Live Again, Love Anew

Chapter 10- A Peculiar Painting

Summary

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan search Mao Fenfang's apartment. Wei Ying hits the jackpot.

Beginning Note

We're getting there! Next chapter will introduce a new perspective, and be full of hints, clues, and answer as many questions as it makes new ones.

Wei Wuxian

As Wei Wuxian shuts the door behind himself and his companion, he takes in the room. It's much the same size as the apartment where Yingtai lives, with a main room split into a few different parts, and then a room off to the side used as a bedroom.

Wei Wuxian turns to Lan Zhan. "Hey, Lan Zhan, how about you take the bedroom-" On second thought, even if Lan Zhan is helping him snoop like this, digging through the bedroom of a complete stranger might be pushing it a little. "Nevermind, I'll take the bedroom." He revises. "You can take the main room." Lan Zhan nods, and with that, they separate, with Lan Zhan's internal clock (A Lan's daily routine is so ingrained in their system, even in the children, that you could ask one for the time, and they could probably tell you with startling accuracy.) making sure they aren't surprised by Mao Fenfang in the midst of their search.

Wei Wuxian enters the bedroom and takes a look around first. There's a wardrobe and a small window showing the forest on one wall. A bed, a nightstand, and a desk are on another wall. The third wall has a bookcase filled to the brim with books, scrolls, and loose papers, and a low table in front of it with a single cushion. The wall with the door has nothing on or near it except a single painting.

The painting looks like something he himself would be able to do, but on second glance he notices something... odd? Uncommon? Whatever the word is, the one thing that stands out is the subtle use of color. The painting is of a waterfall and small pool deep in the forest. The painting looks to be done during the day, and no doubt in spring or summer, if the warmness of the colors is any indication. Even with the slightly yellowed paper, marking the painting at around a decade old, Wei Wuxian can tell it's a masterful and beautiful piece.

Instead of the usual or more common paintings that only use black ink and maybe a few hints of easy-to-make dyes for contrast, this painting has black ink for the lines, varying in thickness from the width of his finger to the point of a needle, with splashes of color from dyes that must cost a small fortune, or were handmade by a true master of the craft with access to the best materials. It also, weirdly, remains unsigned. Either the artist deliberately doesn't sign his works, it was a gift from someone close, with no need to be signed or fear of credit being stolen, or Mao Fenfang herself did the piece.

He's not one to judge a book by its cover, but he doesn't peg Mao Fenfang as the type to be rich, patient, or skilled enough to personally paint this piece.

But enough of the painting. What's important right now is finding some of Mao Fenfang's personal writing. Letters, diaries, reports somehow not in the archives, those kinds of things. And if he doesn't find any writing, he'll start looking through her trinkets for clues.

He searches the wardrobe first, mainly the very bottom and the very top. He finds no hidden shelves or compartments at the top, so he checks the bottom, carefully tapping and listening for any hollow pieces. When the wood echoes back solid, he carefully smooths over any clothes that were rustled and closes the wardrobe. Apparently Mao Fenfang isn't the type of person to hide things in her closet.

(Really? Nothing in the closet? Wei Wuxian isn't the secretive type, but hiding things in a box in the closet, or in a false bottom, is like, Hiding Things 101. In his early teens, he himself kept a carefully concealed box in the bottom of his wardrobe of his favorite erotica from what Jiang Cheng and him could acquire from the hidden sections of bookstores in Lotus Pier. (He wouldn't expect a Lan (Lan by association) to hide porn in their closet, but still, same idea.))