Chapter 615
Painting
Chapter 615 Painting
Director Qin's office is a very mysterious place for the children at the welfare home.
Her office was on the first floor, a place with poor lighting, receiving sunlight for only a few hours a day. The door was always closed, resulting in a persistent musty smell.
Director Qin rarely spends time in her office; she clearly prefers the sunny courtyard. Normally, if Director Qin stays in her office for several hours, it means she has important business to attend to, and the children at the orphanage will tactfully leave her undisturbed.
Moreover, everyone knows that Dean Qin's office contains a lot of important documents, reports, and files. Even the youngest and most naive child knows to stay away from the office.
If in the minds of children, Dean Qin's office is a mysterious, unapproachable, and very important place, then in the eyes of outstanding graduates like Qin Huai, especially those who graduated many years ago, the office is a terrifying place.
Dean Qin's office is filled with many treasured items. Of course, the word "treasured" is only used by Dean Qin himself; in Qin Huai's view, Dean Qin simply has a hoarding disorder, and the concept of decluttering is completely foreign to him. He hoards and hides everything he has, and over the decades, Dean Qin himself doesn't even know how many things are stored in his office.
Qin Huai would believe it if Dean Qin found a math workbook from a graduate of the welfare home from 20 years ago in the corner of his office cabinet.
Qin Huai himself doesn't object to going to Director Qin's office. Sometimes, when he arrives at the welfare home and doesn't see Director Qin immediately, he'll go straight to her office to look for her or wait for her. As long as he doesn't bring friends to the office, Qin Huai is fine with it.
This is a situation that Qin Huai cannot accept.
Qin Huaisheng walked at the very back of the line, utterly dejected.
Dean Qin, who was walking at the front, was enthusiastically introducing this regular event to Chen Huihong and Factory Director Xu.
“In the past, the children in our welfare home would make an appointment to come back to see me on the day before the Lunar New Year. Every time this happened, I would take them to my office and take out the paintings they had drawn back then to appreciate and reminisce about them one by one.”
“Back then, the orphanage was poor, and watercolor pens and crayons were very precious. The children cherished their drawings. They treasured each one after finishing it, afraid that someone would break or take it away. They all cried and begged to put it in my office and ask me to keep it for them. I never expected that I would keep it for so many years.”
"What kinds of paintings does Huaihuai have? Huaihuai has so many paintings. Back then, he didn't like to play with other children, and I was afraid he would be bored, so I would often secretly give him extra lessons by giving him the last few crayon stubs I had left to draw. I have a whole stack of Huaihuai's paintings!"
Qin Huai was tempted to slip away quietly.
Although he didn't quite remember which drawings he had left with Dean Qin, there were indeed many, and they were quite ugly.
It's not ugly in a technical sense, but ugly in every aspect, creating a strong visual impact.
First of all, Qin Huai wants to emphasize that his aesthetic sense is not problematic. Although he cannot see the famous paintings and high-priced paintings at the art exhibition and wonder why they sell for so much money, he has the most basic ability to distinguish between beauty and ugliness. For example, he thinks Guo'er is ugly.
The reason why his paintings are so striking in their color combinations—for example, black rivers, black suns, purple trees, and white grass—is entirely because he lacked the necessary resources at the time.
Children love to use bright colors when drawing. Red, yellow, green, orange, and other crayons and watercolors are always the first to run out. When Dean Qin gave Qin Huai extra lessons, he would use crayon stubs or get them from the school teachers, and use watercolors that other children didn't want. He didn't have such good resources.
These are all ugly colors that people don't like, so you can imagine what kind of paintings can be made from them.
Qin Huai still doesn't understand why he thought there was nothing wrong with those paintings when he was a child. He would happily give the paintings to Dean Qin after he finished them and ask Dean Qin to keep them for him.
People really can't empathize with their childhood selves.
Qin Huai, in despair, followed everyone to Dean Qin's office. He could tell that everyone was very excited.
Chen Huihong was already rubbing her hands together uncontrollably. Qu Jing didn't show it on her face, but her eyes were brimming with excitement. Director Xu stood at the front, demonstrating that he wanted to see the painting. Chen Gong didn't check his phone to reply to messages, Zhou Hu quietly took out his phone, and An Youyou's phone had already switched to video recording.
The only one who wasn't very excited was Qin Luo, who had seen it many times before.
Dean Qin walked briskly to the back of his desk, took out a key, unlocked the drawer, pulled it open, and took out a stack of paintings, spreading them out to cover the entire desktop.
This stack of paintings was all given to Dean Qin by Qin Huai when he was a child, asking her to keep them safe. Each one was painted by Qin Huai himself, stroke by stroke.
