remember
Chen Hui's arrival and the heavy relic were like a huge rock dropped into a deep pond, shattering the long-held, almost dead calm. Ripples spread out, crashing against the walls, and the aftermath lingered for a long time.
The studio seemed to still be filled with her cool and clean aura, mixed with old paper, developer and a kind of silent sadness.
I didn't immediately sort through the photos and diaries, but simply left them spread out on the floor, like a newly unearthed miniature archaeological site of love and loss. The halo of the desk lamp provided the only illumination, enveloping these relics and me in an isolated, fragile circle of light.
I sat on the floor for a long time, until my legs and feet grew numb and the night grew lighter.
The morning light sneaked in silently through the gaps in the curtains, diluting the dim light of the desk lamp and coating the edges of the yellowed photos with a faint, hopeful golden light.
A new day has arrived forcefully.
I slowly stood up and stretched my stiff limbs. Instead of going straight to the easel as usual, I boiled some water and made myself a cup of hot tea.
Then, with the utmost care, as if they were fragile treasures, I began to pick up the items on the floor. I gently dusted each photo from the nonexistent dust and arranged them in roughly chronological order. I carefully wiped the cover of the journal with a soft cloth and closed it. I tucked the USB drive into a separate velvet pouch.
I didn't lock them away in the depths of a drawer, but instead placed them on a shelf within easy reach. They were no longer painful wounds that needed to be hidden, but instead became something... a warm companion that I could read at any time. A weapon he left for me to fight the long passage of time.
After I finished all this, the sun was already pouring in. I walked to the window and opened it. The cool, autumn-scented air rushed in, dispelling the gloom in the room.
My phone screen lit up with the weekly newsletter from Assistant Lin of the Foundation. I clicked it open and scanned it carefully. This time, looking at those unfamiliar names and their creative plans, something felt different.
It is no longer just a continuation of responsibility, but one can more clearly feel that behind these young vitality lies another silent and huge trust.
I responded to a few comments and closed my email. My eyes fell on the unfinished painting on the easel, attempting to capture the twilight. The gray-purple color still looked stagnant and hesitant.
I watched it quietly for a moment, then picked up the scraper and, without hesitation, scraped away the entire patch of color, leaving a chaotic background on the canvas.
I didn't rush to adjust the colors. Instead, I walked to the bookshelf and pulled out a thick collection of world landscape photography. It wasn't my book; Zhou Yu had bought it. He'd said, "I'll help you explore places you can't visit, and then I'll take you there later." Tucked between the pages were some scenic postcards he'd taken on business trips.
I sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping through the pages. Magnificent canyons, tranquil lakes, bustling foreign streets, sunrises and sunsets... through his lens, or rather, through the perspective he chose to gaze at.
I could almost sense what he was thinking as he stood before those landscapes. Perhaps he was calculating the risks of the project, or perhaps… he was thinking about how I would depict it all with my brush if I were there.
Turning to a certain page, he saw a black sand beach in Iceland. Vast, desolate, with a sense of the cold and majestic beauty of the end of the world. Next to the photo, a line of words was written lightly in pencil. It was his handwriting: "Like the kind of gray that Chen Zhi can't mix."
My heart felt like it was gently pinched, and it felt sore and swollen.
Closing the book, I returned to the canvas. The chaotic undercurrents in my mind seemed to find direction. No longer obsessed with recreating the dusky colors of my memory, I began to blend a more complex palette, one loaded with more emotions—one encompassing the vastness of loss, the sedimentation of memory, and a vast possibility born from solitude.
The brush fell with much more decisiveness.
---
The days seemed to flow again, but the speed and texture had quietly changed.
I still go to my studio every day, paint, daydream, and gaze out the window. But my daydreaming is no longer a blank slate or pure sorrow. It's often interspersed with specific fragments—perhaps a sentence from my diary, a silly smile in a photo, or a childhood embarrassment described by Chen Hui. These fragments bring a subtle pang of pain, but then, a strange comfort.
I began checking the foundation's emails more regularly, and even occasionally volunteered a few words of encouragement to one or two young artists I found particularly inspiring. To them, I was just an anonymous reviewer. But for me, it was a silent dialogue—with them, and with the future.
In late autumn, I received a call from Chen Hui. She was still in China, and the project seemed to be delayed.
"Let's have dinner together?" She took the initiative to suggest, her tone still flat, but without the initial sense of scrutiny.
We met at a quiet Jiangnan restaurant. She looked more relaxed than last time, having taken off her windbreaker and wearing a simple cashmere sweater.
The topic still revolved around Zhou Yu, but it was no longer just about memories. She began asking about my paintings and the foundation, her questions direct, even a little sharp, like an academic discussion.
"Do you think the value of art ultimately lies in emotional expression or in formal innovation?" she suddenly asked, picking up a piece of stir-fried river shrimp with chopsticks.
I paused for a moment, then thought: "For me, form is the vehicle, and emotion is the core. But what ultimately touches people's hearts is often the inexplicable balance between the two."
