I didn’t take it seriously. 

My heart was tied to Mingcheng.

Perhaps my dispirited appearance was too obvious. One day while eating, my dad smacked my hand with his chopsticks and ridiculed me with a drooping face: “Your face is uglier than that braised duck. I’m going to die from anger, Lao Wen has a son, so why is he so worry-free…..”

My dad was very disappointed in me, and Mingcheng had stopped playing with me.

But when my dad mentioned Mingcheng again, I felt even worse. I looked down at my white rice, tears about ready to fall into the bowl.

I rewarded myself with a bowl of rice mixed with tears.

My dad looked at me in this dead state and likely couldn’t bear it anymore. After dinner, he called me to the study, scolded me up and down, and finally poured a drink to calm himself down.

After drinking enough water, he sat down with a sigh. “Forget it, what that Wen family boy has been advising me these days is somewhat reasonable, I think. Everyone has his own destiny, so you go ahead and learn your lousy painting.”

He waved his hand and told me to get out.

But I keenly picked up the information in my dad’s words.

Mingcheng pleaded for me?

He had been helping me persuade my dad these days?

Wow! I understood that he was truly generous and wouldn’t really ignore me.

I was happy, and the depression in my heart immediately dissipated.

At that time, every household still had a landline phone. So after I left my dad’s office, I couldn’t wait to call the Wen family, and pretended to be sophisticated. I didn’t say that I was looking for Mingcheng, and only said that I was looking for Mingyi. After talking for a long time, I finally asked her: “What is your brother doing? Homework?”

I wanted to take the opportunity to go to the Wen house and do my homework, and to see Mingcheng, whom I had lost and found.

But Mingyi told me that their aunt had gotten married recently. As the eldest child in the family, Mingcheng was going with his parents to send his aunt off, so he was not at home during this time.

No wonder I hadn’t seen him in the past few days.

I had really blamed him wrongly.

He was good.

The next time I saw Wen Mingcheng was at Auntie Wen’s wedding.

He was wearing a white suit, and the contours of his body were smooth and beautiful. With a gentle temperament and light smile, he just stood under the crystal lamp. A halo of light danced around him, as if he was meant to shine.

Many people were attracted to him, and I also saw him for the first time in the crowd.

My elder brother told me: “There are so many people, he won’t be able to hear you say hello to him.”

I thought the same, so I didn’t intend to greet him. But I thought that Mingcheng looked very good that day, so I took out the camera I had prepared early in the morning and pointed it at him.

I put him right in the center of my camera. Above his head was a feather crystal lamp, and behind him was a bouquet of decorative white roses.

And the moment I pressed the shutter, he suddenly raised his head as if sensing something.

The camera clicked, leaving this scene behind.

In the photo, the young Wen Mincheng stood in the bustling city, looking through the crowd at me from a distance.

At that moment, we seemed to be looking at each other.

My heart moved, and when my older brother urged me to hurry up, I hid the camera in my bag.

When the wedding began, Mingcheng and I finally reunited.

The two of us sat at the same table. The wedding banquet was sumptuous and the bride was very beautiful, but my eyes were secretly directed toward the person next to me.

The mottled light flickered across his face, making it look like a carefully crafted sculpture.

I was a little distracted, but he looked sideways at me after the bride walked down the carpet, and the light broke into a soft halo over his eyelashes. His eyes curved and he said softly: “A-Zhen, do you want to take out your camera and take some pictures?”

He must have seen my camera bag. I nodded subconsciously, but then I thought of something and felt guilty, so I stopped taking out the camera.

This feeling was truly strange. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want Mingcheng to know that I had photographed him.

It was the first time I had such a feeling, and I didn’t know how to deal with it, stammering to find an excuse: “I think that……the camera cannot replicate the happiness of the bride, and doesn’t reflect the love between them. It’s easy to make people look ugly.”

He seemed very interested in what I had to say: “Oh? What should be done?”

What should be done? How should I know. But now that I had spoken, no matter what, I had to bite the bullet and pretentiously act cool.

“Hmmm…..wait for me to go back and paint it.”

This was absolutely pretentious.

I was talking nonsense with the mentality that Mingcheng would forget about it when I got back, but what I didn’t expect was that he didn’t forget, and came to ask me how my painting was going again and again.

Damn it, why didn’t I know that he had such a good relationship with his aunt?

Even after the wedding, he still remembered this matter.

Of course, I was so-so at painting, but I had no choice.

As a result, there was no problem with the composition and color of the painting, nor with the figures, but the bride and groom were smiling very strangely. Their smiles were bright, but looked more like they were networking than getting married.

I could honestly say I tried my best, but it was awkward for a high school student to paint romance.

And at that time, I didn’t understand what love and life-long blessings were at all.

This was my highest level painting, and I gave it to Mingcheng.

At that time, he was practicing cello in the conservatory. I entered the glass room, accompanied by low, elegant music. It was the season when peonies bloomed, and the pink flowers were round and delicate. There was a sweet fragrance in the air. Probably to prevent them from being burned by the strong sunlight at noon, thin white gauze was drawn around the glass room.

I showed him the wedding portrait I had painted. He raised his eyebrows at me as he took it, and there was a bit of amusement in his expression.

I suddenly realized that he was probably just teasing me, and didn’t actually want me to paint it.

This made me a little embarrassed, so I angrily told him to return it to me.

Not only did he refuse to give it back, but he shook his head and laughed at me unabashedly: “I wonder if the bride and groom holding hands should be more natural.”

What he said was rather tactful. I knew that the way they were holding hands didn’t make it appear that they were lovers, and that there was something a bit wrong. There was a different atmosphere between them than I had seen at weddings.

But I was just an ignorant bystander.

I observed other people’s love, but couldn’t empathize with it myself.

I snatched my painting back and turned my head, somewhat angry. “You don’t understand. And you can’t paint, so why are you telling me how to do it?”

Having been briefly scolded by me, he pondered for a moment and seemed to really be thinking about it.

A slight breeze blew at this time, and the white tulle was blown high by the wind before falling back gently.

Because I was close to the glass, half of my body was enveloped by the white tull when it fell down.

I moved to take it off, but a slender, well-proportioned hand stretched out in front of me.

It was Wen Mingcheng. He seemed to understand my problem, and smiled as he reached out to me: “A-Zhen, hold my hand.”

My eyelashes brushed the tulle. Looking at the world through this layer of white tulle, it seemed as if everything was coated in a dreamy, snow-white filter.

As if compelled, I held his hand.

The next moment, he suddenly took a step back and pulled me in front of him. 

I jumped forward because of his sudden movement, and the white tulle slid from my chest to the top of my head before slipping off.

He held my body steady and raised his head toward the glass wall to the side: “Look, A-Zhen. I think holding hands should be like this.”

The bright glass wall opposite was like a large mirror, showing the scene in the conservatory. More than a dozen types of delicately-colored flowers were either budding or in full bloom. The green branches of the weeping vines swayed with the breeze, and the white curtains rose and fell like clouds.

And in the center of the conservatory, two teenagers were leaning against each other and holding hands, the taller one holding the other halfway into his arms.

I saw Mingcheng and myself.

Looking at myself, I suddenly understood.

At this moment, I had become a person in the painting, and understood the state of mind of those two people.

I also knew how to paint it.

I remember.

That was when I fell in love with Mingcheng.

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Chapter 19 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 21