Everyone crowded around to watch, gasping in surprise.
Well, if the visual and aesthetic impact of the original artwork is a 5 out of 10, then the impact of this stack of paintings is at least a 50 out of 100.
It's not that Guo'er isn't ugly enough, it's just that she talks too much.
Black mountains, green rivers, brown suns, brown rain—all sorts of color combinations beyond your wildest imagination can be found in Qin Huai's paintings. While Qin Huai's painting skills aren't entirely lacking, one can only barely discern what he's depicting.
The worst part is that you can actually tell what he's drawing.
When Chen Huihong saw these words, she blurted out, "No wonder Xiao Qin can make Guo'er so realistically."
Dean Qin said with a smile, "Although the color combinations in Huaihuai's paintings are strange, they are really well done."
“Look at this one. It’s practically never snowed here. At least when Huaihuai was little, none of us had ever seen snow. The orphanage didn’t have a TV at first, but later a kind person donated one. This painting was drawn when Huaihuai had never seen what heavy snow looked like; he only saw descriptions of snow scenes in his Chinese textbook.” Director Qin pointed to a crayon drawing that was almost entirely covered in black, with only the clouds and the ground in white.
"Huaihuai said that snow is white, but white crayon doesn't show any effect when applied to paper, so he used black crayon to cover the whole paper black, so that everyone can see that snow is white."
Qin Huai was taken aback when he heard Dean Qin say that. Following the direction Dean Qin pointed, he looked at the painting that was originally very strange, and after looking at it this way, he felt that it was actually quite good.
“Every time Huaihuai finished drawing, he would tell me why he drew it that way. At that time, I felt that he was a smart and good child, and that it was a waste for him to stay in our welfare home.”
"And this one too. Winters here aren't cold; if they get cold, it only lasts a few days. But one year it was very strange; it was cold for more than half a month. The orphanage didn't have enough cotton-padded clothes and thick quilts, so they could only buy charcoal and put charcoal braziers in the children's rooms."
"But even so, some children with weaker constitutions still caught colds while sleeping at night."
“Huaihuai drew this picture for me. He said that the black mountain is a coal mountain. He read in his textbook that coal is mined from coal mountains. Huaihuai said that the sky is not blue when mining, but gray. But he didn’t have a gray crayon, so he could only use brown to draw the sky and yellow to draw the clouds. There are no trees on the coal mountain, but he wanted to tell me that there are trees outside the coal mountain, so he drew purple trees.”
"Huaihuai treasured this purple crayon. He only had one purple one. He drew the tree with his favorite purple crayon to tell me that the tree was very beautiful."
"And this one..."
Dean Qin introduced Qin Huai's paintings to everyone one by one, explaining what they depicted, why they were painted that way, and what his mindset was at the time. Qin Huai was completely bewildered by what he heard.
As Qin Huai listened, he realized that he must have been a genius painter when he was young. How could a child have so many ideas when drawing? It's just that he was limited by materials and ended up with such a terrible drawing.
“Qin… Aunt Qin.” Qin Huai couldn’t help but interrupt Director Qin, “Why didn’t you talk about these things when we looked at the paintings every year before?” “What’s there to talk about with you? Of course, these things should be told to Huai Huai’s friends, to tell them that you’ve been smart since you were little, even in the orphanage you were a smart and outstanding child. I’ve been looking forward to you bringing your friends to visit me at the orphanage since you were in high school, and after all these years, so many friends have finally come this year.” Director Qin gave Qin Huai a look that said, “You still have the nerve to say that?” and turned to walk to the cabinet, unlocked it with a key, and took out a wooden box from inside.
The wooden box was also locked.
Dean Qin then took out his keys from his pocket, found the lock on the wooden box, opened it, and inside was another stack of paintings.
The painting on the surface is clearly not Qin Huai's; it was drawn by other children, whose painting skills are obviously much better than Qin Huai's when he was a child.
The painting depicts a happy family scene at a welfare home, with several cheerful adults leading several laughing children in front of the home. The words "Sanmalu Children's Welfare Home" are written on the building behind it.
It's very similar to the paintings that Dean Qin would deliberately have the children draw and send to philanthropists.
Dean Qin rummaged through the stack of paintings and pulled out two from the middle.
These two paintings were also painted by Qin Huai. Qin Huai could recognize them, but he felt that he hadn't seen them much in the past few years because the color combinations in these two paintings were a bit too normal and lacked visual impact.
Both paintings have a sunny feel to them.
