Chapter 1

Before she died, Grandma left the family a magic brush that could bring drawings to life.

Eldest Uncle drew an admission letter from Qingbei. Sure enough, my cousin, who was hopeless at school, became the top scorer in the college entrance exams.

Second Aunt drew a lottery ticket worth a hundred million yuan. Her family moved from a basement into a mansion and spent their days in extravagant bliss.

The great gold mine beneath their fishpond was drawn into existence.

So was the sixty-story building that rose from the ground.

Even the precious son in Second Aunt's womb, and the handsome husband on my younger cousin's arm, came from the brush.

When my turn came, Grandma grew unusually impatient.

“Granddaughter, hurry up and draw whatever you want!”

1

Grandma said we were descendants of Ma Liang, the man with the magic brush.

Anything we wanted, we could draw.

Half convinced, Second Aunt drew a lottery ticket worth a hundred million yuan. The moment she set down the brush, gongs and drums sounded outside. The Welfare Lottery company had brought the good news.

“Is Mrs. Ma Yun here? Congratulations! You've won the jackpot!”

The family laughed and cried, beside themselves with joy.

My lout of a cousin, who had never been any good at school, snatched the brush and drew an admission letter from Qingbei.

My younger cousin, greedy and lazy, wanted money without work. She drew a vast gold mine beneath her family's fishpond.

Eldest Uncle went further. With a sweep of the brush, he brought a sixty-story building up from the ground.

“A gold mine will run out one day,” he said smugly. “Better to be a landlord. A lifetime of cash flow without lifting a finger—that's the way to live!”

When it was my turn, impatience flashed in Grandma's eyes.

“Draw, granddaughter. What is it you want?”

2

Only someone of Ma blood could use the brush.

But if it was such a wonderful thing, why had we never used it when Grandpa was alive?

Could anything in this world really be that good?

Under everyone's hungry stares, I put the brush down and gave a lofty smile.

“Grandma said each Ma descendant can only use it three times. I wouldn't dare waste a turn. Once Eldest Uncle and Second Aunt have used theirs, I can draw things for you whenever you need them.

“After all, I wouldn't be where I am today without all your care over the years.”

Their wariness vanished. Beaming, they relaxed.

“That's more like it. Finally learning some sense! With your parents dead, would you still be alive without our kindness? You'd have starved in the street!”

I lowered my eyes and laughed coldly to myself.

Kindness? My parents' bodies were barely cold when they seized the compensation money, using my age as an excuse.

Eldest Uncle took Dad's car and shop. Second Aunt took our home and drove me into the basement.

Eldest Aunt was so mean she counted every mouthful I ate. Uncle gambled, and when his losses drove him wild, he took it out on me with slaps.

“You little jinx! Killing your parents wasn't enough? Now you want to kill me too? You've ruined all my luck!”

There it was. The care they were always talking about.

“What does a little girl need all that money for? It'll only bring trouble!”

“That old man was hiding a treasure and wouldn't let us use it. All those years he kept us poor! Serves him right, dying in poverty!”

I bowed my head and listened meekly. But I did not draw.

Not because I didn't want to. Nor because I didn't dare.

I had seen what the brush could do.

3

Grandpa had used it.

It was New Year's Eve ten years earlier. Snow filled the sky as Eldest Uncle drove the whole family back to our hometown in a small truck.

In the front passenger seat, my cousin demanded money for game equipment.

Uncle refused. My cousin actually grabbed the steering wheel.

“Are you giving it to me or not? If not, forget New Year. We can all die together!”

As they struggled, the truck skidded. When it hurtled toward the cliff, Mom pulled me tight against her.

After the violent impact, the whole truck fell silent.

I opened my eyes in a daze and saw Grandpa trapped by a twisted seat, blood covering him. Still, he fought to pull a calligraphy brush from inside his coat.

Muttering something, he dipped it in blood and traced a few strokes in the air.

Then I saw the strangest sight of my life.

4

An enormous hand appeared through the blinding snow.

The weight crushing me suddenly vanished. The giant hands that had materialized from nowhere lifted the entire truck.

Everyone survived.

Except my parents.

They had shielded me as the truck plunged down the cliff. Glass pierced their lungs.

They were still breathing when they reached the hospital. There was still a chance to save them.

But Second Aunt and Eldest Uncle kept refusing to pay for surgery.

“What happens after we pay this time? What if it's a bottomless pit? I'm telling you now, I have no money.”

