Lin Congzhi had never spoken to anyone about these things before. All along, it wasn’t that he was intentionally bottling them up inside; he just couldn’t be bothered to talk. He hadn’t expected that after airing it all out, he would actually feel a sense of relief.

During those years on the cruise ship, he had honestly lived quite happily. The ocean was so vast, and the people on board were diverse and varied. Lin Congzhi didn’t care for socializing, but hearing groups of people nearby laughing heartedly often brightened his mood as well.

The horizon at sea stretched limitlessly, providing an unobstructed view where the sky and the sea sometimes merged into one. Lin Congzhi liked the high seas—there was no signal, no internet, and the cruise ship was like a floating island, serving as the only piece of land.

The open ocean was very suitable for spacing out, and Lin Congzhi loved to space out.

Back then, Lin Congzhi had felt that Xiao Jingwen really ought to come to the ocean and take a look. He had seen far too many rare treasures inside display cases and needed an expansive, boundless space to breathe.

Yet in the end, he had still returned to the city. Truth be told, Zhang Miao was also very curious about what triggered his decision to disembark. However, it was quite obvious that Lin Congzhi’s linguistic output for the day had reached its upper threshold—saying even one more word might cause him to dissolve on the spot.

“Alright, honestly I was just a bit curious. Since we’ll still be collaborating with Gleam, I need to know your attitude,” Zhang Miao said with a smile. “I have my limits when it comes to making money. In a case like his, I’ll have to negotiate the price with him properly.”

Lin Congzhi froze for a second before breaking into a smile along with her.

And indeed, he had spoken far too much today. Finishing the water in his cup, he stood up and headed straight for the studio. The custom portrait he was working on for a client was still unfinished.

When it was time to pack up and leave in the evening, Zhang Miao came into the studio to inform him that dinner had been bought back and was on the coffee table in the exhibition hall. She also casually reminded him not to forget to write the replacement description card.

Facing his easel, Lin Congzhi made affirmative humming noises to show he understood. Zhang Miao glanced at the painting. Among Lin Congzhi’s works, Impressionist pieces were more common; he liked light, the shadows within light, and the light within shadows. Classical paintings weren’t his strong suit, so this piece was progressing very slowly.

After Zhang Miao left work, he was the only person left in the massive gallery. Every day since returning to Yuchen had been like this: painting alone after sunset. This was the time when Lin Congzhi felt most comfortable.

His state of mind today was actually quite good. Having vented so many thoughts from the bottom of his heart, he felt much lighter. He switched a few brushes and continued adjusting the canvas, frequently stepping back a few paces to observe the whole picture before stepping forward again.

From the age of eight when he began learning to paint, what he was taught was how to draw things “out.” In the beginning, whether painting geometric plaster casts or apples, his teachers would always emphasize drawing the objects “out” from the paper. Lin Congzhi was naturally gifted; by eleven, he had already grasped the sketching relationships among all things in the world. For a period of time, the world he saw appeared first as a light-and-shadow structure of black, white, and grey, before turning into color.

To him, a world structured by sketch logic was much clearer. A beam of light cascading over the sea surface—bright areas, dark areas, halftones, and the transition from dark to light along the terminator—slid along with every rise and fall of the waves. That was why he often spaced out on the deck for hours at a time.

At this moment, he let out a sigh, untied his apron, and carried his water bucket and palette to the restroom to wash them.

After cleaning up, he turned off the lights, locked the studio door, and went up to the second floor. His dinner was still down in the exhibition hall. On the second floor, he changed his clothes. The night was clear, with a bright moon and sparse stars. He put on a dark teal hooded sweatshirt and pulled up the hood. Coming down from the second floor, he held a medium-sized copper basin in his hands, roughly the size of an instant noodle bowl.

After reaching the ground floor, he walked straight toward the gallery entrance, casually grabbing the dinner Zhang Miao had bought for him as he passed the coffee table—a whole-wheat sandwich that had already gone cold. Then, he stepped outside.

When it wasn’t raining, citizens would dance in the park across the street, accompanied by colorful light posts and loud music. Lin Congzhi walked down the sidewalk with his head lowered. This place wasn’t far from the seaside, though it wasn’t particularly close either—about 15 kilometers away.

