“Your perfume smells like existential dread,” Li Ming declared matter-of-factly to the elegantly dressed woman browsing his peculiar perfume shop. She raised an eyebrow, more intrigued than offended.

“Is that your professional opinion as a perfumer?” she asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“No, that’s my opinion as someone who’s spent far too much time contemplating the meaninglessness of straight lines in a curved universe,” he replied, carefully arranging a collection of twisted glass bottles on the counter. Each contained what he called his “philosophical fragrances.”

The woman, who introduced herself as Professor Zhang, picked up a particularly serpentine vessel. “And what philosophical crisis does this one represent?”

“Ah, that’s ‘Unrequited Love in the Age of Digital Romance’ - notes of ghost-read messages and midnight anxiety, with a subtle undertone of social media stalking.”

She laughed, a genuine sound that seemed to make the crooked bottles dance. “You’re either brilliantly mad or madly brilliant.”

“The line between the two is as curved as everything else in my shop,” Li Ming smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Would you like to sample ‘The Scent of Tomorrow’s Regrets’? It’s particularly popular among investment bankers and fortune tellers.”

Professor Zhang had visited many perfume shops across the world, but none quite like this underground establishment with its creator who spoke of fragrances as if they were short stories by Kafka. The walls were lined with shelves that seemed to defy geometry, holding bottles that appeared to be melting like Dalí’s clocks.

“Why is everything crooked?” she asked, running her finger along a warped shelf.

“Straight lines are society’s attempt to impose order on chaos,” Li Ming explained while mixing drops from various bottles. “I prefer honest curves. They admit their confusion.”

“And what about love? Is that curved too?”

“Love?” He paused, holding up a twisted bottle to the light. “Love is the most crooked thing of all. It never goes where you expect, never follows the path you plan. That’s why I make my perfumes this way - they’re more truthful about the nature of things.”

Professor Zhang watched as he created a new blend, his hands moving with the precision of a conductor leading an invisible orchestra. “What are you making now?”

“The scent of our conversation,” he replied. “I’m calling it ‘The Geometry of Chance Encounters.’”

When she left the shop that evening, she carried with her a bottle that seemed to change shape depending on how you looked at it. The perfume inside smelled different every time she wore it, and she could never quite describe it to anyone who asked.

Some say she returns to the shop occasionally, though others insist the curved doorway she enters no longer exists. Li Ming continues to create his philosophical fragrances, each one bent around questions that have no straight answers.

The only constant is the sign above his door, which reads in twisted neon: “Reality is curved. So are our perfumes.”