Wild Fire Bids Farewell To Summer Chapter 41

Xiaoman

morning.

Wei Mingyuan squatted in the middle of the living room in Building 601, Building 6, Teachers’ Family Building.The kneecaps made a dry scraping sound, the wood crackled.There was a crack on the side of the index finger of his right hand, oozing with yellow water. It was caused when he was planing the wooden frame the day before yesterday.The liquid stained the pine frame, mixed with the paint, and formed a transparent scab.

The last canvas of “Skylight” is spread out in front of him.Quarter size, linen, unglued.There are two pieces of blood on the edge of the cloth, the larger one in the upper right corner and the smaller one in the lower left corner. They are both dried and hard, the color is dark purple, and the fibers are stiff and stiff.The layer of black rust growing on the limestone is also the same color.The blood belongs to Wei Zhiheng. It was left on that night or earlier. Now it has become part of the cloth, which cannot be picked off or washed away. It grows together with the longitude and latitude threads.

Wei Mingyuan picked up the carpenter’s glue.The colloid is viscous and light yellow. When it is poured from the bottle mouth, it pulls strings. After breaking off, it sloshes in the air, hangs down, becomes thinner and thinner, and sticks to the air.He applied glue to the back of the frame with a brush, and the pine wood immediately absorbed it, darkening the color.

The smell of glue is strong and chemical, suppressing the musty smell of the pile of old books in the living room, and the faint sweetness of the corn silk water cooked by Su Huiqin in the kitchen.He applied it slowly, and when the cleft of his index finger touched the glue, it stung, and the glue penetrated into the wound, forming a tight film.

As he pulled the cloth, the location of the blood stains flashed before his eyes.The one in the upper right corner is larger and the one in the lower left corner is smaller.He bit the edge of the cloth with a pair of cloth pliers and pulled hard. The fibers of the canvas groaned and resisted as they tore.The blood stain was stretched wider, the zigzag lines on the edges became straightened, and the cloth lines became jagged.

He fastened it with a staple gun, the metal nails punching through the linen and embedded in the pine with a dull thud—thud, thud, thud—evenly distributed along the sides.The canvas was stretched flat, and tension appeared on the white surface. The blood stains became harder and more abrupt under the tension, as if they were embedded in the wall.

He put on a gray shirt, with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, exposing the pencil dust on his forearms.When I lifted up the frame, the new paint was still wet, so the surface was sticky and had a milky yellow reflection.He walked out the door, and the picture frame hit the door frame, and the paint chips peeled off, revealing the true color of the pine wood underneath, with white cracks.

The Long Drum Tower is on the third floor.Wei Mingyuan walked up, and his right knee made a sound with every step he took, half a beat away from the thud of the picture frame hitting his thigh.The voice-activated light in the corridor lit up with his footsteps, and the tungsten wire trembled, casting a shaking shadow on the picture frame.

The classroom door is open.When he walked in, there were already six paintings hanging on the north wall, the “Skeleton of Son” series, pencil and charcoal on rice paper, depicting the shapes of shoulder blades, hip bones, and finger bones, superimposed on the limestone texture.The picture frame is old, and the pine wood has oxidized to dark brown. It exudes the dull smell of turpentine and ink, but there is no smell of paint – the smell of paint has long since dissipated, leaving only the smell of old oil.

Wei Mingyuan stood in front of the north wall, holding the new picture frame in his hand.The hook is brass and shows wear.He lifted the frame and slipped the lanyard on the back onto the hook.The picture frame is suspended, perpendicular to the wall.He lets go and the frame shakes, then freezes.

Upside down.

The edge where the blood was less stained is now facing down, and the upper right corner where the blood is more stained is now facing up.The blank canvas—the void that represented the skylight—now lies below, pointing toward the ground.The blood was at the top, so dark in color that it sank down to the edge and condensed there.

Wei Mingyuan paused.The film on the cleft of the index finger is tight and tingling.He didn’t adjust.He turned around, walked to the back row of the classroom, picked up the broom, and began to clean up the pencil shavings on the ground.The broom bristles scraped against the terrazzo, making a rustling sound.

