The Remaining Warmth Of Fog Harbor Chapter 6

Harsh Demands

The warm light of the studio still carried the faint scent of turpentine. Lu Wanheng’s profile was just beginning to take shape on the paper. The ochre pigment on the tip of the brush sat on the edge of the paper, not yet having time to blend into the hazy texture of Wugang. Suddenly, the old phone on the corner of the desk erupted. The sharp ringing pierced the rare silence of the studio, causing Shen Zhiyi’s hand to jerk violently. A sudden ink mark slashed across the center of the paper, ruining half the sketch.

Frowning, she set down her brush and reached for the phone. The words “Brother Shen Jiale” flashing on the screen were like a thin needle, instantly puncturing the warmth she had felt from Lu Wanheng’s earlier approval. Her heart sank abruptly.

She didn’t even need to answer to guess what the call would be about.

From the day she graduated and left home, the calls from her family never contained greetings. There were only endless demands: tuition, living expenses, sneakers, gaming gear. Every time, they were entitled; every time, they were impossible to refuse.

Shen Zhiyi’s fingertips trembled. After hesitating for a few seconds, she pressed the answer button and held the phone to her ear. Her voice was very low, carrying an instinctive timidity. “Hello, Jiale.”

“Shen Zhiyi, where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you for ages!” Shen Jiale’s boorish roar immediately exploded from the receiver, mixed with the noisy game sound effects and the smell of smoke from an internet cafe, making her eardrums ache. “Hurry up and transfer twenty thousand yuan to me. The school needs the make-up exam fees and skill training fees tomorrow. If it’s late, I won’t be able to graduate!”

Twenty thousand yuan.

Shen Zhiyi’s head buzzed, and her vision momentarily went dark. Her commercial commission fees for this month hadn’t been settled yet, and she had only received the deposit for Lu Wanheng’s custom piece. After deducting the studio rent, art supplies, and her own apartment rent, she couldn’t even scrape together two thousand yuan, let alone twenty thousand. To her, it was an astronomical figure that made it hard to breathe.

“Jiale, I… I don’t have that much money right now.” She gripped the phone until her knuckles turned white, her voice as light as a feather, carrying a humble plea. “Can we wait a bit? Once my commission fees come in this month, I’ll transfer part of it to you first, and I’ll slowly put together the rest—”

“Put it together? Put together my ass!” Shen Jiale interrupted her directly, profanity slipping out. His tone was full of impatience and contempt. “Mom said you’re an artist in Wugang and you make tens of thousands for a single order. Why are you acting poor? Shen Zhiyi, let me tell you, you’re my sister, so you should support me. Mom and Dad raised you for so long; if you don’t pay for my schooling, who will?”

“I don’t have orders that pay tens of thousands. I’m just a freelance illustrator, and I can barely afford the rent.” Shen Zhiyi’s voice began to tremble, and her eyes uncontrollably reddened. “Last time you wanted sneakers, I ate instant noodles for half a month to get the money for you. This time it’s really too much, I truly can’t produce it…”

“If you can’t produce it, can’t you borrow it?” Shen Jiale’s voice became even more malicious. “Don’t you know rich people in Wugang? Borrow it from those clients of yours! If all else fails, go sell your paintings. Sell all those trashy paintings of yours, but you have to get my tuition money together! If I can’t graduate, the whole family will be dragged down to death by you!”

“Those are my works, not things that can be sold just like that…” Shen Zhiyi whispered her protest, but this sentence completely ignited Shen Jiale’s fury.

“Works? Bullshit works! Can they be eaten? Can they pay my tuition?” Shen Jiale sneered, his tone mean to the extreme. “Mom and Dad said long ago that your painting is a waste of time, drawing all that messy stuff all day long, completely useless. If it weren’t for the fact that you can make money, they would have sent you back to our hometown to work in a factory long ago. I’m telling you, Shen Zhiyi, that twenty thousand yuan must be in my account by midnight tonight. Otherwise, I’ll tell Mom you’re being unfilial and let her come to your studio to make a scene so you can’t stay in Wugang anymore!”

