Between the Morning Light in Beverly Hills and the Afternoon at Netflix Headquarters

Los Angeles had no winter in January.

When Su Jin's private jet landed at Santa Monica Airport, the clouds over the Pacific Ocean were burning orange-red in the sunset. Slender silhouettes of palm trees swayed at the end of the runway, and lights twinkled on the distant hills of Beverly Hills, as though someone had scattered a handful of gold dust across the sky.

She descended the steps in an oatmeal-colored Khaite knit dress that fell to her ankles, with a high slit at the side that revealed her entire calf as she walked;

On her feet were black leather slides from The Row, their uppers consisting of a single, extremely thin strap that traced the curve of her instep;

Her hair hung loose, stirring gently in the Santa Monica sea breeze and gleaming dark brown in the sunset.

The people meeting her were already waiting.

A black Mercedes-Benz van stood with its door open and two people inside-one was her personal assistant, surnamed Tang, who was in her early thirties and had spent six years at a top Hollywood public relations firm before Shen Mingwei recruited her to handle Su Jin's affairs in Los Angeles;

The other was Ray, the house manager of the Beverly Hills estate. He was in his fifties, dressed in a finely tailored dark gray suit, with graying hair and an erect posture. He spoke with a slight British accent.

"Ms. Su," Ray said, bowing slightly, "the house is ready. The renovation team will come to see you tomorrow morning."

Su Jin nodded and got into the car.

The car left the airport and headed north along Santa Monica Boulevard, passing a broad grove of palm trees and white-walled Spanish-style buildings before turning onto a quiet private road enclosed by high walls and old trees.

At the end of the road stood a large black wrought-iron gate bearing gold numerals-217, the same street number as the villa in Boston's Back Bay.

At the gate, Ray pressed a button on a remote. The gate slowly opened, and the headlights illuminated the gravel driveway ahead.

Italian cypress trees lined both sides of the drive, their tall, slender crowns swaying gently in the night breeze like two rows of silent sentries.

The moment the car stopped in front of the main building, Su Jin saw the whole house through the window.

The main building was a three-story modern villa, its facade composed largely of limestone and glass, with clean, crisp lines and no superfluous ornament.

Its mass was broken into several interlocking geometric volumes, the angle of each precisely calculated to capture as much Los Angeles sunlight and as much of the distant mountain view as possible from every room.

The front entrance was a custom walnut door, three and a half meters high and two meters wide, with no carvings or hardware on its surface. Only the grain of the wood itself shimmered in varying shades beneath the lights.

She pushed the door open and walked in. The entryway floor was a single slab of Italy's Calacatta marble, gray veins flowing across its white surface. When the light struck them, the veins seemed to move, like an ink painting frozen in stone.

Directly opposite the entryway was an enormous glass wall stretching from the floor to the third-story ceiling. Through it, she could see the backyard swimming pool and the countless lights of the Los Angeles Basin in the distance.

The pool had an infinity edge. Fine ripples spread across the water in the night breeze, and the lights turned its surface into a sheet of flowing blue. Beside it stood a glass sculpture by Jean-Michel Othoniel-a giant red necklace strung from handblown glass beads, like a flame frozen in the night.

Ray followed behind her, quietly describing every detail of the house.

"The main building is twelve thousand square feet, with six bedrooms and nine bathrooms. There are two guesthouses, eighteen hundred square feet each, with two bedrooms and a separate kitchenette apiece. The swimming pool is temperature-controlled, with a hot tub and outdoor kitchen beside it. The tennis court is on the north side. It was recently renovated and resurfaced with the same acrylic coating used at the US Open."

He paused and gestured toward the wall in the very center of the living room. "The previous owner hung a Rothko on this wall. If you like, we can help you contact a gallery-" "No need," Su Jin interrupted. "I have my own plans."

She walked up to the enormous white wall and stood there looking at it for a long time.

