The Romance of a Young Painter

Zhou Nianjiu was wearing a pink helmet and was sitting in the back seat of a small eDonkey. The car moved deftly in the far right lane, passing by the bicycle next to it from time to time. Such a close distance made him feel uneasy, and couldn't help but put his legs inward. Put it away, holding the frame tightly with your hands.

"It's going to be a turn ahead, hold on to it," Shen Guangji said.

"What?" The helmet blocked the transmission of the voice, Zhou Nianjiu couldn't hear clearly, but soon he understood what the other party said, the sudden inertia made him unsteady, and he instinctively hugged Shen Guangji's waist.

Suddenly a firework bloomed in the sky, followed by a second, and a third... The sky was orange-red at dusk, and it seemed that the fireworks were not very bright, but it still attracted many passers-by to stop and watch.

Shen Guangji also pulled over and stopped the car, turned around and asked, "Can fireworks be set off in City S now?"

"It seems that it's only available during Chinese New Year." Zhou Nianjiu quickly let go of his hands and jumped down from the back seat. He couldn't figure out the situation with such daytime fireworks.

"Although it's not in season, it looks pretty good, doesn't it?" Shen Guangji said.

"Yes." Zhou Nianjiu took off his helmet. It was the first time he saw fireworks in summer. There was no warmth from the cold winter night, only pure light and beauty remained.

The flowers were still blooming one after another, but they didn't stop for a long time. Xintiandi was not far away. Shen Guangji followed the navigation and arrived at the destination smoothly. There were many stalls in the square over there, which looked very lively. Zhou Nianjiu followed behind Shen Guangji who was pushing the cart, Look around curiously.

"Hi, Shen!" A blond foreign youth warmly greeted him, "I'm sorry my friend, I really can't leave today, my little Nana is so beautiful, I can't rest assured that she is here alone."

"It's not a day or two since you value sex over friends."

"Please give me a chance to make amends, my friend, you must know that you are as important as my previous girlfriends." The blond young man apologized.

"I don't feel honored to have such a status in the mind of a guy who changes girlfriends as often as he changes clothes, okay?" Shen Guangji threw the car keys to him in disgust, "Hey, your little lover, things Back to the original owner."

The blond young man hugged his friend flatteringly, and then noticed the person behind him: "Who is this handsome oriental boy? Could it be your new boyfriend?"

They spoke French, Zhou Nianjiu was confused, but seeing the exaggerated expression of the blond young man, he always felt that it was not a good thing to say.

"Andre, put away the dirty thoughts in your head," Shen Guangji gave him a warning look, and said, "This is Zhou Nianjiu, my new friend."

"Love is so beautiful, how can you use such vulgar words to describe new friends? Is this the implicit expression you Orientals have for people you have a crush on?" Andrea shrugged, then stretched out his hand to Zhou Nianjiu, using Broken Chinese said: "Hello, my name is Andrea Cahill."

Zhou Nianjiu shook hands politely and said, "Hi, I'm Zhou Nianjiu, nice to meet you."

Andrea winked at him and said, "Shen said you are his friend, and I am Shen's friend, so we are also friends." To be able to say this twisted sentence so smoothly, he practiced a lot .

friend?It turned out that this was how he introduced himself to this person. It was a bit sudden but also expected. Zhou Nianjiu subconsciously glanced at Shen Guangji. After all, for him, Shen Guangji was the first one besides his family to be able to get along so well. It would be great to be friends.

"Andre, put away your tricks of hooking up with girls." Shen Guangji warned him again in French.

"Okay, okay, let my little Nana take your little friends to have some snacks first, we have prepared authentic crepes today." Andrea took the two of them to the back of a booth, a petite and pretty The Chinese girl smiled at them shyly.

"Dear little Nana, this is my good brother Shen and his little friend Zhou, please prepare a snack for them, I would like to invite them to sit down." Feeling affectionate, he kissed Nana's cheek affectionately. Nana blushed and pushed him, turned around and went to work quickly.

Shen Guangji sighed, and said in French: "Andre, you'd better leave China as soon as possible to harm girls in other countries."

