The Remaining Warmth Of Fog Harbor Chapter 12

It was nearly midnight when she returned to the studio. The fog of Wugang clung to the glass windows, condensing into fine water droplets that blurred the lights of the Old Town District into a gentle haze. Shen Zhiyi leaned against the wooden door, the lingering warmth of the cedar scent from the car still on her fingertips. The flush on her cheeks refused to fade as her mind repeatedly replayed the moment their eyes met in the car—Lu Wanheng’s lowered lashes, his restrained gaze, his fingertips brushing her ear, and that low, husky voice saying, “You make it easy for people to fall for you.”

Every fragment surged in her heart, making her pulse race and her very breath turn soft.

She didn’t wash up or rest immediately. Instead, she walked straight to her easel and firmly secured a sheet of coarse-textured watercolor paper to the board. As her fingertips brushed the cool surface, the urge to create surged like a tide, washing away all exhaustion. The eye contact in the car was like a spark, igniting the inspiration she had suppressed for so long. She wanted to paint Lu Wanheng—to paint the man who appeared cold and hard but hid warmth in his eyes, to paint that beam of cool-toned light that pierced through the thick fog of Wugang and shone into her life.

She would name this painting Cold Light.

Shen Zhiyi turned on all the overhead lights, filling the studio with warm yellow light. The faint scent of turpentine and watercolors drifted through the air. She picked out her most comfortable round-head watercolor brush and squeezed ultramarine, charcoal black, moon white, and a very pale warm orange onto her palette. The color ratios were already formed in her mind—cool colors for the base to outline Lu Wanheng’s elite detachment, and warm colors for the finishing touches to capture the tenderness he showed only to her.

Dipping the brush in clean water, she first laid down a thin, wet wash on the paper to serve as a base for the subsequent blending. She closed her eyes, recalling the memory from the car. The image of Lu Wanheng turning his head to look at her emerged with precision: the navy blue velvet suit, the sharp and clean shoulder lines, his long hair falling halfway down his shoulders, and his cold, smooth jawline. Only his eyes held a pool of inextinguishable tenderness, like the only light in a frigid night.

The moment she put brush to paper, Shen Zhiyi became entirely still. All her fluttering emotions and panic settled into the focused strokes of her brush. She first used pale ultramarine to lay the foundation of the suit, layering the colors to create the drape of the fabric. Her strokes were sharp and decisive, without a hint of hesitation, accurately recreating Lu Wanheng’s aura of power and restraint. Charcoal black outlined his hair and silhouette with clean, sharp lines, depicting the coldness of an investment banking elite so vividly that, from a distance, he looked like an unapproachable ice sculpture.

Yet, when it came to his eyes and pupils, she deliberately slowed her pace. Dipping into the pale warm orange and moon white, she lightly touched the cool base. There were no heavy layers of color, only a delicate, hazy aura of light falling on the corners of Lu Wanheng’s eyes and jaw. It wordlessly spread across the paper the softness, heartache, and affection hidden beneath his cold exterior. This was a perspective unique to Shen Zhiyi—the tender flaw in Lu Wanheng that only she could capture.

She intentionally integrated the imagery of Wugang into the background, using gray-blue and moon white to create layers of mist swirling around the figure. It represented the hazy, unspoken feelings between them, as well as the sense of destiny that never dissipated in Wugang. The neon lights outside the car window were simplified into a few scattered warm dots in the bottom right corner, echoing the light in his eyes, ensuring that a trace of subtle warmth remained wrapped within the painting’s overall cool tone.

During the painting process, Shen Zhiyi was completely immersed in her own world. She forgot the time, the oppression of her birth family, and all her insecurities and anxieties. There was only the friction of the brush against the paper and the ultimate depiction of the person before her. Her fingertips became stained with pigment—indigo and warm orange mixing together, much like her current mood, where cold and heat intertwined, and restraint coexisted with attraction.

