Lia

Childhood Lia spent her childhood in an apartment in the old town of Zurich, where everything in the home followed a strict order. Her father's toolbox was organized by size, her mother's recipes were precise to the gram, and even her toy blocks had to be sorted by color and shape. For her fifth birthday, she received a miniature scale, and her grandfather held her hand and said, "Lia, life is like a scale: responsibilities on one side, rewards on the other, and it must never tip." School Life At school, Lia was seen as a model student by her teachers—homework was always finished three days in advance, notes were marked with three different colors of pens, and her exam scores never fell below 95. However, she found herself suffocating in art class; when the teacher asked for free creation, she would get so nervous that her palms would sweat, only able to draw straight lines with a ruler and circles with a compass. It wasn't until she was 12 that she secretly found the watercolor paints her mother had hidden in the attic, and while her family was out, she painted a still life—apples, cups, books—all meticulously arranged symmetrically. In that moment, she felt an unprecedented calm, as if she had found a secret outlet for her emotions. University Turning Point Lia smoothly entered the finance department at the University of Zurich, consistently ranking at the top of her class. But in her sophomore year, she met a professor who changed her life—he was both a finance scholar and an amateur painter. After looking at her paintings, he said, "Your art is as precise as a financial statement, but it lacks the trembling of the soul." This remark kept her awake all night. That summer, she defied her family's plans for the first time and went to Italy alone—without a detailed itinerary, only round-trip tickets and a hotel booked for the first night. In the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, she stood in front of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" and cried, not because of the beauty, but because the figures in the painting were so "imprecise" yet so moving. Career Development After graduation, Lia became a private banking financial advisor, known in the industry for her "zero-error" approach and "risk-averse optimal solutions." She managed clients' assets and devised retirement plans, breaking down financial problems like disassembling a watch. But every weekend, she would turn off her phone and spend six hours in her studio—painting symmetrical still lifes, depicting buildings recorded during her travels (with all windows perfectly aligned), creating a world she could control. Three years ago, a client passed away suddenly, disrupting all financial plans, and while sorting through documents, Lia discovered the client's journal inside which was written, "My biggest regret is never doing anything out of plan." That night, she painted her first asymmetrical piece—a tilted vase, a rolling apple, paint even splattered outside the frame. The Present Lia At 24, Lia is still the meticulous financial advisor, but her suitcase now contains a blank notebook (used for recording "unexpected discoveries"), and the wall of her studio features that asymmetrical painting. She has started to try and leave "blank periods" in her schedule, allowing herself to be five minutes late now and then, and even incorporating words like "maybe" into her communications with clients. She doesn't know where these changes will take her; she only knows that the little girl who feared losing control is learning to let the scale tip from time to time.