The Versatile Master Artist

”About halfway right.”

Koizumi Katsuko rummaged through her backpack for a moment and found a pink sleeping mask.

She brought this mask with her, planning to take a short nap under the shade after getting tired from painting at noon.

Before boarding the boat, she had deliberately placed it by her side.

Shengzi handed the mask to Gu Weijing.

”Put it on and lie down next to me. Sometimes my mom would play some Pilates meditation tapes or gentle classical music, but I think it’s better to stay quiet now.”

The girl sat cross-legged under the awning of the fishing boat and patted the bamboo mat beside her.

It really seems like yoga.

”Just lie down?”

Gu Weijing took the mask and felt his old waist.

He didn’t think he was very flexible and couldn’t handle some difficult poses.

”Of course, just lie down. You think about my dad’s physique, someone who even finds it hard to bend over, could he manage any high-difficulty postures? Making my dad touch his belly with his back hand, isn’t that a bit much?”

Koizumi Katsuko burst out laughing.

”My mom gave up a long time ago on making him pose in the meditation postures recommended by a Pilates instructor, so just lie next to me obediently. Side-lying, eyes closed, hands naturally by your sides, this is called reclining Zen in Buddhism.”

”Of course, you can also forget about Pilates, yoga, or Zen Buddhism and all these labels.”

”These so-called methods of practice, from a scientific perspective, are just ways people have summed up to better help someone enter a state of tranquility. Lying flat can slow your blood flow and oxygen consumption, calming the sympathetic nervous system.”

”If you can calm yourself by reciting ’Thoughts in the Quiet Night’ in your mind, then you can recite it. They’re all just tools.”

Shengzi explained a few sentences, ”When an artist is calm enough, it’s easier to see inside oneself, understand what they really want to paint, and better comprehend their artistic path.”

”Remember that day in the parking lot, I told you, for artists like us to reach the peaks of our careers, we inevitably have to find our own painter’s path?”

Gu Weijing nodded and took the mask.

Just as he was about to put it on his face, Koizumi Katsuko softly called out to her boyfriend again.

”Wait a moment.”

”When you lie down, face me, um... if you don’t mind, it would be best to take off your shirt too.” Miss Sakai tried to keep her tone calm, but her earlobes blushed once again.

Gu Weijing was a bit surprised.

Being a boy, Shengzi herself didn’t mind, so for him to be coy at this moment would be quite pointless.

It was summer, and he was only wearing a short-sleeved shirt, which had just been soaked by the lake water and had not dried yet, so he took it off.

He put on the mask and lay on his side next to Koizumi Katsuko.

”It feels a bit like Rembrandt.” Shengzi sneaked a glance at Gu Weijing’s chest and playfully remarked.

Gu Weijing felt a bit embarrassed.

Rembrandt’s portraits of the human body tend towards the slender side.

His figure belonged to the lean category, not quite like Uncle Sakai, who resembled a ball of flesh, but without obvious abdominal or muscle definition, not particularly strong, but faintly showing some ribs.

What Koizumi Katsuko said was obviously a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

”If I were Rembrandt, Shengzi’s lovely figure would be like Rubens.” Gu Weijing silently replied in his heart.

Rubens’ brushstrokes are even more sensuous and delicate than Ingres.

This was a sincere compliment, though he felt it was a bit frivolous and dared not say it out loud.

Koizumi Katsuko also eased some of her shy expression with her previous joke, and she lightly placed a long finger on Gu Weijing’s chest.

After all, they had just kissed, and the tactile impact of finger-to-skin contact wasn’t as intense as a kiss.

She gently moved her fingertip from below his collarbone down the center of his chest to the junction of the chest and abdomen, then slowly back up.

Following a rhythmic pattern back and forth.

”Mr. Gu, let your breathing follow the rhythm of my finger movements. Exhale when I draw down, inhale when I draw up, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out... Feel the oxygen filling your chest and then slowly being released by your lungs.”

Koizumi Katsuko recalled her mother’s actions.

Breathe, breathe...

Gu Weijing felt Shengzi’s finger moving slowly across his chest, like a tiny ant crawling lightly.

At first, he felt ticklish and warm. Very soon, as his chest was guided into a rhythmic breathing by Koizumi Katsuko with each deep breath.

He slowly began to feel a sense of calm.

”Listen to the sound of the lake water flowing beneath the boat. Without eye contact, use your mind to feel the scenery of the lake outside, imagining the sunlight sparkling and dancing on the ripples, like scattered diamonds spread across the lake. Imagine you are the lake, vast and tranquil, feeling the serene beauty permeating from your body.”

Koizumi Katsuko seemed to be speaking close to his ear, and he could feel the warm breath spraying on his earlobe, or it was like a background sound from a faraway place.

Gu Weijing quietly lay on his side on the bamboo mat.

He listened intently to the sound of water undulating past the boat’s body, and from a distant unnamed boat, came the ethereal tones played by a Zither Master.

All of his senses came alive.

Gu Weijing slowly, accurately, began to envision the lake scenery in his mind.

The lake water gently rising and falling along the garden’s constructed lake system, with the sunlight dyeing it into a huge piece of light golden Myanmar silk.