Wild Fire Bids Farewell To Summer Chapter 37
byAfter the rain 2
The corridor on the third floor of Miluo Building is paved with terrazzo floor tiles, with black glass strips embedded at the joints, which have been polished into translucent circles by countless shoe soles.Huang Jinye stood at the entrance of the stairs on the west side, holding the iron pipe handrail with his right hand. The silvery metal was exposed where the green paint peeled off, and the coolness spread through the palm of his hand into his radius bone.
He raised his foot, and when he bent his right knee, it made a dry friction sound. The water in the joint cavity swayed, gurgled, and made a muffled sound.His gait was heavy, his left foot dragging, the rubber sole of his spikes colliding with the steps, making a dull thumping sound, and his rhythm was half a beat away from his heartbeat.
He stopped at the door of the examination room.”301″ is printed on the plastic door plate. The edge of the number is rolled up and repeatedly reinforced with transparent tape. The glue marks are oxidized and turned yellow.The door is open, and the surveillance camera is above the door frame, with a black hemispherical casing and flashing red light, like bleeding spots on the skin.
Huang Jinye lowered his head and glanced at the dust on the lower edge of the door frame. There was a tangled red rope, which was the remains of the seal left from the previous exam. The fibers were broken and turned gray-brown.
He walked inside.
There were already more than 20 people sitting in the examination room, and the sound of rubbing plastic seats, rustling papers, and coughing formed a turbid deposit in the air.Huang Jinye’s student number is 055, and his seat is in the fourth row by the window, diagonal from Wei Zhiheng’s position during the final exam last semester.
He walked over, his right knee stuck, his body leaned to the left, and his spikes scraped the ground, making a harsh sound.
The seat is a blue plastic folding chair with a sunken seat surface and rough edges that pierce into the fabric of the school uniform pants.He sat down, the plastic groaning as air was squeezed under his weight.
He placed the canvas bag on the ground, and the bottom of the bag made a dull sound as it hit the terrazzo.His right hand reached into the side pocket of the bag and his fingertips touched a hard object.Limestone specimen, ivory white with gray flint bands, with sharp edges that cut into the fingertips and stung.He tightened his grip for three seconds and then released it, leaving crescent-shaped indentations on his fingertips, white and dazzling on the pale skin.
Test papers are handed out at 8:55.
The white paper is printed with black Song fonts. The ink smells fresh, and the smell of benzene solvent sinks at the height of the table.Huang Jinye took the mathematics paper and did not read it immediately. Instead, he laid it flat on the table, pressed his hands on both sides of the paper, and pressed the paper with his fingertips to feel the resistance of the fibers.
His right hand was shaking. The subtle tremors in the muscles under the skin started from the inside of the wrist, jumping and jumping to the knuckles. The nail caps were glowing lavender, and the nail beds seemed to be embedded with purple ink.
Answer sheets will be distributed at 9:00 sharp.
The white cardboard is thicker than the test paper and has a fine coating on the surface, giving it a uniform matte finish when exposed to light.Huang Jinye stared at the blank rectangle. Black spots appeared on the edge of his vision. They were fixed and did not move with his eyes.
He misperceived: It was not the answer card, but the wellhead of the skylight. The gray-white limestone, with vertical layers growing on the paper.
He took out a pencil from the iron pencil case.
HB, a yellow hexagonal pen barrel with black “2B” printed on the surface, but it is actually an HB lead, which is harder and lighter.There are teeth marks on the pen barrel, which are uneven and uneven. They were bitten by him last night.He picked up the pencil sharpener. The metal casing was rusty and the blade was exposed for three millimeters, and he started to sharpen the pencil.
The blade scraped against the wood, making a rustling sound.The sawdust curled up and fell, pale yellow and soft in texture, and piled up on the corner of the table.
Huang Jinye cut very slowly, not because of technical problems, but because of his compulsive precision.He needs the refill to be a perfect cone without any deflection.But halfway through cutting, the pen core broke.Black debris bounced up and landed on the answer sheet, forming a geometric shape.
Without pausing, he directly removed the broken core with his fingers, embedding graphite between his fingernails.He picked up another sharpened pencil and continued to sharpen the broken one – not starting over, but repairing it, like filling in the gaps.
At the front of the classroom, Li Min is sitting on the podium.
The navy blue cheongsam had slits that exposed her calves, and the fabric made a rustling sound.She held a red plastic lighter in her hand. She didn’t light it. She just turned the wheel with her thumb, and the flint rubbed, making a subtle clicking sound.
Her eyes swept across the examination room, Huang Jinye’s hand sharpening a pencil, the sawdust accumulated on the corner of the table, and the broken pencil lead, which was black and fell on the white answer sheet, like a piece of cinders.
