Chapter 55: Painting at night, unable to suppress emotions

Liu Mingan met Hong Fusheng, the owner of Fusheng Restaurant, at Hong's house. Zhou Yi briefly introduced the two to each other.

When Hong Fusheng heard that Liu Mingan was the author of the calligraphy and painting Zhou Yi brought back before, he was very respectful to him, calling him "sir" all the time, and even wanted to ask him to check his son's homework. Fortunately, Zhou Yi spoke up in time to stop him, saying that it was too late today and he would arrange it another day, so Hong Fusheng gave up.

Zhou Yi took Liu Mingan to a guest room, then left for a while and came back with some papers. Liu Mingan only heard him sigh helplessly: "Brother Liu, I'm so sorry, my uncle said you write well, and he insisted on asking me to get some calligraphy from you for his ten-year-old son to copy..."

Liu Mingan could see Zhou Yi's embarrassment, smiled, and comforted Zhou Yi: "Brother Zhou, it's okay, I'm staying at someone's house, writing a few words is nothing."

Zhou Yi also smiled and said: "It's too late today, go to bed early, and you can just write casually tomorrow."

"Okay."

After Zhou Yi left, Liu Mingan took the papers to check, not much, a total of five sheets, but each sheet was an excellent semi-cooked rice paper, most suitable for beginners. It seems that this is the paper that the ten-year-old child often uses.

Liu Mingan wanted to write and then go to sleep, but the wine in his stomach began to play tricks, making his head a little dizzy.

Let's write tomorrow, Liu Mingan thought. He was worried that he could not concentrate and his handwriting would be crooked, which would disappoint Mr. Hong's kindness and waste such good rice paper.

So Liu Ming'an went to bed to rest, but he never thought that he would be lying awake until now.

During the day, he talked and laughed with Zhou Yi and Zhang Shun, and felt very happy. When it was late at night and the noise faded, Liu Ming'an began to feel a faint sense of loss.

After lying down for a while, Liu Ming'an still had no sleep. He turned over and got up, lit the candlestick, took out the brush, ink and inkstone from the cabinet by the wall, walked to the table and sat down, and began to slowly grind the ink.

The ink stick moved in circles on the inkstone, leaching out black ink. Liu Mingan looked at this very common scene, and suddenly his mind flashed to the scene of Jiang Ning grinding ink for him.

What is Jiang Ning doing now? Liu Mingan wanted to know.

The next moment, Liu Mingan laughed softly and muttered to himself: "What am I thinking about? It's already midnight, she must be asleep..."

Liu Mingan picked up the pen and wanted to write something like "Time is money, and money can't buy time" to the youngest son of the Hong family. However, his thoughts were like a flood with the gate opened, surging and surging. The two words "Jiang Ning" were all around him, and Jiang Ning's calm eyes with a little coldness kept appearing in front of him.

When Liu Mingan came back to his senses, a sentence had already been written on the snow-white rice paper: The water is like the horizontal eye waves, the mountain is like the gathered brow peaks.

Liu Mingan stared at these words in a daze, and gradually understood the reason why he had trouble falling asleep.

He was used to Jiang Ning sleeping beside him.

Liu Mingan put the rice paper aside and picked up the pen again. This time, what appeared in front of him was not only the pair of cold eyes, but also Jiang Ning's delicate, indifferent and expressionless face.

Liu Mingan couldn't help but think of that day, the day when He Wen died. He waited for the coroner to come back after finishing the autopsy. The sun was setting, and Jiang Ning was leaning against the door waiting for him.

It has been so long, but at this moment, when Liu Ming'an recalled it, he felt as if Jiang Ning was really standing in front of him in the bright orange sky. The orange light shone on her, and even every strand of her hair was clearly visible.

Jiang Ning!

Every time Liu Ming'an put down a stroke, this name echoed in his mind, until he finally put down his pen and stared blankly at his painting. In his heart, he could no longer think of anything else except this name.

The next morning, Zhou Yi and Zhang Shun came together to wake Liu Ming'an up for breakfast, but no one answered after knocking on the door for a long time.