The wall was pure white, with nothing hanging on it. Under the lights, it held a vast silence, waiting to be filled.

She took out her phone and sent Cheng Yan a message: There's a wall here in Beverly, four meters by six meters. It needs a painting. Who do you think would be right?

Cheng Yan replied instantly: That big? Have Shen Nian paint it.

She mentioned an idea to me last year. She wanted to paint a "Los Angeles Night"-not a realistic night, but the night she imagined.

Purple sky, golden light, black mountains. I think it would be perfect for your wall.

Su Jin replied: Have her paint it.

Cheng Yan: She's in Los Angeles right now, at her studio near Joshua Tree. Want me to ask her to come see you?

Su Jin thought for a moment and replied with one word: Yes.

Two

At nine the next morning, Su Jin stood in the dressing room, facing two walls of clothes as she chose what to wear out that day.

The dressing room in Beverly Hills was nearly three times as large as the one in Boston's Back Bay.

Open racks covered two walls, arranged by color and season: from cream to ivory to off-white, from light gray to charcoal to black, from oatmeal to camel to caramel. Each color group offered dozens of choices in different brands, materials, and cuts.

An enormous island stood in the middle, topped with white marble and concealing jewelry compartments inside. Buccellati, Tiffany, Cartier, Bvlgari, Boucheron-each brand had its own designated place, everything neatly arranged by category.

The shoe cabinets were on the other side of the dressing room. From sneakers to high heels, from Common Projects to Christian Louboutin, every pair sat in a clear acrylic box with a small label on the outside listing the brand, style, color, and year of purchase.

Her gaze swept over the rows of clothes and finally settled on a Dior suit-a John Galliano design from the 2007 spring/summer haute couture collection, which she had discovered at a Paris boutique specializing in vintage haute couture.

The suit's jacket was a cream blazer with shoulders padded up by one centimeter, an extremely nipped-in waist, and a hem that flared slightly into an elegant bell shape;

The neckline was asymmetrical, high on the left and low on the right, revealing a small patch of her right collarbone;

The fabric was a substantial wool blend, its surface patterned with an extremely fine, subtle design visible only in the light—Galliano's signature Japan-inspired origami elements, geometric shapes layered upon one another like a maze folded flat.

The matching bottom was a straight skirt that fell two finger-widths below the knee. A slender slit at the hem subtly echoed the jacket's flared shape.

She took the suit down and put it on over a white Equipment silk blouse, letting a little of the white neckline show to create a layered effect against the cream jacket.

On her feet were black suede Manolo Blahnik heels, eighty-five millimeters high, their signature square buckles gleaming discreetly under the dressing-room lights.

She chose jewelry from Buccellati's Opera collection-openwork white-gold flower earrings and a matching necklace, its pendant a floral openwork design in the Tulle technique, falling just below her collarbone.

Her hair was swept into a low bun and secured with an antique tortoiseshell comb, leaving her entire face and both earrings exposed.

She stood before the mirror and looked at the person reflected in it.

The cream blazer made her skin look even fairer. Its asymmetrical neckline exposed her collarbone and a small patch of her chest, while the Buccellati necklace swayed faintly in the light.

In the dressing room's warm light, her face had a soft quality, almost like an oil painting-the padded shoulders of the jacket balanced the curve of her cheekbones perfectly, her jawline looked sharper with her hair up, and her eyes were deep amber in the warm light, the golden rings around her pupils clearly visible.

[Host,] Little Golden Egg squeezed out of the air and floated behind her. [You're wearing Galliano today? This system thought you would prefer the current Dior. Maria Grazia's designs are more wearable, more suitable for everyday life-]

Su Jin ignored Little Golden Egg, picked up her clutch, and turned to leave the dressing room.

Three

At eleven that morning, Su Jin appeared outside the Dior boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

This was no ordinary Dior store.