I knelt and knocked my head to the floor like a dog, begging them to pay first.

“Get lost!”

Uncle kicked me away.

“Pay first? Sounds nice. Who pays us back? Show me an IOU!”

I was eight. I didn't even know how to write one.

“Exactly,” Second Aunt said. “They're so badly hurt, what's the use of saving them? They'll be disabled, a burden on the whole family. Who's going to repay your debts?”

For a while, I wondered whether the giant hands had been a hallucination as I was dying.

Otherwise, why would fortune favor such cruel people?

Then, on the night of my parents' funeral, I was hiding in a room, crying, when someone knocked.

It was Mom's voice.

“Sweetheart, open up. I brought you something good to eat!”

5

My parents had come back to life.

They stood before me, alive.

I could not believe my eyes. Mom wore her old bright smile. She pulled me into her arms and kissed me.

“Silly girl. Aren't you happy I'm home?”

I felt as though I were dreaming. My parents seemed to remember nothing of the crash. Then Grandpa hurried over.

“Xun, go. Take your parents as far away as you can. Never come back!”

Tears covered his face, which was frighteningly pale.

“I'm sorry. I raised two heartless dogs for children. This time, even if it costs my life, I won't let you be an orphan!

“Don't let anyone see your parents!”

I did not understand until gongs and drums sounded outside. The auspicious hour for the funeral procession had arrived.

Cold spread through me.

My parents' bodies were still lying there.

Then what were the people whose hands I held?

When I saw the brush, not yet dry, in Grandpa's hand, I suddenly knew.

Let them be false. I didn't care.

Anything was all right, so long as the three of us could be together.

But on the seventh day, they vanished into thin air. Grandpa died suddenly at home as well.

Even in death, his hand still gripped that so-called magic brush.

6

In that moment, I understood one thing.

The brush could draw objects. It could draw people too.

But what it drew did not last forever. Obtaining it came at a price.

I still had to discover the exact rules.

When I saw Second Aunt's family move into the city's most expensive mansion, luxury goods pouring through their doors, and Eldest Uncle chartering a private jet to Macau to gamble like a madman, I laughed.

A sincere laugh.

Back in my dark, damp basement, books were piled everywhere. Certificates covered the walls.

There was also an old, yellowing family photograph.

Ten years had passed. Even my parents' faces were growing blurred in memory. What I wished for needed no explanation.

Holding back the heat gathering in my eyes, I opened an exam paper and calmly began to work.

Let them mock me for being stupid and timid.

Laugh all you like.

Until I understood every rule, I would permit it.

7

Soon, my cousin and I sat the college entrance exams.

He slept from beginning to end. Yet when the results came out, he had scored 742—the highest in the province.

“Ma Xun, what did you get?”

Eldest Aunt had always been wary of me.

“You're not planning to use the brush too?”

I had already closed the results page. I let my shoulders droop a little.

“About what I usually get. Enough to go to university, anyway.”

Satisfied by my meekness, she smiled.

“See? What's the use of burying your head in books all day? My son has brains. He doesn't have to work as hard as you, and he's still better.”

Uncle held a celebration with a hundred banquet tables. Even the television station came to report on it.

Everyone was envious and admiring.

“What is going on with the Ma family? The second daughter wins a hundred million yuan in the lottery—my wife works at the ticket outlet. She handed over the prize herself!”

“And they dig a gold mine out of their fishpond! Creepy, isn't it? Why does every good thing happen to them?”

No wonder people were amazed. My cousin was scum in every sense.

While I lived with Uncle, he spied on me bathing and sold secretly taken photographs at school.

For a time, I faced one wave of humiliating rumors after another.

Boys even approached me in secret to ask the price.

“Ma Xun, your cousin says it's a hundred to sleep with you. Is there a discount for repeat customers?”

I reported it to my homeroom teacher. Eldest Aunt rushed in and slapped me without warning.

“So that's why you're always showing your arms and legs, parading in front of my son!”

I held my cheek, shaking all over.

“Teacher, she's clearly trying to seduce men for money. You can't let trash like this ruin the school's reputation!”

With his mother's boundless indulgence, my cousin did every kind of wrong. Last year, he had even harmed another schoolgirl.

Because everyone involved was underage, the matter was suppressed.

Oh, and the money Uncle used to pull strings had come from my parents' compensation.

Just as my cousin, adorned with a great red celebratory flower, was basking in praise, someone charged forward with a knife.

It came down toward his head.

“Thief! Give my son back his results!”