avert. The way one person speaks into an ear, causing the other’s neck to turn pink…”
As she spoke, she lightly tapped her own earlobe with a fingertip before sliding it down the side of her neck. The movement was natural, yet it carried an indescribable suggestiveness.
“It’s that kind of tension—calm on the surface, but with an undercurrent surging beneath. Do you understand?”
My face instantly caught fire. The heat rushed from my cheeks to the tips of my ears, and even my neck felt scalding. Images flashed uncontrollably through my mind—scenes that might exist in her novel, and even more… the plot of that manga I had published anonymously using her as a model.
What she was describing was exactly what I had drawn! At least, it was one of the key themes!
My tail hung stiffly behind me, not daring to move an inch. I kept my head down, wishing I could bury my burning face in the carpet, not daring to meet her eyes.
“I… I understand.”
My voice was so small it was almost inaudible, and it carried a distinct tremble.
Seeing me look like I wanted to vanish on the spot, Ling Beina let out a soft laugh. She leaned back into the sofa again, returning to her lazy posture as if those face-reddening words hadn’t just come from her mouth.
“It’s good that you understand.” Her tone was light as she took another sip of water, hiding a deeper smile at the corner of her lips. “Then, we can take our time discussing the specific details of the collaboration.”