On the night when I sent the squad leader to the station, Hai Linlin said in the studio that I looked lost.

"Really?" I asked her as I painted, "How do you feel about graduation?"

"I can draw at home. She said, "It's that simple." ”

Her portrait is nearing completion, and I'm working on the most crucial part – her eyes. The eye is the most important part of portrait painting, and the image of the character painting, whether it is brilliant or not, is in the treatment of the eye. Her eyelashes are not long, but her eyes are very good-looking, just like painting, as long as a girl's eyes are good-looking, then the whole face will also be beautiful.

Looking at her eyes that blinked occasionally, thinking of the class leader's departure, I thought of the time when she also left school, and I felt a sadness in my heart. I hadn't thought about her leaving school one day, maybe I thought about it, but I didn't care. But this day will come. This feeling is different from the feeling of knowing that the squad leader is leaving. I've never had the urge to pour out my love for her, just like my character, to get by. I couldn't think of anything better than having this moment with her and being able to paint a portrait of her. While it might have felt better to be a couple with her, the fear of rejection after opening my mouth made me never think about it. I'm just soaking up the beauty that exists in the moment.

I didn't dare to ask her when she would leave school, knowing that time would be a great torture for me, and I knew in my heart that she would leave school eventually, and if she didn't know that time, it would be like a time bomb that would explode at any time - no one knew when the pain would come and what kind of damage it would cause to me.

I have always remembered the words that the class leader told me, "Love is the world of the brave", and I also believe in it, but I am always ashamed to put it into practice. I knew I would end up trapped in my own cowardice. But people are sometimes so strange that they would rather go in the direction of having predicted a bad outcome, and no one will look back.

I don't let my emotions show, my eyes moving back and forth between her face and the drawing board, the brush going back and forth between the drawing board and the palette. Say a few words to her once in a while.

"Have you ever thought about learning a foreign language? She asked me.

"Never thought about it. I said, "I have almost zero talent in foreign languages." ”

"If you have to learn a foreign language. She asked, "What language are you going to learn?"

I thought for a moment and said, "German." ”

"Why?" she asked.

"I'm going to read Goethe's Faust recently. "I told her that I had read parts of Faust as a child and had not finished them. When I grew up, there was a time when I remembered that it was really good, and I went to re-read it, but many of the translated versions were different and looked different, so I gave up. Recently, I was going to re-read it, and if only I knew German, I could read the original German version.

Her portrait was thoroughly completed on the third day after New Year's Day. At the end of the year and on New Year's Day, the English training course she signed up for was very full, and she never had time to go to the studio. For me, it was almost a week of free time, and I rarely stayed in the dormitory except for sleeping at night, leaving my dorm room empty and clean.

The day after the class leader left, I cleaned the dormitory cleanly and spotlessly. I tore off the stickers that my roommate had attached to the pillars of the shelf bed, swept out the waste paint hose that had rolled deep under the bed and threw it into the trash can with the garbage, washed the squatting pit in the bathroom with disinfectant, and even wiped the protective railing of the balcony with a rag as if it had just been painted with silver. I did all this with a religious attitude, without the slightest sloppiness, as if that was the only way to make graduation time go more slowly. When I was done and sat at the table looking at the bare bed, only my bed was covered with a bunk cover. I had a pen without a cap in my hand, and sometimes the gel pen dropped on the table and the echo of the empty squeal popped up. At that time, I deeply felt that I was the only one left in the dormitory. It was then that I really thought that everyone else had gone their separate ways, and that I was the only one who was still in a state of confusion and delusion.

That kind of empty silence only makes people feel that there is no end to the distraction. In that environment, it is always difficult to get rid of the burden of the mind.

The day before New Year's Day, I went to bed in the evening, and was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of fireworks outside the window, and when I opened my eyes, the flickering light of the fireworks shone intermittently from the balcony, illuminating the quiet dormitory with a twinkle. I put on my clothes and stood on the balcony, watching the light points rising in the distance explode into ten thousand golden rays of light, and it took a few seconds for the sound to reach the balcony. I think of Hai Linlin, she should have been sleeping in the dormitory where she was the only one left, whether she would be woken up by the sound of fireworks, I don't know if her dormitory is in the same direction as my dormitory, whether she will see the fireworks explode like me. If it was the same direction as me, would you also go to see the fireworks to celebrate the New Year?

