I felt Xiao Qin became 50% more r.e.t.a.r.ded after being determined to be a shoujo mangaka.
She's someone who does as they say. On the next day, she already went to an art street in Dong Shan city and bought many mangrelated art supplies.
She had a dip pen for manga, ink for manga, and she had manga comic papers… she even had a figurine, screen tone, a deleter tone knife, and a copy board.
Of course, she also had a lot of materials for learning how to draw manga, for example, “Starting Manga Drawing From Scratch”, “Manga Creation —— Writing a Plot”, “Techniques for Bishoujo”, “Techniques for Animals”, “Models for Clothing in Manga”, “Models for a Charming Character”, etc… I already felt dizzy simply from seeing the receipt she had from the bookstore.
“Luckily, my mom helped me. These things were really expensive!”
Xiao Qin had a sense of achievement after settling everything at home.
“I never thought my mom would support me learning to draw manga! She even said she would tell the scene artists from the movie crew to come and guide me!”
A lot of people have a misconception that only animation and games needs artists, but real-life movies also have artists. They are responsible for portraying a director and screenwriter's intentions on paper before the scene is shot, and is used as a template for the actual shoot.
In some aspects, it's very similar to manga (they both even use the word ‘storyboard').
I'm not surprised Auntie Ren would support Xiao Qin. It's as Xiao Qin said: She's taking an interest in something other than me —— Of course Auntie Ren doesn't want her daughter to think about me every day, so it's good for her to have a hobby!
Even though she purchased a lot of materials, Xiao Qin only brought two manga teaching books to cla.s.s —— “Starting Manga Drawing From Scratch” and “Manga Creation —— Writing a Plot”. She would always sneak a peek at them once in a while regardless if she was in cla.s.s.
In terms of her artistic ability, there wasn't really any improvement and she was still scribbling with a 2B pencil, but she did learn a lot of theory.
She brazenly ate with me during lunch and she was still bothering me when I was taking a walk around the exercise fields.
However, Xiao Qin's conversation topics transitioned to all mangrelated topics. It opened my eyes to a new field and things I've never discovered before.
Is it true that your charm would increase if you have a hobby as Xiao Qin said previously?
It might be a misconception, but it doesn't seem like she is faking when she mentions manga. But the main reason is probably because she still views herself as the female protagonist.
“Ahhhh!!!”
When we walked around the corner of the school building, I accidentally b.u.mped into Xiao Qin with the back of my hand. She shrieked exaggeratedly and her body was trembling greatly.
I frowned, “What? Did it hurt that much?”
Xiao Qin apologized in a hurry: “Sorry Ye Lin cla.s.smate, it's because I'm too sensitive…”
“… I read that if you want to be a mangaka, then you have to cultivate a sensitive mindset to your surroundings. So in order to follow that teaching, I increased my skin's sensitivity. It's actually useful, the wind blowing on me feels different and new. I feel likke my ability to portray winds has leveled up again!”
“Why did you say again? You never had the ability to portray winds in the first place!”
Then she suddenly blushed, “But, but… because my skin was too sensitive, when Ye Lin cla.s.smate touched me… so embarra.s.sed! We're only middle school students, yet we…”
Hey! Why are you looking down! Finish your sentence! Your ambiguous statements are going to cause misunderstandings!
After a moment of silence, Xiao Qin's face returned to normal. She had a slight smile like Mona Lisa, she extended her arms straight out and did a cute stretch.
“I kind of understand what is a sensitive mindset. It basically means the same thing when they say ‘life is not lacking beauty, but rather discovery!' If you become more sensitive, then things you usually don't pay attention to usually would be beautiful!”
Xiao Qin pointed to a dried up branch in a nearby greenery and said: “What a mature corpse of a plant!”
She then pointed at the far away princ.i.p.al's bald head and said: “A bald head filled with abundant philoshpies!”
