Scumbag A's Plan to Save the Heroine - Chapter 14

“There is no such thing as destiny in this world,” Zhi Qiu had declared countless times.

She firmly believed that one’s fate lay entirely in their own hands, no matter how painful that truth might be.

If anyone claimed to have glimpsed the threads of fate, it was merely a self-deceiving lie concocted by the deluded.

Zhi Qiu was a staunch materialist.

Yet fate seemed to delight in crushing human pride. It made the gifted despise their talents, the ordinary lament their mediocrity, and those grounded in reality witness the world’s bizarre and inexplicable phenomena, shattering the faith of even the most steadfast materialists.

It was as if the heavens were playing a cruel joke on her.

Zhi Qiu’s hand trembled as she gripped the pencil. She desperately searched her mind for images representing utopia, but no matter how hard she tried, only a curse surfaced in her thoughts.

It whispered incessantly in her ear, urging, “This is the only answer. Just one stroke. Just one stroke.”

One hour.

A prompt about utopia.

Complete creative freedom.

Zhi Qiu felt as if she had been transported to another dimension, where time flowed differently from her original world.

In her original world, a day had 24 hours. But the world she now inhabited felt like a pirated plugin running at a hundred times its normal speed.

To illustrate this more vividly with numbers and characters:

A baby born in the other world would only reach its first birthday by the time a child born at the same moment in this world had already become a centenarian.

Utopia was no simple concept, but for a student genuinely studying art, it wasn’t particularly challenging. In just half an hour, Ruan Ye completed her artwork.

On an A4 sheet of paper, she had drawn a majestic scene, as if her frail frame contained a power capable of destroying heaven and earth.

The backdrop depicted the vast cosmos, with Earth as just one insignificant speck among countless stars. A ragged, disheveled girl, on the verge of death, struggled against gravity, desperately fleeing in the opposite direction. In her struggle, she clutched a gentle lily. The lily had no thorns, yet her grip remained half-relaxed, half-tight. The painting was composed of two dominant colors, locked in eternal conflict, mirroring the girl’s inner turmoil: her melancholy fear of harming the lily’s roots, preventing her from gripping it firmly, and her terror of utter annihilation, preventing her from letting go.

In every era, paintings conceal the deepest parts of ourselves, as well as our deepest fears.

Students confidently submitted their work one after another.

The smile gradually faded from Laceyne’s beautiful blue eyes. Her gentle suggestions for revisions transitioned into having the Teaching Assistant handle the task, asking those whose work didn’t meet her standards to leave the classroom.

Back and forth they went, until the once-crowded lecture hall became eerily empty. The scratching of pencils on paper grew distinct, making the two figures in the last row all the more conspicuous.

The girl with the paler complexion seemed to be gravely ill. Her frailty radiated through her organs, surfacing on her serene face as if she had been frozen in place. From the moment she received her exam paper, she remained motionless, never once picking up her pencil.

The other girl was her complete opposite. Her nimble fingers danced across the paper, sketching the outline of her painting in mere minutes. As time passed, the muse of Inspiration seemed to favor her mind, filling the canvas with exquisite details one after another until a flawless masterpiece emerged from beneath her brush.

Laceyne found herself drawn to the girl’s work.

Grand paintings often tend to feel hollow. The previous work had been so disappointing that she tried to lower her expectations for this one.

But when her world-weary eyes finally settled on the canvas, she was overwhelmed by sheer astonishment.

It was grand without being empty, detailed without getting lost in trivialities—exactly as it should be.

A born artist.

Her nimble hands, delicate emotions, and keen mind were gifts bestowed upon her alone by God.

“My God!” Laceyne’s wrist, clutching the painting, trembled, the intricate jewelry clinking softly, singing of her owner’s excitement.

The designer, renowned for her imperious arrogance in the design world, seized the Eastern girl’s hand in delight and burst into her native tongue, “You are a born artist, a treasure the world must see!”

The blue-eyed woman’s grip was surprisingly strong. Whether due to her excitement or not, Ruan Ye felt a slight sting. But the woman was a senior figure in the art world, and she couldn’t dismiss such genuine enthusiasm.

A flicker of hesitation crossed Ruan Ye’s fair, rosy face before she summoned her usual warm, spring-like smile.

Noticing the girl’s confusion, Laceyne realized that the people of this country wouldn’t understand her native language. Just as she was about to pull the girl’s slender wrist to say more, a pair of strong hands pried her fingers apart, one by one.

Laceyne looked up, her hawk-like blue eyes piercingly scrutinizing the girl who had been staring blankly since entering the room.

Judging by appearance alone, Laceyne might have mistaken her for an Omega, but she was quickly forced to release her grip on the hand of the newly discovered genius painter.

Zhi Qiu, having snapped out of her daze, shielded Ruan Ye behind her and coldly regarded the internationally renowned designer. Her tone was icy: “Speak properly.”

“Both of your artworks are exceptional. After the exam, we’ll move to a studio where I hope my years of experience can offer some inspiration to Hua Guo’s exceptionally talented painters.” Noticing the redness on the girl’s wrist, Laceyne realized she had been too forceful. But constrained by her position as a visiting professor, she couldn’t apologize directly, so she devised an excuse to keep both students behind.

She carefully took out a transparent cowhide bag and gently placed both their paintings inside, positioning the freshly dried watercolor at the very top. She studied it intently.

Laceyne returned to the podium to handle the other students’ artwork, and the back of the classroom quieted down again.

The girl standing with her back to the sunlight pursed her lips, finally unable to resist nudging the person in the wheelchair. “Why?” she asked.

Why?

Why are you so sad?

She didn’t finish the question, and Zhi Qiu didn’t understand her meaning.

Zhi Qiu wanted to massage Ruan Ye’s wrist, but after only a few strokes, she noticed the delicate, pale wrist seemed even redder. Frustrated, she let go and joked, “Painting is so tough! Not only do your fingers suffer, but your wrist gets tortured too. If you become a famous artist someday, imagine how much worse it’ll be. Such a blissful burden!”

Heaven had gifted painters with sensitive minds.

Through the girl’s forced cheerfulness, Ruan Ye saw the underlying sorrow—a sorrow that seemed beyond external intervention, the helplessness after a struggle.

She desperately wanted to ask:

What kind of utopia do you envision in your heart?

What exactly were you trying to paint just now?

Sometimes, God’s gifts are also a form of punishment, because a sensitive heart can never be as straightforward as an ordinary person’s.