The painting class was finally held on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Donnan Bei called Zhu Zhu as soon as he received the notice, and they arranged to have dinner together after work on Wednesday.
After work, Donnan Bei changed into a black shirt and walked out of the office building with a sandy yellow trench coat in his hand, standing on the curb and looking at the door of the Toyo Bank across the street. A short while later, Zhu Zhu appeared, looking up at the bank's office building, then looking around, suddenly meeting the gaze of Donnan Bei standing across the street, walking a few steps closer to the curb, looking at Donnan Bei with a smile through the traffic, occasionally lifting the curls on her forehead and putting the wind-blown hair behind her ears.
Donnan Bei shook off the trench coat in his hands, grabbed the collar with both hands and lifted it up, swung it in a big circle and draped it over his shoulders, crouched slightly on his hind legs in a bow pose towards the Art Centre, Zhu Zhu laughed and shook his head, pointing behind with a "eat" gesture. Donnan Bei shook his head, pointed to the pedestrian bridge not far away and turned around and walked over.
The two walked to the middle of the bridge at the same time with controlled steps, and Donnan Bei folded his hands and said, "Long time, how are you? I have prepared a small drink and would like to invite the warrior to enjoy the meal."
Zhu Zhu pushed away Donnan Bei's hand and said, "We don't have enough time today, let's wait for later."
A young male teacher stood at the podium in the art classroom was a with a strong Hunan accent, saying "Hu" as "Fu". He introduced himself as a graduate of the art department of the First Hunan Teacher's College, saying that the "First Teaching" was founded in the Southern Song Dynasty and that Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Huang Xing, Mao Zedong, Li Weihan and Ren Bishi were all graduates of the First Teaching, and that Xu Teli, Zhou Gucheng and Tian Han had all taught there. The "Fu" teacher paused after his introduction, scanning each of the trainees, before his tone changed and he began to introduce the courses.
Zhu Zhu's seat was next to Donnan Bei at the back of the classroom. Donnan Bei helped her adjust her easel and sharpened the pencils one by one, some with very thin bibs, some with very flat nibs and some with the nibs left as they were, but all the tops of pencils were left long, like the blades of swords.
Zhu Zhu watched carefully as Donnan Bei sharpened the pencils and asked quietly, "Why do you sharpen the pencils like that?"
Donnan Bei said, "It makes the lines rich and it's also a personal habit, you use it first and slowly you will get used to it yourself." He cut eraser in half along the diagonal, handed half to Zhu Zhu and kept half for himself.
The sketching unit started with geometric shapes, and Donnan Bei started to draw an outline on the paper and then took out his sketchbook and scribbled casually. He glanced sideways at Zhu Zhu from time to time, and used a line to slowly outline the profile of her face. After drawing Zhu Zhu, Donnan Bei observed a girl in front of her easel, with shoulder-length straight hair, a full forehead, a fleshy nose with a slightly tilted tip, and a slightly larger mouth with thick lips and slightly drooping corners.
During the recess, as the students were stringing around to observe each other, Donnan Bei tore a few strips of paper and began to roll a pencil cap, Zhu Zhu looked at her picture and asked Donnan Bei, "Senior, how do you think I did?"
"It's very good!" Donnan Bei said, "Your drawing style is like Huai Yang cuisine."
"What do you say?" Zhu Zhu tilted her head and looked at Donnan Bei and said.
"Some have delicate composition and delicate strokes, like Cantonese cuisine; others have strong contrast between light and dark and use harder strokes, like Sichuan and Hunan cuisine." Donnan Bei said, "You originally wanted to do Cantonese cuisine, then you ran out of patience and switched to Sichuan cuisine, painting out of the mainstream, but there are always masterstrokes. Your lines arrange are very interesting, some like Yangzhou Tofu shreds, most like the textiles."