In the past when he painted portraits of Hai Linlin, Mr. Ou came to the studio several times, and once he stayed in the studio for a long time. He pulled up a stool, sat next to me and watched me paint, chatting with us about topics that had nothing to do with painting. He didn't care about my painting process, as if he didn't even see me drawing. It wasn't until he left that he asked me to go to the classroom where he had a collection of paintings. That day and the only time I finished painting I didn't go with Hai Linlin.

"Helen is your girlfriend?" Mr. Ou asked me as he stood in front of the pile of pictures from his collection, where the paintings from my graduation exhibition were placed.

It's been so long since the end of the graduation show, and there are only a handful of graduating students who remain at the school, and two classmates of the opposite sex paint portraits in a quiet studio where no one disturbs them every other night, and maybe only couples do that.

"No, Mr. Ou. I quickly explained to him: "We're just friends, let's paint a portrait of her." ”

He didn't react in the slightest, and his flat appearance was like his usual attitude towards any student. "Did you paint this picture for her, or did you paint it for yourself. Teacher Ou asked.

Just like when Mr. Ou first asked me in his office how to deal with my graduation exhibition works, I felt at a loss, I didn't think about whether this painting was painted for me or for Hai Linlin. Most likely, it was painted for me, after all, I offered to paint her. But the content of the picture is indeed her. When I wanted to paint a portrait of Hai Linlin, it was also a temporary idea, and the impulse that pervaded my heart made me have to paint her. During the whole process of painting, I never thought that I or Hai Linlin would take the painting.

"I've been observing for a long time. Teacher Ou said, "Sell me this painting too." ”

I deeply felt that Mr. Ou was unexpected, and in his opinion, a casual question always caught people off guard. He is definitely competent in teaching and educating people, although he has not taken special care of any of his classmates, and treats all students equally. But the fact that he wanted to buy my graduation work after the graduation exhibition really surprised me and touched me a lot. Even when he asked almost the same question as the work in his graduation exhibition, I was still at a loss. He always seems to know what others should know but never pay attention to, and thus asks questions that make people blame themselves for not knowing.

But one thing I know for sure is that this painting must not be sold, either I will bring it back for safekeeping, or Helenlin will take it with her—maybe she will not necessarily take it.

"This one can't be sold. I said, "I'm going to keep this painting." ”

As the owner of the painting, I have every right to decide whether the painting should be sold or not, but I still feel very sorry to refuse Mr. Ou, after all, no one has ever cared so much about me in this regard.

"Phew. Teacher Ou sighed, looking disappointed, but quickly regained a happy expression and said to me: "It's okay, the autonomy is completely yours, I just think your painting is more collectible than your graduation work." ”

Mr. Ou's words made me feel inexplicable again, there are so many paintings that are higher than mine, why did he have to keep my works. I asked him this question in my last graduation project, and he didn't answer it, and I wanted to ask him again several times, but I didn't ask, and if he was going to tell me, I would have told me the first time I asked. I didn't ask again.

On the last day of painting a portrait of Hai Linlin, I was putting the finishing touches on the painting.

"I kept the painting. I said to her as I painted.

"Well, your work, of course, you saved. She said.

The painting was finished with the last few strokes, and I looked more closely at her, looking for subtle differences in light on her face. Her eyes were unlike anything else, and when I looked at her, she looked into my gaze, as if trying to find something in my eyes that belonged to her. When my eyes met her again, she whispered, "I'm leaving school on the twelfth and going home." ”

My heart shook slightly, since the class leader left, I deeply felt that Hai Linlin also had the day she left school, but in order to avoid knowing the specific time when she left school made me upset, I never asked her. But I knew there would come a day. When the time was suddenly decided, I felt a sudden rush of fear and sorrow. At that moment, I felt that there were still a lot of things I hadn't done besides painting her portrait, and I realized that there were some things that could have been done directly and easily. But because of my luck and cowardly attitude, everything slipped away quietly, and I couldn't grasp it anymore.

I felt the brush tremble a little, and I tried to restrain myself and used the brush to work on the highlights on the side of her face. I felt her looking at me, and I didn't dare look up at her. But there was always a time when I was done, and I was just fixing some of the highlights, and I was obviously wasting too much time on a few steps that would take just a few clicks to get it done. I shifted my gaze to her face, and she saw me looking at her.

"Finished with English class?" I asked her, dipping some paint and drawing the last few strokes.

"Well, it's been the last two days. She said.

I finished the last few strokes, put the brushes and palette on the table, and said to her, "It's done." ”