The first picture shows an adult man holding a child's hand. The background is simple, in the suburbs, with a river, a few trees, and simple, cute and pretty animals like butterflies and rabbits that children can imagine.
A large sun hangs in the upper left corner of the painting, its face beaming with a smile, and even the clouds seem to be smiling.
The second painting depicts a beautiful long-haired woman holding a child's hand. The background is similar to the first painting, also set in the countryside, with animals, a river, trees, flowers, and the same sun and clouds. The only difference is that the flowers in the second painting all have smiling faces.
A very simple and standard children's line drawing.
It wasn't the kind of item with any collectible value, but Dean Qin carefully kept it in a locked wooden box.
"This is a drawing you did in art class when you were in first grade. After you finished it, your teacher called me to come to the school and said she wanted to talk to you about your situation," Dean Qin said calmly, though a hint of sadness could be heard in his voice.
Qin Huai: ?
How could such a positive, uplifting, and wholesome drawing lead to a parent-teacher meeting?
"Why?" Qin Huai was puzzled. He couldn't remember anything from when he was in first grade. "Did I get into a fight with a classmate during art class?"
“When you were little, you ignored your classmates and even got into fights with them.” Dean Qin chuckled. “That’s because in your first art class, the art teacher asked you to draw pictures of your parents going out to play.”
"That art teacher is new, and he's just filling in for your class's art teacher. He doesn't know the situation in your class."
"You first drew the picture on the right, a mother with a child. After handing it to the art teacher, the art teacher asked you why there was no father. So you drew a picture of a father with a child."
"Your art teacher thought you were being naughty on purpose and got a little angry. She asked you why your mom and dad couldn't appear in the same painting. You said it was because you'd never met your mom and dad. You'd been raised by your mom since you were little, so if you went out to play, it would definitely be your mom who took you."
"But after you have a dad, Aunt Qin won't be able to take you out to play anymore. So if you go out to play with your dad, it will be your dad taking you out alone."
"Back then, my art teacher called me to school to apologize. She even bought you a new watercolor set and crayons, do you remember?"
Qin Huai stared blankly at the painting on the table.
He had long forgotten about it. He didn't remember having this art teacher, nor did he remember drawing these two paintings when he was a child. But he did remember that Dean Qin had never had long hair.
Taking care of children is a tiring and troublesome thing. Many children are ignorant and will pull people's hair, so Dean Qin has always had short hair.
However, the mother in the painting has very beautiful long hair, which reaches past her waist.
Dean Qin choked up a little: "Actually, ever since Huaihuai started elementary school, I have never expected you to be adopted. You were already so old and still remembered things. Families who wanted to adopt healthy boys wouldn't adopt you. You don't talk much, and you always move around inexplicably, making you seem like a fool."
“I thought you would stay in the orphanage until your teens like other kids, and then go out to work to support yourself.”
"But after seeing these two paintings you made, I suddenly really wanted to find you a loving set of parents. I don't want the child I raise to not even know that parents are meant to be together."
"Although you never say it, in your drawings you want a mother with long hair who can take you out to play."
“Children from orphanages are inevitably withdrawn and bullied by others, which was unavoidable at the time. I was quite happy because I had only worked at the orphanage for 10 years and still had a lot of enthusiasm and hadn’t gotten used to it.”
“That day after I came back from school, I stole some of your Uncle Qin’s liquor and drank two or three cups. I slammed my fist on the table with your Uncle Qin and vowed that I would definitely find you a good pair of adoptive parents and that we could not let a healthy child be neglected in an orphanage.”
"Later, you were adopted by your parents, and I fulfilled my vow from back then, but I still worry about you."
“You seem smart and normal, but you're actually withdrawn and don't have many friends. It's not your fault, most of the children from our orphanage are like that; they may pretend to be friendly, but they're actually…”
"Huaihuai, you can't do that when making friends."
"To make friends, you must be sincere. Your friends will definitely be able to tell what kind of person you are."
"So I've been really looking forward to you bringing your friends to the orphanage. That way I can show your friends the drawings you made when you were little, and tell them that you're not deliberately withdrawn or pretending to be cheerful and outgoing. There's a reason you are like this, and you're a really good kid."
"Although the situation today is a little different from what I imagined, I still want to do it. After all, your mother Qin has been preparing for more than 10 years. I can't have failed every time, can I?"
Dean Qin forced a smile at Qin Huai.
Qin Huai knew he should respond with a smile of his own, but he couldn't manage to.
Qin Huai forced a smile, and a tear rolled down his cheek.
“Mother Qin”.
"I really always thought I was quite sunny and cheerful."
Dean Qin chuckled.
(End of this chapter)