The Remaining Warmth Of Fog Harbor Chapter 8
byGlimmer in the Dark
Twilight completely swallowed the Wugang skyline as thick white mist surged from the sea, coiling around the blue bricks and black tiles of the Old Town District, wrapping the entire network of alleys in a hazy gray-white shroud. Shen Zhiyi was curled up on a folding chair in her studio. She had been in this position for nearly three hours, her body as stiff as a forgotten statue.
The digits on the electronic clock on her desk flickered. 23:17. The red light was particularly piercing in the dim studio, like a death warrant. Every pulse tore at her frayed nerves. Shen Jiale had bombarded her with dozens of debt-collection texts. The latest one read: Forty-three minutes left. If the money isn’t in my account, I’m sending Mom over there. Just you wait; I’ll make sure you’re ruined. The vicious words stabbed at her eyes, making them ache, yet she could no longer squeeze out a single tear.
Her tears had long since run dry during her repeated breakdowns. All that remained was a dull, dry ache that spread from her eyes to her temples before sinking into the softest part of her heart, twisting until she could barely breathe. She had combed through every social connection she could think of, scrolling through her WeChat list again and again. Her call logs were filled with the busy tones of rejection. Her bank balance was frozen at a dismal four-digit number, and the credit card installment bills sat in her inbox, reminding her that her credit had long since been overextended.
Sell her paintings? She looked at the stacks of drafts in the corner. Those were the result of bloodshot eyes from staying up all night, the creative time she had squeezed out by skipping meals, and the final shred of dignity she had desperately clung to within a family that favored boys over girls. She could accept taking commercial commissions at low prices, she could accept living on instant noodles, and she could accept a cramped, narrow rental, but she could not accept selling her life’s work for a pittance like scrap metal. Even less could she accept using her passion to fill the bottomless pit of her brother’s greed.
The glass window of the studio was covered in condensation. She reached out with her fingertip and drew aimlessly on the cold glass, first sketching the outline of the Wugang pier, then unconsciously tracing a tall profile—it was Lu Wanheng, the person who carried the scent of cedar and who had seriously praised her work. The warmth of that afternoon still lingered in the air. The other woman’s words, “Your paintings have emotion, warmth, and the soul of Wugang,” still echoed in her ears. But at this moment, that faint warmth was no match for the bitter winter of her biological family.
She didn’t dare contact Lu Wanheng.
Even if she were at the end of her rope, even if she were driven into a corner, she was unwilling to expose her most pathetic and wretched side to a client she had only met twice. Lu Wanheng was an investment banking elite, someone standing at the peak of the financial pyramid, frequenting high-end office buildings and handling multi-million dollar projects. Meanwhile, she was just a low-level illustrator who could barely afford her rent. They were worlds apart. The moment she opened her mouth to borrow money, every bit of her dignity would shatter into pieces, and that rare recognition and respect would be stained by the stench of money.
Shen Zhiyi buried her face in her knees, her shoulders twitching uncontrollably. She stifled her suppressed sobs deep in her throat, not daring to make a sound. She was afraid the neighbors would hear, afraid the landlord downstairs would hear, and even more afraid that if she spoke, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from dialing that recently saved number to beg that distant person for a sliver of light.
Just as she was being completely swallowed by despair, even starting to contemplate packing her art supplies and fleeing Wugang, the phone on the corner of the desk suddenly vibrated. It wasn’t an insulting text, but a notification of a bank deposit.
Thinking her eyes were playing tricks on her, she numbly picked up the phone. The notification on the lock screen jumped out clearly: Your account ending in 3724 has received a deposit of RMB 20,000.00. Balance: 21,346.82.
Twenty thousand yuan.
Shen Zhiyi’s pupils constricted suddenly, and her fingertips turned white from gripping the phone too hard. Her hands were shaking as she opened her mobile banking app and repeatedly refreshed the account page. The numbers remained steadily there. The transfer memo was empty, and the sender information showed it as an anonymous transfer. There was no name, no message—it was like a sudden dream.
Who would send her twenty thousand yuan?
Her first thought was a distant relative, but those relatives had long been warned by her parents and avoided her like the plague. She thought of her university mentor, but the mentor had retired years ago and they hadn’t been in touch. She thought of Lin Xiao, but Lin Xiao had just said this afternoon that she was penniless. Every possible candidate flashed through her mind and was eliminated one by one. Finally, a thought that even she found absurd surfaced—Lu Wanheng.
Impossible.
She immediately dismissed the idea. Lu Wanheng was just her client. Their only intersection was professional; they weren’t even friends. There was no reason for the other woman to precisely transfer twenty thousand yuan just as she hit a dead end, let alone choose to do it anonymously.
