Chapter 35 · Final Chapter

The following year, after Gleam’s spring auction, the company held a board of directors meeting. Chairman Xiao Jingwen presented Gleam’s expansion plans in the Americas and Europe for the year, alongside the promotion of two vice presidents.

After each quarterly auction concluded, Gleam entered a period of leisure. The company would go on holiday during this time, and after this board meeting, Xiao Jingwen was set to take a break as well.

Once the meeting wrapped up, he drove to the gallery. Nowadays, Ocean Gallery was quite renowned within the industry; at the spring auction, Lin Congzhi’s painting Transparent Umbrella on a Rainy Night sold for a hammer price of 700,000 yuan, attracting considerable attention.

The description for this painting consisted of a single line: Heavy rain tomorrow, remember to bring an umbrella.

The background depicted a rainy city night against a dark black tone, with a tilted transparent umbrella in the foreground and blurred city lights in the distance. Several streams of water flowed downward like pillars following the curvature of the umbrella surface.

Lin Congzhi had spent eight months completing this painting. Once it was finished, the CEO refused to let it be sold, insisting that the painting should belong to him and that he wanted it.

Between acting like a tyrant or throwing a spoiled tantrum, Xiao Jingwen chose the latter. Before the spring auction, the CEO wrapped his arms around Lin Congzhi’s waist, buried his face into his lower abdomen, and begged him to sell it to him once finished instead of putting it up for auction.

Lin Congzhi was working on the finishing touches at the time. Rendering the rainy transparent umbrella surface alone took him half a month. Transparent objects were inherently difficult to paint, let alone capturing running water marks, and oil paintings couldn’t simply be sprayed with water like watercolors to make them look genuinely wet.

So—

Xiao Jingwen had originally been sitting on a stool helping him rinse brushes in the water bucket. Lin Congzhi murmured to himself that if he couldn’t get this umbrella surface right, he might miss the spring auction.

Upon hearing this, Xiao Jingwen raised his head and said, “Then sell it to me, and I’ll keep it as my private collection.”

It wasn’t that Lin Congzhi was unwilling to give it to Xiao Jingwen, but rather that Xiao Jingwen was somewhat neurotically attached… objectively speaking. To this day, even after being back together for nearly a year, this man would still occasionally betray a flicker in his eyes of wanting to find a cage to lock Lin Congzhi in.

And it was so obvious that he couldn’t hide it even if he tried.

Fairly speaking, Lin Congzhi felt he had given Xiao Jingwen more than enough security.

He had moved in to live with Xiao Jingwen. Last Sunday, when Xiao Jingwen had a mild cold, Lin Congzhi was dragged right back the moment he tried to step out to buy medicine, forbidden from leaving.

Thus, when Lin Congzhi turned his head with a frown, prepared to scold him, he saw Xiao Jingwen rolling up his shirt sleeves and washing brushes with his head lowered. The beautiful muscle lines of his forearms were flecked with water, and he cleaned each brush as meticulously as if he were restoring historical artifacts. The sight rendered Lin Congzhi unable to bring himself to say harsh words. He merely let out a sigh and said, “You don’t need this painting, and you don’t even need that umbrella hidden in the closet anymore.”

Xiao Jingwen set down the brush, pulled him over into an embrace, and buried his face silently against his lower abdomen.

It wasn’t that Lin Congzhi was cold-hearted, but Xiao Jingwen genuinely needed to step out of the shadow of their five-year breakup—Xiao Jingwen was constantly bracing himself for the possibility that Lin Congzhi might leave again.

Yet Lin Congzhi understood that it was a form of self-protection—essentially, as long as you expect nothing, you won’t be disappointed. That was why Xiao Jingwen began hoarding things related to Lin Congzhi around himself, like this umbrella painting Lin Congzhi was currently working on.

Furthermore, Xiao Jingwen’s condition hadn’t eased with time; if anything, it had intensified. Lin Congzhi steeled his heart after all and sent the painting to the auction.

