2021, March.
An old residential apartment complex in Guangshen City.
Spring rain fell in a continuous drizzle, and all things came back to life, tinted with fresh spring colors. Drizzling raindrops drifted across the tops of people's heads, leaving a hazy mist suspended in mid-air.
At one of the windows in the bustling neighborhood, a girl rested her legs on a desk, a sketchpad propped on her knees as she held a paintbrush casually.
Gazing at the fine drizzle outside the window, she became deeply engrossed in it. After a long moment, she lowered her head and began to draw on the blank paper.
A cool breeze slipped through the window, flipping the pages of a notebook on the desk and rustling the girl's messy hair.
She stopped painting.
What appeared on the paper was not the misty drizzle outside her window, but a vibrant, sunny day.
Strangely enough, the drawing was filled with all sorts of vivid colors, yet the girl had only ever held an ordinary paintbrush in her hand, without even dipping it in any pigment.
The sky in the painting was a brilliant azure, lazy white clouds stirring under a golden radiance. A warm breeze gently brushed the treetops, startling the quiet birds, while the roadside bustled with a lively crowd rejoicing over the arrival of clear skies.
It was exquisitely detailed and lifelike, making one marvel as if the colors had somehow been pressed directly into the paper.
Without warning, a faint glow quietly lit up the painting. It lasted for only two seconds before fading back into stillness.
With a calm expression, the girl put down her sketchpad and brush as if she had seen nothing, stood up, and walked straight out of the room.
"Mom, the sun's out! Take the laundry out to dry!"
No sooner had her voice trailed off than sunlight streamed through the window behind her, banishing the damp, moldy smell from the room. Surprised shouts echoed from the buildings outside as well.
The girl walked over to the balcony and opened the window, a wave of warm air greeting her face.
She set up her laundry pole, hanging all the damp clothes from inside onto the crossbeams outside the balcony window. The sky outside had cleared up completely, mirroring the exact scene she had just drawn.
"The sun is finally out! It's been raining heavily for a whole week. Hurry up and hang the laundry, and while you're at it, drag the quilts and pillows out to catch some sun!"
A middle-aged woman wearing an apron hurried out from the interior, still holding a kitchen knife. She glanced toward the balcony and said briskly.
The girl responded with an "okay" and sped up her pace of hanging the clothes.
When she finished everything, the girl returned to her bedroom, only to freeze in her tracks.
The drawing she had just completed on the desk had turned entirely white; all the brushstrokes and colors on the paper had vanished.
The girl reacted immediately, letting out a familiar sigh as she muttered softly,
"Happens every time. Once what I draw becomes reality, it ceases to exist on the paper."
She picked up her sketchpad and instinctively flipped it open, only to find that all the preceding pages were completely blank.
She placed the sketchpad into the desk drawer and pulled out a black notebook instead.
Opening it, three striking characters were written on the first page: "Liu Mingxi", evoking bright ripples of light and the rhythmic sound of rising tides.
This was the girl's name. Liu Mingxi was eighteen years old this year, a freshly enrolled fine arts major at Guangshen University.
Ever since she was little, her talent for drawing had been extraordinary—strangely so.
She first realized something was amiss when she was nine years old, spending her summer vacation at her eldest aunt's house.
Her aunt's home was in a rural village in Heyuan City, Guangdong Province, backed by grand mountains and bordered by a small stream. The scenery was picturesque, but the mosquitoes were fierce and bugs crawled everywhere.
Moreover, cell reception was poor and the television was rarely watched, so she had to rely on reading and drawing for entertainment. Wandering around with her older cousins from time to time—exploring the mountains, catching river clams, and riding bicycles to the county town for snacks—made up some of the happiest, most carefree moments of her childhood.
When she got bored, she would tear out blank sheets from her school notebooks to draw on.
A child's drawings are full of childlike innocence and naivety.
Simple pencil lines outlined crude little figures, haphazardly drawn circles, and square little houses. They brimmed with young Mingxi's rich imagination and genuine emotions, revealing the simple joy in a child's heart.
But a child's enthusiasm fades quickly too, and as soon as she finished drawing, Mingxi went off to eat.
When she returned to her room, the bedroom was in complete chaos.
The paper she had drawn on earlier was now blank. The little figures from the drawing had detached themselves and were bouncing wildly around the desk, with pencils and erasers scattered all over the floor. Not far from the figures stood a square little house and a small, black-and-white tree.
Everything matched the objects in her drawing down to the last detail.
They had all come to life!
From then on, young Mingxi drew whenever she had free time, falling in love with art before she even knew it.
Her drawings were alive; she could breathe souls into her creations and make them lifelike.
Yet life was short. Liu Mingxi's drawings could be given souls, and inanimate objects could exist permanently in reality.
A pen, a water cup, a book—any inanimate object taking up little space could persist. Paper currency, however, would not work; she couldn't draw it, or at least she couldn't replicate those shimmering security threads.
Living things were even more out of the question. Small flowers and grass were acceptable, surviving briefly for a day or a week. But anything with a stronger life force—people, cats—simply wouldn't work and could only remain trapped within the drawings.
By the time she entered middle school, her artistic skills were entirely self-taught. Or rather, by copying things directly, she could render them with striking likeness, leaping off the page. But once detached from reality and relying solely on imagination, it was impossible.
It was like Ma Liang with his magic brush trying to paint a dragon by looking at a model: he had the "dragon," but lacked the "eyes."
It had a soul, but no life.
At thirteen, Liu Mingxi's artistic skills were already superb, but she had hit a bottleneck.
Later on, she met the first true mentor of her life—someone who would profoundly influence her thereafter.
Miss Zhang, a gentle teacher, was shocked to discover Liu Mingxi's otherworldly drawing skills during an art class, and things took off from there.
Almost every afternoon self-study period was spent in the art room. Over three gradual years, relying on her exceptional artistic talent, she soared to prominence as a top student and was admitted to Guangshen First Senior High School on an art scholarship.
Another three years passed, and she had won so many awards that they were practically used to prop up wobbly table legs.
By now, she had gained full control over her drawings. Whether inanimate or living, as long as she drew them, a mere thought from her could bring them into physical existence.
Between heaven and earth, she was the creator here. It was only a pity that once a drawing came to life, it would no longer remain on the paper, no matter how miraculous the artwork might be.
Now she could face her living drawings with a calm expression not just because she was used to it, but more importantly because nobody else would believe her.
The very first time she saw her drawings come to life, she had excitedly told the adults, but they always just brushed it off with a smile—after all, children will be children, just making up stories.
So now, unless she deliberately wished for something to manifest, her drawings remained strictly on paper.
That blank sketchpad from earlier was used exclusively for real drawings, and the brush she used was just an ordinary one bought from a stationery store.
As for the black notebook, Liu Mingxi flipped to the page dated 2021.03.14. It was a diary.
"Today I drew a little cat's house and made it a bit bigger. I bought some fresh cat food and ham; I can't keep letting the cat eat the food I draw."
Beneath the text was a sketch of a small cat bed.
Glancing over it, she turned to the fresh page beside it and wrote 2021.03.15.
"Usually, I draw a clear day, and when the sky clears up, there's finally no miserable dampness. I like the sun."
Likewise, beneath the words, she sketched a small sun, feeling the warmth of the sunshine radiating from beneath her pencil tip.