The One Went Up in Flames

I bought a professional signal detector online and swept through every inch of the studio. I even searched the power outlets as well.

In the end, there was nothing.

To be safe, I packed up my painting tools and took a cab to a paid studio far from the university.

I chose a completely enclosed room and made sure there was absolutely no way any surveillance equipment could have been installed in advance.

This time, I painted a still life titled "Fragmented Statue."

I deliberately used unconventional colors and lighting. These were ideas I had only come up with recently and had never mentioned to anyone.

When I finished, I didn't take the painting with me. I locked it in a storage cabinet.

That night, in a private group chat full of well-known painters and industry veterans, Bonnie posted a more polished painting on the same theme, pretending to ask for advice.

The painting was "Fragmented Statue."

The timestamp on his post was thirty minutes earlier than the time I finished my own piece!

The veterans in the group praised him, calling his concept bold and his technique superb.

However, a few sharp-eyed members recognized my signature style and began to whisper in the thread.

"This style looks a bit like Connor's from university, doesn't it?"

"It does, but Bonnie's version is much more refined, and the concept feels more mature. I bet Connor's copying him again. He already has a history."

"Young people these days are always looking for shortcuts."

My bafflement only deepened. How exactly was Bonnie stealing from me?

I sat alone in the empty studio and went over everything from the beginning.

Physical isolation didn't work. Signal screening didn't work. That ruled out almost every conventional method of theft.

I remembered the interviews Bonnie gave after he won the gold prize in my previous life.

He spoke smoothly and with poise, but whenever reporters asked about the details of his creative process or his emotional journey, his responses were hollow and superficial.

It was like listening to a bad actor reciting lines that did not belong to him.

Back then, I thought he simply wasn't good at expressing himself.

Now, it seemed more likely that he didn't know what to say in the first place.

He only had the final result. He never went through the process.

Suddenly, an idea that seemed ridiculous at first surfaced in my mind.

I messaged Hayden, told him my theory, and then began my move.

I sat in front of the easel without taking out a single brush or laying down a single canvas. I simply closed my eyes and began to paint in my mind.

I envisioned a black cat crouched on a windowsill. Behind it hung a sky heavy with storm clouds, a fork of lightning tearing through clouds in the distance. The entire composition was dark and strained, filled with tension.

In my mind, I added a sharp, vivid emerald green to the cat's eyes.

The next morning, Hayden burst into my studio, his face full of rage.

"Connor! You have to see this. Bonnie is just unbelievable!"

He slammed his phone on my desk.

On the screen was Bonnie's latest post, uploaded at dawn today.

It was a flawless oil sketch of a black cat crouched on a windowsill, its eyes gleaming with a shade of emerald green I knew better than anyone.

His lighthearted and proud caption read, "Couldn't sleep last night. A little flash of inspiration. I really love that green in the cat's eyes. Does it look like an emerald to you?"

I stared at the painting.

In that moment, every last trace of doubt in my mind vanished.

So that was it!

When Hayden saw I was still smiling, he started to stomp in frustration.

"Connor, why are you smiling? He's copying you again! This time, he's directly copying what's inside your head! This is witchcraft! What are we even supposed to do?"

I shook my head. "No, Hayden."

He wasn't just stealing ideas from my mind.

It was something even more straightforward!

I laughed.

"If he can do that, then it's perfect!"

Since Bonnie liked copying so much, I'd make sure that this time, he kept copying to the very end!