After the spring auction came to an end, it was late May once again. On May 20th, Lin Congzhi’s birthday, Xiao Jingwen drove him to the airport. Catering to his passions, the birthday gift Xiao Jingwen had prepared for Lin Congzhi was a Michelangelo sketch valued at 70 million yuan.

Xiao Jingwen had won this drawing at a Paris auction. He hadn’t attended in person, placing his winning bid via telephone proxy. Originally, the auction house intended to send it back to China on a private jet due to its high value, but Xiao Jingwen declined—he wanted to retrieve the painting together with Lin Congzhi.

It just so happened that Gleam’s Paris branch had settled everything this year, set to hold its first auction in the autumn.

After stepping off the plane, the manager of the Paris branch arrived at the airport to pick them up, chatting pleasantly with Xiao Jingwen about work progress. Due to an information gap, the branch manager paid no attention to Lin Congzhi walking behind them, who was dressed like a college student.

Lin Congzhi wore a light teal hoodie with the hood over his head, complete with a pair of ears sticking out on top. Looking a bit worn out from the flight, he wore a face mask, its drawstrings pulled tight and tied in a knot at his neck. It gave him quite the air of trying to keep a low profile.

Xiao Jingwen, on the other hand, wore a long-sleeved shirt and suit trousers, without a tie.

Before getting into the car, the branch manager held the door open for Xiao Jingwen. Xiao Jingwen leaned aside, wrapping his arm around Lin Congzhi to let him enter first.

The manager was a sharp man, quickly putting two and two together—the big CEO’s canary.

The manager exchanged a look with his assistant, who immediately understood—a canary, just keep him happy.

After checking in, the two rested in their room. Because their flight had been delayed before arrival and there had been a screaming kid in the cabin, Lin Congzhi had low atmospheric pressure, feeling cranky and exhausted. So when room service brought up their meal, he squished a croissant flat in frustration with a bang.

“…Calm down,” Xiao Jingwen said. “Next year I’ll buy a business jet so we won’t have to fly commercial.”

Lin Congzhi picked up the squished croissant and took a big bite out of it, still pouting crossly. Xiao Jingwen couldn’t do much either; Lin Congzhi had always been like this—when he got angry, he only accepted adjusting his own mood.

Fortunately, his mood cleared up by the second day.

The manager of the Paris branch was named Meng. Manager Meng and his assistant, Li, drove them to the auction house building. Because it was a peer reception, the other party was exceptionally formal and enthusiastic, even making a special effort to learn how to say “Honored to meet you” in Chinese.

It would have been even better if he hadn’t mispronounced it so terribly.

This Michelangelo sketch was the highest-hammering lot of the previous season. The auction house staff brought Xiao Jingwen toward the VIP room… but then Manager Meng stopped Lin Congzhi, saying, “Sir, please wait here.”

Lin Congzhi was puzzled, thinking it was some kind of rule—such as only one person being allowed inside—so he stayed outside as requested.

A moment later, the door opened again, and Xiao Jingwen asked him, “Why aren’t you coming in?”

Lin Congzhi realized what was happening in an instant. He glanced at Manager Meng and understood that he was probably assumed to be Xiao Jingwen’s little secret lover. It was a misunderstanding that could have been cleared up in a couple of sentences, but Lin Congzhi suddenly felt a streak of playfulness.

Lowering his eyelids, he put on a timid act: “Mr. Xiao, there’s no need for me to go in. I’ll just wait for you here.”

Xiao Jingwen thought he had misheard. With a bewildered look in his eyes, he asked, “Are you not fully awake yet?”

“…” Lin Congzhi pursed his lips. “I am awake…”

He couldn’t keep acting, mostly because Xiao Jingwen had seen right through him: “Get in here.”

“Oh.” Lin Congzhi pulled both hands out of his hoodie pockets, tidied his hem, and stepped inside.

