Weiyang Garden

The first time I met Gu Chengyuan was when I was admitted to the sterile ward on my eighteenth birthday. "Sign it, and you can live in the spring of the greenhouse forever." When this man pushed the marriage agreement in front of me, the blood stains I coughed on his sleeves were still on his fingertips. The family used my sick body in exchange for his protection, and I was the paintbrush that outlined the roses in the cage. Until that night when it rained heavily, the gallery monitor screen lit up with his dark red eyes - 365 day and night cycles showing the back of me painting at my desk. "Have you seen enough?" I pulled out the infusion needle on the back of my hand, and the bright red blood splashed on the white canvas. "Now, it's my turn to paint you." He held my bleeding wrist tremblingly and frantically tore apart the surveillance chip worth hundreds of millions. Later, global headlines showed that the head of the Gu family, who controlled half of the planet, knelt on his knees outside the hospital room, begging me for a new paintbrush for three days and three nights. "Don't be angry." His hand holding the brush was as steady as offering sacrifices to a god. "Let me watch you paint. I won't enter the spring."