Chapter 13: This Lady Will Be Your Canvas
Yu Xian didn't show the slightest hint of warmth in response to that soft "Sister Yu." It was nothing more than a shameless, spoiled heiress who only knew how to wheedle and act coquettish after causing trouble.
Yu Xian brushed her hands aside and continued washing the bean sprouts.
Having gained no ground, Ming Ruixi hesitated, a resentful pout on her lips: "Yu Xian... why are you so petty?"
As Yu Xian continued preparing lunch, Ming Ruixi hovered beside her, murmuring non-stop: "Yu Xian, don't kick this lady out. I really have nowhere else to go."
"I was wrong in this matter. I shouldn't have been so greedy for good food... but it was honestly so delicious..."
"Their customer service was just awful! I already told them I'd pay, yet they still had to get handsy. It was fortunate you showed up, Yu Xian."
"Yu Xian!" Ming Ruixi spun around, following behind her. "What do I actually have to do for you to forgive this lady?!"
Holding a plate of prepared vegetables, Yu Xian turned around. Eldest Miss Ming blocked her path, reaching out to take the dish from her hands: "Let me..."
Yu Xian didn't hand it over. The young lady gave a light tug, but couldn't budge it. In the end, Yu Xian calmly pushed her hands aside, stepped past her, and tipped the greens into the hot wok.
The moment the wok erupted in loud sizzles and pops, Eldest Miss Ming shrank back in fright, not daring to step an inch closer for fear of grease splattering onto her skin. She could only watch from afar as Yu Xian stir-fried the vegetables.
After the meal, the delivery driver from Zuo Hui arrived with the package. Yu Xian went down to sign for it, while Eldest Miss Ming picked up the two rolls of masking tape and followed her upstairs.
The easel required assembly by Yu Xian. It wasn't particularly difficult; Ming Ruixi merely stood by, watching how she put it together.
Once finished, Yu Xian still paid her no mind, treating her entirely like thin air.
Unable to decipher her attitude—she hadn't told her to pack up, nor had she invited her to stay—Ming Ruixi asked tentatively, "Yu Xian, you won't kick me out, right?"
The question seemed to serve as a reminder. Pausing her hand on the drawing board, Yu Xian turned her clear, cool gaze upon her: "Leave tomorrow. Don't stay here any longer. You don't need to pay that money back."
They simply did not belong in the same world.
"Yu Xian, are you angry?"
Receiving no response, Ming Ruixi felt a spark of indignant frustration. Why was this woman so hard to appease? "It's just over a thousand yuan! This lady will pay you back!"
With that, Ming Ruixi dashed out of the studio. Yu Xian watched her departing figure for a moment, then went back to tightening the easel fixtures with cool indifference.
It was nothing more than petty spite. Could she truly believe the girl could cough up over a thousand yuan?
Back in her room, Ming Ruixi dumped the contents of her handbag upside down, turning it inside out. Yet after rummaging through several times, she couldn't find a single coin—only two tubes of lipstick and a compact powder, let alone an astronomical sum like over a thousand silver dollars.
In a panic, Ming Ruixi tapped open her social media apps. But catching sight of the blacklisted statuses, she set the phone back down. If she had any friends willing to help her, she wouldn't have been reduced to fleeing to such a remote, backwater place.
Infuriating! For an exalted heiress of the Ming family to be unable to produce even a measly thousand yuan!
She refused to accept it.
After assembling the easel, Yu Xian returned to her bedroom, intending to finish the remaining background illustration. However, as she drew, her gaze was drawn to a silhouette outside on the balcony.
Eldest Miss Ming stood beneath the clothesline, struggling with a clothes pole to hook down her black velvet dress.
Because one end of the balcony had been cluttered with miscellaneous items left behind by the previous owner, Yu Xian hadn't figured out what to use them for. Years of frugal habits had kept her from tossing them, thinking they might come in handy one day. As a result, an old writing desk and heaps of odd knick-knacks sat stacked there.
The breeze often blew garments directly above that pile of clutter, making retrieval a cumbersome task.
Eldest Miss Ming braced one hand against the edge of the desk—though a closer look revealed a paper tissue between her palm and the wood; she was disgusted by the thought of the dust touching her skin.
With her other hand, she reached out with the clothes pole toward the formal dress blown to the far end.
Even with the reach of her arm and the pole combined, she was still just an inch short of hooking the gown.
Eldest Miss Ming began standing on tiptoe, leaning her upper body forward.
In doing so, her lithe figure and the full, perky curve of her hips were displayed completely unobstructed right before Yu Xian's eyes.
Yu Xian pulled her gaze back, resuming her work on the tablet.
The background linework was completed. She then imported the previous princess-syndrome character design, adjusting its composition and lighting until, finally, a finished illustration lay complete before her.
Yu Xian sent it over to the client. While waiting for a reply, she looked up toward the window. Eldest Miss Ming had already stepped onto a lower crate, attempting to climb onto the old desk.
Unable to watch any longer, Yu Xian got up and walked out onto the balcony. Eldest Miss Ming had already planted one foot on the old desk, which sat flush with the balcony railing. If anything went wrong with that rickety desk—even a slight wobble—she could pitch straight over the edge.
Yu Xian's expression darkened: "Ming Ruixi, get down."
The legs of that old desk were wobbly at best; otherwise, it wouldn't have been discarded out here.
