Five years ago, when Lin Congzhi was preparing for his graduation exhibition, Xiao Jingwen often hovered around him under the guise of official business.

The Academy of Fine Arts was quite large. If Xiao Jingwen wanted to buy paintings or artwork, he should have gone to the gallery to find the professors there. Yet every single time, he insisted on taking a long detour just to drop by Lin Congzhi’s oil painting studio first.

The oil painting students’ studio was cramped beyond belief. To make matters worse, a student from the sculpture department had borrowed space in Lin Congzhi’s group studio as well. Back then, Xiao Jingwen would navigate around piles of objects—unable to tell whether they were still life setups or just trash—and skillfully make his way behind Lin Congzhi’s easel.

He was six years older than Lin Congzhi, making him the most miserable heir among Yuchen’s second-generation entrepreneurs. He had barely enjoyed a few days as a rich young master; right after graduating from university, he joined his family’s company incognito. He usually wore ordinary suits rather than anything bespoke, sometimes carelessly loosening his tie and unbuttoning a few top buttons.

At first, Lin Congzhi genuinely thought he was just a project manager visiting the academy to purchase graduation works. As time passed, they grew familiar with each other and added each other on WeChat. Lin Congzhi never asked for his umbrella back, and Xiao Jingwen never brought it up either. One felt it was just an umbrella and not worth much anyway, so he let him keep it; the other was simply reluctant to return it.

Xiao Jingwen never showed up empty-handed. He would either bring coffee and snacks or buy interesting little items from his company’s warehouse at his own expense. Once, he brought Lin Congzhi a palm-sized wooden lion carving, leaving Lin Congzhi utterly bewildered. Xiao Jingwen explained that it was carved from Song Dynasty wood—leftover scraps from a master guqin maker.

Lin Congzhi was naturally curly-haired and naturally oblivious. He quietly asked Xiao Jingwen how much it cost.

—He actually quite liked the lion with its big head and tiny body, but considering it was made of Song Dynasty wood, he felt it must be extremely precious.

At the time, Xiao Jingwen burst out laughing, saying it was just a little toy for him to play with, and since it was made from scraps, it didn’t cost anything; he had even worried Lin Congzhi might look down on it.

That being said, the little piece was actually an auction item after all. Coming from a master’s hands, the lion’s head was deliberately carved large to give it a naive, adorable look.

In short, Xiao Jingwen had never been in a relationship before, and his methods of pursuing someone were dry and awkward. Later, Lin Congzhi grew so terrified that Xiao Jingwen might buy one of those online gifts marketed as “Your partner will cry tears of emotion upon receiving this” or “A bit pricey, but full of surprises”—which, upon opening, turned out to be a heart-shaped string of fairy lights surrounding a photo of himself, leaving one unable to tell if it was a confession of love or a memorial service.

So on the eve of the graduation exhibition, Xiao Jingwen bought a bouquet of flowers and waited at the bottom of the studio building.

Lin Congzhi remembered that Xiao Jingwen looked like a wind-up doll whose mainspring had been overwound—his balance spring on the verge of snapping, his movements stiffening until he gradually petrified, making Lin Congzhi feel like Medusa.

In the end, it was Lin Congzhi who spoke up: “If you don’t plan on confessing, then give me those flowers to use as a still life for my sketch.”

And so he confessed.

Xiao Jingwen blushed for the first time in his life, feeling as though the blood vessels throughout his entire body had turned into heating pipes. It was actually quite cold that night, with a heavy wind blowing.

With a flush on his face, he stumbled through his words to Lin Congzhi: “I like you.”

Lin Congzhi took the roses from his hands and said: “It’s going to rain heavily tomorrow. Remember to bring an umbrella.”

Lin Congzhi was the type of person who believed in “instant love.” He felt that falling for someone was a matter of a single moment—an instant of intuition, an instant of judgment, and an instant of choice.

He chose Xiao Jingwen in that precise instant—the moment the umbrella tilted toward him.

Furthermore, Lin Congzhi was a stubborn person. He stubbornly took responsibility for his choices, and he stubbornly entered into a six-month period of mutual conquest with Xiao Jingwen. To put it bluntly, a capitalist and an artist simply couldn’t walk the same path. To put it even more bluntly, they were incompatible.

In the end, it ended miserably with both sides wounded: one headed to the Central CBD to sit in the office of Executive Director and General Manager, while the other boarded a cruise ship to head for the ocean where the sunset melted.