"What's wrong, brother Liu? Did you sleep too deeply?" Zhou Yi asked Zhang Shun beside him.

"Maybe, some people sleep more deeply after drinking." Zhang Shun replied.

Zhou Yi hesitated, "What should we do? Should we still call him?"

Just as he finished speaking, Zhang Shun pushed the door open and said with a smile, "We can't let Brother Liu go back hungry, right? Then we two brothers would be negligent."

The two walked into the house, but were shocked by what they saw and looked at each other, speechless for a while.

They saw Liu Ming'an, who should have been sleeping on the bed, sleeping soundly on the table. There were several sheets of paper, a pen, inkstone, and a candlestick that had already burned out next to it.

The two walked over lightly. Zhou Yi picked up a piece of paper and saw a few passages from the Book of Rites written neatly on it. He immediately blamed himself.

"It's all my fault. I shouldn't have given him the paper yesterday. Brother Liu must have wanted to finish writing overnight, but he was too sleepy later and fell asleep on the table." Zhou Yi said softly, looking at Liu Ming'an with an apologetic look in his eyes.

Zhang Shun was sharp-eyed and saw a piece of paper at the bottom with a corner exposed. He picked it up and took a look, then smiled meaningfully and said, "No, it's not your fault."

Zhou Yi leaned over to take a look. There was no writing on the paper, but there was a picture of a young girl with a good face. The woman in the picture was leaning against the wooden door, looking quietly ahead, with no expression on her face, revealing a sense of alienation and indifference.

"Oh my God! This is..." Zhou Yi was so surprised that he forgot to control his volume.

Liu Ming'an, who was sleeping soundly, was awakened by this shout. He opened his eyes and found that his two brothers were standing next to him.

Zhang Shun asked him with a smile: "Brother Liu, are you awake? We knocked on the door but you didn't answer. We were afraid you were hungry, so we pushed the door open and came in. Please don't be offended, brother Liu

." Liu Ming'an stood up and stretched his stiff limbs, and replied: "It's okay. I always wake up when I hear the roosters crow at home. It's too quiet here. I slept past the hour and had to trouble my two brothers to wake me up. I'm really ashamed."

"Why did brother Liu sleep here?" Zhou Yi asked with a teasing look in his eyes.

Liu Ming'an thought about what happened last night and replied: "I was not used to the new environment all of a sudden, so I thought about getting up to write a few words, but I didn't expect to fall asleep. Sorry for the embarrassment."

“Water is like the waves of the eyes; mountains are like the peaks of the brows.” Zhou Yi picked up a piece of paper and read it word by word. He laughed at Liu Ming’an’s stunned expression: “Brother Liu, you are obviously unable to sleep at night because you miss your beloved. Hahaha…”

Zhang Shun put the painting on the table and asked firmly: “Is this girl your sister? Every eyebrow and every move is stunning. Every stroke is full of lovesickness. Well, they are a good match!”

Zhou Yi and Zhang Shun talked back and forth, making Liu Ming’an blush slightly. He hurriedly explained: “Brother Zhou and Zhang, it’s not like that. I just painted casually. I have always regarded Jiang Ning as my sister. Really, believe me!”

Zhou Yi and Zhang Shun could see that Liu Ming’an was really anxious. They looked at each other and understood that he had not yet realized their feelings.

Zhang Shun clenched his fist and coughed lightly, then suppressed the smile on his face and said half-truthfully, "Oh, it turned out to be a misunderstanding."

"Yes, yes, I just treat her as a sister, and I don't have any other thoughts." Liu Ming'an said anxiously.

Zhou Yi shook his head and looked at Liu Ming'an, with a look of "rotten wood cannot be carved" in his eyes: "Then let's not talk about it for now, let's go have breakfast together."

After that, Zhou Yi picked up the other three pieces of paper on the table, pointed to the remaining painting and a poem, and said faintly: "This is not suitable for my little cousin to copy, Liu brother, keep it yourself."

Liu Ming'an nodded, his ears reddened a little, and facing the gazes of the two, he folded the rice paper and put it in his arms.