After class started, Teacher Zhang gave a brief explanation of three groups of still life objects and then all the students found the group that suited them and began to draw attentively.
Throughout this process, Teacher Zhang moved among the students, providing targeted guidance based on each student’s progress and issues.
Hua Jie could finally concentrate on her drawing.
Ten minutes later, the door of the art studio was suddenly knocked.
The art class teacher at the Youth Center, Teacher Zhang, had just taken on another student—a boy, and a rather handsome one at that.
It turned out to be Jing Nian. As soon as Hua Jie turned around and saw him, she felt a headache coming on. She had almost forgotten that her ‘deskmate’ Jing Nian had also started attending the Youth Center to learn painting after school had begun.
With the mindset of ‘I won’t trouble you if you don’t trouble me,’ Hua Jie withdrew her gaze, put aside all external distractions, and focused entirely on her drawing.
Her gaze fell on the group of still life objects, and she quickly synthesized the various items into a cohesive whole.
Even though there were over a dozen objects in the group, when placed together, they formed a complete oblique triangular composition.
Hua Jie’s hand moved as if wielding a magic wand, holding a 2B pencil, she sketched broadly on the drawing paper, quickly outlining the oblique triangle.
She looked up at the drawing again, and her 2B magic wand began to work its magic, quickly producing several guide lines on the paper—precisely positioning each of the dozen or so objects within the oblique triangle.
Then, a square represented the round apple, a large square represented the kettle… Each object’s rough shape appeared on the paper, and their relationships in terms of depth, size, and occlusion were clearly articulated through her light, casual strokes.
Meanwhile, Tang Yang, sitting beside her, had just completed her large triangular composition and was squinting with one eye, holding a pencil, comparing the size of each object.
Tang Yang meticulously drew a central line, marking the position of the central still life, a copper kettle, and repeatedly checked the lines on the paper against the objects, feeling that her drawing was particularly accurate.
Turning to look at Hua Jie, she saw her glance at the still life, bury her head, and swiftly make several strokes in quick succession. Her actions were coherent and extremely fast.
This obviously lacked the careful proportioning, and even lacked the use of squinting and extending a pencil to help gauge the sizes of the still life objects.
Tang Yang couldn’t help but snort inwardly, suspecting Hua Jie probably hadn’t even sketched the basic forms correctly; her hasty strokes might prove to be off when she realized her error later—typical of a novice, making the same foolish mistakes novices often do.
Hua Jie was unaware of Tang Yang’s trivial analysis of her. Once she focused on her drawing, her decade-plus of skills were instantly summoned, and the guide lines became simpler, eventually just very short, light lines.
After confirming all the relationships within the entire scene, she began to quickly delineate each object with straight lines.
In no time, the medium square became an apple, the small square became an egg, and the large square became a copper kettle…
When Teacher Zhang had arranged for the new student, Jing Nian, and continued to stroll among the students to check on them, she noticed that Hua Jie had already completed the line drawing and started working on the first layer of shading.
“…” Zhang Xiangyang was slightly stunned. He had brought Jing Nian in, set him up with a simple still life arrangement to get a sense of his skills, and gave him some guidance… It felt like only about ten minutes had passed… How had Hua Jie made so much progress already?
Shocked by the temporal disarray that Hua Jie’s progress caused, Zhang Xiangyang quickly stepped forward to check on the other students’ work and saw that Tang Yang was still adjusting the placement of each object, tweaking the relationships between them on the canvas—
The distance between the apple and the egg was too far; she brought them closer;
The cherries were drawn too high; she erased and redrew them a bit lower…
The other students were about at the same stage.
Only then did Zhang Xiangyang confirm that he wasn’t overwhelmed; it wasn’t hid fault, it was Hua Jie’s.
Too fast!
Too fast!
Hua Jie was drawing too quickly!
And what’s key was that, despite the speed, the accuracy of her drawings was still spot on.
Standing behind Hua Jie and watching her for a while, Zhang Xiangyang couldn’t help but click his tongue in appreciation.
