Chapter 87 Gourd Wall Painting (Second Update)...
"Cousin, do you want the courtyard wall repainted white?"
Sun Aimin, wearing a hat made of folded newspaper and carrying a small half-bucket of paint, came out of the kitchen.
Jiang Mingyue stood at the gate of the courtyard, holding the completed drawings in her hand. She looked up at Sun Aimin and chuckled.
Sun Aimin wasn't wearing a mask, and his face was splattered with paint spots.
Jiang Mingyue took out an unopened mask from her pocket and gestured for Sun Aimin to put it on.
"We need to paint it, inside and out. The acrylic paint will arrive tomorrow, and I'll start painting the mural then."
Sun Aimin smiled and put on his mask. "Okay, I'll go paint the walls right now."
As far as I can remember, my cousin was good at drawing when she was a child. An ordinary orange crayon became a magic pen in her hands, and the pictures she drew were no less than those drawn by Ma Liang.
The next morning at nine o'clock, Sun Aijun picked up the package from the town's express delivery station.
Jiang Mingyue wore Cao Hualan's khaki smock, along with a hat and mask, and squatted down next to the inner wall, fully armed, to test the paint.
Sun Aijun wasn't good at this delicate work, so he went up to the roof to do the waterproofing. Cao Hualan's two nephews were also working up there.
Sun Aimin attached his phone to the tripod, adjusted the automatic shooting mode, and then helped Jiang Mingyue with some rough sketching work.
Jiang Mingyue painted gourds, gourds growing on gourd vines, not the Calabash Brothers.
A gourd is painted on the west wall, which sounds like "good fortune and prosperity" in Chinese; a pomegranate is painted on the east wall, as pomegranates symbolize many children and good fortune. Both have auspicious meanings.
Jiang Mingyue finished a project that would normally take three or four days by squatting by the wall in a single day. She worked from morning till night, and when she got up, her legs weren't sore, her eyes weren't blurry, and she wasn't tired at all. All she could see was her appreciation for her own artwork.
Sun Aimin squatted there for most of the day, and when he stood up, he saw stars and almost fell to the ground.
It's so embarrassing! This grown man's physical fitness is worse than his own cousin's.
The gourd and pomegranate mural drew unanimous praise from Cao Hualan and others, and everyone took photos and posed for pictures. Cao Hualan's two nephews uploaded the photos to Green Bubble's WeChat Moments, as did Sun Aijun and Sun Aimin.
It garnered a lot of likes and comments.
People on my WeChat Moments kept leaving comments asking who painted the mural, how much it cost, and how many days it would take to complete.
Cao Hualan had instructed the four not to reveal that the painting was done by Jiang Mingyue, but to say that it was done for free by a painter who was sketching in the village.
Sun Aijun and the other three did not dare to go against Cao Hualan, and they understood Cao Hualan's intentions. Cao Hualan felt sorry for Jiang Mingyue and did not want her to work too hard.
The small-scale transmission among family members did not attract much attention.
The next day, Sun Aimin edited the video of Jiang Mingyue's mural and uploaded it to his Langyin account.
[The Happy Life of a Little Carpenter]: Sorry for the wait, my house is currently under renovation, so let me show you my cousin's mural first!
The video was edited to five minutes long, showing only the backs of the carpenter and his cousin. The two were fully armed and their faces were not visible; all that could be seen was the two of them working intently.
The video features upbeat and cheerful music that puts listeners at ease, and the final product received unanimous praise from fans and casual viewers alike.
[The videos produced by Little Carpenter are as good as ever]
This gourd is painted so beautifully, it's incredibly lifelike!
Ahhh, I'm so envious of the carpenter for having a cousin who can draw!
This gourd looks familiar.
[Familiar face +1]
【Huh? The colors of this gourd are exactly the same as Sister Jiang's gourd bracelet】
[Haha, the carpenter's cousin must be a ginger fanatic.]
There are many bloggers on Langyin who are good at mural painting, and they all have quite a few fans.
Sun Aimin originally had a little over 10,000 followers. After posting this video of a gourd mural, he gained a lot of traffic from fellow fans who were also fans of ginger.
The video garnered over five million likes in a single day, nearly three million people saved it, and it received almost a million comments.
More and more people are paying attention to "The Happy Life of a Little Carpenter," and the number of followers has increased by more than 50,000.
After dinner, Sun Aimin checked his phone and almost crashed. He received too many private messages, most of which were about the mural. They wanted his cousin's contact information and wanted her to paint a gourd for them as well.
Sun Aimin asked Jiang Mingyue for her opinion. With Ren Kai's two million yuan reward in hand, Jiang Mingyue was not short of money for the time being. She would consider taking on mural painting again when she needed money later.
Sun Aimin quickly posted another video to explain, without music, just text.
"Thank you for your love and support, but my cousin doesn't take wall painting orders. She just paints for fun."
This video has been flooded with comments from fans again.
[Little carpenter, who can resist money? I'll offer 50,000 yuan and reimburse your travel expenses. How about your cousin considers it?]
I'll offer 100,000 yuan! Pick me! Pick me!
[Fine, fine, you ginger fans are driving up prices, that's not fair!]
"Stop joking. I'll only give you 30,000 yuan at most. Can you just paint a gourd on the living room wall?"
[Hmph, I'll fight you rich people to the death!]
[Little carpenter, if your cousin doesn't agree, fine, but remember to take lots of pictures of the mural she painted, so we can feast our eyes on it.]
[Blogger, could you please take a picture of a gourd separately so we can use it as our screensaver?]
Sun Aimin saw this comment, edited the photo of the gourd mural, wrote his Langyin account name in the lower right corner of the photo, and noted that it could not be used for commercial purposes.
