The rhythm of work eventually carried Li Zhen somewhere else entirely.

He was ten years old again, standing on a stool in his father's workshop, but the only thing that felt different was the smell. Instead of the sugary aroma that he was relentlessly chasing after now, it was the smell of fresh wood and damp stone, oil from the carving tools that always calmed him, and the sour tobacco of his father's pheromones. However, he could still vividly remember the sensation of his feet aching from standing too long, and how his fingers burned from gripping the chisel with more strength than they had.

And no matter how long ago, Li Minghua's voice still thundered in his ears. It was the only sound in the room, a low and piercing music that played over and over again:

"Precision, Zhen. You must not strike until you know the shape you want to construct. Hesitation ruins the piece, and even the smallest mistake could only end in a waste."

Back then, art hadn't been the process of creation, but a test. The slab of marble that towered over his small body was just another problem with a single, correct answer.

But so it happened that the answer always belonged in someone else's hands.

And in that workshop that was as cold and quiet as a tomb, filled with dreams and specters of aspirations belonging to someone else, Li Zhen became used to working alone.

That is, until a child arrived.

One afternoon, a small shape appeared in the doorway: barely five years old, dressed in clothes too big for him, and clutching a dirty stuffed rabbit with one missing ear. Li Zhen had been told nothing beforehand, only that the child's name was Tian Wei and that they would be living together from then on. He remembered blinking at the boy, expecting shyness, maybe fear. Instead, Tian Wei padded right across the cold floor and peered up at the block of marble on Li Zhen's table.

"Brother, are you making a puppy?" the little voice had asked.

"No."

"Then what is it?"

Li Zhen had hesitated. Not because he didn't know what he was sculpting, but because so far, every answer had to be the correct one, a lesson he bitterly learned as soon as he could hold a chisel.

"...It's nothing yet."

Tian Wei's limpid green eyes had always been steady in a way that felt strange for someone so small, watching him with rapt attention. "Then..." the child continued, "can it be something that makes brother happy?"

Li Zhen had almost laughed.

Almost.

But his father's voice carried in from the courtyard, and the sound withered in his throat. However, there had been one single day when Li Minghua was gone on business, and Li Zhen had been left alone with a piece too small for any "real" project. And as usual, Tian Wei had followed him inside the workshop like a little tail, singing nursery rhymes in his sweet, soft voice.

"Brother, can I help?" the child asked, sitting on the floor with his stuffed rabbit.

"You're too small," Li Zhen answered, without even looking down at him.

"Then I'll just watch."

And he had. No questions, no corrections, no clipped orders. Just quiet, warm companionship.

Li Zhen remembered shaping his little stone without thinking, letting the lines wander, while the obedient child played at his feet, huddled under the workbench. The result had been crude and uneven, a shapeless form with no beginning and no end. Later that night, when he came back home, Li Minghua had called it a useless piece of garbage.

But to Li Zhen, it had been alive.

And he could still remember how Tian Wei smiled, showing a mouth full of small, slightly crooked teeth, as he whispered: "Brother, it's so pretty!"

It was the only thing Li Zhen had ever made without constant instructions ringing in his head.

That is, until now.

...............................

The hours bled together until his shoulders started burning and his hands felt raw. Unbeknownst to him, a long cut had opened across the base of Li Zhen's thumb where the chisel slipped, a line of red smearing over the white dust of his skin. However, it was of no importance, so he simply wiped it against his work apron without thinking.

By the time he finally stepped back once more, the dark light outside had turned gold, hollowing itself into something fragile. It filtered through the high glass like the first moments after a curtain fell.

And it was only then that he saw it. The truth of what he'd been making.

Its shoulders were draped in something that looked like fabric caught in mid-sway, with a tilt of the head that was both imperious and inviting. The suggestion of a mouth, unfinished and unrefined, still managed to hold the shape of perfectly round lips that he knew too well.

Xu Jinli.

Li Zhen exhaled, long and slow, closing his eyes for a brief moment as if the act alone could erase the image that was already burned behind his eyelids.

But it didn't.

For a moment, the faint sweetness in the air deepened, warm and clinging. His fingers itched to strike the features away, to make them belong to someone, anyone else. But when he tried, the lines still refused to bend. In the end, he could only drop the chisel.

For the first time in years, the clay... no, the stone, refused to listen to him.

Li Zhen stayed there for a long while, hands slack at his sides, breathing in the stillness until it felt heavy in his chest. The marble stood in front of him like a mirror that declined to reflect his will, showing instead something he was not prepared to face. For a moment, it was unclear whether he could call it a mistake or a form of betrayal.

The phone forgotten on the workbench buzzed once more, a reminder from the department secretary: Meeting tomorrow to sign the papers. Finalize concept sketches.

His eyes drifted back to the sculpture, almost imagining it leaning forward, whispering the challenge Xu Jinli had tossed at him days ago.

I want it big. Monumental.

The faint trace of cherry liquor still lingered in the air, stubborn and uninvited.

Li Zhen turned away and began clearing his tools, with the chisel clinking softly against the table. His palms were still streaked with marble dust, the faint red smeared on his fingertips standing out like a cinnabar signature. His hands moved automatically, wiping down steel with a rag gone black at the edges, as dust ground into every cut across his knuckles until it stung.

Sharp and constant.

He should have been too tired to notice anything wrong. But as he set his tools down, Li Zhen caught himself glancing at the statue again and... It shouldn't have been watching him back. After all, stone couldn't see, and yet the unfinished eyes followed him in the way shadows bend toward flame. From that angle, half-swallowed by dust and half-born from raw marble, it looked almost like the sculpture was waiting for him to finish the thought he didn't dare to admit.

His pulse jumped, absurdly, as Li Zhen turned his back.

He didn't know what he could say to Xu Jinli tomorrow. Nor did he know how they were supposed to turn this mess, whatever it was, into a piece worthy of the gala. For a moment, he imagined smashing the whole thing to dust. Reducing it to rubble before anyone else could see what he had conjured in secret. His fingers twitched at the thought, hungry for destruction, but when he glanced back, his hand went slack at his side.

In the end, he had to admit it. He hated how badly his body wanted to keep going, to finish what he should have never started.

The curve of the marble shoulder gleamed faintly in the morning light, like silk slipping over skin.

Smashing it felt impossible.

........................

Li Zhen left the studio anyway, switching off the light with a sharp click. The first rays of sunlight swept in, and the single window poured its narrow beam across the stone. But just when he was about to close the studio door behind him, Li Zhen realized something far more unsettling: for all the weight of his father's expectations pressing down on him, the thought of walking into a room and seeing Xu Jinli again was the sole thing that made his pulse quicken.

And yet, he still hesitated at the doorway. Behind him, the block of marble loomed, unfinished but unbearably present. A shadow taller than itself stretched across the floor, curling toward him as though the piece refused to stay put, eager to entangle with him and follow him out.

Dust shifted in the air, catching that first sliver of light, and for the briefest instant, it smelled again of cherry liquor. Rich... heady...

Suffocating.

Li Zhen closed the door quickly, pressing the handle until it clicked into place. But as he walked down the empty hall, the phantom scent clung stubbornly to the back of his neck, making every step feel like treason.

He told himself it was only exhaustion.

Only stone. Only dust.

But when he glanced at his hand, streaked red and gray, the faintest curve of a smirk lingered in his mind like something he hadn't carved just now, but conjured from the deepest corner of his memory.

And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shake the feeling that the statue was still breathing in the empty studio, waiting for him to come back.