notes

The river was rushing under my feet, carrying mud and broken branches from upstream, making a dull and continuous whimper.

The occasional ray of sunlight that slipped through was quickly swallowed by the shifting clouds, and the sky returned to a uniform, mournful gray. But Qiu Aiming's words, "As long as I can paint it," drove like a tiny wedge into my frozen emotions, creating an almost invisible crack.

We didn't end up looking for a place to heat up the buns.

Qiu Aiming took me to an abandoned pavilion at the foot of the river bank. The stone tables and chairs were cold, but it was at least a break from the rain that had begun to fall again.

As if by magic, he pulled two more thermoses from the large pocket, unscrewed one, and handed it to me. It was boiling hot ginger tea, the spicy sweetness mixed with the warmth of the ginger, instantly burning through my throat and into my empty stomach, dispelling some of the chill that had seeped into my bones.

I gnawed on the cold buns, the flour already hardened and the filling thick with oil. But the simple act of chewing, the physiological need to swallow, made me feel alive again, a physical being who needed to eat.

"Fate..." I stared at the river outside the pavilion, where the raindrops had created countless ripples, and said in a dry voice, "He left without a word. I'm so unwilling to accept it."

Qiu Aiming was holding another thermos cup. He didn't look at me, but just nodded to indicate that he was listening.

"I've always felt that he was a 'god.' He was like a fleeting glimpse, always there, quiet, gentle, even a little vague. I never seemed to actively try to understand him.

I never thought I'd feel such a thing as 'reluctance.'" I tried to describe that subversive feeling, but the words were woefully inadequate. "It felt... like you've been thinking you're copying a still life for ten years, and suddenly discover that on the back of the canvas, with invisible paint, something completely different and turbulent is being painted."

Qiu Aiming sipped his ginger tea in silence. The sound of the rain filled the gap between us.

"Xiao Yu wanted to study literature before," he said suddenly, his voice calm. "Not the kind that does analysis. He wanted to be a writer. He mentioned it to Xiao Hui once, and Xiao Hui said...his childhood friend Chen Hui wasn't very supportive. He lost his family when he was very young, so he relied on this sister for many things."

I paused and looked at the dense rain outside the pavilion.

"He later chose finance. It wasn't until he passed away last year, when I was sorting out his things, that I found a nearly tattered book at the bottom of his suitcase. There were also a few beautiful sentences he had secretly copied down. I blame myself for not being there at the time and not asking him properly..."

He said nothing more. Nor did he need to.

A heavy tacit understanding spread between us. It turned out that Zhou Yu wasn't the only one, but perhaps many people had quietly hidden their true selves, the ones with their small dreams and "reluctant" selves, on the back of the vast canvas of life, eventually covered by the dust of time.

The buns were gone, and the ginger tea was almost gone. My body felt a little warmer, but the hole in my heart was still empty and let in the wind.

It was not just grief for the loss of a loved one, but also mixed with a belated and irreparable guilt - guilt that I had never tried to understand the man behind the canvas.

"Go back." Qiu Aiming stood up and patted the dust off his pants. "Your painting is not dry yet."

We walked back the way we had come. The rain was heavier than when we came, hitting the umbrella with a crackling sound.

I suddenly stopped when I passed the old grocery store on the corner.

The window was filled with odds and ends: needles and thread, enamel pots, cheap plastic hairpins.

In the corner, there was a row of plastic-covered diaries, the kind used by elementary school students, with outdated cartoon images printed on the covers.

As if possessed, I pushed the door open and walked in. The shop smelled like a mixture of stale candy and dust. A shopkeeper wearing reading glasses looked up from behind his newspaper and glanced at us.

I walked over to the row of diaries. The colors were gaudy, the texture rough. They were almost identical to the one under Zhou Yu's pillow.

I reached out and ran my fingertips over the smooth, cheap plastic covers.

Imagine a few years ago, perhaps on a rainy day like this, a young boy walked into a similar grocery store with a secret in his mind.

He is an orphan with no relatives and can only survive on compensation and scholarships.

"Want this?" asked the shopkeeper.

I came to my senses and pointed to one of the books with a blue cover and a crooked sailboat printed on it.

After paying, I put the light, weightless diary into my coat pocket. It rested against my chest, like a silent promise, a response that was too late.

Back in the studio, the painting was still on the easel, the paint still wet. The chaotic gray-black and the faint yellow light seemed even more depressing and real in the dim light of the rainy day.

I didn't write again. I just moved a chair, sat opposite it, and watched quietly.

Qiu Aiming is right. As long as it can be drawn, that's good enough.

I'm not painting him. I'm trying to understand him. Using my own way, with paint and lines, I'm trying to touch the soul behind the canvas that I thought I had ignored for years.

The sound of rain outside the window stopped at some point. The room was completely silent, with only me and the canvas staring at each other.

At that moment, I clearly felt that the shape of sadness had changed.

It is no longer a pervasive void with nowhere to rest, but has become the exact weight of the cheap diary in my hand, and the thick color on the canvas that I need to interpret layer by layer.

The pain is still there, and will probably always be there, but it is beginning to have texture, color, and a place to put pen to paper.

Zhou Yu is gone, but the conversation between him and me, long overdue, seems to have just begun.