The moment the page is turned, a stronger scent, a mixture of the unique coolness of ink and a certain kind of high-grade paper (probably dolly paper?), with a hint of pine wood, hits you in the face. It makes people feel at ease inexplicably.
The first page, like its cover, is clean to the point of being paranoid. On the pure white paper, only in the upper middle part, a foreign short poem is copied stroke by stroke with a black fountain pen with a nib as thin as a hair. I don't recognize the curled words, but the handwriting itself is a work of art. Clear, slender, with a deliberately suppressed style and strength. The rise and fall of each letter are precise, smooth, and with a hint of...sharpness that is not easily detected. It seems that the writer's soul is also like this handwriting, calm, restrained, but with a hidden edge.
There are also a few modifications next to it. He used a very light silver-gray ink, carefully crossed out a word, and marked another one next to it. He was meticulous and rigorous, as if he was treating an architectural drawing.
Hmm... a cultured person. A high-level intellectual. And, in all likelihood, a patient with advanced obsessive-compulsive disorder.
My curiosity was completely ignited, like a spark thrown into a pile of dry firewood, quickly spreading. My fingers almost uncontrollably, with a sense of guilt for blasphemy and uncontrollable excitement, turned to the next page.
Then... I was completely lost.
The next few dozen pages completely confirmed my previous speculation, and showed the "other side" of this architect in a way that... made me dumbfounded.
All sketches. One page after another, densely packed.
The drawings were all of the forgotten and eroded corners of this city where I had lived for thirty years and had long since ignored them. There are winding, moss-covered alleys in the south of the Yangtze River; there are ancient temples that were once prosperous but now only have broken walls and ruins; there are old industrial plants standing by the river with rusted steel bars and broken glass; and... the window view of the popular coffee shop next to our art center, which always has a long queue but the coffee tastes very ordinary...
His painting style, like him, carries a calm, detached sense of a bystander. The lines are terribly accurate, and the structure, proportions, and texture of the building are all depicted extremely well. But he is not just copying reality. When you look at his paintings, you can clearly feel his sensitive capture of light and shadow. How the faint light in the early morning illuminates the outline of the eaves, how the lazy sunshine in the afternoon casts the shadow of the trees on the mottled wall, how the warm light at dusk dyes the cold steel and concrete with the last touch of warm color... The light and shadow seem to have life in his pen, telling the passage of time and the breath of the building.
What makes a layman like me even more impressive is that there are dense text notes next to almost every sketch. The font is still that kind of elegant and slender style, but the content is varied: the historical evolution of the building, the style characteristics of different periods, the analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the structure, the physical properties of the materials, and even... the preliminary ideas on how to carry out protective restoration or adaptive transformation. Quoting classics, citing references, and so many professional terms that I wonder if I have strayed into the class notes of a doctoral student in architecture.
Is this guy... a living dictionary in the world of architecture? Or... does he love this city so deeply?
I read it with great interest and had long thrown away the original intention of "looking for contact information". I felt like an explorer who strayed into a treasure house, and every page was full of surprises. As I flipped through it, I even saw a few pages dedicated to "researching" the old and dilapidated building of our art center! He drew our atrium that put on the "Water Curtain Cave" wonder when it rains, the reading room on the second floor that is hot in summer and cold in winter due to its unreasonable structure, and the spiral staircase connecting the first and second floors that is narrow and steep enough to make people dizzy... Next to it, he also used very fine red ink lines to sketch out various renovation plans: for example, adding an intelligent sensing glass ceiling above the atrium, which opens for ventilation and lighting on sunny days and automatically closes on rainy days; for example, opening up some non-load-bearing walls in the reading room, adding floor-to-ceiling windows, and introducing more natural light; for example... installing a small sightseeing elevator in the abandoned utility room next to the spiral staircase to facilitate the elderly and disabled readers...
"My God..." I couldn't help but take a breath of cold air, "This... This is simply a magical plan!" It is so much smarter than the plan of "painting the walls, changing the light bulbs, and buying a few pots of green plants" that the expert consultants in our library discussed after 800 meetings! If...if our center could afford to hire him to design...Oh, forget it, just go to sleep, I can dream about anything.
I was reading with great interest, my fingers almost unconsciously and quickly turning the pages. Suddenly, my fingertips touched a slight bulge that was different from the paper.
I stopped and looked down carefully.
It was about one-third of the book's thickness. Several small, lavender petals that were pressed extremely flat, almost completely transparent. They were very carefully fixed to the blank edge of the page with some kind of transparent tape (?), like a few unique and sad bookmarks.
This flower... my heartbeat accelerated inexplicably. Isn't this... the kind of pansy that blooms tenaciously all year round in the broken flowerbed at the entrance of our art center? ! Because they are too common and too ordinary, no one would even look at them more.
He... actually collects this? Even this humble little wild flower can catch his eye? This architect's aesthetic taste... is really... quite special.
I carefully lifted one of the best-preserved petals with the tip of my fingernail, brought it close to my eyes, and examined it carefully under the dim light of the desk lamp. The petals were as thin as cicada wings, with natural, fine wrinkles on the edges, and the lavender veins were clearly visible under the light, like some mysterious map pattern. There seemed to be a little bit of... the smell of sunlight and soil on it?
