The Remaining Warmth Of Fog Harbor Chapter 34

Doubt arises

The warm light in the apartment was on all night. Shen Zhiyi was sitting on the sofa, her fingertips repeatedly rubbing the screen of her mobile phone. On it was the last text message sent by Lu Wanheng three days ago: “The project is urgent and I won’t reply in the near future.” There was no unnecessary explanation, no gentle comfort, only a cold notification, like a thin needle, pricking her already sensitive and fragile heart.

Ever since Lu Wanheng issued a public clarification statement, the relationship between the two has taken a turn for the worse.The intimacy that used to be talked about everything has turned into silence and alienation now; the warmth that once accompanied them day and night has turned into looking at each other from a distance now.It’s not that Shen Zhiyi didn’t try to understand, it’s not that she didn’t tell herself “she’s just too busy”, but the repeated waits, the hung-up calls, and the perfunctory replies made her uneasy, growing like vines, wrapping around her heart and making her breathless.

She began to think involuntarily and began to doubt Lu Wanheng’s intentions.Did those rumors in the financial circle make her feel embarrassed?Was it pressure from her superiors that swayed her?Did she just break away from her family of origin and have nothing, making her a burden?Is she tired of her own sensitivity and fragility and despise herself as not worthy of her excellence?

Once these thoughts occurred, they surged like a tide, making her unable to breathe.She would stare at herself in the mirror in a daze, looking at the five fingerprints on her cheeks that had not completely faded away, looking at the fatigue and cowardice in her eyes, and feeling increasingly small and humble.Lu Wanheng was so dazzling, an elite in the financial circle, an independent and confident strongman, but he was just an ordinary person who had just climbed out of the quagmire of his original family and made a living by painting. The gap between them seemed to be getting bigger and bigger in these days of estrangement.

One time, while she was organizing painting materials in the studio, she accidentally came across the news in the financial circle and saw a photo of Lu Wanheng attending an event side by side with a female collaborator.In the photo, Lu Wanheng is wearing a well-tailored suit, smiling calmly, chatting happily with the collaborators around him, and showing an intimate gesture.At that moment, Shen Zhiyi’s heart seemed to be squeezed so hard that he couldn’t breathe.She knew it was just work and normal social interaction, but the jealousy and uneasiness in her heart still made her lose her mind.

She frantically searched for photos of the two of them on her phone. Looking at Lu Wanheng’s gentle eyes and tightly held hands in the photo, tears fell silently.Those sweetness and promises that had once turned into sharp knives, cutting her nerves repeatedly.She began to feel that Lu Wanheng’s alienation was not at all due to project pressure or pressure from her boss, but because she had changed her mind, fell in love with someone else, and disliked herself.

This misunderstanding spread like poison ivy, making her more sensitive and suspicious.Lu Wanheng would occasionally come home late at night, with a faint smell of perfume on his body, and she would not help but ask “whose perfume smells like”; Lu Wanheng would lean on the sofa tiredly, not wanting to talk, and she would feel “you don’t even have the patience to talk to me anymore”; in order to appease her, Lu Wanheng would buy her favorite desserts, and she would wonder “whether you are so good to others.”

Every test and every questioning made the atmosphere between the two more tense.Lu Wanheng didn’t know how to explain. She couldn’t tell Shen Zhiyi the truth about the project, nor the pressure and grievances she had endured. She could only say “Don’t think too much” and “My heart towards you has not changed” again and again.But in Shen Zhiyi’s view, these pale explanations turned into cover-ups for a guilty conscience and evidence of a change of heart.

Uneasiness is like cold sea water, submerging Shen Zhiyi’s world bit by bit.She began to suffer from insomnia, lying in bed at night, replaying the painful scenes in her mind over and over again until dawn; she began to lose her appetite, and even the meals she once loved were placed in front of her, and she had no appetite, and her weight dropped day by day; she began to become taciturn, no longer chatting about interesting things about the studio as before, and she no longer acted coquettishly and cutely towards Lu Wanheng, and the light in her eyes dimmed a little bit.

She didn’t know that the misunderstanding and uneasiness in her heart were pushing her into a dark abyss, and the distance between her and Lu Wanheng was getting farther and farther amidst these unreasonable suspicions.

The sleepless nights were getting longer and longer, and Shen Zhiyi often kept his eyes open and stared at the ceiling until dawn.The foggy harbor outside the window went from darkness to dawn, and the lights went from bright to extinguished, but her world was always shrouded in an icy haze.The apartment that once made her feel at ease has now become empty and depressing, and every corner is filled with the atmosphere of loneliness and uneasiness.