If watching someone paint could be considered a form of enjoyment, then watching Hua Jie was exactly that.
Hua Jie always maintained a focus on the whole without getting bogged down in the details;
She always made sure she understood and analyzed everything before she began, and the strokes that followed her guide lines were always precisely placed; she almost never used her eraser…
As a teacher, Zhang Xiangyang wanted to offer some advice, but he found that Hua Jie hadn’t overlooked anything that needed attention. The girl didn’t seem like she was learning to paint; she seemed like she was giving a demonstration in sketching.
Her coordination between hand and brain was excellent.
Many people think that painting is just about the ability to control a pencil with one’s hand, but in reality, the most important aspect of painting is the ability to observe and understand.
One can only paint what one ‘sees,’ and how it ultimately turns out depends on how strong your observational skills are.
And this ability to observe, this ‘seeing,’ hinges critically on the brain’s analysis of what it sees.
Whether it is breaking down observed objects into interconnected dots, lines, and shapes that can be presented on paper with a pen, or extending one’s imagination and innovating new images, both require the brain’s analytical abilities.
What painting most demands is not just the skill of controlling the pen with the hand, but the mastery of dots, lines, and shapes, which stems from the brain.
Therefore, when Zhang Xiangyang saw how balanced and excellent Hua Jie’s painting skills were, the only admiration he could imagine was “the coordination between hand and brain is too good.”
Hua Jie knew too well how to observe when painting and understood how to analyze a painting.
She seemed to always be able to break down everything she saw into lines she could control, and then lay them down on paper.
Unable to help himself, Zhang Xiangyang stood behind Hua Jie for a good ten minutes or more, until other students called him for help, and he finally snapped back to reality to guide them.
He finally regained his demeanor as a teacher.
Watching Hua Jie paint was a blow to his confidence as a teacher; he struggled to interject a word—
Even though Hua Jie was just sitting there quietly painting, Zhang Xiangyang still inexplicably felt as if the other was exuding an air of “Just appreciate it. Want to teach me how to paint? Hmm! Better keep quiet.”
After making a round of the classroom and pointing out issues with all the students except Hua Jie, Zhang Xiangyang stood tall and chest out, feeling restored, back to his confident self.
Poor classmates, today they suffered harsh criticism from Zhang, who seemed oddly invigorated.
…
An hour later, Zhang Xiangyang clapped his hands and called everyone to take a break, to use the restroom, drink water, or just stand up and stretch to rest their wrists, fingers, and eyes.
He herself stepped out of the studio to pour some hot water.
Hua Jie set her painting on the ground, covered by her small stool, hidden from view.
She closed her eyes and began to earnestly perform eye exercises—protecting her eyes was the top priority.
Tang Yang glanced at her, wanting to scoff, but restrained herself to maintain her usual image.
When she set down her painting board, unlike Hua Jie who used the stool to block her work, she flipped the board to intentionally display her painting.
Clearly boasting, yet she feigned nonchalance.
As soon as she put down her brush, a high school senior painting beside her couldn’t help but compliment, “Your painting is really good.” Tang Yang modestly smiled and thanked her, feeling a sense of pride inside.
She and Bai Lu held hands and went out to the restroom. When they returned, they saw Jing Nian, who was new to the painting studio today.
Bai Lu, very territorial, quickly took the initiative to strike up a conversation with the newcomer:
“Which high school are you from?”
She wanted to test how formidable the newcomer was. If he seemed weak, she would establish her dominance and then monopolize the drawing paper and pencils.
Jing Nian, who had just chatted with a few guys from the simple group and was slowly blending into the new studio, responded politely and gently:
“First High.”
Bai Lu immediately thought of Hua Jie, who was from the same school as Jing Nian, and started to dislike Jing Nian on the spot, thus spitefully remarked:
“The art level at First High isn’t good. Hardly a few manage to get into top art colleges each year, and the art atmosphere there must be really poor, right?”
“…” Jing Nian didn’t expect Bai Lu to suddenly challenge him and choked before replying somewhat unnaturally:
“It’s okay, I think the atmosphere is fine…”
He looked around, surrounded by strangers. As a new student, he felt reluctant to conflict with Bai Lu, who was still somewhat a stranger to him.