When she saw a willow leaf fly by her nose, she sighed and said:
“What a mysterious translucent flying object, what a dream-like flight pattern, what… achooo!!”
Her nose felt itchy from the leaf and she couldn't hold back a sneeze.
The setback didn't leave her in despair, she grabbed my hands and pointed to the dazzling sun that was hanging in the sky.
“Look! Look! Look at how round the sun is today!”
Nonsense! When is the sun not round! Only a moon has waxing and waning periods! Instead of spouting useless nonsense, why don't you actually start drawing it!
The first cla.s.s of the afternoon was gym cla.s.s. Xiao Qin used her weak body as an excuse as usual and stayed behind in the cla.s.sroom. She occupied my spot as usual and attentively began to read her manga teaching books.
Every time I look up at the window from below, Xiao Qin would immediately respond with a (*^__^*) expression. It was as if she had a built-in radar to detect me and it made me shudder.
But under the torrid heat, you can never shiver too much.
Because we had gym cla.s.s under the deadly afternoon sun, all the students were like dogs with heatstroke. The boys stuck out their tongue, and the girls were constantly taking out napkins to wipe their sweat.
Unfortunately, the teacher, Li DaYong wore a black vest. He felt his back heating up after only standing on the fields for a short period of time.
Thus he gave everyone a task to run back and forth before he ran off to take a shower and cool himself off.
It was supposed to be group training where it was split into two groups based on gender. We were supposed to run around the track until the end of cla.s.s.
Of course, we didn't have enough energy to keep running, so we ran one by one, and the others who weren't running took a break.
Xiong YaoYue and I stood 100m apart from each other as landmarks (Li DaYong, the gym teacher, permitted the PE committee members to not run, but I feel we both get enough exercise regularly). I had a group of boys behind me, and Xiong YaoYue had a group of girls behind her. The first round would end when all the boys behind me have swapped with the girls behind Xiong YaoYue.
A lot of boys were discussing about running slower to reduce the total energy expenditure, and they can also have plenty of time to ogle the girls as they pa.s.s by.
“Jie Jie Jie Jie, the sight of Gong CaiCai running must be magnificent!” Eunuch Cao said vulgarly, “It would be wonderful if we could spectate that b.o.o.b shake at a closer distance! If she falls, I'll immediately catch it!”
Eunuch Cao wretchedly moved his fingers as if he was kneading a ball.
Niu ShiLi was the first up to run for the boys. He was back to normal after last night's rest. He ran straight to the destination full of energy and even Xiong YaoYue admired him.
The girls were all shy because they had to run towards us and hang out with the boy group for a while, so no one wanted to be first.
“I'll do it!” Loud Mouth first finished eating a piece of rainbow candy, but the cla.s.s leader already walked up to the front.
When Xiong YaoYue said ‘Ready Set —— Go'. the cla.s.s leader bolted forward like an arrow shot from a bow. Her long black hair was flowing like the ink brush of a calligrapher and dancing in the wind.
The cla.s.s leader reached our side as fast as lightning before the boys could even make a proper evaluation. Then she stood at ease in an empty spot to my right to welcome the other girls.
“That's our cla.s.s leader! Well versed in both academics and athletics!”
The secondary loyal dogs all flattered the cla.s.s leader, but she didn't respond and only sighed.
It looks like she's not in a good mood! Is she disappointed because she found out her animal repellent gaze wasn't gone after she visited the pet hospital!
The second boy to run was Xu LiJun, and the second one for the girls was Loud Mouth.
When Xu LiJun already completed his run for a while, Loud Mouth was still around the halfway mark. Sun Yu, who was next up wanted to wait until Loud Mouth finished because he might meet a pretty girl, but he couldn't bear the stares from me and the cla.s.s leader, so he also started to run.
After a few times of going back and forth. There were around the same amounts of boys to girls and everyone became more relaxed.
When it was finally Gong CaiCai's time to run, it was also Eunuch Cao's turn to run.
Gong CaiCai began trembling before she even begin to run.