Her appetite became worse and worse, and meals became a dispensable ritual.She kept the desserts that Lu Wanheng brought home from time to time in the refrigerator until they expired; she took a few bites of the takeaways delivered by her studio assistant and then couldn’t eat them anymore.His weight dropped at a speed visible to the naked eye, his cheeks became sunken, his eyes became hollow, and his whole person looked sickly pale and fragile.

The most obvious change is in her paintings.The previous “Late Night” series had warm and soft tones, full of longing for love and love for life. The light and shadow in the paintings were gentle, the lines were smart, and every stroke was full of vitality.But now, all the warmth seems to have been taken away from her paintbrush, and the color tone has become cold and gray, mainly dark blue, ink black, and light gray. The picture is depressing and heavy, full of loneliness, confusion, and despair.

She no longer painted figures side by side, no longer painted warm sunshine, no longer painted the smoke of fireworks on the pier.On her drawing paper, only a lonely back figure is left, standing by the river filled with thick fog, looking at the boundless darkness; only the broken picture frame and the paint scattered on the ground are left, symbolizing the fragmented love; only the cold raindrops are left, hitting the closed window, like silent crying.

One time, Lu Wanheng came home late at night and saw Shen Zhiyi sitting in the studio, painting a new work with the help of dim light.On the drawing paper, there is a girl huddled in the corner, surrounded by dark shadows, with only a faint beam of light shining on her thin body, making her look particularly lonely and helpless.Lu Wanheng’s heart shrank violently. She looked at the painting and Shen Zhiyi’s pale profile, and the distress and guilt in her eyes instantly surged.

“Zhiyi, stop drawing, it’s too late, it’s time to rest.” Lu Wanheng spoke softly, his voice was tired and hoarse.

Shen Zhiyi did not look back, but simply said: “I’m not sleepy.” Her voice had no emotion at all, like a pool of stagnant water, without waves.

Lu Wanheng walked up to her, looked at the cold tones on the painting paper, and couldn’t help but reach out and touch the top of her hair: “How did your painting… become like this?”

Shen Zhiyi suddenly avoided her touch, as if he was burned, and turned to look at her, his eyes full of alienation and indifference: “You don’t understand.”

At that moment, Lu Wanheng truly realized how much harm his alienation had caused to Shen Zhiyi.She not only made her endure loneliness and uneasiness, but also made her lose her love for life and the warmth of her paintbrush.The “protection” she thought of was abandonment and betrayal in Shen Zhiyi’s view; the pressure she had to bear alone was a change of heart and disgust in Shen Zhiyi’s view.

Lu Wanheng wanted to explain, wanted to tell her his difficulties, wanted to put her in his arms and tell her “I love you”, but when the words reached his lips, he swallowed them back.The project is not over yet, the crisis has not been resolved, and she cannot let Shen Zhiyi be put in risk again.She could only look at the coldness in Shen Zhiyi’s eyes, the cold color in her paintings, and feel the growing gap between the two, and was powerless.

Shen Zhiyi’s early symptoms of depression became more and more obvious. She began to lose interest in anything. Painting, which she once loved, has now become a tool to vent her emotions. She began to have low self-esteem and sensitiveness, feeling that she was worthless and unworthy of anyone’s love. She began to show a slight tendency to self-mutilation. When she had an emotional breakdown, she would pinch her arms with her fingernails. Only by looking at the red marks on her arms could she feel a faint sense of existence.

She hid all this in her heart, in the cold paintings, without telling Lu Wanheng or anyone.She felt like a broken toy that could never go back to the way it was before, and she no longer deserved Lu Wanheng’s love.This desperate emotion was like an invisible net, wrapping her tightly and sinking her deeper and deeper.

Misunderstanding and uneasiness were like a time bomb that finally exploded on a rainy night.

That night, it was rare for Lu Wanheng to go home early, covered in rain and cold.As soon as she entered the door, she saw Shen Zhiyi sitting on the sofa in the living room, holding a mobile phone in her hand. On the screen was a photo of her and the female collaborator.Shen Zhiyi’s face was pale and his eyes were bloodshot. He had obviously cried.

“Who is this?” Shen Zhiyi’s voice was trembling, pointing at the phone screen and asking Lu Wanheng.

Lu Wanheng’s heart sank. She knew that this quarrel was coming after all.“She was a partner on the project, we just attended events together.”