She nodded, without commenting on whether she was right or wrong, and simply said, "Zhou Yu didn't understand your paintings before, but he would say that the way you look at the paintings is very focused, very... beautiful."
My cheeks felt slightly hot and I lowered my head to drink the soup.
"Later in his life, when he was in the hospital and in severe pain, he asked me to describe the content and colors of your most recent painting." Chen Hui's voice was calm, but he dropped another bombshell. "He said that hearing those colors made the pain go away."
My spoon fell into the bowl with a crisp sound. My eyes instantly turned red.
Chen Hui looked at me, a flicker of something like, "I'm sorry, but I thought you should know." She handed me a tissue.
We didn't talk much during the second half of the meal, but a silent understanding based on shared nostalgia seemed to slowly build up in the air.
When we said goodbye, she handed me a small paper bag. "I found this while cleaning out some old stuff, and I thought I'd give it to you."
Back at the studio, I opened the paper bag. Inside was an old, transparent plastic box containing dozens of videotapes with faded labels. Next to it was a letter in Chen Hui's handwriting:
"These are fragments of footage Zhou Yu filmed on a home DV during his middle school years, mostly about you. He asked me to keep them before he left the country, but then... I probably forgot about them. I had someone digitize them and save them to a USB drive. I think this is his earliest evidence of 'irrational investing.' Chen Hui."
My hands were shaking with excitement as I eagerly inserted the USB drive into the computer.
The folder contained dozens of video files, with confusing yet straightforward names: "Basketball Court·Sneak Peek," "Art Festival·He Paints," "After School·Stalking" (?!), "Hallway·Bumped into Again"...
I clicked on the first one. The image was shaky, the colors distorted, and filled with noise. It was the sidelines of a high school basketball court. The camera, stealthily hidden behind the crowd, always focused on a teenager in a baggy school uniform, sitting on the sidelines, scribbling in a sketchbook—that was me. The camera zoomed in, capturing the profile of me frowning and biting the tip of my pen. Then the image suddenly shook, as if the photographer had been bumped. The camera hurriedly focused on the ground, and Zhou Yu's hushed voice complained, "Don't push!"
Another video: At a campus art festival, I sat in a corner sketching live. The camera was fixed on me from a distance. Zhou Yu's voice was low, almost drowned out by the ambient sound. He spoke to the person next to him, his tone tinged with a pride he wasn't even aware of: "...Yes, that one, he draws really well... What's his name? Zhang Chenzhi..."
The video "After School: Tracking" is particularly hilarious. The camera, hidden behind a utility pole outside the school gate, films my figure walking further and further away, drawing on my back. The cameraman's breathing is clearly audible, a nervous gasp. Then the screen goes black, and I hear him muttering in frustration, "Damn, I lost you."
I looked at these rough, shaky, and old-fashioned images, and at the clumsy, nervous, and incredibly sincere young man Zhou Yu behind the camera, crying and laughing like a fool.
These images, more directly and more vividly than his later calmly arranged videos, drag me back to that initial moment, before everything happened and when love was just beginning. That pure sixteen-year-old moment, filled only with the sound of heartbeats and chasing gazes.
For two whole days, I immersed myself in those blurry images. It was as if I had traveled through time and relived our first encounter and acquaintance. The sadness remained, but it was enveloped by a more turbulent, warmer torrent.
After watching the last video, I sat for a long time. Then I stood up and walked to the largest blank wall.
Instead of using a paintbrush, I used my hands to dip into the richest and purest black acrylic paint and began to write on the snow-white wall.
Not text.
Instead, he took the images in the videos, the words in the diaries, the light and shadow in the photos, the instructions in the USB flash drives, the vastness of Iceland's black sand beaches, the smell of hospital disinfectant, and his last sigh of "spring"... all of these were stirred, mixed, and fermented into emotions and memories, and were painted, splashed, and imprinted on the wall in the most primitive and direct way.
My movements grew larger, faster, reckless. Paint flowed down the wall like black tears, like thriving vitality. I no longer pursued form or color, only a complete catharsis and expression.
Until exhaustion, until the entire wall is covered with a black mark that is extremely chaotic, extremely orderly, and full of power.
I collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath, looking at this sudden, crazy "painting", my hands and body covered in sticky black.
Suddenly, in the center of that chaotic and violent black, I saw a different color.
It was the gray-purple twilight that I had scraped off with the scraper before. A little bit of it remained in the texture of the wall. At this moment, it was inadvertently outlined and highlighted by the crazy black, like a ray of light that stubbornly emerged from the abyss of despair.
I stared at that gray-purple spot and suddenly understood.
What Zhou Yu left me was never a solidified past, but a present and future that I need to spend my entire life interpreting and responding to.
He is the only irrational investment in my orderly life.
And I am the least calculated and longest reward he has ever received after calculating his whole life.
Tears fell again, mixing with the black paint on his face, turning it dirty and hot.
But I know that from this moment on, my paintings and my life will continue with this indelible, black, warm mark.
Until every spring comes as expected and passes quietly.
And love, beyond all calculations and non-calculations, is a universe in itself and never expires.
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