AVRL 13

“Like this… is it okay?”

Just as Yu Tingzhi was striving to maintain his composure, Meng Chi, who had already lain down, suddenly turned his head to look over—and happened to meet Yu Tingzhi’s dazed gaze. The last two syllables of his voice dropped abruptly.

They held eye contact for two seconds before Yu Tingzhi was the first to look away, concealing his emotions. He stepped forward, picked up the gray-blue thin blanket that Meng Chi had tossed aside, shook it open, and draped it over Meng Chi’s waist and hips. “I’ll start from the shoulders. Make sure you don’t catch a cold.”

This thinly veiled concern made the atmosphere between them suddenly grow restless and unsettled.

Meng Chi turned his head away, fixing his gaze in the opposite direction, and let out a low “Mm” from his throat.

Yang Zile had cranked the air conditioning up to 30 degrees—catching a cold was definitely out of the question; heatstroke, on the other hand, might actually be a possibility.

The room fell silent, with only the sticky sound of the brush mixing on the palette. Because he couldn’t see, Meng Chi’s hearing and sense of touch became sharper, and the presence of the person behind him grew all the more pronounced.

The mystery of the unknown stirred a hint of anticipation in Meng Chi’s heart. To keep himself from letting his imagination run wild, he fixed his eyes on the white cloth in front of him, studying its weave. One moment he was thinking the fabric wasn’t woven tightly enough; the next, that it probably wasn’t pure cotton—a bit stiff—and was Yang Zile maybe setting the temperature too high? It really was getting a bit warm.

Until his shoulder suddenly felt a chill, abruptly cutting off his wandering thoughts. His body reacted involuntarily with a slight twitch.

Yu Tingzhi’s movement stopped at once. “It’s a bit cold. Give yourself a moment to adjust.”

“It’s fine,” Meng Chi said. “Go ahead and paint.”

Yu Tingzhi didn’t reply, but soon Meng Chi felt the brush make contact with his skin again, the cool stimulation extending downward from his shoulder.

Because Yu Tingzhi was using a fan brush, aside from the sticky sensation of the pigment itself, there was also the itch of the bristles scraping across his skin.

Meng Chi had a small weakness—he was ticklish. Fortunately, the paint was cold enough to counteract the itch, easing that faint, elusive torment.

Painting on a human body was vastly different from painting on paper—whether it was the color payoff of the pigments or the inherent light-and-shadow relationships of the body itself, everything affected the final visual result. This put the painter’s observational skills and control over color and tone to the test.

Clearly, Yu Tingzhi was an outstanding painter. He didn’t even do a preliminary color test on Meng Chi’s skin; instead, he laid down the brush without any hesitation. With a single fluid motion, the pigment-laden fan brush traced a sinuous line from shoulder to waist, defining the area before he began applying broad swaths of color.

Neither of them spoke. Only the faint sound of the brush sweeping across skin broke the silence. Having grown accustomed to the sensation of pigment building up on his skin, Meng Chi gradually relaxed. Staring at the white cloth grew tedious, so he let his gaze wander, taking in everything visible in the room.

Starting with the photography equipment set up indoors, he gradually moved on to appreciating the spring scenery in the garden.

The placement of this sofa was clever—through the floor-to-ceiling window, he could see the garden. The full splendor of spring was shimmering in the sunlight.

Only then did Meng Chi realize that the garden view he’d glimpsed upon entering was merely the tip of the iceberg. The rear garden visible through the floor-to-ceiling window was a hidden world of its own.

Not only was there a tall crabapple tree, but also a vast expanse of tulips in various colors—red, orange, yellow—like delicate little lanterns gently swaying in the breeze under the sunlight, surging into a sea of blossoms.

After appreciating the spring scenery for a while, Meng Chi shifted his gaze to the exposed paintings nearby. Now that he’d taken the white cloth for himself, the previously covered artworks had revealed their true faces.

Most were landscapes. The one closest to him depicted the crabapple tree and the tulips. Though Meng Chi couldn’t discern the technical nuances of the brushwork or style, he could tell it was a freehand, impressionistic piece. The flowers were rendered in nothing more than daubs of color, yet they vividly conveyed a sense of vitality—he could almost feel the blossoms trembling in the wind, just like the scene he’d seen in the garden earlier.

“Did you paint that?” Meng Chi suddenly asked.

Yu Tingzhi followed his gaze, then let out an “Mm.”

“Do you paint here often?” Meng Chi asked again.

“Not often—occasionally,” Yu Tingzhi said. “That piece was painted last year. My mother said she wanted to see the tulips in the garden, so I painted them.”

Meng Chi asked, puzzled, “Why didn’t you just take a photo and send it to her?”

Yu Tingzhi paused for a second in his work, lifted his gaze toward that painting, and fell silent, offering no answer.

Sensing his silence, Meng Chi’s thoughts immediately veered off course. He assumed Yu Tingzhi’s mother was no longer around—that he’d asked an inappropriate question and touched on something painful.

“Sorry,” Meng Chi said softly. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Hm?” Yu Tingzhi asked. “Didn’t mean to what?”

Meng Chi inwardly winced, thinking, come on, Yu Tingzhi—does something matter or doesn’t it? Wouldn’t the best move be to just change the subject? Why does your emotional intelligence keep swinging up and down?

