At a museum mural restoration site, he saw her for the first time. She stood barefoot on the scaffolding, repairing a flying apsara mural.
The silver chain around her pale ankle jingled with every movement. He stopped in the shadows. A man who had seen the world suddenly heard his heartbeat lose its rhythm. She had no idea anyone had entered.
Three months later, a major city cultural relic restoration project opened for public bidding. Sitting at the head of the conference table, he tapped the sole application without a company letterhead. "I want her."
He approached her under the pretext of work. When restoration began, it marked the start of his breaking the rules. He drove out late at night to bring her a cup of red-date ginger tea, handed over his uncle's treasured handwritten notes to help her solve a problem with her pigment ratios, and had someone bring back a piece of cliff cypress from a thousand miles away, all to dispel the stale scent of old wood in her ancestral home. He took care of everything, without ever drawing attention to it.
When she was ill, he came to visit. Curled up on the sofa, she asked, "Are you trying to take advantage of me while I'm vulnerable?"
His answer was:
"I want to be there whenever you need me."
He knew that ever since their first meeting, light had slipped into the locked attic in his heart, illuminating the rest of his life.
Good guy, the heroine is asking questions straight to the heart, but the old man can still handle it 🤭🤭🤭
Written by myself, it looks good even on the street. Must have five-star praise 👍👍👍