15. The Sun of Arles Part I

“Lu Zhengming, you’re such a… pervert.”

Yin Yan’s words were slightly slurred, his tongue sore, making him wary of speaking too forcefully. He desperately wanted to forget last night’s absurdity, but the sting on his split lower lip, reopened by his pursed lips dodging the razor, made sure to remind him.

They had spent almost the entire night kissing.

Lu Zhengming had insisted he be the “active” one. Yin Yan tried every possible style, yet nothing met his standards.

He understood Lu Zhengming’s intention. It was nothing more than making him kiss purely out of his own desire, completely self-driven. But he simply couldn’t do it. If he wasn’t breaking into laughter, he was instinctively pulling away.

Lu Zhengming mocked him for being impotent. Yin Yan found it ridiculous. Physically, he had no issues at all. He could initiate a kiss with someone he wasn’t particularly interested in, and if the mood was right, he could see things through to the end. Yet when it came to Lu Zhengming, his mind wanted to but his body refused to cooperate.

But did that justify Lu Zhengming’s obsession with teaching a man in his thirties, who was far from inexperienced, how to kiss?

That was just twisted.

Yin Yan avoided Lu Zhengming’s gaze in the mirror. He was staring at his Adam’s apple, his eyes damp and unguarded.

“You rubbed off on me.” Lu Zhengming took Yin Yan’s free hand and guided it downward, pressing it against his lower abdomen and sliding it lower. “Lend me a hand. I’ve been holding it in all night…”

Yin Yan let him move as he pleased, washing his face with his other hand while calmly watching the intoxicated expression in the mirror. Only after Lu Zhengming was done did he retract his feverish hand, rinse it clean, and casually wash his razor as well. “You need a new blade.”

He refused to use Lu Zhengming’s electric shaver.

“Do I? I haven’t used a manual razor in ages.” A thin sheen of sweat coated Lu Zhengming’s nose as he leaned in and inhaled near Yin Yan’s lips. “You know, my aftershave smells better on you than it does on me.”

Yin Yan chuckled but didn’t respond.

Seeing his hint go ignored, Lu Zhengming made it explicit. “Remember what I taught you last night? Time for a test.”

Yin Yan remained unmoved. “If you love teaching so much, maybe you should just go back.”

“Don’t kill the mood,” Lu Zhengming murmured, lowering his voice. “Hurry up.”

The shift in his tone made it harder for Yin Yan to refuse. But before the atmosphere could turn from suggestive to outright debauched, he simply pressed his lips against Lu Zhengming’s for the briefest moment, then pulled away.

“Take it seriously.” Lu Zhengming was clearly dissatisfied.

“I am serious.” Yin Yan turned his face away, finding him a bit clingy. “You should go back, unless you have a real reason to stay.”

“Don’t lecture me.” Lu Zhengming finally let go of him. “I already know all the logic.”

Yin Yan nodded, cupped his face, and kissed him seriously, without any lust.

When their lips parted, Lu Zhengming frowned. “I often get the feeling that you’re… inhuman.”

“Oh? Most people say I’m compassionate.”

“Being human and having compassion are two different things. Besides, your compassion is fake.”

Yin Yan laughed again.

Whenever he encountered a difficult topic, he always laughed first, to smooth things over and buy himself time. But this time, he didn’t know how to respond. No one had ever described him like that before, and the smile ended up stuck somewhere between forming and fading.

Fortunately, Lu Zhengming didn’t press the issue. He patted Yin Yan’s shoulder. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Think it over carefully.”

Leaving that remark behind, Yin Yan exited the bathroom as if finally relieved of a burden.

He sat on Lu Zhengming’s lounge chair, absentmindedly wondering what it meant to be “human.” His hands unconsciously stroked the blanket draped over it. The soft, fluffy texture felt nice, and he couldn’t resist sinking all five fingers into it, kneading gently.

Lu Zhengming emerged, shirtless, his loose pants hanging low on his hips, still damp from the shower. Just as he was about to flex and show off his muscles, he saw Yin Yan hugging the blanket, half his face buried in it.

He burst out laughing. “I definitely have more ‘human’ in me than you do.”

Expressionless, Yin Yan tossed the blanket aside. “That just means it needs to go in the wash.”

Still laughing, Lu Zhengming pulled on a T-shirt and sat down beside him. From the moment he had woken up that morning, he had been in an unusually good mood.

Yin Yan had woken up earlier. When he opened his eyes, Lu Zhengming was lying on his side, facing him. His long, dark lashes trembled lightly with his breaths. Yin Yan remained still, watching, until those lashes slowly lifted. Lu Zhengming, still drowsy, smiled at him and murmured, “Morning.”

From that moment on, Lu Zhengming had stuck to him like a shadow, which started to irritate him. Apologizing didn’t mean he wanted to dive into some suffocatingly clingy relationship. Like they had discussed before, something a little more than friendship, with a bit of sex mixed in. That was enough. That was his limit.

“Take a look at my recent sketches.”

Lu Zhengming fetched his sketchbook and flipped it open, revealing several rough drafts.

He had a habit of showing his work to Yin Yan, believing that Yin Yan was the better artist. The first time Yin Yan corrected his drawings, Lu Zhengming had been completely convinced. It wasn’t just about technical skill. There was an emotional depth to it as well. Yin Yan could always pinpoint the gap between intention and execution with surgical precision.

People often assumed that someone skilled in realism couldn’t critique abstract art, but in reality, the two shared the same essence, just in different languages. A figurative painting with a scene and characters could convey the same emotions as an abstract piece of color and form.

Even though they worked in different styles, Lu Zhengming valued Yin Yan’s feedback, even when it was mostly negative, and sometimes downright harsh.

This time, Yin Yan didn’t criticize. He pondered for a long moment before putting the sketchbook down. “The concept is interesting. How do you plan to execute it?”

Lu Zhengming’s excitement was instant. He stood up and beckoned. “Come.”

It was a bizarre piece.

Even though Yin Yan was used to Lu Zhengming’s wild experiments, this still surprised him. The medium wasn’t canvas or wood, but glass.

Two wooden frames held together a dozen layers of glass, each pane featuring faint, blurred images. When stacked, these layers formed a deep, three-dimensional composition, like an invisible sculpture suspended in midair. From different angles, the overlapping images shifted and misaligned, creating an illusionary effect.

“What is this?”

“A cloud.”

Lu Zhengming watched as Yin Yan paced back and forth. Seeing that he remained silent, he explained, “Not long ago, I had a dream. I was in a room surrounded by mirrors… just sitting there. No matter which wall I looked at, there were layers upon layers stretching infinitely into the distance. It had an incredible sense of depth.”

He left out the erotic part of the dream, keeping his expression neutral as he continued, “When I woke up, I wanted to create something similar. Look, it’s a bit like classical glazing, and also like my previous paintings. Except the layers of color, instead of being fused together, have been separated.”

Yin Yan folded his arms, listening intently. When Lu Zhengming finished, he stepped forward to examine the images on the glass. He observed them for a long time before offering his assessment:

“Not bad.”

Then he praised it again. Yin Yan rarely gave compliments, especially to Lu Zhengming. The fact that he repeated it twice made Lu Zhengming chuckle. “I think so too. Don’t you have anything to criticize?”

Yin Yan sighed. “You did a great job. Why would I criticize you?”

Pleased with the compliment, Lu Zhengming suddenly thought about that dream again. He leaned in, tempted to share the part he had left out. But just as he opened his mouth, he changed his mind. Instead, he turned his words into a kiss.

“Yin Yan,” he murmured between playful pecks at the corner of his mouth, “I want to paint with you.”