Chapter 27. Blue Part 1

The incident of Ouyang falling into the water ended inconclusively, just like the one two years ago. This time, Lu Zhengming was not truly held accountable either.

The department had summoned Yin Yan and several students for questioning. They all confirmed that Lu Zhengming had repeatedly emphasized safety. Yin Yan even took the initiative to share the responsibility, admitting to a lapse on his part. Since the incident had no serious consequences and the contemporary art studio was short-staffed, Lu Zhengming only had to write a symbolic self-reflection before returning to the classroom.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying any burdens of his own.

When the plein air painting season ended, the Oil Painting Department, as usual, hosted an exhibition showcasing undergraduate works. The First Studio’s display area was filled with images of white walls, black-tiled roofs, and small bridges over flowing water, obviously scenes from their trip. The Second Studio seemed to have traveled with the Chinese Painting Department to Mount Huangshan, with grayish, rocky landscapes dominating their exhibit. The Third Studio had gone to northern Shaanxi, and the yellowish hue of their paintings reflected the dusty, windswept northwest. Some of the brushstrokes even had grains of sand stuck to them.

Amid the dim, earthy tones of the exhibit hall, the works from the Fourth Studio stood out as particularly vibrant. A few pieces had even won awards, an unusual achievement. Among them was Ouyang’s painting, framed in a heavy, solid wood frame. The artwork conveyed an uncanny juxtaposition of ethereal beauty and blunt clumsiness, mirroring the contradiction between Ouyang’s soul and body.

As was customary, these award-winning pieces were kept at the school and selected for next year’s edition of the “Outstanding Works” catalog. Every year, the academy produced a batch of these catalogs. Lavishly printed, absurdly expensive, and equipped with an official ISBN number, yet never sold in bookstores. Aside from “internal distribution,” they had no other purpose.

After the exhibition’s opening ceremony, students posed for photos with Lu Zhengming, holding their prize copies of the 60th Anniversary of the Academy catalog. They stood in front of their own works, capturing one last moment with their creations before parting ways.

This art book contained a sketch Lu Zhengming had drawn during his first year that had been selected to stay at the school, as well as an oil painting by Yin Yan that had been chosen for the National Art Exhibition. Lu Zhengming had several copies at home. In fact, every teacher had a stack of them. He didn’t like these books much, as the coated paper wasn’t suitable for pencil sketches, and the large A3-sized, brick-thick volumes took up a lot of space.

However, the students found them fascinating. After taking a group photo with their instructor, they found a marker and, like fans chasing after celebrities, asked Lu Zhengming to autograph their copies. Since some colleagues were present, Lu Zhengming felt it wasn’t appropriate, so he politely declined their request and found an excuse to slip away from the crowd.

Perhaps he walked too fast, because every face he passed along the way seemed blurred. Lu Zhengming paused and rubbed his eyes.

It didn’t help. The faces remained out of focus, as though he couldn’t align them properly. This puzzled him, since the background was still sharp. Only the faces were hazy, and he could barely tell if the people he saw were students or fellow faculty members.

Is it because I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately?

Lu Zhengming headed toward the main doors of the exhibition hall, thinking a cigarette might help clear his head. At the entrance, where the crowd had thinned, he vaguely recognized the faces of the staff checking student IDs, and he let out a sigh of relief.

I’ll feel better once I’m outside, he thought.

But the sunlight outside was blindingly bright. The glare made his head spin and left his ears ringing, forcing him to steady himself against the wall for a moment.

I really haven’t been sleeping enough, Lu Zhengming thought, shaking his head. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out a cigarette, and placed it in his mouth as he opened his eyes.

At last, the faces around him came into focus, but Lu Zhengming’s expression immediately darkened, as if he’d seen a ghost in broad daylight.

It was Yan Yan standing right in front of him.

The cigarette slipped from Lu Zhengming’s lips and fell to the ground. His breath caught, as though someone had clamped a hand around his throat. He clawed at the wall with desperate force to keep himself from collapsing. Yan Yan’s face drew closer and closer, and it even looked as if she was reaching out her hand—

“Professor Lu?”

Ouyang’s voice snapped him back to reality.

His breathing instantly steadied, and the glaring light returned to normal.

Ouyang was holding the sixtieth-anniversary art book, her expression laced with concern. “Professor, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep well last night.” Lu Zhengming waved off her concern and quickly changed the subject. “Next time, don’t use such thick, solid wood frames. They’re too bulky and throw off the overall effect. Your paintings don’t actually need any framing at all.”

“Thank you, Professor.” Ouyang still looked worried. “Are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor?”

“Don’t worry about me. Just remember to pick up your certificate from the department.”

Lu Zhengming pulled another cigarette from his pocket and lit it as he walked away, leaving a puzzled Ouyang behind.

It couldn’t have been Yan Yan, he told himself. She doesn’t even wear clothes like that.

He forced a smile, convinced that he had returned to normal.

That night, he suffered from insomnia again.

His body felt so drained he didn’t even have the strength to turn over in bed, yet his mind remained as alert as it had been before lunch.

Since his discharge from the hospital, he hadn’t been able to sleep. Back in Qingdao, he’d been able to fall asleep after making love to Yin Yan, the physical exhaustion pulling him into slumber. But now that they were back in the plains, where they couldn’t see each other every day, that particular solution was no longer an option.

In those days, Yin Yan never refused him, complying quietly with anything he asked for. But over time, Lu Zhengming began to sense his fatigue, and eventually, he no longer had the heart to keep asking. It wasn’t just Yin Yan. Lu Zhengming himself was beginning to feel drained, worn out. By those final days, he had nothing left to give, as if he’d already had an early taste of old age and physical decline.