Just as I began to make irrelevant literary and artistic associations with this small petal, my eyes inadvertently swept across the page marked and tightly pressed by it -
Then.
Time seemed to have completely solidified at this moment.
The air seemed to have been sucked away at this moment.
My brain was blank. Only the heart was beating wildly in my chest, making a deafening roar.
This page.
And... damn! It's the next dozens of pages!!!
What I painted was no longer the cold steel and concrete, the changing light and shadow clouds, or the humble pansies on the roadside.
What I painted was...
All of them were...
Me.
Wearing the clothes from our art center... Oh, I swear I will buy new work clothes tomorrow! Absolutely! I was wearing the pale blue work clothes that were so ugly that I couldn't bear to look at them, and they were almost patinaed after being washed!
The first picture was me sitting behind the service desk, my right hand supporting my cheek, my eyes empty, obviously daydreaming during working hours. There was no expression on my face, and maybe even... a bit of dejection. But the person who painted it! This pervert... No! It was the observant Shen Mochen! He actually used extremely delicate brushstrokes to capture the traces of the habitual frown between my eyebrows that I didn't even know when I developed! And! And the almost negligible circle of... blue under my eyes because I stayed up late to read novels for a long time (shh!)? !
My cheeks suddenly burned up! It was like someone had exposed a secret in public!
My fingers were shaking like I was in the late stage of Parkinson's disease. I almost held my breath and used all my strength to turn the next page.
It was still me!
It was a back view! Standing in front of a tall bookshelf that almost reached the ceiling! I was desperately standing on tiptoe - damn the height of a hobbit! - stretching my arms like a clumsy giraffe, trying to stuff a "General History of World Architecture" that was thick enough to be used for self-defense back to the top of the bookshelf! Because of the unstable center of gravity, my body was swaying, and it seemed that I would fall down with the book in the next second! My ponytail swung back and forth because of my movements, and a few strands of disobedient hair were stuck to my slightly sweaty neck! Even! Even the small brown mole on the right side of my neck that I almost forgot about... he drew it!!!
The next page!
No!!! Don't!!!
It was me... I was lying on the service desk taking a nap! ! ! Oh my god! ! ! This picture must not be kept! It must be destroyed! Humanely destroyed! I was seen in the painting, with my face buried in my folded arms, sleeping soundly, with no image at all! My hair was messy and scattered all over the table! The corner of my mouth... the small shiny pool at the corner of my mouth... Absolutely! Absolutely ink! Or... sweat from thirst! Definitely not saliva! I, Tang Xin, swear to heaven!!!
The next page...
I stood in front of the huge French window in the reading area, looking out the window. It seemed that a heavy rain had just fallen outside, and the streets were wet, reflecting the dim light of the street lamps. In the small square downstairs, there were a few children in raincoats, stepping on the puddles excitedly, splashing water. I in the painting looked at them, and the corners of my mouth... seemed to unconsciously bend upwards in a very small arc. In my eyes... there seemed to be a little bit of... envy? Or... yearning?
…
Page. Another page. Another page.
It seems to be endless.
Me at work. Me slacking off. Me with a grin on my face while moving books. Me dozing off and drooling (absolutely not!). Me staring out the window in a daze and occasionally grinning. There is even… me secretly chewing an apple (no snacks allowed during work hours!) while gesturing to explain to readers, "This book really doesn't have an electronic version, please don't embarrass me"…
Each painting accurately captures a moment of me that is… extremely daily, extremely ordinary, and perhaps even a little… embarrassing. Those moments, even I have long forgotten, or never cared about them at all. But under his pen, they are given a… strange, gentle halo.
The length of my hair in the painting is quietly changing. From the neat shoulder-length hair when I first came to the center, it grew little by little, and now it has become the long hair that is almost waist-length and sometimes a little inconvenient. The background never changes. It is always the library area of the art center where I have stayed for five years and am so familiar with it that I can draw a floor plan with my eyes closed. I always thought it was boring.
Time span... I turned to the last sketch with trembling fingers and saw the date in the lower right corner...
Oh my God...
The earliest one was in the autumn three years ago!
Three whole years! More than a thousand days and nights!
My brain has completely shut down! It's like being hit by a giant electromagnetic pulse, and all my thoughts have turned into a sizzling electric noise!
If it were just these paintings... maybe... maybe I could still numb myself with nonsense like "artists are all paranoid" and "he has a special fetish for observing the dynamics of the human body"...
But! Yes!
Next to those paintings! Those extremely thin, extremely light pencil words that almost merged with the paper! Written! Those! Notes! ! !
They were like red-hot daggers, mercilessly piercing my last pitiful fantasy! Show the cruel and sweet truth to me in a bloody way!
"202X-X-X. Sunny. High light saturation. She sat by the window sorting old newspapers. The sunlight passed through the gaps between the camphor leaves, jumping and breaking on the ends of her soft hair, like... countless tiny golden butterflies."
