When Wu Ling heard Fan Chaoyang's accusation, he could only shake his head and laugh. Was this fellow trying to get him killed? Was he so bored that he needed to start a fight before the evening even started?
"Absolutely not," Wu Ling said directly. "Su Yao is my sworn sister's cousin, I would never dare to lay a hand on her or any other woman who trusted me to paint them. Here, Brother Zhang was it?" Wu Ling said, turning to the burly man with the close-cropped beard and lantern jaw.
"Come stand over here with me, I promise nothing untoward," he continued, getting out of the chair and taking the young Brawler to a spot in the room where everyone would see him from roughly the same angle. "Now, I'm going to pose you for a painting, don't frown at me, this is plenty manly, I promise. Put your right foot on this chair like you're standing on the body of a beast you've just killed," he said, instantly appealing to Zhang Buyan's pride as a warrior. "Put your right forearm on your right knee and lean into it. Now make a strong fist with your right hand, chin down, and look at your friends over by the table."
Despite feeling awkward about it, Zhang Buyan complied, clenching his meaty fist until veins stood out on the back of his hand and all but scowling at the young gentleman gathered around the table.
"How does he look to everyone?" Wu Ling asked. "Does he look like a mighty hero with the strength to protect his love by vanquishing powerful beasts? Is he a champion that will rise and carry his family to greatness?" Many of the young men nodded, easily imagining the valiant image that Wu Ling painted in their minds. What woman wouldn't want such a man as a partner?
"Brother Zhang, you mentioned that there was a woman that you had eyes for," Wu Ling said, placing his hand on the larger man's shoulder. "I'm guessing that you haven't formed a relationship with her yet, and you need to attract her attention. Would you pay me to paint such a painting for you, so she would see you as the hero you're meant to be?"
"Of course I would!" Zhang Buyan said with enthusiasm. Now that Wu Ling had described it, he was actually beginning to consider commissioning just such a painting. He'd long had his eyes on Junior Sister Jin Wuya back at the Golden Tide Martial Sect, but he'd hesitated to approach her because of the difference in their backgrounds. Perhaps if she could see him the way Wu Ling had just described him, it would help to close the distance between them.
"And that," Wu Ling said simply, "is the core of the problem. If I'm painting for Brother Zhang and he's paying me, I should make the painting he wants. But what if I'm not painting Brother Zhang for Brother Zhang? What if I'm painting him the way some woman wants me to paint him?" Wu Ling asked.
For a moment, Wu Ling wondered how he would paint himself if he wanted to give a gift to Yao Meifeng. No matter how he considered painting Zhang Buyan, without knowing the other woman, he couldn't say that he would treat it the same way he'd treat painting himself for Meifeng. For Meifeng, he couldn't imagine she would treasure a painting of him alone. Instead, he'd paint her alongside him, both with their zithers playing their duet. That, he felt certain, was something she would treasure.
Turning to Zhang Buyan, he could only make a few guesses about the sort of woman he might prefer and how that woman would want to see a man she fancied depicted.
"Stand differently for me," Wu Ling said, pulling Zhang Buyan upright. "Both feet on the floor, shoulders back, here," he continued, pressing a large jug of wine into the burly man's hands. "You're a warrior, I want you to imagine that this jug is the face of your warhorse. Women love horses, never miss an opportunity to include a horse in a painting if you can," he added with a wink at the bemused young lords watching him.
"Now, hold the bottle up a bit higher and look at it like you're looking your horse in the eyes to calm it before battle," Wu Ling directed the older man. "A little softer, a little gentler, like it's skittish at the smell of blood," he coached, carefully using imagery that wouldn't offend Zhang Buyan's martial pride even as he worked to soften his appearance. "There, now, everyone, take a look at your friend. Who among you would pay me to be painted in such a pose?"
"Honestly, he looks like a cut sleeve like that," Xiong Dahuo said, shaking his head at how much Wu Ling had ruined Zhang Buyan's image. "If you painted me like that, I'd cut your fingers off so you could never shame someone's manhood again."
"And that right there is the heart of the problem," Wu Ling explained, taking the wine jug away from Zhang Buyan before the larger man could decide to hit him with it. "If I paint Brother Zhang the first way, women won't see it the way men will. A woman will see his closed, strong fist and she'll think of every friend who's come to her with bruises inflicted by boyfriends that need to be covered with makeup. She'll wonder if those fists will turn on her one day. She'll see the strong pose looming over a defeated beast and she'll imagine that man looming over her one day," he explained.
"A woman wants a strong man like Brother Zhang, with broad shoulders to hold up the world and powerful arms to keep her safe, but," he paused, holding up a finger. "This is the most important part. She wants a strong man with soft hands that hold her like a porcelain vase. She wants a side of Brother Zhang that's too soft to show the whole world. A side of him that's only for her to see. The painting I might make for Brother Zhang to woo a woman isn't the same painting as the one he might choose to pay for. What's a poor artist to do then?"
"Brother Wu has gotten even better at moving people's hearts since I last saw him," a woman's voice called lightly from the door. Instantly, all eyes turned to the entrance where an elegant woman who looked to be in her early twenties entered with four other younger women, each carrying trays covered with refreshments and expensive-looking jugs of fine wine.
"Understudy Die," Wu Ling said, surprised both to see a familiar face here and that her cultivation had progressed so notably since he last saw her. When he noticed that the Drifting Silk Pavilion bore the markings of a subsidiary business of the Bamboo Silk House he hadn't expected to find a second-stage cultivator overseeing the place, much less one he had known years ago, before he'd left the sect with his mother.
"It's been several years, I didn't expect you to be the one overseeing things here. I imagine it's long overdue but congratulations on your breakthrough, Elder Sister Die" he said, bowing slightly with cupped hands.
"You've been gone for so many years," the older woman purred, stepping close to Wu Ling and pressing herself up against him. "I've brought plenty of wine since Brother Wu has come, let Elder Sister Die treat him and his friends well while you wait for the banquet to start," she said loud enough for everyone to hear before continuing quietly in a whisper meant just for his ears. "And don't think that Elder Sister won't collect on this favor you've asked for in doing so," she added with a sly smile.