3. HE PAINTED A MYSTERIOUS GIRL

That night, René returned to his apartment after meeting his old friend and having a few drinks. The tall man had a high alcohol tolerance, so drinking a few glasses didn’t make him drunk.

After cleaning himself and changing clothes, René quickly laid down on his king-sized bed. The next day, he had a schedule to teach the students at a famous university. This time, he wouldn’t be merely a guest lecturer, but he would be a temporary lecturer for half a semester. He was asked to replace his former professor at the university who was currently being treated in a hospital.

He was about to close his eyes when his phone on the nightstand suddenly vibrated. He sighed before getting up from his position. With a heavy heart, he stretched out his hand to grab his phone. He stared at the phone screen blankly when he saw his dad’s name flashing on the screen.

It was already midnight in Paris, so it was around 6 AM in Beijing. His father must have been forgotten the time difference.

The painter decided to answer the call. He pressed the phone to his ear as he great, “Yes, Father?”

“I know that you are still awake, Ren. Where were you going? Did you go on a date?”

It seemed that René guessed it wrongly. His father didn’t forget the time difference but just wanted to pry on his life as usual.

“I just went out with a friend.”

“Who is that friend? A girl or a boy?”

The raven-haired painter rolled his eyes. “It’s a he. He’s a man,” he answered lazily.

He could hear his father sighed heavily afterward. “You should hang out with girls more, Ren. How old are you now? You are already 27, aren’t you?”

René didn’t respond. He could guess where this conversation would head to.

“My colleagues often asked about you. They wanted to introduce their daughters to you. I couldn’t reject them, so I said yes to them. They sent me their daughter’s photographs and phone numbers. I will send them to you later. You can choose whoever you want to contact. I just don’t want to disappoint my colleagues.”

René remained quiet. His father owned a big business in China, and he had many colleagues who were eager to have him as their son-in-law.

“You can send them, but I can’t promise you anything, Dad. I won’t contact anyone if none of them makes me interested.”

René had always been a filial son. No matter what his parents wanted him to do, he was willing to comply with their wishes. He was already so thankful that his parents didn’t oppose his dream to become a painter, so he didn’t want to disappoint their trust.

“That’s good, Son. I will send them to you later,” his father said joyfully. “You better rest now. Contact me or your mother if anything happens, alright?”

The painter just simply answered with a ‘yes’ before he hung up. He then put his phone back on the nightstand and covered his eyes with his arm. His mind was tangled, but he had to force himself to sleep.

It didn’t take long for René to fall asleep peacefully. His beautiful eyes were closed, his breath sounded regular, and he fell into a deep sleep.

Hour after hour passed. The digital clock on the painter’s nightstand showed 00:05 as the young man slowly started to get up from his bed. The bolster he had been holding fell helplessly to the floor.

His eyes were open but looked empty. He stepped further away from the bed, opened the bedroom door, then left the room.

His steps moved toward a door not far from the bedroom. His hand slowly reached the doorknob and pressed it until the door opened. The room remained bright at night because René never turned off the light.

He was still walking slowly. Calmly, his hand then took some objects. Still, in silence, the young man sat on a chair, then attached a canvas to the clamp, then began to mix the oil paints on the palette. Cleverly, beautiful colors began to paint the previously dull canvas.

His right hand was now holding a brush, dipping the tip into one of the colors on the palette, then scribbling it on the canvas. Black, brown, red, and various other colors began to decorate the canvas. The colors, which were once abstract, were now starting to be palpable. Hair, eyes, nose, lips, all began to be clearly drawn. Until when everything was finished, the brush in his right hand fell, and the palette in his left hand followed the lead. Finally, René’s head drooped again, leaning against the back of the chair he was sitting on. The young painter fell back into his deep slumber.

---

The curtains were still closed, but the sun’s rays presumptuously infiltrated the thin fabric, making a pair of eyes that were previously closed now disturbed.

Eyebrows dipped uncomfortably, eyeballs moved behind their lids, and soon the pair of beautiful eyes opened. He was still disoriented and just blinked innocently for a minute, but then his eyes caught an unfamiliar sight in front of him.

The event was no longer foreign to him. He shouldn’t be surprised anymore, and he shouldn’t be confused either. But, the problem was, the portrait on the canvas was a foreign image he had never seen before.

A girl with brown-black back-length hair had a pair of beautiful eyes decorated with thick eyelashes, endowed with a sharp nose, and enhanced by two thin lips as red as blood.

“Who is this girl?” The painter started his monologue.

His pair of lenses were still focused on the square object in front of him. Things that were previously white in color, were miraculously now shaded by various colors. The oil paint had dried, indicating that several hours had passed since the painting had been made unconsciously.

It was strange. It was the first time René painted the face of a stranger in his sleep. He tried to dig up the memory in his head, guessing if some relatives or friends had such a look. But nothing, he was sure that no one he knew had that look. Then who was the mysterious girl?

And, things got even more strange when René felt his left chest hurt for no reason. He was still staring at the painting while his right-hand clenching on his left chest. He had no history of heart disease, but why did his left chest hurt?