The last bus of the night arrived at ten o’clock sharp. Lin Congzhi stood at the bus stop, gnawing on the sandwich that had turned cold and stiff. He noticed an ordinary-looking Volkswagen Touareg parked across from the bus stop. He glanced at it, then went back to eating his sandwich.

Ten minutes later, the final bus arrived. The bus’s terminus was Yuchen’s freight terminal, an area with a gravel and stone beach. The last bus on this route had very few passengers; Lin Congzhi sat in a window seat toward the back.

Almost simultaneously, that black Touareg started up and followed the bus.

Lin Congzhi glanced out the window, then retracted his gaze. He held his little copper basin—it was one of the still-life props he used for painting, but right now on the bus, he looked as though he were heading to the beach to beg.

The bus trundled slowly all the way to the terminal station. The ground was wet. Holding his basin, Lin Congzhi got off the bus and continued walking along the road, reaching the staircase leading down to the beach after about three or four minutes.

This gravel beach was littered with stones and small crabs, making it damp and slippery. Lin Congzhi walked carefully. Aside from the lights of the container area not far away, the only illumination in this vicinity came from the sliver of moon overhead.

There was always wind by the sea, carrying a chilly draft. Lin Congzhi’s hood was blown off, one of the drawstrings whipping behind his neck. The visibility was poor, and the ocean was a pitch-black mass. Without walking down to where the seawater washed ashore, he found a spot among the pile of rocks and sat down directly.

Next, he pulled a few items from his hoodie pocket: a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a card.

That card, roughly the size of an ordinary postcard, was the description card for Waning Moon at Sea. The surroundings were too dark to see anything clearly. Lin Congzhi held it in the wind, his eyelids drooping in silence. Then, he struck the lighter, ignited the card, and dropped it into the copper basin to let it burn.

The flame that suddenly leapt up became an orange speck of light on this black gravel beach, a tiny bundle of fire reflected right in the center of Lin Congzhi’s dark pupils.

Before long, a dark figure sat down beside Lin Congzhi. Lin Congzhi had sat straight on the ground; this newcomer was equally casual, sitting down directly despite wearing a suit of fine fabric.

Half of the description card burning in the copper basin remained, while the other half had turned to ash.

Perhaps because Lin Congzhi’s expression was too mournful, Xiao Jingwen felt a bit helpless. After sitting down, he said, “With that expression of yours, it looks like you’re burning offerings for a late ex-boyfriend.”

Lin Congzhi let out a small laugh and said, “I’ve never seen someone jinx themselves like this.”

“Is running all the way out here to burn a painting’s description card some kind of special ritual?” Xiao Jingwen asked.

Lin Congzhi didn’t answer, asking in return: “Do you mind if I smoke a cigarette?”

“Go ahead.”

Lin Congzhi had brought an ordinary lighter. The sea breeze was blowing from all directions, making it useless even when cupping his hands around it. After clicking it twice without lighting up, he was just thinking of giving up when a sharp clink of a flint wheel sounded beside him. Xiao Jingwen held out a windproof lighter right in front of him.

Xiao Jingwen didn’t smoke—at least, he hadn’t five years ago.

Lin Congzhi paused, leaning over with the cigarette between his lips. Once it was lit, he took a drag, turned his head, and blew out the smoke. He hadn’t intended to blow smoke on Xiao Jingwen, but it was useless; the breeze here defied reason, floating a puff of smoke right into Xiao Jingwen’s face.

“Sorry about that,” Lin Congzhi said.

“It’s fine.” Xiao Jingwen snapped the lighter shut and slipped it back into his pocket. “So you’re burning this for me? Anything else?”

Lin Congzhi almost choked on his smoke, caught between laughter and tears: “No, I’m not wishing for your death.”

“Ah, so there’s nothing else,” Xiao Jingwen exaggerated deliberately. “Sigh, after all, the deceased husband’s bones have been cold for five years, yet you only burn this one single piece.”

“…” Lin Congzhi smoked in silence.