He then uploaded it to the comments section for fans to download.
Jiang Mingyue praised Sun Aimin for his meticulous work.
Sun Aimin rubbed his head and said he learned it all from reading posts in his spare time.
"Cousin, do you want to continue your university studies?"
"I don't want to. If you ask me to pick up high school textbooks again, I don't have my little sister's focus. I'm fine as a carpenter. I deal with wood all day long, and it's not as tiring."
Jiang Mingyue respects Sun Aimin's idea. Going to university is, in essence, about gaining knowledge and broadening one's horizons. After graduation, one still needs to find a job. Sun Aimin has now found his direction for the future, which is actually quite good.
Jiang Mingyue hadn't remembered her Weibo password yet, and she was too lazy to download it again to retrieve it. Langyin was more interesting; the comment section wasn't as hostile, and there were more active users.
She didn't add a self-introduction; her profile picture was a quick snapshot of a gourd mural on a wall, and the image quality was a bit out of focus.
Jiang Mingyue was too lazy to post videos, so she went to follow the nine guests on the variety show first.
After browsing around, I found that Wei Lai and Qi Sheng were the most active, posting work or life videos every two or three days. They also had the most followers, over 20 million.
The other seven are more laid-back, posting one video every one or two months, or one video every six months or so, and some have posted no more than ten videos since they registered.
Don Juan was one of them, and Qiu Zhenlong was second.
Jiang Mingyue first liked Wei Lai and Qi Sheng's latest video.
After finishing filming that evening, Wei Lai was scrolling through Weibo when he came across a video of a carpenter pushed to him by the system. He thought the courtyard looked familiar and resembled the Sun family compound.
That night, he and Qi Sheng escorted Jiang Mingyue back to the village. Although they only lingered at the entrance, the eaves of the Sun family's main room were quite distinctive, covered with glazed tiles and adorned with two large lanterns.
He didn't recognize the top scholar last time, but this time he saw it clearly. The girl squatting by the wall drawing was Jiang Mingyue.
He forwarded the video to the group and tagged Jiang Mingyue, "Mingyue, is this you?"
With nothing to do tonight, Jiang Mingyue lay on a chair in the living room watching videos of a carpenter when a group message popped up, which she casually clicked to read.
She replied in the group chat, "Brother Wei has sharp eyes, it's me."
Wei Lai was both amused and exasperated. God was too kind to Jiang Mingyue; not only was she beautiful, but she was also incredibly talented.
"No wonder netizens say you're a treasure trove, Sister Jiang, the more you dig, the more you discover. Tell me honestly, how many more skills are you hiding and not showing off?"
Jiang Mingyue replied with a husky emoji that looked down on everyone.
Wei Lai understood immediately; the implication was that there were many things she couldn't guess.
Five minutes later, all the brothers in the group popped up.
Ji Wenxuan: "Mingyue! I'll offer one million to reserve your mural. You can set the time; I can wait."
Qi Sheng: "Mingyue, I bought a new house last year, but I haven't had time to decorate it yet. There's a painting missing from the living room wall."
Meng Qinzhou: "Sister Jiang, once I buy a house for my wedding, you can paint any picture for me, and you can name your price."
Don Juan: "Mingyue, I've just opened a company in Beijing. The lobby on the first floor is missing a painting. Are you interested in painting it? The reward is three million."
The other four congratulated Don Juan on becoming a boss and asked if he was hiring, saying they would come over to apply.
Don Juan wasn't joking. He was at the company setting up the sound system and sent a picture of the blank wall in the lobby to Jiang Mingyue, inviting her to come to Beijing for a couple of days.
The high-speed train from Huai County to Beijing takes about three hours, which isn't far. Shao Quan is away from Huai County for the next couple of days; he's been invited to a meeting in Beijing and won't be back for a week.
Jiang Mingyue thought about it for a few minutes and then agreed, "Okay, see you tomorrow."
The reward didn't matter; the main thing was to repay Don Juan's favor. He had used his connections to find Yan Qian's second uncle, and she felt very guilty about it.
As for the requests from others, she agreed to them in the group chat and will draw for them when she has time later.
Seeing that Jiang Mingyue readily agreed, Tang Huang asked her to send him the high-speed rail tickets she had bought later, and he would pick her up at the station.
Jiang Mingyue opened the ticketing app to check ticket information and bought a high-speed rail ticket for 8:00 AM, arriving at Beijing South Railway Station at 11:00 AM.
She took a screenshot of the train ticket information and sent it to Don Juan.
Don Juan replied instantly, "I'll be waiting for you at the South Station exit."
After finalizing her travel plans for tomorrow, Jiang Mingyue went out to greet Cao Hualan and the others. She didn't mention that she was going to help someone paint a mural, but only that she was going to Beijing to pick up Shao Quan, so as not to cause Cao Hualan and the others any suspicion.
When Cao Hualan learned that she was going to Beijing, she didn't say anything, only telling her to be careful on the road and to let her know when she arrived safely.
That night, Jiang Mingyue went to bed early and woke up at 5:30 the next morning.
She didn't ask Cao Hualan to get up and make breakfast. She just grabbed her backpack, drove off, and planned to grab a bowl of noodles near the station later.
On a weekday, the high-speed train wasn't crowded, so Jiang Mingyue traveled discreetly and exited the station smoothly three hours later.
She spotted Don Juan immediately.
He was waiting at the exit, wearing a black bomber jacket and a matching scarf. His face was covered by sunglasses and a mask. People around him only thought he was a handsome guy with a straight posture, and they would not associate him with a celebrity.
Author's Note: [Evil laugh][Evil laugh][Evil laugh] Is it good?
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