Now it was Manager Meng’s turn to be bewildered.

This 34-year-old CEO of the auction company had remained unmarried, yet during a video conference, Xiao Jingwen had genuinely called someone “Darling.” After that, rumors spread in the industry that CEO Xiao had someone by his side, though most didn’t dare guess wildly, let alone ask. Who would dare offend a figure like him?

So when Manager Meng saw Lin Congzhi, he roughly understood—even CEO Xiao hadn’t been able to resist falling for convention!

A fair-skinned young guy in a hoodie and jeans with curly hair—ha, Manager Meng had read countless people and knew what was going on in a single glance. But a place like an auction house VIP room… wasn’t really suitable for a canary to enter, was it?

Outside, Manager Meng whispered a few words to his assistant, who was equally puzzled.

Thirty-some minutes later, the two emerged. Xiao Jingwen opened the door and stepped aside to let Lin Congzhi walk ahead. Lin Congzhi spoke some French, as Lin Lingyu used to drag him along to listen to operas for a time.

Lin Congzhi thanked the Paris auction house staff in French, even cracking a few jokes about the rivalry between Michelangelo and Raphael. The other party was clearly amused by him. Manager Meng narrowed his eyes—being a canary these days comes with such a high threshold; knowing French, having high EQ, and understanding art. Life really isn’t easy.

After marveling at this, they drove the two to Gleam’s Paris branch, located in an office building near Place des Vosges. The scale of Gleam here was much smaller than in Yuchen, though given the architecture size in Paris and the fact that they rented space from a local art museum for their warehouse, they didn’t need a massive office space.

Xiao Jingwen’s trip this time was meant for a quick meeting to check on local operations. Manager Meng had previously been a capable vice president in Yuchen, and Xiao Jingwen trusted him deeply, so the meeting ended in just twenty-some minutes.

During the meeting, Lin Congzhi waited in their main office lobby. Several paintings hung on the wall; scanning them, he realized two were his own.

He walked over to inspect them closely, frowning.

When Xiao Jingwen came out, Lin Congzhi was looking at a painting titled Orange Cat Basking in the Sun. Seeing Xiao Jingwen finish his meeting, he turned his head and said, “What’s going on? You even hung up a painting from my junior year of college. This cat was painted completely out of shape by me.”

Immediately after, Manager Meng stepped out a few paces behind Xiao Jingwen. Xiao Jingwen didn’t know how to react for a second, so he could only turn around and say to Manager Meng, “What’s going on? You even hung up a painting from my spouse’s junior year of college.”

At that exact moment, Manager Meng desperately wanted to turn around and relay this sentence to his assistant, but he held it back. Swallowing hard, he stiffened his neck and said, “I’m so sorry, CEO Xiao! We’ll… we’ll take it down right now…”

“Is there an art studio here?” Lin Congzhi asked. “I’ll touch it up.”

A life spent modifying paintings.

“Yes!” Manager Meng finally understood what role Lin Congzhi played. “Yes, we do! Right this way, please!”

Modifying an old oil painting was quite painstaking, but fortunately, this was one of his earlier works, so pigments hadn’t been applied in too many layers. This little cat had been a stray at their university—strictly speaking, not really a stray, but a registered cat recorded by the school.

Lin Congzhi had painted this after class one day when the sunset in Yuchen was exceptionally beautiful. Some student had fed the orange cat a chicken leg, and as the cat held the chicken leg in its mouth preparing to duck into the bushes, it happened to look back at Lin Congzhi. Lin Congzhi didn’t have time to take a photo, so fearing he would forget, he crouched right by the roadside, pulled a sketchpad from his bag to do a quick sketch, and later repainted it on canvas back at the studio.

“You don’t need to…” Lin Congzhi felt a bit embarrassed. “You don’t need to be my assistant. You’re a CEO after all, with so many employees watching.”