Xiao Jingwen stopped teasing him as well: “Smoke less.”

“Mm,” he nodded.

Sitting by the sea in the cold wind with one’s ex after ten at night was absurd no matter how one looked at it. Especially after the description card burned out and the residual warmth dissipated into the wind, the atmosphere cooled down along with it.

Five years had passed, yet the two still shared a tacit understanding that required no words. Xiao Jingwen didn’t ask him why he burned the description card, and Lin Congzhi didn’t ask him why he had followed him to the beach.

The seawater at the shore washed up rhythmically, leaving behind clusters of white foam. After sitting there in silence for quite a while, Lin Congzhi finally felt his bottom hurting from the hard rocks and asked, “As such a big president, aren’t you busy?”

“I am,” Xiao Jingwen said. “The summer auction is coming up, so there’s a mountain of things to do.”

“And yet you spent a whole day wasting time on me?”

“Yeah…” Xiao Jingwen lowered his head. In five years, he had built Gleam into a top-tier auction house in Asia, cultivating numerous young artists through his firm.

Gleam knew how to package artists. For an auction house to achieve higher closing prices, it had to make buyers agree that the works were worth the cost.

Because of this, he was extremely busy during every quarterly auction. Yet today, he had spent most of his time hanging around the gallery. After collecting the paintings at noon, his assistant had returned to the company, while he wandered in the park across the street before camping out in his car to wait for him. He had originally thought he would leave once the light in the second-floor bedroom went out, but he hadn’t expected to actually catch him.

Thinking back over these five years, plenty of talented young men and women had tried to get close to Xiao Jingwen. After all, this president was only thirty-three years old, tall, and handsome. Honestly, if he hadn’t been acting so excessively attentive around him recently, even Lin Congzhi would have assumed he had a beauty by his side.

Lin Congzhi didn’t want to play dumb with him either. They weren’t high schoolers in a puppy love phase; there was no need to beat around the bush: “Has there been no one by your side these past few years?”

“Me?” Xiao Jingwen was clearly caught off guard by the question, freezing before even his voice raised a octave: “Me? I’ve stayed pure as ice and clean as jade!”

“…What a word to choose,” Lin Congzhi chuckled.

“It’s very fitting.” Xiao Jingwen even straightened his tie.

Lin Congzhi stood up and picked up his basin. Xiao Jingwen stood up after him: “We…”

“We can only get along amicably in our current state,” Lin Congzhi interrupted him, saying, “President Xiao, when two people with different values are together, they either argue endlessly or one side compromises. We’ve tried both, haven’t we?”

Lin Congzhi’s voice carried no aggression, nor did he speak with harsh words—he simply stated it plainly and calmly.

Xiao Jingwen was adept at slapping a starting price on everything in the world and estimating its closing price. Xiao Jingwen had once told him that nothing in this world possessed intrinsic value. How precious were jewels, really? What could their rarity actually bring to humanity?

—It brought pricing power.

Why were rare gemstones constantly auctioned off at sky-high prices? Because doing so secured the pricing power for the next time they appeared at an auction.

Jewelry and paintings were all the same.

They had argued over such issues countlessly. After arguing, they would go to bed to vent, and after making love, they would wonder why they had fought over such trivial matters again. Round and round it went, until they finally broke up.

So they had tried every possible method.

Lin Congzhi brushed his bangs aside, saying semi-jokingly, “In the past, every argument ended up in bed. We might as well have just been friends with benefits instead.”

Xiao Jingwen had a superb figure. Art students loved beautiful muscle and bone structures, and his were just right, like a plaster sculpture. To what extent did Lin Congzhi like it? He had once painted directly on Xiao Jingwen’s body.

His line was half a joke and half serious, and he was actually quite nervous.

However, Xiao Jingwen looked down at him with lowered eyelids and said, “I only sleep with the person I love.”

Lin Congzhi pursed his lips and averted his eyes: “I meant back then. Back then, it would have been better if we were just friends with benefits.”

Xiao Jingwen added casually, “It was the same for me back then as it is now—I only sleep with the person I love.”

Lin Congzhi froze, not daring to look at him.