12. The Persistence of Memory Part 1

Yin Yan’s face and mind were completely disconnected.

His heart was in turmoil, yet his face remained calm and genial. “You know Lu Zhengming’s temper. I’ll talk to him. It’ll be fine.”

“It’s not your fault. I never intended to let him leave from the beginning,” Liu Leshan said, shaking his head. “Their studio doesn’t get much work done. How could I possibly let him go? I originally wanted to grind him down for a while, and once he mellowed out, give him an opportunity. But now that the opportunity has come, he’s gone. I misjudged the timing. Sigh.”

Yin Yan exchanged a few more polite words and then excused himself. He left feeling unsettled and so distracted that he almost collided with a traffic officer riding a motorcycle.

He smiled mechanically, accepted the officer’s lecture, and continued on, but inside, his anxiety was spiraling out of control. He had never expected Lu Zhengming to reject him in such a way, and now, doubts began to creep in. Had he misunderstood Lu Zhengming all along?

Lu Zhengming during their student days had been very different from the person he was now.

Yin Yan still remembered the first time they met. He had been looking for someone else, but instead, the door was opened by a disheveled, tall guy with messy hair. He reeked of turpentine, looked exhausted, yet had bright, sharp eyes. For some reason, Yin Yan suddenly wanted to see his paintings.

Lu Zhengming didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a canvas, dragged it into the light, and even opened a can of beer for him.

It was a hyperrealist oil painting depicting a garden hose spraying water on the grass. Every blade of grass was painted with meticulous detail, and the droplets of water seemed to freeze mid-air, each one rendered as crisply as if captured by a high-speed camera.

It was clear that Lu Zhengming had poured a lot of effort into the painting, but it wasn’t quite good enough. Hyperrealism demanded technical perfection. The brushstrokes had to be invisible, the surface smooth as glass, with no trace of where the brush had touched the canvas. That was the only way a painting could be considered truly successful. But Lu Zhengming’s brushwork was as wild and messy as his hair.

Yin Yan smiled and pointed this out. He expected Lu Zhengming to be annoyed, and was about to offer some words of comfort, but instead, Lu Zhengming handed him a paintbrush.

“Could you add a few strokes for me?”

Yin Yan held the stiff bristle brush in his hand and thought, It’s impressive that he managed to paint this much with tools like these.

And so, in the sweltering dorm room, they sat together. Yin Yan painted while sipping lukewarm beer.

Lu Zhengming’s tools were rather crude. He used little more than turpentine and stiff bristle brushes meant for sketching. Yin Yan silently smoothed out the wet brushstrokes with a fan brush, sanded down the dried, irreparable areas with fine sandpaper, and carefully touched up the painting layer by layer using a glazing technique.

The glazing medium he used was something he mixed on the spot. He combined turpentine, linseed oil, and damar varnish, an unopened bottle that Lu Zhengming had purchased but never used. Yin Yan adjusted the turpentine ratio to speed up the drying time, making it more beginner-friendly.

Lu Zhengming stood nearby, feeling a bit awkward, fanning him with an art book. Yin Yan smiled and thanked him. Lu Zhengming smiled back, and for a moment, the sharpness in his gaze softened into something unintentionally captivating.

Yin Yan consciously shut out any feelings of temptation.

Later, when he returned to his dorm, he dug out a set of soft nylon brushes, intending to give them to Lu Zhengming. But life got in the way, and the plan slipped his mind.

By the next time they met, Lu Zhengming had moved away from realism. He still thanked Yin Yan, saying that the painting they had worked on had earned him the highest grade in the class. Yin Yan was slightly surprised by his shift in style but didn’t show it, merely offering a mild congratulations.

Lu Zhengming then invited him to see his latest works, a series of abstract paintings. The paintings had a unique texture, as if layers of transparent water stains had overlapped on the canvas.

He had named the series Lightness and, explained that he had yet to understand what “heaviness” meant.

He spoke passionately about abstract art, sharing his thoughts on exploring materials and artistic language, as well as discussing influential contemporary abstract painters. His enthusiasm and energy were completely different from the weary, disheveled boy Yin Yan had first met.

A pang of bitterness and resistance rose in Yin Yan’s heart, as though he had been betrayed somehow. Any lingering guilt about forgetting to give him the brushes vanished in an instant.

Lu Zhengming added that his technique had been inspired by Yin Yan’s glazing method.

