"A wise choice." He pressed his thumb against Li Zhou's second button, which had broken open, leaving a permanent 0.5cm gap. "Giovanni's obsession with detail is paranoid. For example, he only talks to designers whose cuffs don't have frayed edges."
These words instantly made Li Zhou's earlobes feel hot. He remembered that before he went out this morning, his mother used an old plastic bag from the vegetable market to pack his watercolor pens and repeatedly reminded him "Don't cause trouble for Mr. Zhou."
When Zhou Hui turned around, he saw the custom label on the back of the other person's suit: "Zhou Hui, 185cm, 82kg, April 28th" - exactly the same date as the oil painting in his studio.
On the way back, the Maybach stopped in the alley behind the gallery. The driver opened the door, and the aroma of cedar and amber wafted out. As Li Zhou settled into the leather seat, he saw a velvet gift box on the small car table, with the words "For LZ, 2025.5.1" written in gold font.
Zhou Hui paused for a moment while fastening his seatbelt. "Open it and take a look. It's an early anniversary gift."
Inside the gift box was a cobalt blue shirt with a tiny gold-powder robin embroidered on the collar, its wings spread at the exact angle as in Li Zhou's drawing.
A label was sewn on the inside of the shirt: "Brioni, Made to Measure, Neck 38cm, Shoulder 43cm" - measurements he had never mentioned to anyone.
"I'll wear this on Sunday." Zhou Hui's fingers traced the robin's gold-dusted wings, leaving a faint sheen on his fingertips. "Giovanni hates the same old black suits. He says it's a sign of creative exhaustion."
He suddenly chuckled, "But don't tell Xiaoman, I guess she prefers you wearing a white shirt."
These words were like a needle piercing Li Zhou's heart. He remembered that last night when Xiaoman was cooking noodles in the kitchen, she saw the Montblanc pen gift box in his pocket and joked that it was "ten times more expensive than the first paintbrush I gave you."
At that moment, the sheen of his cobalt blue shirt reflected the neon lights outside the car window. He suddenly noticed a note tucked away at the bottom of the gift box. It was written in Zhou Hui's handwriting: "Every robin needs a pair of wings worthy of the gold dust."
As the car slid through the tunnel, Zhou Hui began discussing the process of the appreciation meeting, while Li Zhou stared at the Patek Philippe on the inside of his wrist. A fresh rose petal, stuck in the slit of the watchband, matched the cadmium red of the robin's breast in his painting—a color he had mixed seven times in the studio yesterday before finally settling on.
"Remember, when Giovanni asked about your creative philosophy..." Zhou Hui tapped the car screen, which displayed a floor plan of the Pompidou Center, "Just say you've been studying the 'cage of light'—the game between natural light and artificial light, just like..."
He suddenly pointed at the skyscraper outside the car window. The neon lights reflected from the glass curtain wall flowed on Li Zhou's face. "The mutual reflection of ideals and reality."
Li Zhou nodded, suddenly realizing his sketchbook had been swapped. The first page of the new notebook was a sketch: his back, standing in front of a Renoir painting, the hair on the back of his neck meticulously rendered in gold foil, a corner of the invitation peeking out from his pocket.
The date "5.2" was circled in red pen, and next to it was written in very small font: "The first time the prey spreads its wings, the third flight feather on the left wing needs to be clipped."
A bright light at the end of the tunnel streamed into the car. Li Zhou blinked and saw Zhou Hui replying to a text message. The recipient showed "Giovanni" and the message contained only two simple sentences: "Chicks are ready. Neck line 23.5 degrees, cage bars 0.3 cm."
He suddenly remembered the surveillance camera in his mother's ward. The flashing red light of the lens and the luminous hands on Zhou Hui's watch coincided at a certain moment.
When the car stopped downstairs of the rental house, Zhou Hui suddenly handed over an envelope: "This is a small gift for Xiaoman. Don't say it's from me."
When Li Zhou took it, his fingertips touched the texture of the inner page of the envelope - it was a VIP ticket to Monet's Water Lily Exhibition, dated May 2, which was the anniversary he and Xiaoman had originally planned.
"Good night." Zhou Hui rested his hand on the car door, revealing a two-finger-long scar on his sleeve. "Bring the third draft of 'Cage and Light' to the studio tomorrow. This time we'll try etching the neck pattern of 'Long-Necked Girl' into the cage bars."
His eyes swept over the buttons on Li Zhou's shirt. "Remember to change to a new one. The raw edges on the cuffs of this one—" He chuckled, "will keep Giovanni awake."
The voice-controlled lights in the corridor lit up when Li Zhou went upstairs, and the dim light reflected the water lily pattern on the envelope.
He heard the sound of a car engine starting downstairs and suddenly noticed a tiny line of words printed on the back of the envelope: "The keys to all cages are hidden in the folds of light."
In the rental house, Xiaoman was wiping the easel with an old towel. When she saw the gift box in his hand, her eyes suddenly lit up.
"What?" She reached out to untie the ribbon, but Li Zhou hurriedly held it down. The gold powder on the shirt rubbed against her fingertips, like a piece of sunset that would never melt.
"Mr. Zhou sent me these...work supplies." He turned and headed for the bathroom, Xiaoman's puzzled expression reflected in the mirror. Over the sound of running water, he heard his girlfriend whisper, "The cedar smell on the back of your neck is stronger than last time."
Late at night, Li Zhou hid on the balcony to draw sketches. The light from the street lamp shone through the screen window, casting a shadow like an iron bar on the drawing paper.
He drew the moment when Zhou Hui adjusted his collar: the strength of his fingertips, the reflection of the mother-of-pearl buttons on his cuffs, and even the length of the shadow cast by his eyelashes under his eyes were all accurately recorded.
As the pen tip passed the "neck line 23.5 degrees," I suddenly noticed a line of small words on the corner of the paper. It was Zhou Hui's handwriting: "Every caged bird needs an audience for its first song."
The refrigerator in the living room made a slight hum. Li Zhou looked at the neon lights of the high-rise buildings in the distance and thought of the unfinished oil painting in Zhou Hui's studio: under the canary's claws, a tiny new date "May 2nd" was added, and next to it was an open gift box with a blood-stained paintbrush lying inside.
He didn't know whether, when the Sunday sun shone into the gallery, he would be able to paint the starlight leading to freedom on the cage bars with gold powder, just like the robin in the painting, or whether he would eventually become the specimen in Zhou Hui's collection, with perfect feathers but never able to spread his wings.
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