Autumn in Milan is like a faded oil painting, with golden ginkgo leaves covering the square in front of the Scal Opera House. Carlotta stands on the steps, watching the crowd disperse, tightly holding the sheet music filled with Chinese annotations. Ivan's words still echo in her ears—"To be grateful and kind to the world," it's not empty moral preaching, but a way of life, an inner belief.
She turns to look at her father, Augustus Balberini, who is exchanging pleasantries with several aristocratic friends, his silver-gray hair glowing softly in the sunset.
"Father," Carlotta walks over, her voice gentle but firm, "I want to go to China."
Augustus stops talking and looks at his daughter. Her eyes are as clear as ever, but beneath them lies something he's never seen before, not the reserve of the nobility, not the sensitivity of an artist, but a near-resilient gentleness forged through disaster.