"Shen, you can't be so cruel. I won't be able to live without my little Nana." Andre quickly refused.

"We all know that you will live a good life." Shen Guangji turned his head and said to Zhou Nianjiu in Chinese, "Didn't you say that you can't capture the depths of the model's heart well? Love is the most unconcealable emotion of human beings. The French are romantic in nature. Especially like this, try to take Andre as an object of observation and see if it helps you."

Shen Guangji did not shy away from Andre.

Andre's Chinese level is limited to simple daily greetings, a little more complex requires guesswork, although he seems to understand what his friend said, but combined with Zhou Nianjiu's reaction, the blond young man instinctively protested in French: "Oh, Shen ,you can not do that."

"You still owe me an apology, don't you?" Shen Guangji signaled Zhou Nianjiu to go to Andre's girlfriend first.

Zhou Nianjiu couldn't participate in their conversation, such an arrangement was more in line with his wishes.

"Oh you bad guy, I should have learned to stay away from you when I first dealt with you." Andrea shook his head helplessly and said, "Well, for your love, I have to sacrifice My love, who called us brothers?"

"It's a friend, not a lover," Shen Guangji corrected again, "Actually, I prefer him to be a student of our school, but unfortunately he refuses to accept the admission quota I offer."

Andre said nonchalantly: "Only you Chinese can distinguish the boundaries between friends and lovers so rigidly. I think your new friend looks very good. Are you really going to try it?"

"No." Shen Guangji said, "The undiscovered jade cannot be destroyed by something unreliable like love."

Andrea shook his head and looked at his friend, as if looking at a hopeless patient: "Love never destroys anything, it only plants, waters, and makes the tree of life flourish and bear fruit."

"Do you mean the fruit of crime? This child is still underage." Shen Guangji said.

Andrea shook his head in disbelief: "Oh no, I always don't know the age of you Orientals, and you all look similar."

"Believe me, a large part of Chinese people also can't distinguish the faces of Europeans and Americans. In many cases, they can only be distinguished by hair color." Shen Guangji said.

"Fortunately, my dear little Nana is not included." Andrea happily blew a kiss to his girlfriend.

Nana didn't pay attention here, she was talking to Zhou Nianjiu: "Andre often talks about Shen, they met in Paris seven years ago, Andre was working as a photography assistant in a fashion studio, Shen is on a study tour in France, and the two of them rented the same youth boarding center." Nana deftly flipped the cake on the baking tray, "But one of them didn't work, and the other left early and returned late. At the beginning, they Almost never met."

"Then how did they know each other?" Zhou Nianjiu had no friends, so he envied the atmosphere between them.

Nana said: "It is said that they occupied too much public kitchen resources, interfered with the normal life of other roommates, and were kicked out by the landlord on the same day."

"Is this a reason?" Zhou Nianjiu expressed difficulty in understanding.

Nana pursed her lips and smiled, and said, "What Andre said was because the food they cooked was too delicious, which seriously hurt the hearts of other people who were ruled by European dark cuisine. In short, after they were kicked out, they rented together. We bought an apartment and got to know each other like that. Well, let’s bake a hot crepe and choose your favorite flavor, banana with chocolate sauce or strawberry with honey?”

"Please give me chocolate." Zhou Nianjiu said.

Nana quickly rolled one and handed it to him, then made the other two into two flavors, packed them up and sent them to the latter two.

Andre quickly took away the strawberry one, Shen Guangji took a bite of the chocolate one as a matter of course, and said, "She's doing better than you."

"Of course, my little Nana is the best." As he said that, he fell in love with his girlfriend again.

Zhou Nianjiu ate the sweet crepe and said to Shen Guangji, "They look really good."

"Andre is a sensitive person, and he also knows how to respect and consider women. This may be related to his life with his mother since he was a child." Shen Guangji saw that the two over there did not pay attention to them, and said softly: "Unfortunately, so far So far, no girl can make Andrea stop his wandering footsteps. The short-term relationship is always like glue, because he doesn't know when this relationship will end abruptly. He burns himself every time. in love."