The fog outside grew thicker. The studio clock quietly ticked past two in the morning before Shen Zhiyi finally put down her brush and let out a long sigh of relief.

She took a few steps back and stood three meters away from the easel, quietly studying the finished work.

In the painting, Lu Wanheng stood in profile amidst the thick fog of Wugang. His navy blue suit was cold and sharp, and his falling hair carried a natural sense of detachment. He exuded the elite aura of a high-and-mighty, untouchable investment bank vice president. Yet, those eyes were filled with scattered warm light, gentle enough to envelop a person. The extreme collision of cold and warmth instantly gave the character a soul, accurately capturing Lu Wanheng’s truest self—cold on the outside, warm on the inside, protecting his softness with a hard shell and hiding deep affection behind restraint.

Cold was her armor; light was her heartbeat.

This was the first time Shen Zhiyi had created a character illustration centered on Lu Wanheng. There was no rigid catering of a commercial commission, nor the rushed negligence born of the pressure to survive. Every stroke was infused with her perception, her attraction, and her cherished feelings. Hidden within the painting was the wonder of their first meeting, the gratitude for his anonymous help, his protection at the gala, the ambiguity of their gaze in the car, and all the love she didn’t dare to speak aloud.

She crouched down, took a silver-gold pen from the drawer, and lightly wrote two words in the blank space at the bottom right: Cold Light.

The handwriting was slender and clean, blending perfectly with the style of the painting. There was no extra signature, yet all her feelings were hidden within the title.

Shen Zhiyi walked back to the easel. Her fingertips hovered just above the paper, not daring to touch it for fear of ruining the work she had poured her heart into. Looking at the warm light in the eyes of the man in the painting, a gentle curve unconsciously formed on her lips, and the fluttering in her heart surged once more. She thought that once the painting was completely dry, she must show it to Lu Wanheng immediately. She wanted him to know that his coldness and tenderness had been carefully collected by her and turned into art.

Her phone screen lit up on the corner of the table. It was a message from Lu Wanheng: Not asleep yet? Don’t stay up too late.

A simple instruction, yet it caused a massive wave of warmth to rise in Shen Zhiyi’s heart. She picked up her phone and took a photo of an unfinished detail of Cold Light, capturing only the warm light in the eyes. She sent it to Lu Wanheng with the caption: I’m painting. You’re my inspiration. It’s almost finished.

Within half a minute, his reply popped up, carrying obvious tenderness: I’m looking forward to it, my artist.

The words “my artist” were like a piece of candy slowly melting in her heart. Holding her phone, Shen Zhiyi leaned against the easel and looked at Lu Wanheng in the painting, at that beam of cold light piercing through the thick fog. Suddenly, she felt that all her suffering and struggles had meaning. The exploitation by her birth family, her financial hardships, and the cold eyes of the world all became insignificant before this light.

She turned off the overhead lights in the studio, leaving only a small night light. The warm glow fell on Cold Light, giving the cool-toned image a gentle, soft edge. The fog continued to flow against the glass windows, and the deep night of the Old Town District was so quiet that only the faint sound of the waves remained. The watercolors in the studio gradually dried, permanently capturing this attraction and inspiration on the paper.

Shen Zhiyi lightly stroked the edge of the frame and whispered in her heart: Wanheng, you are my cold light, my salvation in desperation, and the tenderness I can never finish writing beneath my brush.

She didn’t know what kind of ending this hidden affection in the painting would lead to, nor did she know when the thick fog of Wugang would finally dissipate. But she knew that from the moment she began painting Cold Light, her world would never fall into total darkness again.

Because there was someone who used coldness as a shell and light as a core, shining steadily into her life, becoming the inspiration for all her creations and the most persistent concern for the rest of her life.

The painting sat quietly on the easel, cold and warmth intertwining, fog and light blending. It was just like the unspoken feelings between them—hazy and restrained, yet burning so hot they could not be ignored. The night in Wugang was still long, but Shen Zhiyi’s heart had already been lit up by this beam of cold light.