painting
That evening, Ye Jia logged into the conference room to teach her students. When she saw the several messages that had come in that afternoon, she remembered that she had made an appointment with him yesterday.
Ye Jia called the number today, and the other end answered immediately, unusually, with a resentful "hello".
"Sorry, I was busy this afternoon and forgot. Maybe tomorrow."
"What are you busy with?"
"The typhoon broke many trees, and we are helping with the cleanup and reconstruction."
"Oh, okay then, there's nothing I can do about it. But you should have told me, teacher. I was worried something had happened to you."
Ye Jia was a little surprised that he actually cared. She smiled and said, "Okay, I was wrong."
After class, Ye Jia was reminded again that she must make a video call the next afternoon.
Ye Jia said, "I just checked and the weather is good tomorrow. We can see a beautiful sea view. If we had video chat today, all you would have seen would be a gloomy landscape."
Speaking of the good weather, Ye Jia thought after hanging up the phone that she and Gu Anzhou also had an appointment to go to a bar for drinks when the weather was nice.
She won't forget that.
Chu Nian didn't come for lunch the next day, and Ye Jia knocked on the door but didn't open it, seemingly fast asleep.
But Ye Jia had made enough for two people, so she had to pack it into a food storage container and put it in the refrigerator to eat when Chu Nian woke up.
After working for a while in the afternoon, Ye Jia received a video call from a student.
Ye Jia was using a laptop with only one front-facing camera. As soon as it connected, the first thing you saw was her face.
She also saw the face over there.
His face matched his clear voice perfectly; he was a clean-cut and refreshing young man, except for his dyed blonde hair, which surprised Ye Jia.
I didn't expect to see blond hair here.
"Wow, the teacher is so beautiful, and you're not even wearing glasses."
Ye Jia frowned: "Have some manners."
The boy smiled, revealing his clean, straight teeth: "I'm so surprised! The teacher is completely different from the academic genius I imagined."
"You too? Are you allowed to dye your hair at your high school?"
"I've graduated, why do you still care whether I dye my hair or not? Is there no justice in this world?"
Ye Jia paused for half a second: "You graduated?"
"Yes, I took the college entrance exam this year."
"Then why are you still attending classes?" Ye Jia was a little impressed. She had always thought he was in the summer between his junior and senior years of high school, but she didn't expect that he had already graduated and was still studying after graduation. So it seemed normal for him to be a little carefree.
"I had nothing to do, so I did some practice problems. Besides, I initially just came across the teacher's post and wanted to see what level a student from Peking University with zero academic background would be at."
"..." Ye Jia couldn't hold back any longer, "So, are you satisfied?"
"You can tell I'm quite satisfied just by how many classes I've renewed, right?" the boy said with a bright smile.
Which university are you going to?
"Pshaw, if your school doesn't want me, plenty of other schools will."
Ye Jia laughed out loud. So that's why he wanted to see her skill level.
Ye Jia went to the balcony to show the boy the view of Lingfeng Island. Just looking out from her rented house was beautiful; the sea was as clear and transparent as jelly.
Moreover, after being washed by the storm, the sky appeared even cleaner.
"Wow, the photos online really aren't filtered!" the boy's excited voice burst from the computer screen. "I've decided, teacher, I'm coming to visit you! Remember to welcome me!"
"...Are you serious?"
"It couldn't be more true, I'll book the tickets right away!"
Ye Jia felt helpless, always sensing that he was acting on a whim. But deep down, she envied children from wealthy families. They seemed to be able to do whatever they wanted without feeling guilty, unlike her, who now owned a company and had many clients, yet still felt a vague sense of unease.
-
Chu Nian spent the entire night agonizing over the possibility that her drawer full of toys might have been seen. This wasn't a big city; it was a small island where information flowed incredibly quickly.
Chu Nian was afraid that when she woke up, she would become the laughing stock of the entire island.
I couldn't sleep at all in the middle of the night, but inspiration struck amidst the pain, and I kept drawing on my tablet.
After finishing the drawing, Chu Nian excitedly uploaded it with the caption "Delete it tomorrow morning." Her body was finally exhausted, but her nerves couldn't rest. She turned on the white noise from the campfire and listened to it for a long time before finally falling asleep.
As a result, he naturally couldn't get up "tomorrow morning," and even later than his usual routine of getting up at 2 pm, sleeping until 5 pm.
Chu Nian crawled like a ghost to Ye Jia's place for a meal.
Ye Jia asked her, "Going to a bar?"
“Go!” Chu Nian replied subconsciously, then worried, “But do you think I won’t run into people who look at me strangely? What should I do, Jiajia? I’m too scared to go out.”
"Don't scare yourself. If you take a calm attitude, even if some people think there's something wrong with it, they'll gradually realize it's nothing. Your thinking will progress."
Just like when Ye Jia first saw it, she thought it was so indecent, but now she has accepted it and thinks it is normal, even though she is afraid to use it and does not know how to use it.
Chu Nian was convinced. He was right; she shouldn't scare herself unnecessarily.
In fact, everything was normal the whole way.
They rode their bikes over, and many people greeted them warmly along the way. They had become closer because they had helped each other the day before, and there was nothing unusual about it.
However, once they arrived at the bar, both of them keenly noticed that the customers were looking at Gu Anzhou much more frequently that day.
An abnormally large number.
Although they usually look at each other, it's never this obvious. And today, they were both holding their phones and whispering to each other, with particularly intriguing expressions on their faces.
Gu Anzhou naturally noticed it too, but he didn't understand why. The only difference was that he was wearing an apron, but he wasn't like this the last time he wore one.
