Dyeing Skirts

[Clumsy, Beautiful Oil Painter x Sunny, Sharp-Tongued Athlete]

Genius oil painter x national track-and-field athlete

To make up for a regret her mother never got to fulfill, Chu Jia took her doctor's suggestion and proposed going to Muhai Town. At her father's arrangement, she went to the place where her mother had once lived.

Chu Jia first met Lin Yanxian in the height of summer. His golden retriever not only knocked over her paints, but also smudged the painting she had made for her mother.

That unpleasant little incident at their first meeting became a memory neither of them would forget in the years that followed.

Later, Chu Jia enrolled at the local school and made many friends. Her once lonely heart began to feel full. After spending their senior year of high school together, their feelings grew, and they finally admitted they loved each other.

But the good times didn't last. At home, the female lead accidentally overheard her stepmother talking to someone and learned that there was more to her mother's death than she had been told. By then, the male lead had joined the national track-and-field team. Worried that her troubles might affect his training, Chu Jia kept her investigation secret from him.

On the night the truth was finally about to come out, she went to visit her mother and unexpectedly ran into her stepmother. They got into an argument, and her stepmother tried to kill her. In the ensuing struggle, Chu Jia accidentally killed her. Looking at the bloodied knife in her hand, Chu Jia later completed the final painting of her life in front of her mother's grave, then ended her own life. The last thing to appear in her mind was the day she first met Lin Yanxian.

In the painting, a woman with a deathly pale face lies in a pool of blood, shrouded in darkness by the night. A girl holding the dripping knife stands in front of her, walking into the light. The painting was later bought for a huge sum.

Separated by death, he spent the rest of his life searching for the person he had lost so long ago.

A new story! The author doesn't usually include content warnings, so enter at your own risk if you avoid tragic endings.

The author doesn't usually include content warnings, so enter at your own risk if you avoid tragic endings. New story, written for practice. Please be kind, but I'm open to feedback.

Theme: Growing up and letting go.