It was Dior's largest flagship store in North America, three stories high, with a facade of white limestone and an enormous glass curtain wall. The windows displayed the latest ready-to-wear and handbags of the season.

But Su Jin had not come for ready-to-wear today-she had come for what lay behind the most private door, deep inside the store.

Behind that door was a space closed to the public, reserved for Dior's most elite VIP clients from around the world.

The door was custom-made, exactly the same color as the wall, with no handle or keyhole, only a facial-recognition camera embedded in the wall.

Su Jin stood before the camera. The system scanned her face, and the door slid silently open.

Beyond it was a private salon of more than a hundred square meters.

A thick beige wool carpet covered the floor, making her footsteps soundless.

The walls were pale gray, hung with hand-drawn designs from Dior's haute couture atelier-all works from the Galliano era, displayed like art in gold frames.

In the center of the salon stood a set of curved beige leather sofas around a small coffee table.

On the table were a vase of white moth orchids and a freshly brewed cup of jasmine tea, its fragrance drifting faintly through the air.

Three people were already waiting for her—Isabelle, Dior's president for the United States, a woman from France in her fifties with short hair, wearing a black Dior suit and a silk scarf around her neck, so polished she looked as if she had just stepped out of a magazine;

Michel, the head tailor of Dior's haute couture atelier, a man in his sixties with graying hair and reading glasses, holding a rolled-up measuring tape and looking like a surgeon about to perform a delicate operation;

And a young woman in her early thirties, Isabelle's assistant, holding an iPad displaying Su Jin's measurements and purchase history.

Isabelle stood, came forward two steps, and took Su Jin's hand.

"Ms. Su," she said, her English heavily accented with French, though she pronounced every word clearly,

"We've been waiting a long time for this day. Ever since Zheng Ying sent your photographs to Paris, the entire haute couture atelier has been talking about you. Michel-after seeing your photographs, he took apart all three gowns he was working on and started them over.

"He said, 'This person's body proportions are the best I've seen in my forty-year career.'"

Beside her, Michel bowed slightly without speaking, but his gaze had not left Su Jin since the moment she entered.

It was not the gaze of a man looking at a woman, but that of a craftsman examining his material-he was studying her shoulder width, bust, waist, and hips; the way she stood and walked; the position of her fingers when her arms hung naturally at her sides; and the angle at which light reflected off her skin.

He looked for a minute, then nodded and said a single sentence.

His voice was quiet, but everyone in the silent salon heard him.

"Even better than in the photographs."

Isabelle smiled and clapped her hands. "Then let's begin."

Four

Michel had brought seven gowns.

Each was enclosed in a black velvet garment bag one hundred and eighty centimeters tall, carefully carried in by two assistants and hung on a rolling rack in the corner of the salon.

Su Jin examined them one by one.

The first was a long black velvet dress, a reproduction from Dior's 1947 New Look collection.

Its nipped-in design drew the waist extremely narrow, while the skirt spread wide like an overturned flower and fell to the ankles. The neckline was a deep V, plunging below the bust and exposing a broad expanse of skin and collarbone.

When Su Jin came out wearing it, Isabelle drew in a sharp breath.

It was not an exaggerated gasp, but an instinctive, uncontrollable one-like someone suddenly seeing light in the dark, the body reacting before there was time to think.

The black velvet gleamed with a deep luster under the salon's warm yellow lights. The skirt spread out behind her, swaying with each step like a flowing expanse of night.

The deep V exposed the pendant of her Buccellati necklace below her collarbone, the openwork white-gold flower especially striking against the black velvet.

Michel walked once around Su Jin, pressed lightly at her waist, pinched the fabric at her shoulder, then took a box of pins from his assistant and crouched down to adjust the length of the skirt.

His movements were precise and quick, like a calibrated machine, each one crisp and decisive, without a trace of hesitation.

"This one is right for the red carpet," Isabelle said.

"The red carpet in Berlin. Black is never wrong, but the New Look silhouette will make everyone remember you."