Shen Zhiyi held her phone, her fingertips icy. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest, filled with both the relief of a narrow escape and a lingering sense of unease and confusion. She instinctively opened her WeChat chat with Lu Wanheng. She typed and deleted, deleted and typed. “Miss Lu, was it you who sent me the money?” “President Lu, thank you for your help.” “Miss Lu, I can’t accept this money.” A string of words was eventually cleared, leaving only a blank space.
She didn’t dare ask. She was afraid of getting a “yes,” and even more afraid of getting a “no,” which would shatter the only fantasy she had left.
At that same moment, on the top floor of the investment bank tower in Wugang’s New District, Lu Wanheng was still sitting behind her desk. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was a city nightscape shrouded in mist, the neon lights blurring into hazy blocks of color. A data analysis report for an investment project was open on her computer screen. She held a black sign pen between her fingers, but she hadn’t touched it to paper for a long time. Her thoughts had already drifted back to that old studio filled with the scent of turpentine.
Ever since leaving the studio, she had felt uneasy. Shen Zhiyi’s clean yet sensitive eyes, that choked-up “Thank you, Wanheng,” and the way her eyes had reddened slightly as she turned away—it was like a small thorn pricking her heart, impossible to ignore.
Having fought her way through the financial world for ten years, Lu Wanheng had developed eyes that could see through people. She could read calculation in a partner’s micro-expressions and perfunctoriness in a subordinate’s tone. Naturally, she could also read the distress and struggle hidden beneath Shen Zhiyi’s calm demeanor. When she left that afternoon, the cautiousness and the longing for recognition in Shen Zhiyi’s voice when she said, “If you get off work early, you’re welcome to come by anytime,” had caused a corner of her long-frozen heart to soften.
She had originally thought it was just the nervousness of a new artist facing a high-quality client, until her assistant submitted a background check on Shen Zhiyi as instructed. All her doubts were answered instantly.
“President Lu, I’ve found the information on Miss Shen’s family. Her hometown is a third-tier county. Her parents favor boys over girls. She has a brother named Shen Jiale who is in vocational college. Recently, the school has been pressing for makeup exam fees and training fees totaling twenty thousand yuan. Miss Shen’s commercial illustration fees for this month haven’t been settled yet, her studio rent is due tomorrow, and her account balance is less than fifteen hundred yuan. She just asked several classmates for loans, but all were rejected.”
The assistant’s voice came through the Bluetooth headset, calm and professional. Every word was like a heavy hammer striking Lu Wanheng’s heart.
Favoring boys over girls, a brother demanding money, overdue rent, no way to borrow… a series of keywords pieced together Shen Zhiyi’s current desperate situation. It also made Lu Wanheng realize what a heavy shackle the girl who had been so focused on her easel that afternoon was carrying. She remembered the hazy mist in Shen Zhiyi’s paintings; it wasn’t just a simple artistic creation, but a portrayal of her own life, trapped by reality.
Lu Wanheng’s fingertips tapped lightly on the desk, her brow furrowing slightly. A rare surge of heartache welled up within her. She had seen too many people bow for profit and too many souls smoothed over by reality, but she had rarely seen someone like Shen Zhiyi—struggling in the mud while still guarding her brush and her purity. This persistence was much like her younger self, whose artistic dreams had been forcibly strangled by her family, and like the version of herself who refused to compromise during that same-sex relationship torn apart by society and family.
Empathy and heartache intertwined, overriding her usual logic and restraint.
“Transfer twenty thousand yuan from my private account. Send it anonymously to Shen Zhiyi’s studio payment account. Do not leave any trace of the transfer, and do not mention my identity.” Lu Wanheng’s voice was calm, betraying little emotion. Only those who knew her well would realize that her tone held an imperceptible tenderness.
“President Lu, do I need to include a note for the purpose?”
“No need. Anonymous is fine.”
“Understood. I’ll handle it immediately.”
Hanging up the call, Lu Wanheng leaned back in her office chair and closed her eyes. The image of Shen Zhiyi’s reddened ears and the gentle mist under her brush appeared in her mind. She didn’t think about a return on her investment, nor did she think about making Shen Zhiyi feel grateful. She simply wanted to help that clean girl protect her studio, her brush, and the last bit of light she had left in Wugang.
She had experienced the despair of being controlled by a family and suppressed by society. She knew how hard it was to be at a dead end. She didn’t want Shen Zhiyi to follow in her footsteps.
As for the anonymity, it was a deliberate choice. She understood Shen Zhiyi’s sensitivity and pride. Direct help would only make the other woman feel inferior and pressured. An anonymous transfer could solve the urgent crisis while preserving Shen Zhiyi’s dignity, giving her enough room to breathe.
