“…But.” Shen Jiaru outlined the exciting and joyful growth that Hua Jie would experience in the next six months to a year. After a few minutes of silence, he finally spoke again.
‘But’ might be delayed, but it will surely come.
Hua Jie immediately sat up straight, her expression extremely serious, her fists clenched.
“When climbing uphill, one should be more vigilant. Many problems can only be solved when the wind is at your back.”
“By the time you’ve finished the uphill journey and the problems are fully exposed, it might be too late to solve them.”
“Even if you can solve them, addressing problems against the wind is unduly painful.”
“After the tide goes out, those who swam naked will find it too late to look for clothes.”
Shen Jiaru stared into Hua Jie’s eyes.
“…” The girl gazed steadily back at him, her eyes gradually becoming serene.
“So, the more relaxed and carefree you feel, the more awake you should be.”
“When everything is going well, your career and life are on the rise, you need to stay calm and review.”
“Understand yourself, understand the situation, and then immediately start planning for the future.”
“The achievements you have now come from the past, and your future depends on the present.”
“Hua Jie, every artist, when they reach a ceiling in basic sketching, quick drawing, or color theory, faces a significant setback in life.”
“If you only start thinking about your next steps when you hit that point… pondering your choices during a bottleneck… the pain of being stuck another day for each day you can’t figure it out… and the fear that you might never figure it out, having to muddle along indefinitely…”
“Do you understand what I mean?”
“…” Hua Jie looked down at her hands, seriously pondering Shen Jiaru’s words.
Chills ran down her spine.
Hadn’t she been in the agony of confusion until the moment of her overworked death and rebirth, just before graduating from university?
She wanted to learn watercolor, but studied gouache for exams.
After starting university with oil painting, hearing that oil painting had become unpopular and that learning design would be better for job seeking, she switched to graphic design and even self-studied 3D modeling.
After graduation, to make a living, she dabbled in everything: an online art teacher, illustration designer, packaging designer, book cover designer, and even considered creating her own serialized comics…
Always wavering, always unable to find her own path.
If she had figured out what she wanted to do in her freshman and sophomore years, thoroughly researched a few options to determine what exactly she wanted to do, what her life might look like after making a choice, planned carefully, and then firmly chosen a path to delve deeply into, would she have been less confused and not worn away her love for painting due to pain?
In her two lifetimes, this was the first time someone had spoken these words to her.
They sounded difficult to understand, filled with life philosophy.
But the more she thought about it, the more startling it became.
The excitement brought by continuous progress had suddenly calmed down.
She realized she was at a critical stage in deciding her future.
She had never thought so far ahead, always feeling that if she just kept her head down and painted, without planning or thinking, she would reach the other side, achieve success.
So, did she need to plan the path before reaching her destination?
…
…
Shen Jiaru stepped out of the sunroom, closed the door behind him for Hua Jie, glanced back at the girl one last time, then walked towards the hall.
Lu Yunfei had finished his nap and came downstairs, greeting his teacher before he glanced at Qian Chong sitting at the center table in the hall, Shen Mo reading by the window, and finally looked towards Hua Jie in the sunroom.
The girl sat at her desk, staring blankly at her hands laid on the table, seemingly caught in a deep, troubling contemplation.
Shen Mo glanced at his father, holding his book and considering going to the sunroom to check on Hua Jie.
Shen Jiaru seemed to understand his son’s thoughts and spoke lightly, “Let her be alone for a while.”
“…” Shen Mo pursed his lips, stared at his father for a moment, but remained silent and unmoving.
Qian Chong stared at the sunroom, holding back for a while before finally asking:
“Teacher, do you favor Hua Jie in the upcoming art competition organized by Tsinghua University’s Academy of Arts?”
Shen Jiaru paused, then asked in return, “Why do you ask?”
“…Wasn’t your long conversation with Hua Jie about this competition?” he asked.
“Of course not.” Shen Jiaru stared at Qian Chong for a while, and as he passed by him, suddenly patted the restless young man’s head, softly saying:
“Each of your life paths is different. You’re still young and in your adolescence, always acting rashly, treating everyone around you as a rival, obsessing over being the first, and wanting to compete in everything. Yet, when you compete, you’re still not satisfied.”
“As you grow older, when your animal instincts are subdued by mature reasoning, and you become more tranquil, you will understand.”
“Your real enemy is not anyone you can see around you.”
“…” For the first time, Qian Chong was touched on the head by his teacher, and the frustrations that had been building all afternoon suddenly seemed smoothed away.
He looked up at Shen Jiaru, somewhat half-understanding, unsure of how to respond to his teacher’s sudden calm and meaningful words.
Since starting high school, the late-blooming boy often felt like he already understood all the truths of the world and was gradually awakening to the desire to control his own life and seize all the discourse around him, becoming presumptuous and overly aggressive.
But when Shen Jiaru suddenly stopped communicating with him in a confrontational and oppressive manner, he felt as though he had reverted back to being a child.
Confused, needing the gentleness and care of an elder.
Suddenly, Shen Jiaru pressed his hand firmly on his head, the earlier gentleness gone.
“You didn’t sleep at noon, rest your head on the desk for a while.”
With that, he walked upstairs, giving instructions as he went:
“Those who have woken up, and those who haven’t slept, start your sketches now. I’ll come down in twenty minutes.”
“…Mm.” Qian Chong touched his head and watched as Shen Jiaru’s figure disappeared upstairs before turning his gaze back to Hua Jie in the sunroom.
The girl hadn’t moved at all the whole half-day.