Huang Jinye stood at the door of the classroom.He was not wearing his school uniform jacket, only a black sports vest, No. 055, with sweat-stained yellow collar.When the right knee was bent, a short grunting sound was heard, and the accumulated water in the joint cavity surged from the inside to the outside, making a muffled sound.He put his right hand in his trouser pocket, holding a stone on his fingertips – he picked it up from the river bank. It was gray-white and had sharp edges, which pricked the purpura on his palm.

He walked into the classroom with a heavy step and a light step, heavy on the right and light on the left.The rubber soles of the spikes rubbed against the terrazzo, making a dull thumping sound that echoed in the empty classroom.He stopped in the third row and looked at the north wall.

He saw the painting.

“Skylight” hung upside down.The blank canvas is facing down, the bloodstain is facing up.Under the lighting of the classroom, the white part looks cold, feels sticky to the touch, and is as durable as the cross-section of limestone.The blood was at the top, dark and dark in color.

Huang Jinye didn’t move.He stood in front of the painting, three meters away.There is a fixed black shadow in the upper left corner of the field of vision, which is the blind spot left by retinal hemorrhage. Now that black shadow has made the upper right corner of the frame disappear.

He looked at the blank canvas and misperceived: it was not blank, but the water surface of the shaft on the vernal equinox, dark green and flowing.He saw water waves rippling on the canvas, and saw 16°C constant-temperature gas rising from the water.

He stepped forward.The right knee was stuck, the body was tilted to the left, and the accumulated water swayed in the joint cavity, making a muffled sound.The distance is shortened to one and a half meters.

The smell of new paint on the picture frame flooded into my nose, pungent, chemical, mixed with old turpentine stains.The smell made him sneeze, the air hitting his vocal cords and making a short hissing sound.His nose hung on his chin. He wiped it with the back of his right hand. The back of his hand was still stained with stone powder from the river bank. The gray-white powder mixed with the transparent nose to form gray mud.

He looked at the blood on the edge of the canvas.Dark brown, stiff, with white salt analysis on the edges, and the frost flowers on the surface of the limestone are also white.That was Wei Zhiheng’s blood, now part of the canvas’s stratum, combined with the flax fibers.

He stretched out his right hand and hovered in front of the frame, stopping five centimeters from the blank space of the canvas.The fingers are spread out, the joints are stiff, and there is white stone powder on the edge of the nail plate.His palms appear as silhouettes in front of the blank canvas, black outlines with blurred edges.

He misperceived: His hand was reaching into the shaft, into the dark green water surface. The water would cover his wrist, and the 16°C coolness would creep up along the radius bone.

Fingers hover, spasming.He didn’t touch the canvas.The stickiness of new paint is still there and can stick to skin and leave fingerprints.He maintained this posture, watching the projection of his hand in the void, watching the stone powder in the palm prints appear as gray-white particles in the morning light.

The frame’s pine wood border takes on a warm yellow color in the morning light, contrasting with the cold white of the canvas.There is a crack in the upper right corner of the frame (actually the upper left corner, because it was hung upside down), which was left when wood was planed. The crack runs across it and goes in the same direction as the crack in the bone.

Huang Jinye’s eyes moved towards the crack, watching how the paint film covered it and how he tried to fill it, but the crack still existed and was vaguely visible under the paint layer.

He pulled back.Putting it into his trouser pocket, his fingertips clenched the river bank gravel, and the edge cut into his palm, and the stinging pain made him wake up.

He moved around the frame, his steps slow, heavy on the right and light on the left, his spikes leaving intermittent marks on the ground.He walked to the left side of the painting and looked at the angle between the frame and the wall, watching how the hanging rope twisted on the hook and bore the weight of the frame. The metal rubbed against the nylon, making a small dry sound.

He walked to the right side of the painting.Sunlight slants in from the window and shines on the edge of the frame, the paint film reflecting dazzling light spots, while the canvas itself remains dark and absorbs light, forming a visual depression, a hole in the wall.

Huang Jinye stopped right in front of the painting and faced the blank canvas again.He lowered his head slightly, his chin close to his collarbone, and looked down at the skylight “below”.The blank canvas rotates visually, becoming the water surface and the edge of the shaft where Wei Zhiheng sat on the vernal equinox.