—He didn’t know what kind of interior design style the Paris branch went for, but the studio had glass walls, transparent inside and out, completely visible at a glance.

Their CEO was right inside with his sleeves rolled up, rinsing brushes, squeezing paint, scooping out dirty bits from the white pigment, and squeezing more paint.

“What’s wrong?” Xiao Jingwen grabbed a rag, stroking down the brush hairs to wipe off water, and asked, “Am I afraid of being seen?”

Lin Congzhi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and said, “In the past, when I painted, I always liked using extremely stark contrasts. It was too formulaic—mostly because that was how everyone prepped for the Fine Arts Academy back then… What did people used to call it back then?”

He couldn’t quite remember.

Xiao Jingwen finished his sentence: “Explosive muscular blocky apples.”

“Right, right…” Lin Congzhi burst out laughing. “Using strong color blocks to express object structure, using contrast between sharp and soft edges to express spatial distance… but, to say something sacrilegious, it didn’t look good.”

Xiao Jingwen set the half-dry brush on the small trolley beside Lin Congzhi’s hand, pulled out two paper towels, and said while wiping his hands, “But that was a necessary path. You have to understand the apple before you can understand the world.”

Lin Congzhi turned his head, staring at him in dazed surprise.

Xiao Jingwen chuckled softly: “You taught me that.”

“I know,” Lin Congzhi nodded.

Xiao Jingwen reminisced for a moment and added, “Because an apple is an irregular sphere with a clear light-shadow boundary, and it rots slowly, so it can stay on the still-life platform for a very long time.”

“You still remember all that?”

“Of course.” Xiao Jingwen smiled, grabbing the brush-wiping rag from the trolley, and said nonchalantly, “Because I love you.”

Lin Congzhi spent most of the afternoon modifying that painting until he was satisfied, after which Manager Meng carefully took it away to be framed.

They were only staying in Paris for these two days. Michelangelo’s sketch was temporarily kept with Manager Meng, who would bring it back to Gleam when he returned to China the following month.

At this time of year, Yuchen began its seemingly endless rain once again. So, the two decided to spend this season somewhere bathed in abundant sunshine.

Heading from Las Vegas toward San Diego along US Interstate 15, a stretch of the highway passed through deserted land. They drove a rental car, cruising along the bumpy highway filled with waves of heat.

Under the baking sun, one couldn’t even touch the car window frames—they were hot enough to make a person hiss with pain. The crackling car radio played heavy metal rock, while the palm trees of San Diego swayed their leaves in the Pacific coastal wind.

In the passenger seat, Lin Congzhi raised his hand toward the direction of the sunlight. A beautiful wedding ring on his ring finger reflected the sun’s rays.

The driver also wore an identical ring on his finger. Lin Congzhi smiled, turned his head, and asked, “Why do you lack a sense of security so much? Do you not trust me?”

“I don’t know,” Xiao Jingwen answered truthfully. “Can I tell the truth?”

“Go ahead.”

“Even though we’re legally married now, I still…” Xiao Jingwen held the steering wheel, stopping mid-sentence with a soft chuckle to himself. “I need some time to adjust on my own.”

Lin Congzhi lowered his hand, looking at him in silence. He could understand Xiao Jingwen’s mindset. When they broke up back then, he hadn’t had an easy time either—otherwise, he wouldn’t have spent five years drifting at sea, unwilling to stay anywhere that covered the sky or bound within any framework.

Yet Lin Congzhi had his mother to guide him, painting to vent, and even alcohol. Xiao Jingwen had nothing but stifling work.

“Alright,” Lin Congzhi reached out, gently stroking the back of Xiao Jingwen’s neck, and said warmly, “You don’t need to adjust on your own. I’ll heal you slowly. We have plenty of time.”

“I’ll keep holding the umbrella for you forever, Xiao Jingwen,” he said. “I love you, too.”

(End of Main Story)