The living room floor was a mess, with all kinds of things scattered all over the floor. Next to the dining table, there were buckets of noodles lying upside down, with the juice flowing all over the floor.
She turned a blind eye to all this, walked straight to the door, pushed it open, walked in, and closed the door behind her.
The room was tidy. She picked up the air conditioner remote control, turned on the heating, hung her small schoolbag on the hook behind the door, and walked to the desk and sat down.
The table was piled with textbooks and various tutorial books. In the middle was a mirror. She looked at herself in the mirror and gestured with her fingers.
The temperature in the room gradually rose with the humming sound of the air conditioner.
She took off her coat, opened the drawer, took out a piece of paper, and spread it on the table. It was a half-finished sketch, probably of a face, with only a rough outline.
She took out her cell phone, opened the photo album, and entered a folder full of photos of people's faces, with their names written by the editor next to them.
She flipped to a photo of a young woman with the words "new English teacher" written next to it. She looked at it carefully for a while and placed the phone upright on a fixed stand.
“It doesn’t seem right.”
She pulled a pencil from the pen holder, tilted her head to compare the half-finished sketch and photograph, muttered to herself, picked up the paper, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the paper frame in the corner.
Then, take out a brand new sheet of paper from the drawer.
She bit her lower lip, tapped her nose with the tip of the pen, stared at the photo for a while, and suddenly shook her head. She reached out and swiped the screen of her phone, changing the photo.
A middle-aged woman, with "Auntie on the first floor" written next to her.
I swiped again and saw a man in security uniform, with the words "new community security guard" written on it.
Scroll again and you’ll see a young man with Chen Xu written next to him.
Her fingers paused, staring at the photo for two seconds, and nodded slightly, "It's you."
She held up her pencil, measured the approximate proportions from the photo, and began to draw on the paper.
After an unknown amount of time, her cell phone suddenly rang.
As she sketched the lines, she glanced at her phone, which showed a WeChat message, "Ningning, I have something to do outside, you..."
She withdrew her gaze and continued painting.
She was drawing very attentively until she felt a strong hunger and stopped writing. She stretched her waist, took out her phone, exited the photo, opened WeChat, and read the message just now.
"Ningning, I have something to do outside, you can make your own food." Later, another red envelope was sent.
She clicked the receive button, and the red envelope contained 200 yuan. She quit WeChat, opened the food delivery app, ordered a takeaway, then pulled up the photo, picked up the pencil, and continued drawing.
…………
After Cao Ningning finished lunch, she was about to continue when her phone rang. She wanted to hang up, but when she saw the name, she picked up the phone again, "Lily, why are you calling me at this time?"
"Are your parents home?"
“No.”
"Then I'll go over there."
"OK."
After she hung up the phone, she picked up the pen and continued drawing.
Not long after, the doorbell rang. She carefully traced the shadow of the nose before putting down her pen and going out to open the door.
Lily was her classmate, an ordinary-looking girl. When she entered the room and saw the living room, she asked quietly, "Are your parents arguing again?"
"Yeah." Cao Ningning nodded.
"What's the reason this time?"
"My dad didn't come home the night before last."
Lily gave her a sympathetic look and said, "Or, let's go outside."
Cao Ningning said, "I bought new headphones last week and used up all my pocket money. How about you?"
"I just bought a new dress, too."
After entering the room, Lily looked at the sketch on the desk, walked over to take a look, and asked her, "Who is this?"
"Chen Xu." Cao Ningning walked over, "Don't move, the painting is not finished yet."
"Hmm?" Lily was confused at first. After thinking for a while, she couldn't think of anyone she knew with that name, so she asked, "Who is that?"
Cao Ningning didn't look up and said, "A kind passerby."
"Huh?" Lily was even more confused. "If he's just a stranger, why do you need to remember his appearance?"
"Yeah." Hearing this, Cao Ningning held her chin with her hand, thought for a moment, and said, "Because he looks more pleasing to the eye."
Lily leaned over and looked left and right. Although he wasn't ugly, he wasn't handsome either. How could he be so pleasing to the eye? She couldn't complain about her friend's aesthetic taste.
"Come to think of it, you've been learning sketching for a few years now, and you've probably drawn hundreds of pictures. How many people have you memorized?"
Cao Ningning said, "About twenty or so."
"That's all. Didn't you learn sketching in vain?"
"Not really. After I draw something, I can still remember it for a period of time. But I will forget those who I don't see often."
Lily said, "I just can't understand. You have such a good memory and can memorize words much faster than me. Why can't you remember other people's faces?"
"The doctor said that this is a malfunction of a certain part of the brain. It's a disease. Mine is not too serious. Anyway, I'm used to it."
Lily said sympathetically, "Alas, you are so pitiful that you can't even appreciate a handsome little brother."
"alright."
Cao Ningning drew the last stroke, put the pen back into the pen holder with satisfaction, picked up the painting and unfolded it in front of her.
"Hey, it's a really good drawing. You really didn't learn sketching in vain." Lily looked at the sketch and said in surprise, "Especially the look in his eyes. It really seems like he's secretly looking at you. Wow, that's great. Ningning, I think you can consider studying fine arts."
“Well, I think so too, this is the best work I have ever painted.”
The more Cao Ningning looked at it, the more satisfied she felt. She said, "I've decided. I'm going to put it up right there."
"No way?" Lily was a little surprised. It was too strange to put a sketch of a strange man in the room. He was not a celebrity idol.
Cao Ningning had already taken out the transparent tape and asked her to come over to help.
"Others are putting up posters of celebrities. Even if you want to put up one, find a more handsome one." Lily said this but still went forward to help.
The two of them worked together and quickly pasted the sketch.
Cao Ningning felt a little thirsty at this time and asked, "What do you want to drink?"
"Let's see what's in your refrigerator," Lily said without much hope.
The two went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There were quite a few things in it, except for soda water. They each took a bottle and went back to the room to chat.
"Let's watch TV. There's a dating variety show lately that's quite interesting," Lily suggested.
"OK."
Cao Ningning took a tablet and handed it to her. They sat on the bed side by side and started watching.
When the commercials were playing, Lily suddenly remembered something. "Didn't the boy in Class 6 who was good at basketball, Zhou Yang, invite you to a movie? What happened to him?"
Cao Ningning thought for a moment and said, "You mean, the tall guy with a strong smell of sweat?"
“…”
Lily opened her mouth and finally said, "Let's just watch TV."
PS: I will strongly recommend it next week and it will be officially available on May 1st. I have something to say. After it was removed from the new book list, I haven't asked for votes. However, everyone is very enthusiastic about voting. I would like to thank them first. Then, I just want to ask for a wave of recommendation votes to see how many votes I can get in the last week before it is available. If you have votes, please vote for me.
(End of this chapter)