Su Jin looked at the woman in the black velvet gown in the mirror and said nothing.

She thought of Lin-if Lin put on this dress, she would stand in the doorway of the bookstore, look at the sea in the distance, then turn and go back inside, hang it in the wardrobe, and put her light gray linen dress back on.

The corners of her mouth curved slightly.

"Next," she said.

The second was a qipao-style gown covered in gold embroidery, from Galliano's 2009 autumn/winter haute couture collection-his last collection before leaving Dior.

Isabelle had borrowed the gown from Dior's archives solely for today's fitting; it was not for sale.

The qipao's standing collar enclosed the neck, with a jade-green frog closure at the neckline. Its knot was exquisitely intricate, like a miniature flower.

Gold embroidery spread from the neckline to the shoulders, from the shoulders to the cuffs, and from the cuffs to the hem. The motifs were Galliano's signature China-inspired style—dragons, phoenixes, peonies, and auspicious clouds, layered so intricately that they dazzled the eye. Yet the path of every thread had been precisely designed, elaborate without disorder, dense without congestion.

The fabric was an extremely light silk satin that clung to the body like a layer of golden mist.

When Su Jin put on the gown, the entire salon fell silent.

Michel was crouched at her feet adjusting the hem. His hand stopped in midair, and he forgot to lower it.

The iPad in Isabelle's assistant's hands slipped and nearly fell to the floor.

Isabelle herself said nothing. She only looked at Su Jin for a long time, then said something in French, her voice so soft it was as if she were speaking to herself.

Michel looked up, glanced at her, nodded, and bent his head to continue working.

Su Jin looked at the woman in the mirror.

The golden qipao shimmered brilliantly under the lights. Embroidered dragons and phoenixes spiraled from her shoulders to her waist, then spread from her waist to the hem, like a painted scroll worn on the body. The standing collar enclosed her neck, exposing a small patch of skin beneath her ear. The jade-green frog closure rested just below her Adam's apple, rising and falling slightly with her breathing.

Against the gold, her face looked even fairer, the color in her cheeks deeper. There was nothing on her lips, yet in the golden light they were a warm, almost coral pink.

"This," Isabelle said, "isn't for the red carpet. This is a work of art."

Su Jin nodded.

Chinese women were simply the best match for Chinese style.

She looked for a long time, then turned and walked into the changing room.

The third was a white silk satin wedding gown-not an actual wedding gown, but the finale piece from Galliano's 2005 spring/summer haute couture collection, worn by a supermodel to close the show at the Paris Grand Palais that year.

The upper half was a fitted corset made from layers of white silk satin and sheer tulle, covered in hand-sewn pearls and tiny crystals that made it look like a shell split open in the light.

The lower half was an enormous full skirt with a two-meter train that took two people to spread out.

The skirt was embroidered all over with white flowers-roses, lilies, lilies of the valley, and daisies. Each petal of every flower had been cut individually from silk satin, dyed, shaped, and then sewn on by hand. A single flower took a craftsman eight hours to make.

When Su Jin put on the wedding gown, Michel did not let her come out.

He adjusted the fit of the corset in the changing room and checked the stitching on every flower on the skirt. Then he stepped back, looked at her, and said, "You can go out now."

The moment she emerged from the changing room, Isabelle stood up.

It was not a polite gesture, but an instinctive, uncontrollable one-as if she had seen something that should not exist in reality, her body reacting before her mind.

The salon lights fell on the white silk satin, refracted by the pearls and crystals into countless tiny flecks that scattered across the carpet, the walls, and the ceiling. The entire salon seemed enveloped in starlight.

The white flowers on the skirt revealed different layers in the light-the rose petals had a soft matte finish, the lily petals were faintly reflective satin, the lily-of-the-valley petals were nearly transparent tulle, and the daisy petals were soft velvet.