Huang Jinye turned over the answer sheet with the back side facing up.
The back of the cardboard is blank fiber, uncoated, more ink-absorbent and rougher.He gently wiped the surface with an eraser. The eraser chips were gray and curled, and mixed with the wood chips to form a layer of yellow and gray chips.
He picked up the sharpened pencil, HB, sharp.When the tip of the pen touched the back of the answer sheet, it made a subtle scratching sound, like fingernails scratching limestone.
He began to draw.
It’s not writing, it’s painting.The first stroke is a straight line, from top to bottom, vertically, with even force. The graphite is deposited on the paper, forming black grooves.What he drew was a cross-section of the Tunbang skylight, as precise as an architectural drawing, with straight, parallel, and equidistant lines.
The sound of brushstrokes amplified in the silence.
rustle.
Huang Jinye’s breathing became deep, with bloodshot tremors, and every exhalation sprayed on the paper, causing the graphite to slightly smudge with moisture and heat.
He drew the diameter of the shaft, thirty meters, scaled down to the width of the answer sheet.The bedding of the shaft wall, the longitudinal flint strips, he used different lining densities to distinguish the lithology – limestone with sparse diagonal lines, flint strips with dense cross lines.
His right hand was shaking, but his brushstrokes were still precise. The tremors were transformed into subtle jitters in the lines, which instead simulated the rough texture of the limestone surface.
He painted the reflection of the water surface, using reversed lines to express it. The lines are symmetrical with the real part, but more fragmented and the boundaries are blurred.
Li Min stood up.
The high heels hit the floor of the podium, making a clicking sound with a slow rhythm that was out of sync with Huang Jinye’s brushstrokes.She stepped off the podium, and the hem of her navy blue cheongsam swept across the edge of the first row of candidates’ desks.
She walked to Huang Jinye’s side, about 1.5 meters away, and stopped.Her shadow fell on the answer sheet, covering the outline of the shaft he was drawing.
Huang Jinye did not raise his head.His eyes were focused on the tip of the pen, on the point of contact between the graphite and the paper.He painted the ferns at the edge of the shaft, using fine dots to indicate the undersides of the leaves, the clusters of sporangia.
His wrist was hanging in the air, his elbow resting on the edge of the table as a fulcrum. His muscles were tense, his knuckles were white, and the purpura on his fingernails showed a swollen purple color under the light.
Li Min’s hand hovered over the corner of Huang Jinye’s desk, stopping three centimeters away from the broken pencil.The fingers were spread open, the joints were stiff, and an old brown stain was exposed on the cuff, which was round and had a fuzzy edge. It was iodine or old blood.
She didn’t touch the pen, she just stood there, smelling the smell in the air – the old stains of turpentine seeping from the cuffs of Huang Jinye’s school uniform, mixed with the fishy sweetness of graphite, and the gloomy smell of cheap jasmine perfume on her own body.
Huang Jinye painted the seventh layer of texture.
The pencil lead wears out again and the lines fade.He switched to another pen and continued to deepen.He drew the water level of the water and the constant temperature of sixteen degrees, forming a perfect horizontal line on the paper, dividing the picture into upper and lower parts.
Below the surface, he uses lighter lines to represent the turbidity of the water.
His knees were bent under the table, and the accumulated water swayed in the joint cavity, causing fine tremors that spread from his thighs to the table, causing the answer sheet to tremble slightly. The lines shifted slightly due to the tremors, but he did not correct them, allowing these shifts to become part of the picture and become dislocations in the geological faults.
“What are you drawing?”
Li Min’s voice came from above. It was low, like talking to himself, with a deep final sound and an accent of Guiliu dialect.It’s not a question, it’s a statement.
Huang Jinye did not answer.
His pencil hovered above the paper, stopping three millimeters from the last stroke.The finger hovered, the joints stiffened, and the graphite powder fell from the tip of the pen, hovering, stretching, and the surface tension maintained the hemispherical shape. After a second, it broke, fell, and hit the answer sheet, forming a black dot, covering the intersection of the water level lines.
He continued painting.
Incorporate this black spot into the picture as a gravel, a fragment of limestone with sharp edges at the bottom of the shaft.He painted the shadows of the fragments, with deeper lines, extending to the right, indicating that the light source came from the upper left, from the window.
Li Min turned around.
Her high heels scraped against the floor, making a dry sound as she walked towards the podium.She did not take away Huang Jinye’s answer sheet, nor did she stop him.
