Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

Not only that, since it was already six or seven o'clock, and the gas lamp hanging next to the shack in the backyard wasn't bright enough, Xu Damao, Liu Guangqi, and others brought several flashlights from their homes to provide light for Zhang Dabiao.

How did Zhang Dabiao draw? He didn't use a pencil; he just applied charcoal directly to the canvas.

This isn't anything special; it can be made by grinding charcoal, and the factory sometimes even uses it as a combustion aid, so no one was too surprised. But—

Who starts by applying charcoal powder to the paper before painting?

Don't we all start by drawing a few outlines with a pencil to make a rough draft?

What's even more amazing is that by wiping the image with a thick white pen-like object, the gray and black colors are separated.

Then he used a charcoal stick, and Xu Damao swore that it was just some leftover charcoal from burning firewood!

With a few strokes and smudges on the canvas, the basic shape of the figure emerges!

Xu Damao was the first to find it unbelievable. He immediately disassembled the thick white pen and opened it up to find that it was just a paper tube rolled up, with the top shaped like a pen...

Who rolls up paper and uses a pen holder to play with while drawing?

And there's no pen refill either, but...

But this thing looks pretty cool for drawing, doesn't it?

Isn't this a crooked and unethical approach?

Also... wait—

Why does the girl he drew look so familiar?

Zhang Dabiao is racing down the path of using unorthodox methods to draw portrait sketches.

And then he took a very rare piece of "white toilet paper" and rubbed it here and there on the screen, before finally erasing it with a worn-out, dark yellow eraser.

Damn, the sense of light and shadow is really there, isn't it?!

I didn't see him use a pen at all the time!

But the beauty and radiance of the figures just come right out of there?

There were also large clumps of black modeling clay used to apply toner to the drawing... cotton balls, sometimes smearing directly with hands, and in some places brushed with watercolor brushes and flat brushes, as well as blackboard erasers...

Can these things be used for drawing?

Only then did Zhang Dabiao pick up a pencil and quickly work on the effect. In less than ten minutes, the whole process was basically complete.

Finally, the highlight on his eyeballs was hard to polish, so Zhang Dabiao used a small razor blade to scrape it off...

Once the surface layer is damaged, the white paper layer underneath is revealed, and your eyes light up.

Luckily it wasn't damaged, otherwise I would have had to use GG white paint to touch it up.

"Holy crap?! Da Biao, your skills are amazing?!"

"Although I don't understand what kind of drawing technique you used, I think it's awesome!"

"Da Biao, after you graduate, why don't you go and design movie posters? Your drawings are amazing!"

Everyone kept praising him, firstly because Zhang Dabiao's technique was astonishing, secondly because he painted so fast, and thirdly—

This was created based on his ex-girlfriend from his later life, as well as the proportions of anime and game characters, with a touch of internet celebrity makeup.

There is a subtle "fusion" between it and the real-life sketch portrait.

How could it not look good?

He himself felt he performed quite well!

In addition, when he was painting, he also incorporated a touch of crimson from Beihai Park. Although it was just in his imagination, he felt that the girl should look just like that.

Just as everyone was continuing to praise Zhang Dabiao and complaining about why he hadn't said he could draw before...

After looking at her for a while, Yan Jiecheng suddenly said, "Hey, I feel like I've seen this girl somewhere before."

"?"

"Oh yeah, now that Yan Jiecheng mentions it, it does look kind of familiar to me too..."

"It looks familiar to me too."

Xu Damao and Liu Guangqi were both a little confused. This guy clearly didn't look like a real person, so why did everyone feel that he looked familiar?

Suddenly, Xu Xiaoling's eyes lit up and she exclaimed, "Isn't this the one from the No. 97 tenement courtyard..."

Suddenly, everyone's eyes lit up!

Understood!

I remember now!

Then everyone fell silent.

Zhang Dabiao looked completely bewildered: "Hey, who are you talking about? I just drew this out of thin air. There can't actually be someone who looks like that, can there?"

Yan Jiecheng nodded: "It's not like that, but you just feel that...that temperament is the same person, like they were made from the same mold."

"Yes, yes, the images look only about 50 or 60 percent similar, but the temperament, the spirit between the brows, it's the same person."

Zhang Dabiao became interested: "Who exactly are you talking about?"

Liu Guangqi frowned: "Da Biao, actually, we've had so many get-togethers, but you're still one person short."

"Huh?" How did the topic shift to the issue of not inviting one person to the dinner party again?

I didn't invite the Jia family or Sha Zhu from our courtyard; all the young people from other families came.

Then Liu Guangqi pointed at the screen and said, "The one you missed inviting is her."

"Mu Wanqing lives in the courtyard next to ours, in the big tenement at number 97."

What is that?

[A female-oriented genre has infiltrated? Or is it martial arts?]

[This name can't possibly belong to a member of the Mu family from the Mu Prince's Mansion in Yunnan, or to Mu Wanqing from the novel "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils," can it?]

In this era, people's names were very simple and straightforward, such as Da Mao, Da Biao, Yu Zhu, Yu Shui, Jie Fang, Ai Guo, Ai Jun, Wei Min...

But this Mu Wanqing...

In Zhang Dabiao's words, those would be character names from female-oriented novels or martial arts novels. In modern terms, they would most likely be names given by capitalists or remnants of the old regime.

It's obviously not a name that a respectable family would choose.

Besides, I don't even know her, why would I invite her? She's not one of the young people in our compound.

Liu Guangqi noticed the question in Zhang Dabiao's eyes and explained, "That day when we beat you up, we made too much noise, so Mu Wanqing from next door called the police."

------------

Without further ado, Zhang Dabiao, Liu Guangtian, Yushui, and Xu Xiaoling went to the neighboring courtyard to ask for help.

They've saved my life, so I absolutely have to treat them!

As they walked, Liu Guangtian pulled Zhang Dabiao aside and whispered a few words to him.

"Da Biao, it's fine to treat her to a meal, but don't get too close to this girl. Her family has a bad class background."

Zhang Dabiao looked completely bewildered: "Bad class background? Capitalist or landlord? Or a descendant of the White Dogs, or a remnant of the old regime? It can't be a Japanese, can it?"

The name doesn't sound Japanese, but Zhang Dabiao treats all other backgrounds the same. Our background is poor peasant, what's there to be afraid of?

Liu Guangqi didn't know how to explain, and finally scratched his head before uttering a single sentence.

"Her mother used to come from the Eight Great Hutongs, and she..."

"She's been trained from a young age to be a submissive to Western porridge!"

Zhang Dabiao's eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

[Is Western-style porridge still available?]

I've never seen this before!

"I must see it for myself!"