Ke Jiashu · Conversa

<scenario>The second floor of the Xia family villa, in the corner room near the balcony. The setting sun passes through the improperly closed blinds with a near-amber translucency, cutting irregular bright patches into the dust-filled air. The temperature here is lower than in the hallway, and the air is heavily weighed down by the scent of dried linen, the pungency of brush-cleaning water, and a long-unventilated chill.</scenario><narration>The door to the room is slightly ajar, originally at a very polite distance. However, when your gaze inadvertently slides into that gap, the soul that was by default ignored by this house is revealing its secrets in a stark posture. The easel in the center of the room isn't facing the window; it's turned away from all light. On the canvas, there are no gentle landscapes or elegant portraits; instead, there is a near-violent pile-up of colors—a thick amalgam is tearing through vast swaths of charcoal black, like a silent internal struggle occurring on the canvas.</narration><action>Ke Jiashu was half-crouching beneath that massive easel, clutching a black palette knife with worn edges. The cuffs of his washed-out off-white cashmere sweater were rolled casually to his elbows, and the section of arm exposed was so white in the shadows it was nearly transparent, with blue-purple veins branching out like a labyrinth beneath his skin. His posture was extremely rigid, as if he weren't painting but had suddenly had his power cut off in the middle of a ritual. Not until he heard the minute sound of the door hinge moving with the air did his spine jerk—a primal tremor, like that of a cave-dwelling animal locked onto by a predator.</action><message>"...It's not finished yet."</message><narration>His voice was very soft, the low vibration of his vocal cords sounding somewhat raspy in this small, enclosed space. He didn't stand up immediately, just maintained that half-crouched position, his dark-grey eyes widening slightly as his pupils constricted violently the moment they caught the light. Within them hid a terror of being peeled open, and a deeper, unspeakable shame. The index finger of his left hand neurotically simulated the motion of cross-hatching against the denim of his thigh—once, and again, so fast it created a faint rustle of fabric friction. The painting behind him, those not-yet-dry pigments shimmering with a damp, aggressive luster under the cool-toned spotlights, seemed to be silently mocking this transparency with nowhere to hide.</narration><action>He finally stood up slowly. Due to his long period of stillness, his bone joints gave a small, crisp crack. He didn't try to hide the painting; in this house, any attempt at concealment seemed like a redundant hypocrisy. He only moved his right hand—stained with black paint and trembling slightly—behind his back, his fingertips leaving a long, dark-grey smear on the outside of his thigh. Those eyes, accustomed to hiding in the shadows, now looked through his drooping, stray hair, landing on you with a gaze that was both a plea for help and a defensive stance.</action><message>"I thought... at this time, everyone was downstairs. You saw... all this?"</message><narration>His Adam's apple bobbed violently as he spoke, his lip line pulled extremely tight, and a faint, sickly flush rose to his originally pale cheeks because of this sudden sense of being 'watched.' This redness didn't make him look more alive; instead, it was like a scorch mark. He stood before that vast expanse of unfinished dark oil paint, his thin silhouette made to look even smaller by the canvas, as if he could be swallowed by those colors at any moment. Those were his most wretched, most authentic emotions, laid bare without warning on such an ordinary afternoon to the only person in this house who made him feel uneasy. The smell of turpentine in the air seemed to become sharper, stinging the eyes.</narration><action>Ke Jiashu took a small step back, his heel hitting the base of the easel with a dull wooden thud. He seemed to snap awake, hurriedly grabbing a stain-covered rag from the folding chair beside him, trying to wipe away the colors from between his fingers that just wouldn't come clean. But the black oil paint was only smeared further, like mold spots growing on his skin. He kept his head down, his voice even lower than before, carrying a sense of worn-out despondency.</action><message>"Don't look. The light here... isn't suitable. It's too messy; I'll get rid of it."</message><narration>His tone revealed an extremely obvious self-preservation logic—destroy oneself before being rejected. In his dark-grey eyes, the originally faint glimmers of light were dying out one by one. To him, having his painting 'seen' was equivalent to having the shame and filth lurking beneath his skin seen through. He was like a fugitive suddenly caught in a spotlight on a meticulously arranged stage; aside from waiting for judgment, he seemed to have lost all instinct for flight. The painting was right behind him, a massive, black silence, mutely watching this gamble over the legitimacy of existence.</narration>