The memory of that time flashed through his mind, and once again, a hollow heat flared in his body. He felt the familiar despairing pull as his lower half began to swell and harden, the weight dragging him downward, deeper into the pit of fleshly desire.

Maybe it was the sheer exhaustion of his body, or maybe it was the fault of that new toy he’d bought, but this time, he climaxed far too quickly.

He hated those flesh-toned, hyper-realistic models that mimicked the shape of the human body. The more lifelike they were, the stronger his aversion. What he held in his hand instead was a transparent cup with an abstract, geometric interior, something that looked more like a piece of modernist sculpture than a sex toy. Its intricate ridges and grooves were far more complex, and far colder than any human body, providing him with a purely mechanical, impersonal kind of stimulation.

This was his first time using something like this, and it felt, quite literally, as though he were penetrating a sculpture. It was stiff, lifeless, and utterly unnatural.

He couldn’t help but wonder, do people like this kind of thing because they’ve never truly experienced the warmth of a human body?

Warm, soft, wrapped around his cock without a single gap. Flesh and blood, alive, responding to every movement with an understanding of his desire. Not just an organ, but a whole person looking into his eyes, reading his needs, and responding with every pulse, every rhythm, offering him feedback, connection, presence.

Or perhaps it wasn’t just about receiving. He could offer the same to the other person, too. That connection, that warmth, just so long as the other party was human.

Lu Zhengming had also bought another toy, a silicone dildo that could vibrate, supposedly offering a more intense experience. Before slipping himself into the fleshlight, he had considered using that toy to fill the emptiness inside him. But the coldness of the silicone was a sharp contrast to the warmth of human skin, and it sickened him. Before long, he tossed it, still sealed in its packaging, straight into the trash.

He regretted ever bringing it into the house. Now, that silicone sculpture, covered in the sticky remnants of his earlier release, lay discarded in the trash bin, and he knew he would never touch it again. One encounter had been more than enough.

The intensity of the earlier sensation had left him feeling disgusted, almost repulsed by the idea of sex. Yet even now, despite that lingering sense of revulsion, he still refused to use his own hands. It felt like some kind of mental block, a psychological glitch. He knew it was irrational. No one knew his body better than these hands, but the aversion remained. He simply couldn’t do it.

Masturbation, he had come to believe, was the loneliest act in the world. It was lonelier than painting alone, lonelier than walking alone. A painting could be shared, displayed, and admired by others. But masturbation was utterly isolating. There was no one to talk to, no one to bridge that gap. Just endless, hollow attempts to comfort himself.

And yet, no matter how many people he sought out, the loneliness never truly left him. Not even after he found Yin Yan.

Even when they were making love with the utmost intensity, that gnawing feeling of emptiness lingered. Even when he was deep inside Yin Yan’s body, no matter how far he pushed, it always felt like there was no end, like he could never reach anything solid, anything real. And every time Yin Yan pulled out, it felt as though he might never come back again.

So Lu Zhengming would hold him tightly, clinging with such desperate force that even he felt suffocated, holding him inside just a little longer, as though that might stave off the inevitable void.

But no matter how tightly he held on, it didn’t change the fact that Lu Zhengming still felt lonely.

He dragged himself to the workspace. Physical release hadn’t solved anything. His body might have been momentarily sated, but the noise inside his head, the relentless, torturous buzz remained. And that could only be expelled through the canvas.

Painting will help, he told himself, though his head throbbed mercilessly. He rubbed his temples, pounding lightly with his fists, trying to replace one pain with another.

He cut a piece of canvas, about a meter wide, and stretched it over a wooden frame. His body no longer had the stamina for anything larger. In the silence of the night, the sound of the staple gun was harsh and jarring, grating against his nerves, but he forced himself to endure it, using the fewest staples necessary to hold the fabric taut. Then, slumping into his reclining chair, he sat and began to think.

Red?

No. He didn’t have the energy for red.

White?

Painting something that bright at midnight would overstimulate him. He didn’t want that either.

Black, then?

Too suffocating. Just the thought of spreading black across the canvas made him feel like he’d choke before it was even half-covered.

Frustrated, Lu Zhengming reached for a storage box and started sifting through his paints, boxed, tubed, hard, and dried. His fingers brushed against the rough aluminum tubes, some crumpled and nearly empty. Suddenly, his hand landed on something different. A smooth, full tube, cool and sleek beneath his touch.

Curious, he pulled it from the pile. It was a pristine, unopened tube of Old Holland paint. He blinked. He didn’t remember ever buying something so expensive. This must have been a gift from Yin Yan.

Now that he thought about it, Yin Yan had given him many thoughtful gifts. Not just these hand-mixed, artisan paints, but also various mediums, oils, and brushes. There was even that set of squirrel-hair watercolor brushes. Lu Zhengming had only casually mentioned wanting to try watercolor, and Yin Yan had responded by giving him not only the brushes but also imported cotton watercolor paper, the kind only serious artists used. Tucked among the stack were a few sheets of printmaking paper, which Yin Yan had insisted worked well for watercolor too…

Lu Zhengming stared down at the tube in his hand. The weight of exhaustion in his body shifted, melting into a soft, drowsy warmth. He felt a sudden, overwhelming longing for Yin Yan. He decided that after finishing this painting, he would go see him. They wouldn’t need to do anything. He just wanted to see him, to be near him.

He twisted off the cap of the paint tube.

It was blue.