Yin Yan smiled politely but didn’t take credit, saying that the contemporary art scene was currently experiencing a wave of interest in abstract painting and that Lu Zhengming had simply caught the trend at the right time, with a bright future ahead.

Lu Zhengming scratched his head, looking unconcerned.

As it turned out, he did rise to prominence with enviable speed. But rather than chasing fame, he chose to stay at the academy. Yin Yan thought about it and realized that, though it seemed like a conservative move, it was actually quite clever. Contemporary artists with an academic background had the flexibility to either push forward or retreat, and Lu Zhengming always seemed to make the best decisions at exactly the right moments.

Yin Yan was usually meticulous when it came to people and relationships, yet he overlooked one crucial thing. Art could not lie. His own personality was rational, and his paintings reflected that same meticulousness. Even when they appeared relaxed on the surface, there was always a sense of underlying tension and cohesion.

Based on his interactions with Lu Zhengming, he had formed the impression that he was, like him, someone who advanced cautiously and methodically. Yet Lu Zhengming’s paintings told a different story, one of someone too restless to hide his brushstrokes, someone whose abstract work was spontaneous and uninhibited. A person like that could never follow the same path as him.

Yin Yan had projected his own mindset onto Lu Zhengming, assuming that they operated in the same way. But…

He had interpreted Lu Zhengming’s flamboyance as a deliberate posture, one that aligned perfectly with his persona as a contemporary artist. It also allowed him to maintain a certain active distance in social interactions, neither too close nor too distant. Unlike Yin Yan, who often took a more conciliatory approach and sometimes ended up on the defensive.

He kept reinforcing the image of Lu Zhengming as someone shrewd yet subtly restrained, which was why he was especially shocked when the incident with Yan Yan happened.

To him, it seemed impossible that Lu Zhengming didn’t understand the consequences of his words. Speaking that way was nothing short of deliberately hurtful. Yin Yan couldn’t fathom why he would lash out so cruelly at his own student, nor could he recall ever doing anything that might have provoked such animosity.

Doubts began to fester, and the rift between them grew deeper.

For two whole years, he harbored a near-hatred toward Lu Zhengming. It wasn’t just because of the student’s death. There was something else, something he had deliberately avoided confronting. It was an unclear, half-formed thought, snuffed out before it could take shape.

Until they accidentally stumbled upon each other’s secrets.

Yin Yan blamed the situation on an unsatisfactory hookup, on the ambiguous atmosphere, on the alcohol, and on a string of seemingly rational but ultimately flimsy details. He wanted to believe that his steps toward Lu Zhengming were reluctant, like a helpless man being dragged to the gallows, seeking some form of moral absolution.

But in the next moment, his honest, traitorous body betrayed his resolve.

He said, “Torture me.”

In a fit of self-destruction, he poured out his sordid secrets, baring his neck to the executioner’s blade. He dumped the hardest choice onto Lu Zhengming, giving him the power to either condemn or absolve him. He craved the thrill of suspense, and through the agony of fleshly torment, he sought to enact a hidden, twisted form of revenge.

But Lu Zhengming didn’t hold a grudge. He gave Yin Yan far more than anything he had ever imagined, or even dared to fantasize.

In those entanglements, verging on sinful, Yin Yan’s psyche splintered again. One side of him drowned in desire, while the other coldly calculated, plotting how to turn this accident into a silent conspiracy, how to make this rare satisfaction last longer… In short, before he even realized what he was doing, he had already made up his mind that he would do whatever it took to keep Lu Zhengming by his side.

Driven by distorted perceptions, twisted desires, and inexplicable impulses, he cut off Lu Zhengming’s escape route from the oil painting department without sparing a thought for how the man might feel.

He thought he had made the best choice for both of them, a win-win solution.

But when he saw Lu Zhengming’s expression, seething with rage, that unshakable belief began to crack. Days later, when he saw the resignation letter, it collapsed entirely.

Where had it all gone wrong?

Yin Yan interrogated himself, just as he did every night. But, as always, there was no answer.

He dragged himself out of bed and rinsed the sweat from his body.

After tasting the most intense satisfaction, nothing else could compare. He could only endure by fantasizing about Lu Zhengming while relieving himself, a pitiful distraction to survive the relentless hunger.

But it became harder and harder to suppress. When the tremors of the night began encroaching on his daylight thoughts, Yin Yan could no longer remain idle.