Lin Congzhi snapped out of his thoughts and let out a sigh, followed by a few coughs. His cold hadn’t fully cured yet. He turned around, and seeing Zhang Miao standing behind him staring at him in a daze, he smiled and asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Zhang Miao didn’t know what to say. She smiled along and asked, “Want some water? I’ll pour you some hot water.”

“Okay,” Lin Congzhi nodded.

He wasn’t very good at expressing himself; whatever he had to say was poured onto his canvases, leaving him somewhat deficient in spoken words. There was a reception area in the exhibition hall. Lin Congzhi sat down on the sofa, took the water glass, and softly said thank you.

Lin Congzhi didn’t have much desire to confide in others either. It wasn’t that he intentionally suppressed things inside; for one, he was too lazy to talk, and for another, talking about things that were already set in stone wouldn’t change them, so he felt it was unnecessary.

Zhang Miao sat down opposite him. She and Lin Congzhi were the same age—Lin Congzhi was born in May, while she was born in February, making her a few months older. As his assistant, she sometimes stepped into the role of an elder sister.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Zhang Miao asked him.

“Ah?” Lin Congzhi raised his drooping head, realizing belatedly: “Oh… it’s nothing, I’m fine.”

It would be a lie to say she wasn’t curious. Lin Congzhi could hold it in, but Zhang Miao certainly couldn’t. Her eager, probing gaze was practically boring a hole through Lin Congzhi. Lin Congzhi took a sip of warm water, set the glass down, and said helplessly: “Ask if you want to. If you make yourself sick holding it in, I’ll have to file for a workplace injury.”

Zhang Miao sat down heavily across from him with a thud: “Why did you break up?”

“…I knew it.” Lin Congzhi picked up his glass again, taking two large gulps this time. “Five years ago, Gleam almost emptied its public accounts under his management to pull off a 400-million-yuan deal. You know about that, right?”

Zhang Miao nodded repeatedly: “I’ve heard of it. A Tang Dynasty guqin. After Xiao Jingwen’s side completed the authentication, it was brought to the auction, and the closing price was 400 million.”

Lin Congzhi nodded: “Right. Xiao Jingwen officially took over Gleam from his father relying on that single deal. You’ve heard about what happened afterward too, right?”

Zhang Miao: “I have. That guqin was a trap set up by Lubifei Auction House over three whole years to bring down Gleam.”

Lin Congzhi: “Yeah. Five years ago… no, more accurately, eight years ago. Eight years ago, Lubifei found an intangible cultural heritage successor and spent three years crafting a fake Tang Dynasty guqin according to ancient traditional methods. The raw lacquer they used for the zither was gathered from 500-year-old lacquer trees—a process requiring thousands of cuts across hundreds of miles just for a single catty of lacquer. Three years for one zither.”

Listening to this, Zhang Miao said: “Yeah, to be honest, that’s incredibly impressive. Even if that zither wasn’t from the Tang Dynasty, it still held substantial value in its own right.”

Lin Congzhi said: “Lubifei sent that fake zither to Gleam to participate in the bidding, bought off Gleam’s appraiser, and successfully got it placed onto the auction stage. Even the buyer was one of Lubifei’s own people—all designed to ruin Xiao Jingwen’s reputation entirely.”

“Though Xiao Jingwen won indisputably,” Zhang Miao knew the absurd story that had shocked the auction industry five years ago. “Back then, they wanted to use that fake zither to smash Gleam once and for all. Auctioning a counterfeit is a fatal blow to an auction house.”

Lin Congzhi nodded: “Yes. Xiao Jingwen is never someone to sit around and wait for death. As early as when Lubifei’s people started contacting the zither maker, he had already anticipated this outcome. So he spent a huge sum, almost draining Gleam’s public accounts along with the massive taxes on shareholder dividends, to purchase a real Tang Dynasty guqin under his personal name from a collector. Then at the auction, he sold the real zither to Lubifei’s buyer.”

“—After Lubifei’s people got the auction piece, they split it open right away to reveal the inner sound cavity and compare the signature inscription.” Halfway through his sentence, Lin Congzhi smiled, took a sip of water, and continued: “They went through the motions, hurriedly checking the zither maker’s inscription inside the cavity, and then went straight to holding a press conference to denounce Gleam for selling a fake antique zither. As a result… third-party appraisal revealed that the zither they had chopped open was actually the real one.”

Zhang Miao pursed her lips.