The project report on the computer screen was still glaring, but Lu Wanheng could no longer concentrate on work. She picked up her phone and opened Shen Zhiyi’s WeChat Moments. The latest post was from a week ago—a watercolor of the Wugang pier. The caption was just two simple words: Waiting for fog.
Waiting for the fog to dissipate, waiting for the light to come, waiting for a future where she could paint in peace.
Lu Wanheng’s finger paused briefly on the screen. In the end, she didn’t like the post or leave a comment; she just silently exited. She knew that all she could do right now was offer a bit of warmth from the shadows. As for the road after the fog cleared, Shen Zhiyi would have to walk it herself.
Back in the studio, Shen Zhiyi repeatedly checked her account balance. The twenty thousand yuan was truly sitting there, blocking Shen Jiale’s threats and saving her studio and her dignity. With trembling hands, she transferred the twenty thousand to Shen Jiale. It was accepted almost instantly. Immediately after, her brother sent a haughty message: See, wouldn’t it have been easier if you’d just done this earlier? You had to go and make me angry. There was no word of thanks, no hint of guilt, only the entitlement of a taker.
Shen Zhiyi didn’t reply. She blocked Shen Jiale on WeChat and set her mother’s number to be intercepted. Having done all this, she leaned back against the chair as if all her strength had left her. The tension she had held for so long suddenly snapped, and tears welled up again. This time, they weren’t tears of despair, but the relief of a survivor.
She walked to the easel, picked up an eraser, and bit by bit erased that abrupt ink mark on the paper. She squeezed out fresh watercolor pigments, dipped her brush in clean water, and began to sketch Lu Wanheng’s profile once more. This time, her strokes were steady and gentle, infusing all the gratitude and fluttering in her heart into the paper. The mist in the background was no longer oppressive; instead, it was wrapped in a faint, warm light, like that sudden anonymous transfer, like that distant yet gentle person.
She didn’t know who had helped her, but she made a silent promise in her heart. Once she found the owner of this money, she would do everything in her power to repay them—not just the money, but the kindness shown to her in her darkest hour.
After packing her art supplies, she locked the studio door and walked down the old wooden stairs. The fog hit her face, carrying the salty dampness of the sea. The streetlights at the mouth of the alley cast a dim yellow glow through the mist, illuminating the puddles on the bluestone road and the path beneath her feet. The dead end she thought she had reached had turned around in a single night. Like a glimmer of light piercing through thick fog, it allowed her to see the hope of persevering once more.
She looked up toward the New District. The outlines of the skyscrapers were faintly visible in the mist. That was where Lu Wanheng was, a world far beyond her reach. Shen Zhiyi lightly clenched her palm. The confusion in her heart remained, but that secret fluttering had unknowingly begun to take root and sprout.
Returning to her tiny rental, Shen Zhiyi lay in bed, still unable to sleep. She repeatedly looked at the bank transfer record, trying to find a clue in the details, but the anonymous operation was clean and sharp, leaving no identifying information. She wanted to message Lu Wanheng, but every time she gathered her courage, she shrank back. In the end, she simply pinned the other woman’s chat to the top, staring at that minimalist black profile picture for a long time without moving.
Meanwhile, on the top floor of the investment bank tower, Lu Wanheng still hadn’t left. She received feedback from her assistant confirming that Shen Zhiyi had received the transfer, and her tight lips finally relaxed slightly. She picked up the coffee on her desk, took a sip of the lukewarm liquid, and looked at the thick fog outside the window. She whispered to herself, “It’ll be fine once the fog clears.”
These words were for Wugang, and also for the girl struggling in that Old Town studio.
She didn’t know what kind of bond this secret help would create between them, nor did she know what the final outcome of this sudden warmth would be. She had simply followed her heart, reaching out to pull that clean girl back before she fell into the abyss.
As the night deepened, the fog in Wugang grew thicker, enveloping the entire city and two vastly different lives. In the Old Town studio, a new draft was spread across the easel, the outline of a profile becoming clearer. In the New District office building, the cold investment banking elite put down her work, her heart carrying a concern she had never felt before.
The anonymous kindness was like a stone cast into the stagnant lake of Shen Zhiyi’s heart, creating ripples. She didn’t know where this warmth came from, but she gripped it tightly in her hand as the courage to keep moving forward in Wugang.
And Lu Wanheng, standing high above, looked at the Old Town District submerged in the thick mist. The hardness in her eyes faded, replaced by a layer of extremely faint tenderness.
She began to look forward to walking into that studio and seeing a genuine, relaxed smile on the face of the girl holding the brush.
This secret glimmer, unknown to anyone, carried no vows or confessions, yet it carved the first deep bond into their destinies. The fog in Wugang had not yet dissipated, but their story had already begun to continue quietly in a place unseen.