Hard to Escape

Chapter 25

By the month of October, Paris already began to felt a bit bleak. Walking through its streets, I was surrounded by strange faces and unfamiliar buildings. It had already been over half a month since I left Yin Li and came to Paris. He was right. Nowadays, only my familiarity with French let me feel at ease in this land.

He didn't know which was the day of my departure. Thus, he didn't even see me one last time before I left.

Li Jing rented an apartment for me in the center of Paris. He often came to see me and his behavior was always exceedingly courteous and kind. Frank managed to squeeze some time out to rush back to France to pay me a visit, but for the most part, I lived a solitary existence. At the same time, this was the one occasion that, in such a foreign environment, I wanted even more to be alone.

Without Yin Li, interacting one-on-one with Li Jing made me feel awkward. He was fond of taking me to the most expensive, most dazzling Western restaurants. Then afterwards, he would invite me to the opera, and finally we would stroll slowly along the banks of the Seine.

"It's just like we've returned to the past. Carefree and without worries," He would say with a satisfied smile. "Just like when we first met."

Every time he said that, his warm gaze would linger on me. Sometimes, he would recite lines of poetry in a beautiful, rhythmic cadence that recalled times of ancient past.

This was how we had interacted in the past. I wanted desperately to remember, and so did he. In tacit understanding, we tried to stir up my lost memories in this fashion.

But sometimes, I didn't really feel very romantic. I only felt that the wind by the Seine was a little strong.

Over this half-month period, Li Jing tried his best to replicate past scenarios. He hoped that any portion would be the fuse that would spark the return of my memories. However, my muddled mind couldn't remember anything. I felt immensely guilty, and Li Jing no doubt felt somewhat disappointed too. The gaze that he looked at me with increasingly seemed to pass through me, like he was looking at another person. It was tinged with pain and sadness, and that sort of expression instinctively made me want to flee.

"Yi Yun, how about I bring you to my studio tonight? I've already managed to retrieve various paintings that were out on exhibition." This evening, Li Jing's voice was irrepressibly cheerful. He had painted quite a few pieces for me. To help me recover my memories, he didn't even let the prospect of reneging on contracts deter him from asking for pieces to be returned from their current exhibitions ahead of time.

Even knowing that the studio would be filled with paintings of me, when the time actually came to see it in person, I was still stunned.

The studio was more spacious than Yin Xuan's ballet room. The pieces were all of various sizes, and all haphazardly hung on the wall. It gave off a completely different feeling compared to Yin Xuan's photos, which were all neatly lined up in an orderly fashion. It felt chaotic and unusual. And directly on the wall in front of me was a life-size painting of myself.

"I painted that one directly on the wall. It took me a whole month to complete," Li Jing said, sounding pleased with himself. "I didn't go out for the whole month. When I finally finished, I excitedly went out to look for you. My scruffy beard and appearance gave you a big scare, and afterwards you continually teased me about it. You said I was an artist that didn't care about 'face.'"

He smiled and then looked over at me. Then, he turned to stare fixedly at the mural, his eyes tender and warm.

The mural's background looked like it was a church, viewed from an angle. I could see a large statue of Jesus near the side of the foreground and decorated Christmas trees all over. A priest was holding the Bible. Behind him stood a group of violinists accompanying the carolers. A flaxen haired boy was playing the piano. In the mural, there were many people lowering their heads in pious devotion. They stood silently in the pews, theirs hands each cupping a candle. The church's interior was cast in shadow, and only the light of their candles illuminated a small portion of each person's face. But those faces were blurry and out of focus, and I could barely make out their eyebrows. Only my face was clear.