He smelled the smell of turpentine – not the paint of the picture frame, but the turpentine spilled in the stairwell in his memory that night, the bitterness of citrus mixed with resin.This smell gave him a wrong perception: Wei Zhiheng was standing next to him, carrying a painting box. The canvas bag was stained with turpentine and had cracks on the edges.

He didn’t speak.The only sound in the classroom was that the bearings of the ceiling fan were running out of oil, squeaking once every four seconds.

He stood there with his right shoulder slightly lowered, his left shoulder slightly higher, and his water-logged knees bent, forming an unstable triangle.His breathing became heavy, with bloodshot tremors, and every exhalation sprayed into the air below the frame, and the hot and humid air mixed with the smell of paint.

Wei Mingyuan finished sweeping the floor and leaned the broom against the corner.He looked at Huang Jinye, looking at the figure standing in front of the upside-down painting.

Huang Jinye took out the river bank gravel with his right hand from his trouser pocket.He raised the stone and hovered it in front of the frame, stopping ten centimeters from the blank canvas.The gray-white color of the stone contrasts with the white color of the canvas, and the roughness of the stone contrasts with the fibrous texture of the canvas.

Huang Jinye misperceived: It was not a stone, but the turpentine bottle in the stairwell that night, and the limestone specimen held by Wei Zhiheng on the vernal equinox.He saw the stone expand in his palm, becoming a counterweight to prevent him from floating away.

He dropped his arm.Place the stone on the ground below the picture frame, not throw it, but place it.The stone touches the terrazzo floor and makes a dull impact, forming a vertical counterpoint to the suspension of the picture frame.The stone acts as a counterweight to hold down the air beneath the frame, preventing the skylight from flying upward.

Wei Mingyuan came over.He held a scrub brush in his hand. It had brown bristles, was hard, and was stained with paint.He walked to Huang Jinye’s side, half a meter away, and handed the brush over.Not hand it to him to use, but hand it to him to look at, or hand it to him to pick up – an action of power displacement, object intervention.

Huang Jinye didn’t answer.He stared at the brown bristles on the brush, looking at the lumps of paint forming on the tips of the bristles.He shook his head, making small movements, and his cervical vertebrae made a friction sound.

Wei Mingyuan took back his hand.He placed the brush on a still life table, juxtaposing it with a limestone specimen (another piece, a replica of the original).He angled the frame, making sure it was strictly vertical, making sure the white space was strictly facing down, making sure the blood was strictly facing up.

Then he bent down and picked up the river embankment gravel that Huang Jinye had placed on the ground. He held it in his hand and felt the weight and coolness of the stone.

He straightened up and handed the stone to Huang Jinye.Not handing it back, but handing it out, palm upward, with the stone lying in the palm lines.

Huang Jinye looked at the stone and the lines and cracks in Wei Mingyuan’s palm.He reached out and took the stone, and his fingertips brushed against Wei Mingyuan’s palm, taking away the warmth of the skin and the smell of turpentine.He grasped the stone tightly, turned around, and walked towards the door.

He stopped at the door and took one last look back.

The frame hangs on the north wall, blank side down, bloodstain side up, with a window opening into the ground.The stone was in his hand, now his counterweight.Wei Mingyuan stood in front of the painting with his back to him. There was a dark, irregular-shaped sweat stain on the back of his gray shirt.

Huang Jinye walked out.The footsteps receded in the corridor, one heavy and the other light, heavy on the right and light on the left, mixed with the echo in the stairwell, and gradually disappeared.

Wei Mingyuan walked to the painting.He bent down and placed the stone in his hand on the still life table, juxtaposing it with another stone.Two stones, one from the river bank and one from the limestone, gray and sharp, two fossils waiting to be weathered.

Then he turned off the classroom lights.The fluorescent tubes went out and the hum of electricity stopped.Only the light from the window shines on the hanging painting. The canvas appears dead white, the blood stains appear dark brown, and the frame appears yellow like a coffin.

The door closed, the lock bolt retracted, the door cracks clenched tightly, and the darkness closed.

The frame hangs in the dark, blank side down.The stone is on the still life stage, gray and silent.