Zhou Nianjiu looked at the couple not far away, and suddenly felt that the crepe in his mouth was bitter. He said, "Why did I choose to start when I knew it wouldn't last long? It's worthwhile to myself and others." It's the responsibility, isn't it?"

Shen Guangji remembered that he once asked Andre that way, how did the other party answer?He remembered that Andrea said in a rare and serious way: Dear friend, some things are irresistible when they come, such as love, such as loneliness, such as death.

But he didn't intend to tell Zhou Nianjiu these things, so he said: "Andrea has his own set of rules of life, we don't have to agree with them, but they are still worthy of respect."

Zhou Nianjiu shook her head and said, "Mr. Shen, I can choose to respect him, but I don't like such a person, even though he is your friend."

Regarding Zhou Nianjiu's frankness, Shen Guangji just smiled and said: "As I said before, you can treat him as an object of observation. As a painter, you have no obligation to like every one of your models, you just need to capture every part of him." Demeanor and movements, dig out the emotions and personality represented by these demeanors and movements, before that, a proper understanding of this person’s experience will be beneficial for you to complete this interpretation.”

Don't need someone to like to paint?

This kind of idea completely subverted Zhou Nianjiu's cognition. Since he mastered the basic techniques, he only painted what he admired and could please his eyes. The beauty obtained is purified, sublimated, and infinitely magnified, and finally presents a pure and extreme picture on the canvas.

Is it not just the unknown world, is this preference also a factor that limits him?Zhou Nianjiu couldn't help looking at Andre and Nana a few more times, or maybe this preference is also one of the reasons for the unknown existence?Will Shen Guangji's subversive suggestion be the key to breaking the bottleneck?

Shen Guangji noticed his hesitation and said: "You have enough time to try different things, and these will eventually become valuable experiences."

This remark made Zhou Nianjiu finally let go of the hesitation in his heart.

Yes, there is still a long way to go, and there are no shortcuts, and new attempts cannot be distinguished from useful or useless, but this attempt itself is a meaningful thing, after all, there is nothing worse than being stuck in the bottleneck, right?

"Shen, where's your little friend?" When Andre broke away from the state of you and me, he found that there was one person missing.

"He, he probably went back to draw." Shen Guangji said.

"Oh no, I let people go just like that. Don't you know what time it is? You don't invite people to have a meal together. How about the state of etiquette?" Andre spread his hands exaggeratedly.

"There will be opportunities in the future." Shen Guangji played with the bamboo carving pendant on his mobile phone, which was given to him by the obviously unsociable young painter when he said goodbye.

The sharp-eyed Andre found this little thing, and quickly guessed its origin: "Dear Shen, this is the first time I've seen you take care of someone like this, don't rush to deny it, my friend, I I can tell when you are self-cultivated and when you are sincere. I don't believe you have no idea about your little friend. You look like a hunter ready to go, lurking and waiting for the prey to relax Moment."

Shen Guangji disagreed and said: "Andre, in this world, love is not the only thing that can make a person interested in another stranger. There is something much more beautiful in him than love."

"You mean talent? Talent?" Andre clearly disagreed with him, "Dear Shen, I remember you don't agree that talent represents everything."

"Maybe it's because those talents are not enough to attract me, but now I see something different," Shen Guangji said, "I expect him to grow and flourish like a cedar tree in Lebanon, with beautiful branches, dense shadows like a forest, tall and extremely tall. It is so big, and the top of the tree is inserted into the clouds, no matter where you are, you can see its beauty."

Andrea shook his head and said, "my dear Shen, sometimes I think you are a lunatic."

Shen Guangji smiled and said, "Who said it wasn't?"

Appreciating the tangled expression of his friend, Shen Guangji finally said: "My flight will return to City B in three hours, and it's just in time to leave now. Goodbye, Andre." Then he said to Nana who was closing the booth, " Thanks for the crepe and good luck."

"Goodbye, my friend." Andre hugged him vigorously, "I will go to City B to find you, alone."

Shen Guangji didn't look at Nana again, he said in words that only the two of them could understand: "I hope this day will not be too fast."