Chapter 6
At 8:50, several groups of visitors of different ages gathered in front of the art museum. The most eye-catching group was a group of children carrying drawing boards, accompanied by a teacher; they were most likely high school students out for an art class.
The rest were more scattered. Some looked like couples on a date, some were parents bringing their children to explore their interests, some were professionals coming to appraise, and of course, some were friends meeting up.
Li Ye was also standing in front of the art museum waiting for it to open. She was there to see the exhibition with her friends. However, Zeng Yuan was always on time, while she preferred to arrive a little early. The ten-minute wait wasn't too long, and it also gave her time to mentally rehearse her prepared remarks.
At 9:00 AM sharp, the art museum officially opened to the public. Li Ye also saw Zeng Yuan waving at her from not far away, as well as the man next to Zeng Yuan and the car that had just been parked.
"Wasn't this supposed to be a date for two? Why did you bring other people along?"
Li Ye and Zeng Yuan's new husband, Fang Licheng, are only vaguely familiar faces. The only time they met was at Zeng Yuan's wedding. The rest of the time, they only saw him in photos on Zeng Yuan's WeChat Moments and in Zeng Yuan's paintings.
Fortunately, today was indeed a date for Li Ye and Zeng Yuan. Fang Licheng was just there to be a driver and take Zeng Yuan home.
The two on a date entered the art museum at the very end of the opening crowd. Because the tickets hadn't been passed through his hands, Li Ye only realized the problem after entering the museum.
"This is a school exhibition. I didn't even know it existed. Are any of your paintings in it?"
The school Li Ye mentioned was the alma mater of Li Ye, Zhou Yuan, Zeng Yuan, and half of Fang Licheng. It was a school that encompassed primary, middle, and high school levels, with a very strong teaching staff, making admission quite difficult. Of course, there were shortcuts to admission, such as the special program for gifted children that Li Ye entered, and the performing arts troupe that Zhou Yuan stayed in during his time at the school.
Zeng Yuan is another outstanding graduate from the school. If you hear that the school has an orchestra, you should know that the school's artistic focus is on music. Before graduating from high school, Zeng Yuan was already a young painter who had participated in international art exhibitions with his teacher.
"I only donated a painting to the school when I graduated, so I'm not sure if it's on display here. In fact, I only received the news a few days ago, and the tickets I requested were delivered yesterday."
"For you and Fang Licheng?"
"Of course it's between you and me."
Zeng Yuan adjusted her glasses, focusing her attention on the paintings hanging on the wall, and fell silent. Li Ye also calmed down to carefully observe the still-immature brushstrokes, hoping that this place might bring some surprises.
"The three painting geniuses from your year were just a flash in the pan," came Li Ye, who wasn't an art student, with a touch of regret.
The art exhibition was unremarkable. The two first listened to the students and teachers for half an hour, and then visited each exhibition hall together. The whole process took less than an hour and a half. Not interested in continuing, the two moved on to their second activity: calling their private driver to take them to a pre-arranged restaurant for lunch.
"That's because all three of us studied under the same teacher, whose expertise is beyond question." - Zeng Yuan, who is not an art student herself.
Because they arrived early, the restaurant served the two ladies tea and a pre-dinner dessert. Zeng Yuan scooped up a spoonful of pudding and thankfully found it to be as sweet as domestic desserts, while also sharing a similar sentiment with Li Ye.
"There are quite a few who can be seen to have talent and inspiration, but many more are just blindly copying others, imitating without any original ideas, and their approach is too formulaic."
"Most people are just doing it for the exam, at least at this stage, compromising for the sake of the exam."
Li Ye could somewhat understand these actions. Although she graduated from the gifted youth program, she was always at the bottom of the class. Each time she was reassigned, she narrowly avoided being sent back to a regular class, and her efforts in doing so showed traces of these methods.
How was your honeymoon these past few months?
"Let me show you. This is a photo we took when we went on a trip. We specifically chose this angle so that we could draw the two of us in the same frame later."
"Group photos? Of course, there are the most, Li Cheng cares a lot about them."
“I would love to be your exclusive model, but we are currently on our honeymoon, so like before, we'll put painting aside for now. The important thing is that we spend time together.”
“He said it, and he did it. He even confiscated my sketchbook, which I always carried with me, and only returned it to me while I was waiting for the bus.”
Mentioning this topic immediately made Zeng Yuan feel like pink bubbles were constantly popping up around her. Li Ye chose to lower his head and drink his tea. The black tea with milk seemed to have an extra sour taste out of nowhere.
"I also bought a lot of gifts, but they arrived gradually. Most of them are local specialties, and a few are treasures I found by chance. There are some that I specially prepared for you. I will give them to you in a few days."
"Let's go out together again, go to the mall, and buy a lot of things. We haven't gotten over our shopping addiction yet."
"Okay. The New Year is just around the corner. It will be your first New Year as a couple with Fang Licheng. You'll have a lot to worry about. There will probably be a lot of odds and ends to buy for the new house. Let's see if you still have your shopping addiction."
"My mom will give me advice on this kind of thing, although it will definitely be the two of us who handle it ourselves."