Having stepped onto it, Ming Ruixi could already feel the unsteady wobble beneath her feet. Yet looking at the dress hanging tantalizingly close, she was unwilling to give up.
"Yu Xian, hand this lady that clothes pole." Instead of obediently stepping down as told, Ming Ruixi insisted on grabbing the gown herself.
"Get down." Yu Xian stepped closer, suppressing a cold sharpness in her voice. "I'll get it for you."
"Really?" Ming Ruixi glanced at the formal dress, then back at Yu Xian. Choosing to trust her, she slowly squatted down and, holding onto the hand Yu Xian extended to her, carefully climbed down from the old desk.
Yet the instant she was back on solid ground, Yu Xian's face darkened.
"Ming Ruixi, do you not understand what danger is? Did your teachers never teach you?"
Ming Ruixi stared at her blankly.
"Did you ever consider the consequences of climbing somewhere that high? If you fell, were you aiming to die young, or did you want me to burn extra paper money for your ghost?"
"You're the one who'll die young! Yu Xian, stop cursing this lady!"
Ming Ruixi bounced to her feet, her small face flushing red with fury: "The only reason I climbed up there was that you piled so much junk here! How do you have the nerve to blame me?"
She hadn't even complained about her keeping such a messy hoard of clutter in the first place!
"You're right. It is my fault—if I hadn't taken you in, none of this would have happened."
Yu Xian gave her a deep, searching look. Grabbing the clothes pole, she hooked down all the remaining laundry for her: "You leave tomorrow."
Ming Ruixi flared up in kind: "Fine, I'll leave!"
Ming Ruixi snatched her formal dress away in a huff, only to regret it the moment she stormed back into her room. Where on earth was she supposed to go?
Her peripheral vision caught the gown in her hands, and she perked up. As long as she paid back that thousand-odd yuan, Yu Xian would definitely let her stay.
She promptly snapped photos and uploaded the dress to a secondhand resale app.
For an eighty-eight-thousand-yuan custom gown, surely someone would recognize its worth at this price, right?
Yet she waited and waited, and not a single soul came to inquire. Gritting her teeth, Ming Ruixi took photos of her Ferragamo high heels as well, listing them for 1,000 yuan.
Still, no inquiries came—even the view count was pitifully sparse.
Ming Ruixi locked her phone in frustration. Not a single person had an eye for quality! A bargain of this magnitude, and no one was taking advantage of it!
Watching the sky darken outside, Ming Ruixi ate some cherries and strawberries. She refused to go downstairs for dinner; with the sour look Yu Xian was wearing, who could stand it? She had spent the entire day trying to coax and appease her to no avail—she wasn't about to subject herself to that cold face.
By eight or nine in the evening, Ming Ruixi kept staring at her phone, realizing that waiting around like this was futile.
Anxious, she paced in frantic circles around the bedroom.
Suddenly, she seemed to hear movement coming from the art studio. Remembering the previous two nights, didn't Yu Xian always make a habit of painting oils in the evening?
Ming Ruixi looked down at the clothes she wore and swallowed hard. Being a human canvas was just being a human canvas.
She was going to have to do it anyway.
If she showed some initiative, maybe Yu Xian would cut her some slack and let her stay.
A while later, Ming Ruixi bit her lip and cracked open the studio door. Standing at the threshold, she called out in a small voice: "Yu Xian..."
Hearing the stir, Yu Xian merely cast a sidelong glance before looking right back away: "No need to come in tonight."
She was already painting directly onto the wooden board.
On the night before her departure, there was no need to humiliate her any further.
Yu Xian pulled her focus back onto the canvas before her. Her Palace Pink plum blossoms had ultimately been transferred onto the drawing board, their initial contours gradually emerging.
Dipping her brush into pigment, just as she was about to make a stroke, the soft rustling of clothes being shed reached her ears. Frowning, she looked over—and in that single glance, caught sight of the young lady's breathtaking, bare figure.
Her gaze paused, a subtle shift crossing her features before she dragged her eyes away. Knitting her brows, Yu Xian repeated: "I said there's no need to come here."
Yet the very next second, Ming Ruixi's supple, exquisite figure forced its way straight into her line of sight.
Her wrist was seized by the girl, who tilted her chin up and said: "Yu Xian, this lady will be your canvas. Can we call everything from today even?"
She truly couldn't think of any other way.
"You say it's even, and that makes it even?" Yu Xian found it almost ridiculous. "Even now, you don't have the faintest clue where you went wrong."
"Can't this lady just promise never to eat expensive meals again?" Ming Ruixi looked at her, murmuring in a sullen, muffled voice, "I'll pay you back this money in the future."
"Pay back with what?"
A single question choked her into silence.
Yu Xian turned back to painting her plum blossoms, but the next second, her hand was pulled off course.
The brush tip landed squarely against the curve of Eldest Miss Ming's chest, instantly staining the fair, snow-white skin with pink pigment.
"Yu Xian, you are impossible to appease! This lady has swallowed her pride to this extent—why are you still refusing to appreciate it?!"
Ming Ruixi looked up into those cold, indifferent eyes, her own rims burning red with pure grievance: "I only spent a thousand-odd yuan of yours, yet you want to kick me out and drive me into a corner! You know full well I have nowhere else to go! Out there, I can only roam the streets like a vagrant! A few days ago, when I came here, I was nearly harassed by street thugs! Do you really think coming to seek shelter with you was easy for this lady?!"
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