“Partner? Do we need to be so close? Do we need to laugh so happily?” Shen Zhiyi became more and more excited and her voice became louder and louder, “Lu Wanheng, have you changed your mind a long time ago? Do you think I am not good enough for you? Do you think that me being with you has made you lose face in the financial circle?”

“No, Zhiyi, don’t think so wildly, we just have a working relationship.” Lu Wanheng tried to explain and stepped forward to hold her hand.

“Don’t touch me!” Shen Zhiyi jerked away, stood up, and took a few steps back. His eyes were full of disappointment and pain, “You are always like this. You don’t tell me anything, you hide everything from me. You only say ‘I don’t think too much,’ but why don’t you ask me not to think too much? You don’t go home all day long, don’t answer calls, don’t reply to messages, and now you appear with another woman, smiling so happily. How can I trust you?”

“I’m not telling you because I want to protect you!” Lu Wanheng was also a little excited, and his voice was a little louder. “I can’t let you know about the pressure of the project, the pressure from the boss, or the conspiracy of the competitors. I’m afraid you will be hurt! I distanced myself from you to prevent you from being attacked by rumors. I wanted to protect the project and give you a stable future!”

“Protect me? Your protection means leaving me alone in an empty house, making me live with uneasiness and suspicion every day, and letting me watch you being intimate with other women?” Shen Zhiyi smiled, sad and desperate, “Lu Wanheng, I can’t afford your so-called protection! Do you think that as long as you give me a stable future, it doesn’t matter even if I am wronged now?”

“I didn’t mean that…” Lu Wanheng wanted to explain, but was interrupted by Shen Zhiyi.

“You are! You have never considered my feelings and never asked me what I want!” Shen Zhiyi’s tears kept falling like broken beads. “What I want is not a stable future. What I want is your company and yours.”Frankly, we stay together every day and trust each other like before!But what about you?You pushed me away and treated me as a fragile thing that needed to be protected, but you never thought that I could fight side by side with you and face the wind and rain with you!”

The quarrel between the two became more and more intense, and the emotions that had been pent up for a long time completely exploded.Lu Wanheng felt aggrieved. She had shouldered all the pressure alone, but was misunderstood and accused by Shen Zhiyi. Shen Zhiyi felt painful because the love she had been looking forward to had turned into what it is today, full of lies and alienation.

“Since you don’t believe me so much, and since you think I don’t care about you so much, let’s stay apart for a while.” Lu Wanheng’s voice was full of exhaustion and despair, and she felt that she was unable to explain or redeem herself.

Shen Zhiyi was stunned. She didn’t expect Lu Wan to say such words.She looked at Lu Wanheng’s tired face and the red bloodshot eyes, and the pain and anger in her heart were instantly replaced by despair.”Okay, let’s separate.”

After saying that, Shen Zhiyi turned around and walked into the bedroom, closing the door with a bang, cutting off Lu Wanheng from the door.

From that day on, the two began a cold war.Lu Wanheng moved to the studio and occasionally went back to the apartment to get things, but only in a hurry to avoid meeting Shen Zhiyi.Shen Zhiyi locked himself in the studio. Apart from painting every day, he was in a daze and refused to communicate with anyone.

The atmosphere in the apartment was extremely cold. What was once a cozy little nest was now filled with only silence and alienation.On the couple’s sofa in the living room, the two of them are no longer side by side; the dishes and chopsticks on the dining table are never touched again; the paintings in the balcony studio are getting colder and colder and more depressing.

During the Cold War days, Shen Zhiyi’s depression symptoms became more and more serious.She suffered from insomnia all night long, relying on sleeping pills to manage a few hours of sleep; she barely ate, and her body became weaker and weaker; her paintings became darker, full of destruction and despair.She often sat alone in the studio, looking at the rain outside the window all day long, with tears falling silently, and the pain in her heart was unspeakable.

Lu Wanheng’s life in the studio was not easy either. She stayed up late every day to work on projects, but she could never concentrate. The scene of her quarrel with Shen Zhiyi and her crying face were replayed in her mind.She wanted to pick up her phone countless times and send a message to Shen Zhiyi to say “I’m sorry”, but pride and worry kept her from pressing the send button.

The two seemed to be standing on both sides of an invisible gap, missing each other but hurting each other; caring about each other, but unable to get close.The days of the Cold War passed day by day, and the rain in Wugang also fell one after another, as if silently crying for this troubled love.They don’t know how long this cold war will last, or whether their love can return to what it was before.

Banxia novel, a lot of fun