They chatted for a while, about all sorts of things, from travel anecdotes to cosmetics and clothing. Their different perspectives led to a fairly lively discussion until the waiter started serving the food. Li Ye stopped talking, but Zeng Yuan continued sharing, and neither of them felt like they were disturbing each other.
After resting for a while after the meal, Zeng Yuan took Li Ye to a beauty salon for a full-body massage. After all, both of them have jobs that require sitting for long periods of time, and they would easily forget to get up and move around, making their bodies very stiff.
After being laid out on the massage bed, removing her makeup felt like removing a disguise. After the masseur left, the two began to talk about Li Ye's emotional problems, which was the main topic of the day.
Before you sent that message, I thought you two had been together all along.
Li Ye felt he had almost used up all his questions from the past few days, so he asked, "What do you mean?"
"You said I was famous at school, but that was in high school. It was your affair with Zhou Yuan that was famous throughout the school, from shortly after you enrolled until Zhou Yuan graduated."
"Because Zhou Yuan is good-looking?" Li Ye, unaware of this, tried to offer a reasonable guess.
"That's part of the reason, but I'm saying you guys are very famous at school." Zeng Yuan emphasized the word "you guys".
“I entered school a few years earlier than you. As you know, most of us will be classmates for twelve years. The slightest thing can cause a huge stir. The most fluid groups are the gifted youth class you're in and the orchestra Zhou Yuan is in.”
"You two are quite something, you never fall behind, and you're both very good-looking. You also often hang out with each other, especially Zhou Yuan who is in a regular class, so there are even more people watching. That's how you become a hot topic all of a sudden."
That's it?
"I've only just started. At first, everyone just wanted to see when the two kids would stop playing together. Back then, they basically played close to each other whenever they were close to each other."
"When Zhou Yuan goes to junior high school, you will be in the advanced class. When I go to high school, it will be different. It will be the age when I am just beginning to feel the stirrings of adolescence, half-understanding and easily embarrassed."
"Back then, we often used various abbreviations when chatting. The first letters of my name in pinyin are zy, and the first letters of Zhou Yuan's name in pinyin are also zy. When we were chatting in encrypted mode, the two of us used the same abbreviations."
"Once, when the class chat book was passed to me, I was wondering if it was talking about me? When did I change my personality? How come I didn't know? And I suddenly have a childhood sweetheart girlfriend."
Li Ye lay down, turning his head toward Zeng Yuan beside him, recalling the cooperation that they had easily reached when they first met.
"So it was so easy to persuade you when I asked you for help at the art exhibition. I told you that it wasn't that important to you just because you're an alumnus. It turns out you already knew about me."
"Ah, you could say that. In fact, I even went up several floors to see you and Zhou Yuan once, just to see who could be so famous in private."
"At the time, I just felt that it was really rare to see childhood sweethearts who still had such a good relationship after growing up. Others probably just followed the story like a TV series and thought it was normal for there to be something between you two."
"What really makes me think you two are a couple is this."
Zeng Yuan sat up abruptly from the massage bed, took out her phone, opened the photo album, and pulled out an old photo from the depths of the album, handing it to Li Ye. It was a photo taken secretly.
The main characters in the photo are naturally Li Ye and Zhou Yuan. At that time, Li Ye had just finished his college entrance examination and Zhou Yuan was still in the second year of junior high school. Li Ye, who liked to try new things, dragged Zhou Yuan to a comic convention during the summer vacation.
The Zhou family's upbringing was much stricter, so Li Ye didn't dare to draw randomly on Zhou Yuan's face. Instead, he prepared a full set of equipment for her, featuring a female character from a comic book, with two different swords for the front and back. Li Ye also prepared two model swords.
Looking back now, the details of that comic convention are blurry. I only remember queuing for a long time, and it was so hot that wearing non-breathable clothes felt like being suffocated. Of course, what I remember most clearly is that I had a lot of fun at the time.
As the event ended, a group of people left the venue in twos and threes. Li Ye, who was exhausted, handed over his sword to Zhou Yuan. While waiting for Teacher Li to come and pick them up, they split the energy bars in half and divided them among themselves.
After eating and regaining some strength, before the effects of the special atmosphere had even dissipated, Li Ye suddenly became a drama queen, leaning on his sword and looking up to talk to Zhou Yuan.
"This young hero has a graceful figure and extraordinary appearance. The sword in his hand must also be no ordinary weapon. May I have the honor of seeing its splendor?"
Zhou Yuan also cooperated by making a gesture of drawing his sword, and then handed the sword back to Li Ye. The person who took the photo captured this moment, making the two people in the photo appear exceptionally close.
"This photo was really popular at school at the time. Even I, who don't pay much attention, had a copy. Of course, I mainly used it as a pose reference."
“At first, some people were asking who the other girl was, since they didn’t expect you to have this characteristic and didn’t recognize you. After the start of the semester, someone took a photo to Zhou Yuan and asked him directly. Zhou Yuan said that the girl was you and asked for a photo as well.”
"So Zhou Yuan knew about this. It is said that a teacher even approached him at the time, but the other protagonist of the story had already graduated, and the matter was dropped."
Didn't he tell you anything at all?
She had no idea about this, Li Ye thought to himself.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