Especially since she was stout and looked tough to deal with.
Hearing his hesitant reply, Bai Lu’s arrogance grew. She glanced at Hua Jie and said coldly:
“The students from First High in our studio last year didn’t paint as well as those from Second High, and it’s the same this year.
“The high school seniors from First High don’t paint as well as the sophomores from Second High.”
As Bai Lu spoke, she raised an eyebrow at Tang Yang, who was known for her good painting.
After Bai Lu finished speaking, there was silence in the studio, leaving Jing Nian standing there, his face turning alternately red and white with embarrassment.
Bai Lu, feeling ‘invincible’, saw that Hua Jie had just finished an eye exercise and was bending over to sharpen a pencil, showing no intention of arguing back, seemingly intimidated by her as well.
She chuckled, glanced at Jing Nian’s painting, and mocked:
“Your painting isn’t up to par, but no worries, you still have two years to practice. It’s better than those who clearly can’t handle it but still insist on painting challenging still lifes. It’s good to be down-to-earth.”
“…” Jing Nian frowned, choosing to ignore Bai Lu’s latter comment, still upset over her remark about his inadequate painting skills.
His face turned beet red as he looked at his painting, his fists clenched slightly.
It was his first day in the new studio, surrounded by strangers, and suddenly facing such rejection, his composure began to crumble. He felt an urge to smash his canvas, slap Bai Lu hard, turn around, leave, and never paint again.
With his face flushed, he stood rigidly still, as if he were gathering energy for a powerful move, yet also seemed to be straining to hold back.
Bai Lu noticed Jing Nian’s distressed expression but completely disregarded it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hua Jie putting down her pencil, looking up with cold eyes. Bai Lu’s lips curled into a provocative smile as she pointed to Tang Yang’s painting not far away:
“Tang Yang’s work is really good. He’s only a sophomore and could already take the art exam directly.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Hua Jie suddenly stood up, strode towards the front of the studio, picked up the teaching stick that Zhang Xiangyang had left there, swished it through the air, then turned around and marched towards Bai Lu.
“Hua Jie, what are you doing?” Bai Lu, seeing her almost murderous intent, was frightened and widened her eyes in a blustering challenge.
Hua Jie did not respond, her face still fierce as she stepped forward.
Though she was not walking fast, in Bai Lu’s eyes, she seemed to be charging with overwhelming momentum.
Jing Nian stood still, turning to meet Hua Jie’s gaze, his expression growing even more distressed.
What is Hua Jie up to?
Is she going to kick him while he’s down and berate him for holding back their school?
…
…
Shen Mo spent his weekends learning Go at the Youth Center on the third floor, a new hobby he picked up over the summer break, and he was at his most enthusiastic stage of learning.
Needing to use the restroom and finding the third floor out of water, he followed the directions on the notice to the second-floor bathroom.
After swiftly handling his needs and washing his hands, he straightened his hair and was about to head back upstairs.
However, as he passed the wide-open door of the second-floor painting studio, he suddenly heard someone shout “Hua Jie.”
Isn’t that the name of the Doll-Head underachiever who sits next to him?
He instinctively stepped back to the doorway of the studio and peered inside.
He then saw a Doll-Head girl, her arms hanging down clutching a teaching stick, like a warrior about to enter the battlefield with a machete, advancing towards another girl with a fierce demeanor.
Despite his face blindness, he could roughly identify the girl with the teaching stick as his deskmate, Hua Jie—
The same girl who, apart from being punished to stand on her first day of school, had always been super well-behaved.
But… was it really Hua Jie?
Wasn’t she always as docile and obedient as a kitten in front of him?
Now, she looked nothing like a kitten, more like a little tigress…
The Doll-Head “little potato” did often draw during breaks, and her presence in the studio made it very likely to be her.
Curiosity piqued, Shen Mo leaned against the door, suddenly deciding to watch the whole scene unfold.
He wasn’t going anywhere.