Almost everyone in the industry knew about that incident. From a young age, Xiao Jingwen had been educated to stay vigilant in times of peace. He was like a wild animal in the desert, constantly keeping his guard up, assessing every move made by competitors to see if it posed a risk to him. Therefore, as early as when Lubifei was searching for a zither maker, Xiao Jingwen had already taken precautions.

Xiao Jingwen’s audacity lay in the fact that he didn’t expose them upon receiving the item. Instead, he followed their plot all the way to the very last step, delivering a single fatal strike.

He wanted the opposing side to chop open a genuine zither with their own hands. He not only wanted them to dish out 400 million yuan for the transaction, but he also wanted them to know how he had won, and when he had won from the start.

Afterward, he was investigated by relevant authorities due to damage to a cultural relic. Xiao Jingwen handed over the counterfeit guqin along with its certificate through the company’s appraisal process, and personally funded the restoration of the split genuine zither. Since the restoration was not overly difficult, it was completely restored. He was fined due to joint responsibility.

Yet Zhang Miao was puzzled: “That wasn’t what caused your breakup, was it?”

“At the time, I was very… unable to understand it,” Lin Congzhi said. “That was a work of art after all. In Xiao Jingwen’s eyes, antique works of art… could be collateral damage.”

Zhang Miao was stunned. Indeed, value in the eyes of an extreme businessman would always be its immediate utility to him. So she asked: “So you had a disagreement over it?”

“You could say that,” Lin Congzhi said. “Though five years ago I wasn’t naive to that extreme degree either. I didn’t condemn his actions. It was just that whenever we talked about this matter, I would say he was wasting precious gifts of nature, while he would say the other party got what they deserved. In short… whenever we touched upon similar topics, it would spill over into other things, highlighting the differences in our perspectives. In the end, we would either end up arguing and parting unpleasantly, or one side would temporarily soften up to coax the other.”

Lin Congzhi didn’t elaborate in detail—mainly because this was something he couldn’t share with others… Five years ago, the outcome of his arguments with Xiao Jingwen was ending up in bed, and one side softening up was also pleasing the other in bed. They shared a tacit understanding: both appreciated the principles the other upheld within their respective industries, and both were fascinated by each other’s way of living.

Lin Congzhi had to admit that if he hadn’t been a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Xiao Jingwen’s act of deliberately selling a 400-million-yuan real antique zither just to let someone chop it open was honestly so ruthless it was almost sexy.

Zhang Miao understood: “Meaning, there was actually no single specific event that caused your breakup—it was just the accumulated result reaching a breaking point.”

Lin Congzhi shook his head: “While it was accumulating to a certain point, he also did one thing that made me decide to break up.”

“Hmm?” Zhang Miao looked at him.

“He had my graduation work included in Gleam’s collection,” Lin Congzhi said. “He excitedly told me back then that antique treasures in the world were limited in quantity—there were only so many good items, bought and sold over and over again. So their company decided to try ‘god-making’.”

Zhang Miao’s eyes widened.

Lin Congzhi said: “Yes, that ‘god’ was me. They decided to use marketing tactics to shape me into a genius painter from the Academy of Fine Arts, and they planned to arrange their own people to bid high prices for my graduation exhibition at the auction—in short, everything you can imagine.”

Zhang Miao understood completely: “That’s way too commercialized. Knowing you, you definitely couldn’t stand that… Is that why you wanted to swap out The Eminent Monk? You don’t want your work selected as an auction piece through any artificial means.”

Lin Congzhi nodded.

Although he wasn’t a fanatic artist, as a graduate of the art academy who had studied painting for nearly twenty years, he could not accept being “manufactured” under any circumstances.

If being “manufactured” was the only way to be known by the world and to have his paintings passed down, he would rather spend his life in obscurity. If he were to pass away unexpectedly one day and achieve fame after death, he would consider that a good outcome instead.

But Xiao Jingwen back then couldn’t comprehend it. Xiao Jingwen at the time was extremely taken aback, telling Lin Congzhi directly: The company has these resources available right now, and you are my boyfriend. Are you expecting me to leave my boyfriend unpromoted and go promote someone else instead?

Lin Congzhi had been angered to the point of laughter at the time.

He admitted that Xiao Jingwen’s looks and physique fit his aesthetic preferences perfectly, and he admitted that making love with Xiao Jingwen was an incomparable pleasure. He also acknowledged that Xiao Jingwen had been clumsy yet genuine when pursuing him. But none of that changed the fact that his first love had come to an end.