…
…
Hua Jie sat quietly in the sunroom, the words of her teacher echoing in her mind—
“Having a rich palette is a great advantage, and bold use of color makes your watercolor paintings increasingly recognizable.”
“However, the same issue arises; too much color and detail in a painting can make it appear crowded.”
“Too much content overwhelms the viewer, making it hard to find the focal point, and without a clear expression, the painting can easily become trite.”
There have been many avant-garde painters who boldly used colors, including a lot using fluorescent colors.
But blindly replicating these color schemes without your own thought is also not acceptable.
“Your fundamentals are strong, with solid relationships in sketching and spatial arrangements, which is good, but at your level, you no longer need to show off these skills in every painting.”
“Painting is not an exam, and the buyers and admirers of your work are not examiners; you don’t need to display every bit of knowledge on paper.”
In her past life, her paintings had always been like this.
Wanting to display in every painting all the structure, color, and knowledge she understood.
As if without doing so, she couldn’t prove how well she learned and how well she could paint.
The more eager she was to prove herself, the more she lost her own uniqueness and style.
What a person can express in a painting is both rich and limited; unable to ‘let go’ makes it hard to ‘gain’.
In her previous life, she eventually became thoroughly a mere craftsman in painting.
However, since being reborn, she began to paint more relaxedly and slowly regained the ability to convey emotions and feelings through her artworks.
But… it still wasn’t enough.
“Now, everyone else is adding more to their work, but your process is already completely different from theirs.”
“Hua Jie, you need to start learning to subtract.”
“When Fang Shaojun and others paint, I tell them to not only paint what they see but also to exaggerate and strengthen the not-so-clear environmental colors, structures, and perspectives they perceive.”
“But you can’t do that anymore, Hua Jie.”
“You need to learn to paint only what you see.”
“If some environmental colors are not visible, then don’t paint them; if some perspective or light and dark relationships are not visible, then don’t paint them.”
“Only by painting this way can you more profoundly understand the principles behind many painting techniques.
“Gradually master your own way of presenting these painting relationships, in terms of form and degree.”
“From now on, you need to learn to forget the knowledge you’ve acquired, those techniques, those methods for dealing with different objects, different lights and shadows, different scenes, which you could instantly apply—forget them all.”
“Fang Shaojun and the others are still in the learning phase, so they need to observe how others paint and handle things, and then learn.”
“But you are not in that phase anymore, you need to move into the next realm; those methods have already been absorbed into your hands, into your brain, you can no longer use those methods mindlessly.”
“Only by forgetting those methods, can you integrate and transform them into something truly yours, and then find the painting techniques most suitable for you, find your own style.”
Forget…
Subtract…
Remove the craftsmanship…
Find your own character, your own style, your own soul of painting…
Hua Jie took a deep breath.
Suddenly, she felt like crying.
How muddled she had been in her last life.
She just dived headfirst into her work, buried herself in painting, one after another, touching even herself.
Yet, she had never seriously considered what she was doing, what she wanted to do.
Life is really difficult.
Finding your dream and sticking to it is even harder.
Sometimes, I really feel like giving up.
Just live a simple life; why make it so complicated?
It’s not for a lifetime, after all.
But…
She lifted her head and saw her painting.
Looking up, beyond the painting, through the window, she saw the stunningly beautiful snowy landscape.
With so many beautiful things in this world, how could she resist the urge to paint them?
One day, she would have to leave the nest of her parents and live on her own.
To earn money, protect the ones she loves, and make her own life better.
Humans can’t give up the pursuit of a better life, despite it being tough and painful, they still grit their teeth and push forward.
Taking a deep breath.
Hua Jie re-examined the two paintings she made this morning, finally understanding why Teacher Shen’s expression was so complicated when he looked at them.
She picked up a pen from the table and on the blank sheet of paper left by her teacher, she began to write down his words, sentence by sentence.
Then she read them over and over again, pondering repeatedly.
So this is where I am in life right now.
This is what I should do next.
This is the choice I should make for the future, the direction I should head in.
With her pen, she highlighted and bolded some of Teacher Shen’s words, tracing over them repeatedly.
Suddenly, her eyes welled up with tears. Even after studying watercolor painting with Teacher Shen for so long and considering him her mentor, she had never felt such deep emotion before.
How lucky and blessed she was to have met a mentor willing to help her think, analyze, and plan her future.
Without his words today, she wouldn’t know when she would have had her realization, or when she would have understood all these things.
Perhaps, she might never have realized any of this in her lifetime.
I don’t know what opportunities I’ve missed in life, what I’ve lost, or what chances have brushed past me.
How fortunate it is to have a chance to start over.
And how fortunate to have met a good mentor like Shen Jiaru.
The buzzing in my ears, like the lingering sound after a great bell has tolled, does not fade.
…
…
In the first hour of painting in the afternoon, Hua Jie sat alone in the sunroom, staring blankly at her painting and the freshly written words on the paper in front of her, occasionally taking a sip of water.
Fang Shaojun painted for a while but couldn’t help but look back at Hua Jie, curious about what the teacher had said to her, but pride prevented her from asking.
She didn’t want anyone to know how much she cared about Hua Jie.
When they had reached halfway through their painting, the girl in the sunroom finally came out.
Shen Jiaru was standing behind Lu Yunfei, turned his head, and asked:
“Have you figured it out?”
“Yes.” Hua Jie lifted her lips and nodded.
Though she looked as if she had been crying, her eyes were now clear as if washed, her gaze firm, her smile calm.
Shen Jiaru suddenly felt reassured.
He had been worried that his words were too profound and might confuse her, not only failing to inspire her but adding to her confusion.
But looking at her demeanor and expression, there was no anxiety, no pain, no confusion.