She sat back in the chair, the fabric of the cheongsam rustling as it made contact with the plastic.She picked up a red ballpoint pen with a plastic casing that was transparent and the red ink inside could be seen.She unscrewed the cap of her pen and made a mark on the invigilation record sheet. The blue ballpoint pen made a sharp scratching sound.
Huang Jinye finished drawing the outline of the shaft.
He began to fill in the details, using a pencil edge to create a gray gradient that represented the shadows of the rock wall.Graphite powder accumulates on the paper and is driven by his wrist, forming fine dust that is visible in the light. It settles to the table and mixes with sawdust and rubber shavings to form a gray-black sediment layer, which is as hard as the sediment of an underground river.
He painted for forty minutes.
The back of the answer sheet is completely covered, and the skylight formed by black lines is precise and cold, like a geological cross-section and a medical image.
Finally, he marked the scale in the lower right corner, 1:500, with clear numbers and straight lines.Then he drew a horizontal line under the scale as a substitute for the signature line, leaving it blank and unsigned.
The end-of-exam bell rang at 11:00.
The current-driven buzzer has a high frequency that pierces the air and echoes in the classroom.Other candidates began to hand in their papers, and there was the sound of plastic chairs turning up, the sound of paper scraping, and the sound of footsteps.
Huang Jinye didn’t move.
He stared at the painting, at the metallic luster of graphite under the light, and at those straight lines.His right hand hovered at his side, his fingers were spread out, the joints were stiff, and there were white stone powder on the edges of the fingernails.
Li Min came over.
Her high heels clicked on the aisle, clicking, and stopped in front of Huang Jinye’s table.She stretched out her hand, not to take the test paper, but to pick up the half-remained HB pencil. There were teeth marks on the pen barrel and it was uneven.
She held the pen, feeling the wood texture and the sunken teeth marks with her fingertips, and then placed it on the table, parallel to the answer sheet.
She stretched out her index finger and hovered over the answer sheet, stopping three centimeters away from the screen.
Point your fingers downward and touch the paper surface with your fingertips, touching the raised graphite lines.She stroked it from left to right, feeling the ups and downs and resistance of the lines.The pads of her fingers paused in the center of the painting, where the deepest shadow of the shaft was where the thickest accumulation of graphite formed a black depression.
“Hand in the paper.”
Li Min said.The sound is dry and has no fluctuations.
Huang Jinye stood up.
My right knee made a sharp scraping sound, the fluid prickling under the pressure.He picked up the answer sheet. The front was blank, except for the name “Huang Jinye” written in the name column. The handwriting was crooked and trembling.He turned over the answer sheet and showed the back to Li Min, moving slowly.
Li Min took the answer sheet.
She lowered her head and looked at the drawing of the skylight, looking at the precise lines and marked scale.Her nostrils twitched, smelling the sweet smell of graphite and the residue of turpentine.
She took out a pen from the side pocket of her cheongsam, with a black pen barrel and a gold pen clip. She unscrewed the pen cap to reveal a silver pen tip.
She wrote in the comments box on the front of the answer sheet.
The pen tip makes a subtle rustling sound when it touches the paper. It is harder and sharper than a pencil.She wrote four words: “Seeing this is like meeting you.”The handwriting is neat, pen-written, and black. The ink forms raised marks on the paper, and there is a slight resistance to the touch, like carving on limestone.
Then she picked up the red ballpoint pen, drew a circle in the fraction column, and then wrote “0”.
The red ink is full and bright, solidified on the paper, with clear edges and a heavy center, like a blood stain that has not dried, but it does not drip or smudge.
Huang Jinye looked at the zero score.
His right hand hovered at his side, his fingers spread out and his joints stiff.He did not take the answer sheet, but turned around and walked towards the door, his spiked shoes scraping the ground with a harsh sound.
Li Min placed the answer sheet on the podium together with a stack of blank test papers.
The answer card with the skylight filled with pictures, white paper, black lines, and red zero points, formed three layers, deposited in the morning after the rain.The light outside the window shines on the answer sheet through the window, and the graphite reflects the cold light.
Huang Jinye walked to the door and stopped.
He turned back, looked at the piece of paper on the podium, and looked at Li Min’s back as he was putting away his pen.His chin sank two centimeters, and the veins on the side of his neck jumped and then retracted.
There was no nodding, no shaking of the head, just a roll of Adam’s apple, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva that was sweet and fishy.
He turned around and walked out of the examination room.
The door closed behind him with a dull thud.The voice-activated light in the corridor turned on as the door axis turned, and pale light poured in, illuminating a mass of gray at his feet – rubber shavings and graphite powder leaked from the corner of the table, which were trampled down by his spikes and embedded in the gaps of the terrazzo, forming a new layer of sediment that was hard and indelible.