Contest

The first snow fell in Jingzhou all night without any delay.When I woke up the next day, the snow on the road had piled up seven or eight centimeters thick, and no one had cleaned it yet.

Under the leadership of their parents, the children in the community had a snowball fight happily, leaving a string of footprints on the thick snow.

Xu Jiangtong changed into a turtleneck sweater and a goose down jacket, and drove the car to the high-speed rail station with difficulty.

His appetite also dropped sharply after winter.Fortunately, the workstations in the office are well-heated, so he sticks to the radiator every day, writes papers and checks information, and goes downstairs to buy some bread and drinks when he is hungry, looking like he is eating and waiting to die.

The public welfare activities of the orphanage were also postponed to next spring due to road conditions and exam months.

Winter seems to be a season when everything is stumbling.

No matter how hard he tried to regulate his emotions, he still couldn't clear up the nameless tiredness all over his body.Even when Tao Xihong asked him to play, he casually found a few excuses at work and turned it down.

Colleagues also noticed the change in him. Yue Yang asked about his health every day, which made him feel even more tired.

One day at noon, when he was about to fall asleep while reading documents, his phone suddenly vibrated.

He opened it and saw that it was a call from Tao Xihong.After pressing the answer button, a long-lost voice sounded: "Mr. Xiaojiang, are you out of class today?"

"what happened?"

"Go to the window and look down."

The desk was next to the window, Xu Jiangtong moved a few steps suspiciously, and looked down.

A lot of red petals were sprinkled in the snow-covered flower bed below the building, with a heart drawn in the middle and "Happy Birthday" written in four big characters.

"Surprise!" Tao Xihong was standing on the edge of the flower bed and beckoning to himself happily. The snowman next to him was still holding a conspicuous red plum blossom in his mouth.

Xu Jiangtong glanced at the calendar subconsciously, and asked in surprise, "How do you know that today is my birthday?"

"It's written on the admission list of the Academy of Fine Arts." Tao Xihong raised his phone proudly, "I didn't expect that the teacher is only 28 years old."

"So I look old?" Xu Jiangtong asked his words.

"No, it's just that you have a lot of experience." Tao Xihong quickly changed the topic, "Come down for a walk? It's not cold today."

"Thank you." For the sake of celebrating his own birthday, Xu Jiangtong put on his coat and walked out of the office, asking casually, "What's your birthday?"

"I just turned 19." He answered irrelevantly.

Xu Jiangtong didn't ask any more questions, because the elevator signal was not good, so he hastily hung up the phone.Tao Xihong was still standing on the flower bed, and when he saw him walk to the door, he happily jumped over.

He didn't know where a few lumps of snow rubbed on the top of his head, the tip of his nose was red from the cold, and he blinked excitedly at himself with his small canine teeth exposed.

"Run slower." Xu Jiangtong was worried that he would fall.

Tao Xihong patted his chest: "Don't worry, I have a really good sense of balance."

After speaking, he pointed to the masterpiece behind him and said, "How is it? Do you like it? It's a pity that the school didn't give out scholarships, so I don't have money to buy you gifts."

"You haven't worked yet, don't waste your money." Xu Jiangtong walked to the flower bed and admired the surprise he gave him up close.The red petals were picked from the plum grove in the south and spread on the snow, as if no one in a hundred miles would know that it was his birthday.

The snowman's arm was propped up by a tree branch, with a small volleyball embedded in it, and a big red flower in its mouth, probably made by Tao Xihong himself.

Xu Jiangtong squatted down with a smile, wiped off the excess snow on the snowman's head, and skillfully pinched out a pair of ears.

"Aren't your hands cold?" Tao Xihong anxiously handed over a pair of gloves.

"It will be fine soon, it's okay." Xu Jiangtong was immersed in the joy of pinching his face, forgetting his numb hands.The fingers sketched and pressed on the lifeless snowball, and the outline was pinched out in a short while.

Tao Xihong took a closer look, and it turned out to be the mean dog's head in the WeChat emoji package, with a flower in his mouth, which perfectly combined cuteness and beating.

"You..." Tao Xihong was momentarily at a loss for words.

Seeing this, Xu Jiangtong smiled even happier: "Is it similar to you?"

Tao Xihong was so angry that he took a few deep breaths, and silently said to himself: Forget it, don't be as knowledgeable as a birthday star.

"Your hands are red from the cold, and you still have the mind to joke with me." He walked into the room with Xu Jiangtong's waist in his arms, "Go to your office for a chat?"

"Okay, I just have something for you." Xu Jiangtong didn't refuse, "But in front of other teachers, you can't be big or small."

"No problem." Tao Xihong obediently followed behind.

Xu Jiangtong walked back to his desk and took out a USB flash drive from the drawer: "I have considered Ji Xiyun's matter clearly. For her, composition and technique are secondary. The most important thing at the moment is to bring her vision out of the The small space of the orphanage."

"so?"

"This USB flash drive contains short documentaries I shot around the world. All the background sounds are collected naturally, and the sound and picture are synchronized. If you can describe the picture to her, it should help her build a better sense of space."

"Can such an important thing really be given to us?"

"I've been thinking about the boundary between realism and artistic conception for the past few days. I may not be able to do some things better than Ji Xiyun." Xu Jiangtong stuffed the U disk into his hand and patted him on the shoulder, "It's fine if it's not for commercial use."

Many times, giving is a two-way street.Xu Jiangtong is willing to contribute to Ji Xiyun, and also believes that Tao Xihong will not betray his own works - this sense of security comes from his every move.

Tao Xihong clenched the USB flash drive tightly, even though he had the real thing in his hand, he still felt so unreal.

"Thank you, Teacher Xu." This was the first time he called Xu Jiangtong seriously.

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You guessed it right, Teacher Xiaojiang is indeed a Scorpio, on November 11th.