Su Jin stood there, surrounded by flowers and starlight, like someone who had just stepped out of a fairy tale, but the expression on her face had nothing to do with fairy tales-

She simply stood there, looking down at a lily of the valley on the skirt, a slight curve to her lips, as if thinking about something entirely unrelated to the wedding gown.

Isabelle watched her in silence for a long time. Then she spoke, her voice much softer than usual.

"Ms. Su," she said, "when Galliano finished this wedding gown, he said something.

"He said, 'This dress isn't for a bride. It's for women who don't need marriage, but deserve all the love there is.'"

She paused. "I think he was talking about you."

Su Jin raised her head and looked at Isabelle.

The two women met each other's eyes in the salon, one standing in starlight in a white wedding gown, the other standing under the lights in a black suit.

"I won't try this one on anymore," Su Jin said. "Keep it for me. Someday I'll have a use for it."

Isabelle nodded and did not ask which day "someday" would be.

Five

After trying on the Dior gowns, Su Jin returned to the car and changed into something more comfortable-a cream-white turtleneck cashmere sweater from The Row, light blue straight-leg Mother jeans, and white Common Projects sneakers.

Her hair was down, loose over her shoulders, its ends slightly curled.

She had not touched up her makeup, but after trying on seven gowns, changing clothes seven times, and being pricked twice by Michel's pins, she still looked outrageously good-a faint flush steamed onto her cheekbones by the lights and emotion, her lips reddened a little more than usual by the changing room's heating, and her eyelashes casting fan-shaped shadows in the afternoon Los Angeles sunlight.

The car headed west, traveled along Santa Monica Boulevard, turned onto Sunset Boulevard, then continued north on a road she could not name, finally stopping before an enormous complex of glass and steel.

The buildings' facades were entirely glass curtain walls, reflecting blue sky and white clouds in the afternoon sun. Set in the center was an enormous red letter "N," Netflix's logo, so simple as to be almost blunt, yet instantly memorable.

Netflix's United States headquarters was in Hollywood and covered more than 650,000 square feet. The complex consisted of several buildings of different heights, connected by skybridges and underground passages.

When Su Jin entered through the main doors, someone was already waiting at reception-a white woman in her thirties, wearing a simple black dress with her hair in a ponytail. A Netflix badge was pinned to her chest, reading "Jessica Zhang, Global Content Acquisition."

"Ms. Su," Jessica said, coming forward and offering her hand,

"Welcome to Netflix. CEO Ted Sarandos had hoped to receive you personally, but he's in London for a meeting today, so he asked me to show you around headquarters. If you have any questions, please ask me anytime."

Su Jin shook her hand and nodded.

They crossed the lobby and entered an elevator. Its doors were glass, offering a view of the atrium outside, where an enormous indoor living wall rose from floor to ceiling. Ferns, vines, air plants, and several tropical plants she could not name intertwined, lush and green beneath artificial lights.

Beanbag chairs of various colors were scattered across the atrium floor, and more than a dozen employees were sitting on them in a meeting. Some held laptops, some held coffee, and someone was drawing something on a whiteboard.

A young man in a hoodie lay on a beanbag with his eyes closed. The people beside him said he was "thinking deeply," and no one woke him.

"Our culture is 'freedom and responsibility,'"

Jessica explained as they walked,

"There are no fixed working hours and no limit on annual leave. Employees can decide when they come in, when they leave, and when they take time off. In return, though, everyone takes full responsibility for their own projects. Do well, and the rewards are generous; do poorly, and you'll receive a generous severance package."

She paused and smiled. "Not everyone can adapt to this model, but the people who stay are the ones who truly love this industry."

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and the doors opened.

This floor belonged to Netflix's content acquisition department. The whole floor was an open workspace, with no cubicles or private offices. Every workstation was open, and the desks could be adjusted to any height. Some people worked standing up, some sat in chairs, and others sat on yoga balls.

