By eleven forty-three, Jiang Meilin had painted the same sunrise four times.
The first was too bright. The second looked like the city was on fire. The third had turned a perfectly respectable morning into something resembling a funeral procession.
She studied the fourth attempt, brush balanced between two paint-stained fingers.
"Well?" she asked the canvas. "Are we going to cooperate, or should I start charging you rent?"
Nothing.
"Wonderful. Another relationship in which I do all the work."
Her studio occupied most of her tiny apartment. Unframed paintings leaned against the walls, sketches covered the table, and her remaining tubes of acrylic paint sat in a biscuit tin beside the window. One of the tubes had been squeezed so thoroughly she was considering cutting it open.
Beside her easel lay three rejection emails, printed because she had apparently decided that disappointment deserved a physical presence.
Not suitable for our current collection.
We regret to inform you—
Your work shows potential, however—
Potential. Such a generous word. It paid neither the electricity bill nor the landlord.
Meilin wiped her brush, opened the nearly empty tube of titanium white and coaxed another drop onto her palette. The pale morning light in the painting needed something gentler and honest.
A soft knock interrupted her.
Auntie Yu, her landlady, stood outside holding a covered bowl.
"You've forgotten supper again," the older woman said.
Meilin peered beneath the lid, and her face lit up when she saw the contents. Dumplings. Still warm.
"Auntie, if I weren't already committed to a career of disappointment, I'd devote my life to you."
"Devote yourself to paying your rent by Friday."
"See? Your affection always comes with conditions."
Auntie Yu's expression softened as she looked past her into the paint-strewn apartment. "You work so hard. Why doesn't anyone buy these beautiful things?"
Meilin could have explained galleries and fashionable tastes. Instead, she shrugged.
"I think they're waiting until I'm famous. Very considerate of them."
"You're too thin," Auntie Yu muttered. "Eat while it's hot."
Meilin thanked her and shut the door, bowl in one hand and paintbrush in the other. The kindness made her eyes sting more than the rejections had. Yet the smile never left her face, even as tears pooled in her eyes.
From the street below came a sudden screech of brakes.
For a moment she wasn't in the studio. The noise had opened a door she spent most days keeping shut: shouting, confusion, the awful certainty that something had happened which no amount of pleading could undo.
Her breath caught. She gripped the edge of the table, feeling the rough wood press into her palm.
A horn sounded. Someone cursed. A car drove away.
There was no more shouting.
She was home.
Meilin picked up her brush, but her fingers trembled. She set it down again.
"Very impressive," she whispered to herself. "Defeated by traffic. Xia City should give me an award."
The joke was poor. She knew it. Still, the sound of her own voice helped.
As she placed the bowl of dumplings on the table, she felt her phone vibrate against it. Shit! She had forgotten all about her phone while she was in the zone.
LING: ARE YOU DEAD?
Meilin wiped her damp palm on her apron.
MEILIN: Financially? Yes. Physically? Ask after Friday.
LING: PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE.
Then it rang.
Meilin considered letting it ring. Then she pictured Ling arriving with a lecture and possibly a battering ram.
"Good evening, my favourite tyrant."
"It's almost midnight!"
"Then good morning. I aim to please."
"Have you finished the painting?"
Meilin glanced at the canvas. "Define finished."
"Jiang Meilin."
"That's a very aggressive definition."
"Meilin, I'm serious." Ling's voice softened. "Did you eat?"
"Of course."
"What?"
"Hmmmm... Does the thought count?"
"Meilin!" Ling shrieked.
"It was an extremely yummy thought. I promise."
"I'm coming over."
"No!" Meilin laughed, then caught herself. "Don't. Please. I'm alright. Auntie Yu just brought some really smoky dumplings that I was about to devour."
Ling heard things Meilin never said. She was her only real friend in Xia City.
They had met nearly two years earlier, when Meilin first arrived in Xia City and wanted no friends. Ling seemed incapable of accepting that. Once, when Meilin could not bring herself to open her door, Ling had left dumplings outside and talked through it about a disastrous date. The background check Meilin quietly ordered on her had been spotless. But a report was not what earned her trust.
Ling was wealthy enough to open doors with a phone call, but she never tried to buy Meilin's success. She understood that Meilin needed to earn it. Instead she brought food, criticised paintings, and interrupted the silence. Somewhere along the way, she had become more than a sister. Meilin suspected she owed that relentlessly cheerful woman more of her recovery than she liked to admit.
"Listen," Ling said. "Something happened with tomorrow's gala."
Meilin straightened.
The Grand Imperial Hotel charity gala was her one hopeful square on a calendar filled with overdue bills and rejection letters. Ling had arranged a temporary exhibition job; the wages would help with rent. But Meilin wanted what the gala offered beyond money.
Collectors would be there. Gallery owners. People who could take one look at a painting and decide whether an unknown artist deserved another look.
"What happened?" she asked.
"An artist withdrew from the emerging-artists display. There's one empty space."
Meilin's grip tightened on the phone.
"I sent the coordinator your cityscape photographs. No name, no favours. She liked what she saw."
"And?"
"She wants to inspect the original before the guests arrive. If it passes, it hangs in the display. If someone buys it, that's between you and the organisers."
Meilin stared at the gold spreading across her canvas.
"How many people are in the running?"
"I don't know."
"So I'm competing against mysterious people with better brushes."
"Possibly. Be there by four. Bring the painting and your portfolio. Your staff shift starts at five."
"And if they reject it?"
"You still get paid for working the gala."
Meilin smiled, though Ling couldn't see it. "And if a handsome billionaire wants to adopt me?"
"He can start by paying your rent."
"See? You understand my artistic vision."
Ling laughed, then grew quiet. "Meilin, I know how much this means to you. I would never ruin it."
Meilin's throat tightened unexpectedly.
"Yes," she said. "It does."
"Then stop trying to sound as though it doesn't."
After the call, the apartment seemed too silent.
Meilin went to her calendar, its little boxes crossed out in red. She had thought three years would be enough to make a name for Jiang Meilin. Now she was deep into the third, with precious little to show for all those hours painting, waiting, and trying again.
She could have made her life easier by buying an award or something. The thought visited whenever the landlord knocked or she counted coins at the grocery shop.
But easier had never been the agreement.
She returned to the easel. Beneath a stack of blank paper was a small photograph, face down. She did not turn it over. She knew the two girls in it by heart.
"You would have loved this," she said quietly. "A room full of people staring at paintings and pretending to understand them."
She waited for the familiar ache to pass. But it didn't. It never did.
The sunset outside had disappeared hours ago. On her canvas, the sun was still struggling to rise.
Meilin uncapped the white paint.
"Alright," she told it. "One last chance for both of us."
And this time, she painted until morning.