“Don’t… Jiale, don’t let Mom come here.” Shen Zhiyi pleaded in a panic. At the thought of her mother rushing into the studio, calling her a disgrace and unfilial in front of neighbors and clients, she felt cold all over. “I’ll think of something, I’ll try my best…”

“What do you mean ‘try your best’? It must be done!” Shen Jiale dropped the words viciously. “I don’t care what method you use—steal it or rob it—if I don’t see the money tonight, just you wait!”

With that, the call was rudely disconnected. The busy tone beeped repeatedly like heavy hammer blows striking Shen Zhiyi’s heart.

She stood frozen in place, clutching her phone. The warm yellow light fell on her, but it couldn’t dispel the chill rising from her bones. The ink mark on the paper was hideous and glaring, interlaced with the curses of her brother from the receiver, tearing the little bit of confidence and joy she had just gathered into shreds.

She leaned against the easel, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Her throat felt as if it were blocked by a wad of water-soaked cotton; she couldn’t catch her breath, nor could she make a sound. Grievance, despair, and helplessness—all these emotions surged wildly in her chest, finally turning into hot tears that broke through her eyes and crashed onto the paper, blurring the abrupt ink mark and smudging Lu Wanheng’s profile.

Why?

She had clearly worked so hard. She painted until the early hours of the morning every day, took the cheapest commercial commissions, and didn’t dare complain after revising drafts dozens of times. She lived frugally, not even willing to buy a cup of milk tea, yet she still couldn’t fill the bottomless pit that was her family.

Just because she was the older sister, just because she was a girl, did she deserve to be squeezed, exploited, and wantonly insulted?

Her parents’ favoritism was like a blunt knife that had been cutting away at her self-esteem since childhood. Her brother’s sense of entitlement treated her sacrifices as a matter of course. She struggled alone in Wugang, wanting to protect her brushes and the tiny bit of light that belonged to her, but her family members were like chains, dragging her down, trying to pull her back into that swamp of favoring boys over girls, ensuring she could never hold her head up.

Shen Zhiyi crouched down and buried her face in her knees. Her suppressed sobs finally broke through her throat, fragmented and desperate, echoing in the empty studio. She didn’t dare cry too loudly for fear of being heard by the neighbors, so she could only bite her lower lip hard, letting the tears soak her pant legs as her shoulders heaved.

The balance of the deposit sat quietly in her account, but that was for Lu Wanheng’s custom piece. It was a high-quality order she had finally managed to get, her last stand for her painting. She couldn’t touch it, and she didn’t dare to.

But her brother’s threat was right in front of her. She had witnessed her mother’s tantrums and scenes since she was a child. Once it reached the studio, the tiny world she had worked so hard to establish in Wugang would completely collapse.

She lifted her tear-stained face and looked at the thick, lingering fog outside the window. The sky in Wugang was always gray, just like her life, without a single glimmer of light.

The watercolor paints were still on the table, and the faint scent of cedar perfume seemed to linger in the air. That was the scent Lu Wanheng had left behind, her only warmth during this period. But this warmth was too fragile; in the face of the heavy pressure from her family of origin, it was powerless.

Shen Zhiyi reached out and wiped the tears from her face bit by bit. Her fingertips were ice-cold, and even her heart ached with the chill. Looking at the tear-stained sketch and the irreparable ink mark, she finally couldn’t help but bury her face in her arms and let out a suppressed, broken sob.

Twenty thousand yuan was like a mountain pressing down on her shoulders, making even breathing feel painful.

She didn’t know where to get the money, how to escape this demand, or how much longer this endless exploitation would continue.

The warm light in the studio remained, but Shen Zhiyi’s world had completely fallen into the cold, thick fog following that piercing phone call, with no way out in sight.