Entire walls were covered in whiteboards filled with flowcharts and data analysis tables. Sticky notes in different colors were posted beside them, bearing phrases like "HBO Max exclusive," "Amazon bid," "Cannes Film Festival priority screening," and "Berlin Film Festival main competition."

Jessica led her to a conference room at the far end and pushed open the door.

The conference table was a single massive slab of walnut, with seating for twenty. Several computers and a stack of printed contracts sat on it.

A huge screen stood against the wall, displaying a map of Netflix's global content distribution. Blocks of different colors represented the proportion of content investment in each region: North America was dark blue, Europe light blue, and Asia orange. The orange was expanding visibly.

"Ms. Su," Jessica said, pointing to the orange area on the screen, "this is Netflix's key strategy for the next three years: Asia content.

"Our subscription base is growing fastest in Asia, but the supply of Asian content is falling far short of demand.

"Huace Starlight and Windbreaking Pictures, which you control, are among the content partners we most want to work with."

She paused, her tone growing more serious. "Ted asked me to tell you that Netflix not only welcomes you as a shareholder, but looks forward even more to having you as a content creator. The artificial intelligence you studied at MIT could change the entire industry if applied to content recommendation algorithms."

Su Jin looked at the expanding orange on the screen and said nothing for a few seconds.

Then she turned to Jessica and asked a question. "Does Netflix's recommendation algorithm currently use collaborative filtering or deep learning in its candidate retrieval layer?"

Jessica was taken aback.

She hadn't expected an actor, an investor, and an MIT visiting scholar to ask such a specific technical question.

She stared for two seconds, then laughed.

"That's a question you should ask our algorithm engineering team," she said. "They're on the sixth floor. Would you like to see them?"

Su Jin nodded.

Six

Netflix's algorithm engineering team occupied half the sixth floor. The other half was a massive data center, where walls of servers ran quietly in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment. Blue indicator lights blinked in the darkness like a sky full of stars trapped behind glass.

The team leader was a man of Indian descent in his forties named Raj. He had been at Netflix for eleven years, ever since the days of DVD rentals.

He wore a gray T-shirt printed with

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough",

and his hair was messy. His eyes were bright behind his glasses, and he had a habit of tapping his fingers on the table when he spoke.

He showed Su Jin around their experimental environment: dozens of high-performance servers running in parallel, processing behavioral data from tens of millions of users every second and updating recommendation models in real time.

He explained things as they walked, speaking rapidly, one technical term following another. Jessica, beside them, was completely lost, but Su Jin followed every word: the retrieval layer, the ranking layer, online learning, user profiles, context awareness, and the application of reinforcement learning in recommendation systems.

When he got to "optimizing multi-armed bandit algorithms in cold-start scenarios," she even suggested an improvement: replacing ϵ-greedy with Thompson sampling could reduce trial-and-error costs by fifteen percent while maintaining exploration efficiency.

Raj stopped and looked at her, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

"You-" he said. "You really studied computer vision? Not recommendation systems?"

Su Jin smiled. "I took a reinforcement learning course at MIT. Professor Bertsekas taught it."

Raj shook his head and let out a long sigh. "People from MIT are monsters."

There was nothing derogatory in his tone when he said it, only the respect of one peer for another, tinged with envy.

When the tour ended, Jessica walked her to the entrance of the building.

The Los Angeles afternoon sun was still bright, palm trees swayed gently in the wind, and a helicopter was slowly descending over the distant hills.

Su Jin stood at the entrance, squinting at the helicopter. Sunlight fell on her face, giving the skin the system had enhanced to the human limit an almost translucent quality. The color in her cheekbones looked richer in the sunlight, her lips were pressed lightly together, and the corners of her mouth curved almost imperceptibly.

"Ms. Su," Jessica said, "Ted is coming back to Los Angeles next week. He'd like to invite you to dinner. Do you have time?"

Su Jin turned to look at her. "Which day next week?"