"202X-X-X. Cloudy. Cooling. She seemed to have a cold, and her voice was heavily nasal, as if it had been sanded. Wrapped in a thick scarf, she was still patiently helping an old man with poor hearing to find information. It was a bit... distressing."
"202X-X-X. Rainy. Sorting out the newly arrived picture albums, which were very tall and heavy. She stood on tiptoe, like a bird trying to stretch its neck to reach the fruit on the top of the tree... um... Fawn? A little clumsy, but...very serious."
"202X-X-X. Sunny. Lunch break. Probably too tired, fell asleep on the table. Breathing is very light and even. Eyelashes...longer than expected. Like...some kind of butterfly with folded wings." (...so the sparkling thing is not saliva, right?!)
"202X-X-X. Sunny. She smiled at the window. Because she saw a little boy in a Superman costume downstairs fell down, got up by himself, and made a face at her. When she smiled...her eyes curved into a beautiful arc, like...the sky after the rain."
"..."
"..."
Boom--!!!!!!!!!
It's over. It's completely over. I, Tang Xin, the wise man of my life (self-proclaimed), have completely failed today.
My face! My ears! My neck! Even my toes! I feel like every pore in my body is spewing steam! Blood rushed back to the heart like crazy, and was pumped back to the whole body by the heart at super high pressure! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The sound was so loud that I could hear it clearly! I even suspected that if I jumped again, I might perform a special skill of "breaking a big stone with my chest" on the spot!
This! What the hell is this a sketchbook? ! What kind of observation diary? !
This is simply... a book that was carefully painted with the most delicate brush, the most gentle words, and took more than three years (God knows if it was longer!) of precious time, and was carefully drawn with every stroke. The words were filled with the sour and pedantic smell of "I like you", and it was so heavy that it could crush people to death...
The ultimate! Invincible! Secret! Love! Diary! Ah! Ah! Ah!
[Warning!!! Warning!!! A universe-level destructive secret love nuclear weapon was detected!!! The equivalent cannot be estimated!!! Target locked: the owner of the notebook! The most handsome guy in the architect world (tentative)! The founder of the sultry world (confirmed)! Shen! Mo! Chen! ]
[Ah——!!! (The system is garbled due to overexcitement)... Host!!! Tang Xin!!! You!!! The ancestral grave is smoking... No! It must be a volcano erupting!!! Being!!! Secretly in love with!!! Such an ultimate hidden boss with MAX patience, MAX affection, MAX talent, and most likely MAX looks and body!!! So!!! So many!!! What are you still hesitating about? ! Quick! Go up! Pin him down! Tell him! I'm sure!!!]
The thoughts in my mind that usually only make jokes have completely turned into screaming chickens at this moment, and they are madly holding a concert in my head! The decibels are so high that they can flip my head off!
I snapped! With all my strength! I fiercely closed the dark green "Pandora's Box" that exuded fatal temptation (and the smell of social death)! It was as if what I was holding in my hand was not a book, but a piece of hot Samadhi fire that had just been fished out of the Bagua furnace! I raised my head suddenly, like a thief caught in the act, and glanced around quickly with a guilty conscience - fortunately! There was really no one! The empty reading area, only the setting sun cast a long, silent shadow through the huge glass window. Safe... temporarily safe...
Shen Mochen...
Shen Mochen...
Shen Mochen!!!
This name, at this moment, is like a spell, echoing in my mind again and again, and every word is hot.
The aloof architect who always sits in the first row at lectures, with a focused and distant look, as if he is surrounded by an invisible barrier...
The "human refrigerator" who is said to be extremely self-disciplined, lives a simple life like an ascetic, and reads books and draws pictures except for work...
The steel straight man who even Shen Xiaoxiao complained that "my uncle may have to be single until the next life because of his strength"...
He...
has a crush on me? !
Has been in love with me...for more than three years? !
He also...
I drew all the embarrassing looks that I couldn't bear to look at myself? ! With words that were... so... so... (damn it! I actually thought it was a little sweet?!)? !
This cognition, like a supernova explosion, instantly destroyed all the fragile dams of "reality", "logic" and "self-cognition" that I had built over the past thirty years! The flood was overwhelming! It was a mess! I felt like a traveler who had been trekking in the desert for three days and three nights and was on the verge of dying of thirst, and was suddenly told: Don't look for it, the sand under your feet is actually diamonds, and the dying cactus next to it is Evian mineral water that can be refilled endlessly...
Is this... is this reasonable? ! Is this scientific? ! Does this conform to the law of conservation of energy? !
Calm down! Tang Xin! You must calm down! Think about your mortgage! Think about your Huabei! Think about your fat orange that has not yet been found! Don't let this small... (well, huge)... accident get you carried away!
I stretched out my still trembling hand, took a deep breath, took another deep breath, and then... fiercely and mercilessly, I pinched my arm again!
"Aww!!!!"
Oh my god! It hurts so much! It hurts so much that tears are about to come out! Can you be a little gentler when pinching yourself!
Very good. Confirmed.
This damn, outrageous, heart-pounding thing that makes people almost have a myocardial infarction...
It's all true!