Read Chapter 2: — THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Mufeng found the woman before he found the driver.

She was sitting in a café across from the hospital, no black coat now, her hair pinned lower at the nape of her neck. But Mufeng had spent half his life drawing people. He recognised movement before he recognised faces, and the quiet economy with which she lifted her cup was the same as in the garage.

He sat opposite her without being invited.

"You were there."

She looked at him with long, slightly upturned eyes that reminded him of the celestial figures in Zhang Daqian's Dunhuang paintings.

"I'm sorry?"

"The Huamao garage. Noon. A Jeep moving fast enough to send me into a wall."

She glanced at the stitches over his brow. "You seem alive."

"I make a point of it."

For a moment he thought she might smile.

Instead she said, "You've mistaken me for someone else."

"No."

"Then you're very confident for a man who was unconscious."

She stood.

He moved aside, more from curiosity than courtesy. "Were you the target?"

The question stopped her for half a second.

That was answer enough.

She left without looking back.

That evening, Mufeng attended an invitation-only salon at Yiding Garden, the private residence of collector Bu Suyu. The old Suzhou compound was a world of whitewashed walls, dark tiles, rockeries, bamboo shadows, and rooms arranged around courtyards small enough to hold moonlight like water. Mufeng had been invited because Bu owned works by artists Mufeng had worshipped since childhood. He expected to feel out of place among senior painters and collectors.

Instead, the first person he saw was the woman from the café.

Bu introduced her as Xia Yonghe, owner of Qinghe Gallery.

This time she acknowledged him with a calm nod.

During a discussion of the Qing masters, Mufeng forgot the accident long enough to speak seriously about painting. His irreverence disappeared when art was involved. He talked about structure, brush pressure, emptiness, and the difference between imitating an old master and understanding why a line had been placed where it was.

Yonghe watched him differently afterward.

Later they stood in a tiny courtyard known locally as a "crab-eye well," named for its size. Moonlight lay on the water of a blue ceramic jar.

"You didn't sound like an arrogant man in there," she said.

"I contain multitudes."

"Mostly arrogance?"

"Mostly charm."

She laughed.

It was the first time he saw her lower her guard.

Then he noticed her hands. When she reached to move a fallen branch from the path, her grip was strong, the knuckles hard in a way that did not match the polished owner of a high-end gallery.

Special training, he thought.

She caught him looking.

"Still investigating me?"

"Only professionally. I'm a painter."

"And I'm a gallery owner. I know when a man is staring."

He should have been embarrassed. Instead he found himself delighted.

When he returned home, Fang Wenshan called again and offered to settle the accident for a surprisingly large sum. Mufeng asked to meet the driver.

"He's overseas," she said.

"Convenient."

"Business."

"Where?"

"The Cayman Islands."

Mufeng laughed. "That is almost too perfect."

He refused the settlement.

The next morning, Huashi called.

They did not merely want Yifeng Design.

They wanted Li Mufeng himself.