"You choose."

Su Jin thought for a moment. "Tuesday evening."

Jessica noted it down on her phone and nodded.

Seven

By the time Su Jin returned to Beverly Hills, it was already four in the afternoon.

Su Jin changed into a cream-colored Gabriela Hearst knit dress that fell two finger-widths below her knees. It was made of superfine merino wool, which warmed against her skin after a little while;

on her feet were black leather slide sandals from The Row, the same style as the pair she had worn that morning, but in a different color.

She let her hair down over her shoulders, its ends curling slightly. She wore no makeup, but in the afternoon sunlight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows, her face glowed white.

The renovation team was already waiting in the living room. There were four of them: an interior designer, an architectural consultant, a lighting designer, and an art consultant.

The interior designer had been recommended by Ray. His name was Michael, and he was in his early forties. He had spent twenty years designing high-end homes in Los Angeles. His style was modernist, but he disliked the cold severity of minimalism.

"A good house should have room to breathe," he said.

He had brought an entire case of material samples-marble, wood, metal, glass, and fabric-and laid them out in a row on the living room coffee table, like a miniature museum of materials.

"Ms. Su," Michael said, standing in front of the four-by-six-meter white wall,

"Mr. Cheng Yan said Shen Nian's painting would be finished within two months. Before then, we need to establish the tone of the entire space.

"What sort of feeling do you want?"

Su Jin stood beside him, looking at the vast blank wall, and thought for a long time.

"Avant-garde."

She said, "But not avant-garde for the sake of being avant-garde. The kind where you walk in and feel that you've never seen these things before, but you should have.

"They're just a little ahead of everything you've ever seen."

Michael looked at her, his eyes lighting up.

"You're talking about futurism. Not the futurism of the early twentieth century, but true futurism, belonging to our own era."

He pulled a marble sample from the case: a piece of Calacatta Viola, with a purple-and-white base and purple veins spreading across the white stone like blood vessels. It was more intense and more alive than ordinary marble.

"Let's not hang a painting on this wall. We'll use a single slab of marble to create a feature wall, from floor to ceiling, with no embellishment. The purple-and-white veining is a painting in itself-an abstract expressionist painting.

"Then we'll put a sofa set in front of it, in deep green velvet." He paused. "Deep green and purple-white are a combination the Italians do best. Bold, but not showy."

Su Jin looked at the marble and lightly traced a finger over the purple veins. It felt cool and smooth, like touching a piece of silk frozen by time.

"All right," she said.

Michael pulled another sample from the case: brushed brass with an aged matte finish. Instead of the dazzling brightness of new brass, it had a warm, gentle luster, as though polished by time.

"For the stair railings, we'll use this. It'll contrast with the purple-and-white marble: one cool, one warm; one flamboyant, one restrained."

Su Jin nodded.

The lighting designer was a young Asian woman named Christine. Her hair was in a ponytail, she wore a black T-shirt, and she liked to gesture as she spoke.

She walked around the living room, pointed to several spots on the ceiling, and said, "Here, here, here, and here-we'll install recessed linear light strips at a color temperature of 2,700 K. Warm white light will give the marble wall a candlelit quality.

"Then this wall-"

She pointed to the enormous glass wall. "We'll install a set of in-ground lights outside, shining upward at night to turn the entire glass wall into a luminous mirror.

"From outside, the house will glow at night. Not a glaring kind of glow, but like a breathing pearl someone has placed on the mountain."

Su Jin imagined the scene.

At night, looking down from the hills of Beverly Hills, the lights of countless Los Angeles homes would spread out below, while her house glowed halfway up the slope like a pearl embedded in the mountainside.

The corners of her mouth curved. "All right."

The art consultant was the last to speak.

His name was David. He was in his fifties, wore a worn khaki jacket, and had graying hair. He spoke slowly and deliberately, but every word landed with force.

