The crisp evening air of early Spring bit at her ears as a chorus of toads and crickets warmed her soul. Her father examined her most recent work with a critical eye and impassive expression as she sat on her stool beside her empty easel. Her legs swung back and forth like a branch in the wind for she was too short for them to reach the floor. She looked at her Father, eyes gleaming in the candlelight awaiting his review. 

“Do you like it, Baba?”  Her excitement was palpable. Her father, being the stoic man that he was, put up a single finger hushing her steadfastly. 

“Mei Mei. Patience. Silk is not sown from a single string.” 

Mei blushed and her face the color of a beet.  “You don’t like it, do you?” Tears began to well in her eyes. Baba had never disliked one of her paintings before. Her fingers tighten around her seat. 

He continued to hold up a single finger as he examined the painting with care. Her legs no longer swang, she shivered in the brisk evening air. Should she talk more? She wouldn’t dare. 

Finally breaking the agonizing silence, “Realize Mei, that honesty is a critic’s most valuable tool, so what I am going to say is not meant to hurt your feelings. But after a fierce and torturous review, Li Mei, I must say that this is absolutely, undoubtedly, inconceivably, the best painting I have ever had the privilege to lay my eyes upon.” He gave Mei a wry, but warm smile. 

Mei beamed. Her own lips reached ear to ear. Happiness flooded her voice “Really!?” 

“Oh yes! I particularly like the Mama and Baby bear.” His voice suddenly became concerned, “Did you see a bear this evening?” 

Her expression darkened as her smile fell slightly, “No,” she lied. Well, only a partial lie. She somewhat saw a bear in the clearing today. She saw the bear, it just, wasn’t there. “And that’s not a Mama and Baby bear, that's a Baba and Baby bear.” She says directing the conversation back to what she made. 

Her father held the painting in the candlelight and with a light chuckle asked,  “Why is the baby bear lying on the ground?” 

Mei made a thoughtful expression crinkling her young face in thought. “She’s sleeping, I think,” Mei said. “Her Baba stood there for a long time trying to wake her up, but she didn’t make a sound. She must have been really sleepy.” She ended this last phrase with a tremendous yawn that shook her whole body. She was always so tired after she finished a painting. 

“Looks like it is time for my little one to go to bed.” He picked her up as if she were as light as a feather. “Let’s get to bed my little blossom.” She already seemed half asleep, as she wrapped her arms around his neck like a tether. 

He carried her to her room, the boards of the illustrious home silent as the dead. He turned off her lantern and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.  “Baba,” she said softly, “We are like my Baba and Baby bear aren’t we? You’ll always love me no matter how much I sleep in my bed?” 

The darkness hid his tears. He embraced her tight. “I will always love you,” he whispered into her ear so she knew the words were meant just for her. 

Her father silently closed the door to the room and grasped the painting with both hands. He didn’t mention the red on it to Mei. It always upset her when he did. He walked down the wooden walkway, the floor creaking with every step now as he walked toward the closet of paintings. Haoyu stood at the entrance to the door. The color under his tired eyes matched the royal black lamellar that he wore. Scarlet circlets, the royal crest of the empire, ordain the shoulders of the armor. 

“It’s done, Commander Shen,” Haoyu says to the father. 

“Clean?” Li Shen's eyes fluttered with excitement already knowing the answer. Haoyu nods in response. Shen flashes a devilish grin veracious as cancer. “Another string for the weave.” He opens the door to the closet and places the new work inside next to many other paintings from previous days. All are nighttime landscapes with common stars, but the contents are different. Many are simply the trees behind the house in which he lives. However, they all had one thing the same. Scarlet death blessed every single pane. 

End