In those few seconds of Meng Chi’s silence, Yu Tingzhi had already read his thoughts from his expression, and he let out a low laugh. “You’ve misunderstood. My mother is still very much alive.”

At that, Meng Chi’s lips parted slightly, then closed again after a frozen moment.

So awkward.

“She’s abroad and rarely comes back.” After a pause, Yu Tingzhi added, “To be honest, whether it’s a photo or a painting, she doesn’t really care much either way. I painted it because I wanted to.”

Meng Chi listened in silence as his gaze began to wander again, shifting from that painting to a fill light nearby.

The light wasn’t on, but sunlight struck its surface, turning its glass into a mirror that clearly reflected the scene behind Meng Chi—the scene he couldn’t see.

Yu Tingzhi knelt on one knee, palette in one hand, brush in the other, focused intently on his work with lowered eyes and composed brow. The gold-rimmed glasses on his nose caught the light, obscuring his eyes from Meng Chi’s view. Yet Meng Chi’s bare back seemed to feel his gaze, leaving traces with every movement of the brush.

Though Meng Chi found Yu Tingzhi’s words somewhat odd, he also sensed that the mother-son relationship wasn’t particularly close. Afraid of misreading the situation again, he refrained from offering any unsolicited comfort, simply saying, “It’s beautifully painted.”

Yu Tingzhi smiled, his hand never pausing as the brush touched Meng Chi’s ribs at his waist. “If you like it, it’s yours.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Meng Chi, lying on the sofa, gave a violent jolt. Yu Tingzhi’s brush slid abruptly across his waist, leaving a streak of verdant green on the white cloth.

Yu Tingzhi asked, “Did I hurt you?”

“No, not at all,” Meng Chi said, slightly embarrassed. “It’s just a little ticklish.”

Meng Chi’s ticklish spots weren’t under his arms or the soles of his feet—they were his waist and the area behind his ears.

Yu Tingzhi looked down, his gaze falling on Meng Chi’s waist, where he noticed a faint layer of goosebumps had risen. After a moment, he set down his brush and suddenly reached out with his right hand, pressing it against Meng Chi’s waist. With slight pressure from his fingertip, he spread the bit of pigment out.

“How about this?” Yu Tingzhi asked. “Still ticklish?”

Meng Chi felt as though he’d been burned—every sensation in his body converging on that single patch of skin where Yu Tingzhi’s fingers gripped.

The touch of fingers was far more intense than the brush. Though it lacked the prickling of bristles, the warmth and pressure of his fingertips made Meng Chi’s entire body tense up, his breath catching in his throat.

It wasn’t ticklish, but it was too hot.

Yu Tingzhi seemed not to notice his tension, still carefully working the pigment into the shape he originally wanted.

In his peripheral vision, the surface of the fill light clearly reflected Yu Tingzhi’s movements. Meng Chi drew in an almost imperceptible breath.

Those fair, slender hands he had praised, lingered on, and fantasized about—now stained dark by the pigment—yet without any sense of grime, only a strange, artistic quality.

Those hands roamed across his body, dirtying him while also dirtying themselves. The interplay of sight and touch made Meng Chi’s breathing grow heavier, his ears burning with heat.

It was as if he were personally defiling purity, deriving pleasure from the sin. Meng Chi, his heart itching unbearably, held back again and again—but still let his desire surface.

“You… stop for a moment.” As soon as he spoke, his voice came out hoarse enough to startle even himself.

Hearing this, Yu Tingzhi paused but didn’t withdraw his right hand. He slowly raised his gaze to Meng Chi’s partially hidden profile, his voice unexpectedly soft: “Is it that uncomfortable?”

Of course it was uncomfortable!

But it wasn’t his waist that was suffering—it was his metaphorical, spiritual second self!

Meng Chi screamed internally, yet maintained as neutral an expression as possible, adjusting his tone as he spoke: “You’d better use the brush. This can’t be easy to paint with, right?”

“No,” Yu Tingzhi said, making his case logically as he continued his movements. “For me, using a brush and using my hand are the same. In fact, using my hand is more natural—the lines flow more smoothly, and it’s easier to achieve the effect I want.”

It’s not the same for me!

And it’s definitely not the effect I want!

Meng Chi roared inwardly, but kept a perfectly pleasant demeanor on the surface: “Just switch back. You, you’re gripping me a bit too hard—it hurts.”

Yu Tingzhi looked at him for two seconds. “Then I’ll go lighter.”

Meng Chi: “…”

Yu Tingzhi was indeed a man of his word—he did lighten his touch considerably, but that only made things more torturous for Meng Chi. Now it wasn’t just his lower back that itched; it was his entire body, including the rapidly pounding heart in his chest.

Unable to find a valid excuse to refuse Yu Tingzhi, Meng Chi had no choice but to resign himself. He buried his face in the crook of his arm, trying to rein in his thoughts and force his flag to lower, consoling himself with the thought that at least he was lying face down—no one could see anything but himself.

But precisely because of this ostrich-like behavior, he failed to notice the faint, not-so-subtle smile rippling in the light-colored pupils behind Yu Tingzhi’s glasses.