He had brought no material samples, only a thick folder containing a list of artworks he had selected for the house.

"For the living room, Shen Nian's painting."

He turned to the first page. "For the bedroom, I suggest a Louise Bourgeois print. Not one of her enormous spiders, but something from her print series-small and powerful, quiet but unsettling. It suits the atmosphere of a bedroom."

He turned to the second page. "For the study, a set of Sol LeWitt wall drawings. Not originals, but authorized reproductions, drawn directly on the wall in pencil. The lines are simple, but if you look at them long enough, they seem to move. Good to look at when you're thinking."

He turned to the third page. "For the dining room, a Jonas Wood still life. His paintings have highly saturated colors and flat compositions. At first glance they look like cartoons, but the longer you look, the more those bottles, jars, and plants seem to possess a strange vitality that makes you want to look again. They'll put you in a good mood while you eat."

He turned to the fourth page. "For the hallway, a set of photographs by Uta Barth. She photographs things that are blurry and out of focus-light on a window, the shadow of a curtain, gaps between leaves. You won't notice them as you walk past, but on your way back, you'll feel as though there was something there just now."

Su Jin went through the pages one by one, studying them carefully.

She lingered over one Louise Bourgeois print. It showed a blurred human figure wrapped in a tangle of lines. You couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman, whether it was struggling or embracing, but you could feel something pulsing beneath that mass of lines.

"This one," she said. "Put it in the primary bedroom."

David nodded and noted it down in his notebook.

Eight

At eight that evening, the renovation team left.

Su Jin stood alone in the living room, facing the four-by-six-meter white wall.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the lights of countless Los Angeles homes spread out below. The distant Pacific Ocean disappeared into the night, and a few stars had just begun to shine on the horizon.

She stood there in her cream-colored knit dress, her bare feet on the cold marble floor, her unmade-up face astonishingly beautiful.

Her phone lay on the windowsill, its screen lit up with a message from Anderson:

Berlin has confirmed it. February 15, seven p.m., the premiere. You need to start preparing for the red carpet.

She didn't reply.

It buzzed again. A message from Ethan: I heard you went to Los Angeles? Is Netflix's algorithm team way cooler than the MIT lab?

The corners of her mouth curved, and she replied: About the same.

Ethan replied instantly: About the same? Netflix has a sixty-thousand-square-foot data center. The MIT lab has two servers and a coffee machine.

You call that about the same?

She replied: The coffee's better.

Ethan sent an ellipsis, then another message: When are you coming back to Boston? We still haven't had the semifinal review meeting. Professor Harris said there were seven ways to solve your last problem, and he only thought of five. He said to explain the other two when you get back.

Su Jin looked at the words, the corners of her mouth curving, but she didn't reply.

She turned her phone over, leaving it face down on the windowsill, then walked over to the white wall. She stopped and looked at the empty expanse of white.

There was nothing on the wall but the warm yellow halo cast by the lights and her shadow-long and slender, quiet as a painting that had yet to be painted.

She reached out, touched the cold wall with her fingertips, and slowly traced its invisible center line, as though measuring something, or perhaps waiting for something.

Shen Nian's painting would take another two months to finish.

Two months from now, a piece of "Los Angeles Night" would appear on this wall: a purple sky, golden light, and black mountains.

For now, it was still empty. Empty was fine too. Empty meant it could still become anything.

She withdrew her hand and turned toward the stairs.

Her bare feet stepped on the marble floor, her footsteps completely absorbed, leaving only the soft rustle of fabric.

The stair railings had yet to be installed. The lengths of brass still lay in Michael's material case, waiting to be welded, polished, and installed.

She held on to the stairs, which had no railings yet, and climbed one step at a time. At the door to the primary bedroom on the third floor, she pushed it open.

Moonlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, spreading a pool of silver across the carpet.

She stood in the moonlight and looked down at her shadow-long and slender, quiet as a painting that had yet to be painted.