Auntie Yu had no intention of becoming anyone's masterpiece.
"Absolutely not."
Meilin lowered her sketchbook.
"I haven't even asked yet."
"You've been staring at me for ten minutes. Either you want my recipe or you want to paint me. I will give you neither."
From the kitchen came the hiss of oil and the sharp smell of garlic hitting a hot pan. Auntie Yu stood beside the entrance, counting crates while a delivery boy tried to explain why three bunches of spring onions were missing.
Meilin pointed toward the umbrella propped behind the counter.
"I'm interested in that."
"A broken umbrella?"
"The woman who held it over vegetables while she got soaked."
Auntie Yu stopped counting.
"Who told you?"
"I saw you."
"Then you saw foolishness. The boy should have moved the crates sooner."
"You still stayed in the rain."
"Vegetables cost money."
"So do umbrellas."
Auntie Yu looked her up and down. "Go and paint something respectable. Flowers. Mountains. One of those rich men with a nose so sharp it can cut glass."
Meilin thought of Chairman Zhao and nearly laughed.
"I'll consider the nose."
"Good. Now eat."
A bowl of steaming noodles appeared in front of her with the authority of a court order.
Meilin sighed.
"Does anyone in this city believe an artist can survive without lunch?"
"Not the foolish ones."
She returned that afternoon with a rough sketch.
The painting wouldn't show Auntie Yu as a kindly old woman dispensing wisdom. It would show the force of her: sleeve rolled up, feet firmly planted, one hand gripping an umbrella while the other pointed an accusing finger at the delivery boy.
Beneath the umbrella sat a ridiculous little crate of cabbages.
Meilin liked the absurdity of it. She liked the strength in Auntie Yu's wrist even more.
When she showed the sketch to its subject, the older woman studied it for a long time.
"You've made me look angry."
"You were angry."
"I am never angry."
Behind the counter, the delivery boy coughed.
Auntie Yu turned. He found urgent business in the storeroom.
Then she tapped the paper.
"My hands are too small."
Meilin looked.
She was right.
"May I fix them?"
"You'd better."
That was permission enough.
At Zhao Corporation, the internal security director had brought a second investigator to the chairman's office.
Chen Li stood beside the window, without his usual tablet. His access had been suspended at his own request while the investigation proceeded.
On the desk lay a printed approval record bearing his name.
"The authorisation was genuine in format," the investigator explained, "but we can't establish that it came from Mr Chen's device. A recovery pathway appears to have accepted an older delegation."
"Why was it active?" Zhao Jingshen asked.
"It should have been retired during the last systems migration."
"Who signed off the migration?"
The security director supplied a name.
Zhao Jingshen wrote nothing down. He had an excellent memory, and the man responsible would not appreciate its accuracy.
"Contain it," he said.
"We've isolated that pathway, Chairman. The security team is reviewing every privileged recovery performed since the migration."
"Independent review."
"An external specialist?"
A nod.
The investigator gathered his files.
One carelessly preserved permission had allowed someone to imitate the chairman's most trusted aide. The intruder had then tested a false cargo record from the Grand Imperial's network.
It was no longer a question of whether the two events were related.
It was a question of who had known where to look.
When the investigators left, Chen Li remained standing.
"Chairman, there may be pressure to appoint someone else to my position while this continues."
"There already is."
Chen Li looked up.
"Director Zhao Wenzhou called this morning. He offered to send one of his people to assist."
"Declined."
"Sir, my permissions are—"
"Temporary."
Zhao Jingshen opened the next report.
Chen Li had worked at his side long enough to understand the dismissal. He was not being punished. The investigation would proceed, and his position would remain his.
For the first time that morning, he could breathe properly.
Li Jimin found Meilin with paint on her elbow, her forehead and, inexplicably, the back of her neck.
He stood in the doorway, surveying the apartment.
"Was there a struggle?"
"Yes. The canvas won."
"Tragic."
Meilin waved him in with a brush. "If you're here to criticise my meals, Ling's already handled it."
"I'm here because the art association posted its shortlist."
Her brush stopped.
"Already?"
"The names are public."
He showed her the page.
There it was, between two unfamiliar artists.
Jiang Meilin.
Below the list, the association had announced that shortlisted artists would be profiled before the review. Each was invited to supply a photograph, brief biography and samples of previous work.
Meilin felt two contrary impulses rise together.
She wanted to laugh.
She wanted to close the page before anyone else could see it.
Jimin watched her face.
"You knew the review wouldn't stay private."
"I knew."
"Knowing and seeing are different."
She sat on the stool beside the easel.
For almost three years, she'd worked to put that name where people couldn't ignore it. Now a small independent association had printed it on a website, and her first instinct was to retreat.
Jimin leaned against the wall.
"I can ask them not to publish your photograph."
"You can ask," she said. "You will not make them."
His expression didn't change.
"I wouldn't."
She looked up at him, grateful he understood the distinction without a lecture.
"Send the photographs of the paintings," she decided. "I'll write the biography myself. If they insist on a portrait, I'll decide then."
"Fair."
"And Jimin?"
"Yes, Sis?"
"No old favours. No calls to people who owe us anything. Whatever happens with the review, it happens because they judge the work."
He smiled slightly.
"As you wish."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Why did that sound so suspicious?"
"Because you're naturally suspicious."
"You taught me."
"Then I've done my job."
Meilin spent the evening writing a biography.
The first version made her sound like a woman who spent her life standing on hilltops pondering the human condition.
She deleted it.
The second included too many things she couldn't explain.
Deleted.
By the third attempt she had reduced herself to three sentences:
Jiang Meilin is a Xia City-based painter interested in the moments people overlook. Her work focuses on ordinary lives, gestures and the changing meaning of light. She believes a painting should invite a viewer to look rather than tell them what to think.
She read it aloud.
A little stiff, perhaps.
But true.
She attached photographs of Morning Comes Anyway and the five other completed works she already had. The workshop painting needed another day. Auntie Yu's umbrella had only just found its shape.
Six completed works, one nearly finished, one underway.
The deadline remained six days away.
Meilin saved the draft rather than submitting early. She'd made enough decisions for one evening.
Then she opened the picture Ling had taken at the gala.
Her painting on a wall.
Her name beneath it.
For a long time she sat there with the screen glowing in her hands.
"I'm trying," she whispered.
She didn't say to whom.
Zhao Jingshen woke before sunrise.
Across his bedroom, the little cityscape lay in the half-light, its figures waiting for the real day to catch up with them.
He rose, crossed to the console and adjusted the frame by a fraction. It hadn't been crooked. He simply wanted the morning light to reach it properly.
Morning Comes Anyway.
It was still a peculiar choice for his room.
He had decided not to examine that choice too closely.
By the time he reached the office, an envelope marked confidential was waiting on his desk.
Inside was the outside investigator's preliminary preservation notice. The older delegation pathway had not been used once.
It had been used on four separate occasions.
Three had occurred before the gala, each involving a different dormant account. None had produced a visible loss.
The fourth had been the false shipping record that first drew his attention.
Zhao Jingshen read the dates.
Someone had been practising.
He closed the envelope and pressed the intercom.
"Chen."
"Yes, Chairman?"
"Bring me the migration approvals."
A pause.
"All of them?"
"All."
Beyond his windows, Xia City was waking.
And somewhere in the machinery of Zhao Corporation, someone was counting on its chairman never looking closely enough.