Chapter 21 Chapter 21

The door was opened by an old man in a black suit.He was very old, hunchbacked, and his mournful face was covered with wrinkles.I don't think I've ever seen anyone so old, and he seemed to be at least a hundred years old, maybe a hundred and twenty years old. He said to me in a calm voice: "Please come in and visit." I couldn't help but walk in, and he closed the door behind me. "Please do whatever you want." His voice was a little chilling. The gallery is long and narrow, seemingly endless, and much larger than I thought it would be.From the outside, you can't see it at all.

I go forward step by step.There are all portraits in the store, and the protagonists of each painting are young and beautiful men or women, wearing old and ancient costumes, and there is no wrinkle around the eyes. In the past twenty years, I have seen countless paintings, and I have done almost all genres and styles.I can recognize even budding painters.However, the paintings displayed in this gallery, I can't tell which painters are from them at all. I thought to myself, which new painter actually has such extraordinary skills? When I turned my head to ask the old man, he was nowhere to be seen.

I just had to keep reading on my own. Suddenly, when I raised my head, he stood in front of me without a sound. "May I ask which artist painted these paintings?" "Mrs. Rose painted them all," he replied in a flat voice. Lady Rose?I've never heard the name. he asked me suddenly. "Madame is in the studio, do you want to see her?" My curiosity drives me to nod. "please follow me" He leads the way.I followed him down a long, narrow wooden-floored staircase.I didn't expect this gallery to have a cellar.He staggered and walked unsteadily, as if he would fall down at any moment.

We walked through a long, dark corridor. There was a room on each side of the corridor. In the room on the left, there were many wooden antique picture frames. Several male workers were silently painting the picture frames. The old man walking in front was equally old, and all of them were crying.In the room on the right, there are women who are mounting pictures. They are as old as the men, and there is sadness in every wrinkled face. Why are the workers here so old? I guessed that Mrs. Rose might be a hundred and forty years old. After walking for a while, I started to smell a sweet and greasy floral fragrance.

When the smell became stronger and stronger, I finally came to the studio at the end of the corridor. There is an upright round frame in the center of the huge studio, the canvas on it is blank, and a table covered with red velvet beside it is full of paints and paints. Behind the studio shelf is a velvet chair with high backs and armrests. The room is filled with lilac-colored roses, small and small, blooming tumbling, no wonder they are so fragrant. I've never seen such an attack. I was about to go back and ask the old man where Mrs. Rose was, but he was gone. I went to the table, took a look at the brushes, and thought it strange that those are very old-fashioned brushes, which seem to have been used for centuries, and you can’t buy such brushes now.

Mrs. Rose should be really old. I put down the paintbrush in my hand, and when I turned around, a woman was already standing in front of me. When exactly she came in, I have absolutely no idea. She is not old at all.On the contrary, she was very young, she looked only twenty-three or twenty-four years old, wearing a bohemian red velvet skirt, and a crescent-shaped red garnet ring on the ring finger of her right hand. She was stunningly beautiful, with eyes so dark they seemed to suck the soul out of a man. "You want to see me?" she said, her voice seemed to come from afar. "Did you draw those pictures outside?" I asked in surprise.

That kind of skill cannot come from the hands of such a young woman. However, she nodded and said: "I drew it." "The people in the painting are all beautiful." "And still young. It's always nice to be young." The way she looked at me, as if she'd known me for a long time. I sadly agree with her. "Oh, yes." I have asked her: "Those are your guests?" Her eyes were watching me, and she replied: "Yes, I drew them all at their request. Would you like me to draw one for you?" I said sadly. "I'm not that young."

She took a paintbrush from the table and said: "That depends on how I draw. Those people are not that young." "It's you who made them young? Then it's not me?" I shook my head and said. She said meaningfully: "I didn't paint them young, they became what I painted them." For a moment, I was shocked.I seemed to understand what she meant. "Sit down," she told me, glancing at the red velvet armchair. Xinsheng, I have made a choice. I sat down in that chair without hesitation.I'm not delusional, I'm voluntary. I want to be younger. In that case, the day we meet again, maybe there is a chance that you will fall in love with me.

For you, I am not afraid of anything. "You are beautiful," she said. "If you were younger, you would be more beautiful than you are now." In that studio, time does not seem to exist. I don't remember exactly how long I was there.I think of the "Portrait of Greu" that I hurriedly grabbed from your bookshelf the day I met you.The protagonist of the story, Gray, is extremely handsome, and the artist painted his appearance on a canvas.Henceforth, the portrait will age, but Gray will always be young.Until one day, Gray destroyed the portrait with a knife, and the old and ugly man in the portrait became young and beautiful again, but Gray was so old that he died by his own knife.

I suddenly understood the deep foreshadowing of fate. Why did I just pick up that book that day? As early as twenty years ago, I was destined to be yours, but I also had to wait for twenty years.