Chu Nian guessed that when everyone was helping out yesterday, someone took a picture of Gu Anzhou and posted it online. A handsome guy with a rugged charm would attract traffic, and he became a minor sensation.
To confirm her hypothesis, Chu Nian took out her phone and opened her favorite social media app.
Her account has a lot of traffic, consistently 999+, but when she clicked in and saw that her painting from last night had over 10,000 likes, even over 100,000, she was so surprised that her nostrils flared up.
Ye Jia was sitting next to her and immediately saw the picture on Chu Nian's screen.
She blushed instantly, thinking, "What is this?!"
A naked man with an excellent physique and perfectly proportioned muscles holds a sword in one hand and has his other arm around a woman. He is looking down at her with deep affection.
The woman was dressed plainly, not very tall, and had a face as innocent and adorable as a little white rabbit. But her fingers were tightly clasped around his waist, her nails digging into his flesh, carrying a hint of punishment and teasing.
They seem to exude a lot of sexual tension, making it hard not to imagine what they're going to do next.
Although it's only a side view, it's clear that this man was modeled after Gu Anzhou.
No wonder they were all staring at their phones and comparing themselves to Gu Anzhou; they were comparing them.
Ye Jia quickly looked away, glancing at Gu Anzhou who was mixing drinks behind the bar. She wondered what his reaction would be if he saw this; he might even get angry.
Gu Anzhou cast a questioning look at her.
Ye Jia shook his head and lowered his head to drink.
"Holy crap, I exploded..." Chu Nian murmured, feeling extremely unreal, as if the chair had turned into a marshmallow.
She posted it last night, thinking she'd delete it this morning, but she didn't even get up. She slept until the afternoon, feeling groggy, and completely forgot about it. Now it's already got over 100,000 likes in less than a day! This is her best post ever.
Coming to her senses from the explosion, Chu Nian glanced guiltily at Ye Jia, then at Boss Gu.
What should I do? She said she'd delete it today, but how could she bear to delete this data!
Chu Nian scrolled down to read the comments, and the top-voted comment was a warning not to delete it.
The comments section contained many other people's works and interesting comments, and Chu Nian found it increasingly difficult to delete them.
Chu Nian turned to look at Ye Jia and called out ingratiatingly, "Jiajia..."
"What?"
"Look," Chu Nian handed over the phone, shrinking back slightly, "I know I shouldn't, but the data is so good, can I not delete it?"
Ye Jia was a little confused: "You're asking me?"
“…Yes, of course I have to ask you.” Chu Nian pointed to the person in the picture, “Because it’s you.”
Ye Jia jumped up from her chair, but Chu Nian pulled her back down. She stared wide-eyed at the woman on the screen. Was that her?
Anyway, Ye Jia didn't notice.
Furthermore, none of the other customers were staring at her, which means that no one else noticed either. But that's not necessarily true, since they were sitting at the bar with their backs to everyone else, so maybe no one had noticed yet.
"I didn't see it," Ye Jia said.
Chu Nian spoke very softly, almost in a whisper, to her: "Look, this is what I saw yesterday. When I went over, you were standing together. He was holding a piece of wood and talking to you. Then, after my artistic embellishment, it turned into this."
"No, you've gone way too far with the embellishments." If Chu Nian hadn't pointed it out, Ye Jia, the person involved, wouldn't have noticed at all. "We were simply standing together discussing what to do next, how could you have imagined it like this?"
"You're not an artist, of course you wouldn't understand."
That is indeed true.
Ye Jia looked at the painting again, but didn't dare to look at it for too long, otherwise she would have strange dreams again that night. She pushed the phone over and said, "I don't think it's me, so it doesn't matter whether you delete it or not, but why don't you ask him?"
“Do I dare to ask!” Chu Nian said, “But I didn’t see Boss Gu playing on his phone much, so I’m betting he won’t see it, and these customers definitely won’t dare to ask him.”
"That's too risky."
"You stayed with him one night, did you see him using this app?"
"What?!" Ye Jia glanced at Gu Anzhou, who was looking at them, but thankfully they were speaking very quietly, so he couldn't hear them. "...I didn't see him, but he doesn't seem to use his phone much."
"Then I'll take the gamble," Chu Nian decided. "As long as you don't mind."
Actually, the woman in the painting is somewhat different from Ye Jia herself. You can't tell unless you deliberately make a connection. But in Chu Nian's eyes, Ye Jia is just that cute. Moreover, she thinks that although Ye Jia is small and thin and looks very scholarly, she is definitely the one in control of the relationship.
Chu Nian was very satisfied with her painting. The data had exploded again. In a good mood, she drank several more glasses of wine, which led to her going to the bathroom several times.
Ye Jia sat at the bar and saw Gu Anzhou pick up his phone and look at it after delivering drinks to a table of customers. It didn't seem like he was replying to messages; he looked at it for a long time.
Suddenly I felt very guilty.
Although Gu Anzhou couldn't possibly hear what they were saying and start looking for that painting, he would probably try to figure out why the guests were staring at him like that today.
...
It wasn't hard to find the viral post with over 100,000 views nearby. The moment Gu Anzhou saw it, he understood why everyone else was looking at him like that, and he also understood why Ye Jia's eyes were constantly avoiding his gaze.
I had heard before that Chu Nian was an artist, but it turns out she paints this kind of paintings.
It felt like I was only one step away from being arrested.
One comment below reads: "[Please, teacher, don't let this lead you astray!!]"
Gu Anzhou felt that she had already gone astray.
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