Marrying My Bestie's Ferocious Brother - He Calls Me His Baby!-Chapter 255 - 254: Only Black, White, and Gray? I Whip Up a Rainbow!
Morning.
Peking University Staff Family Courtyard.
The jeep started up.
Commander Gu sat in the backseat, the car window half rolled down.
He didn’t look at Gu Yanshen, just glanced at the two children in Lin Wan Yi’s arms.
"Leaving."
Two words, straightforward and crisp.
The wheels kicked up a few leaves on the ground, quickly disappearing at the alley entrance.
Just as he arrived, swift and decisive, taking no clouds with him but a fussy Gu Xiuzhen.
Gu Yanshen withdrew his gaze.
He raised his hand and glanced at his watch.
"I’m going to class."
He reached out and ruffled Gu An’s head.
"Don’t make a mess at home, listen to your mom."
Gu An blankly slapped away his father’s hand, continuing to fiddle with a piece of wire.
Gu Yanshen gave Lin Wan Yi a kiss on the cheek, turned and left briskly.
The courtyard quieted down.
Lin Wan Yi carried Gu Ning back inside.
As she entered, the feeling of emptiness hit her.
Though she had made the house a bit cozier, it was still too plain.
White walls, cement floor, apart from a few essential pieces of furniture, there was no color at all.
That’s how it was these days.
The streets were filled with gray-blue-black.
Even the child’s world was gray.
"Wow!"
Gu Ning in her arms suddenly started crying.
The little girl kicked her legs, pointing at the corner of the wall.
It was too dull there, not a single eye-catching thing.
Lin Wan Yi had just comforted Gu Ning and placed her in the cradle, turned and heard a "click."
She turned her head.
Her blood pressure instantly rose.
Gu An was crouched under the bed, holding a screwdriver from who knows where.
He was unscrewing the bed legs.
It was a brand-new bed!
"Gu An!"
Lin Wan Yi pulled him out.
Gu An blinked his big eyes, still gripping the unscrewed nut.
"It’s loose."
He pointed at the bed legs, speaking matter-of-factly.
"You unscrew it because it’s loose?"
Lin Wan Yi placed him on the carpet and confiscated the screwdriver.
Without his tool, Gu An pouted and lay on the floor.
Started rolling around.
Bored.
So boring.
After dismantling the radio, he had nothing to do except dismantle the house.
Lin Wan Yi watched her son roll around the floor, then looked at her daughter who was whimpering nearby.
Headache.
Children at this age are most sensitive to colors and images.
But what’s available in the market?
Apart from the Red Book, there are the same promotional posters.
Those bold lines, stern expressions, are not apt for half-year-old children for enlightenment.
Need to get something else.
Bright, cute, something that can catch their eyes.
Drawing.
The word popped into Lin Wan Yi’s mind.
She had studied art, though not a professional artist, she was more than capable of entertaining the kids.
She decided to start.
She placed the two children inside the playpen, instructed "Don’t move," and turned to search her suitcase.
Minutes later.
Lin Wan Yi looked at the items on the table and sighed.
Only a few pencils and a box of dried watercolor.
The watercolor was left for who knows how many years, colors dim, and smelled strongly of chemicals.
This stuff is toxic.
Definitely can’t let children touch it, nor hang it in a poorly ventilated room.
Nowadays, most paint is mixed with industrial materials, lead and mercury content is often excessive.
"Can’t buy it."
Lin Wan Yi tossed the box of dried watercolor into the trash can.
She walked to the window, looked at the few bare trees in the courtyard.
Winter, everything is desolate.
It’s hard even to find natural dyes.
Lin Wan Yi’s gaze fell on the emerald bracelet on her wrist.
Ah yes.
There’s that place.
She drew the curtains, locked the door.
Made sure both children were in the playpen playing with toys, couldn’t hear the commotion from this side.
She focused her mind.
Disappeared from where she stood.
Inside the space.
Warm as spring.
It’s a world apart from the outside winter.
Lin Wan Yi took a deep breath.
The air was filled with rich fruit and floral scents.
On that black soil, the seeds she casually scattered before were planted.
They had grown wildly now.
Because they were irrigated with spiritual spring water.
She approached a strawberry patch.
Stood stunned.
Are these still strawberries?
Each was as big as a fist, red to the point of turning purple, that red, not an ordinary red.
It was a penetrating, jewel-like deep red.
Emitting an eerie brightness.
She picked one.
Gently squeezed.
Red juice trickled down her fingers, landing on her fair hand.
It didn’t spread out, but stuck like paint, with high adhesion.
Lin Wan Yi brushed it with her fingers.
The color was shockingly pure.
Brighter than the top imported paints of later generations.
And it had only a sweet fragrance, without any strange odor.
"Is this the effect of spiritual spring water?"
Lin Wan Yi put the finger stained with red juice into her mouth.
Sweet.
Super sweet.
Edible, non-toxic, vibrant in color.
This is the most perfect natural pigment!
She got excited.
She took a turn around the space.
Red strawberries.
Blue blueberries.
Yellow marigolds.
Green spinach.
Purple mulberries.
These plants, nourished by spiritual spring water, seemed to have undergone some sort of pigment mutation.
Concentration was absurdly high.
Lin Wan Yi found some large bowls.
Started doing "research."
She crushed the strawberries and filtered them through gauze.
Obtained a bowl of liquid as red as blood plasma.
Too thin, wouldn’t stick to paper.
What to do?
She thought of that bag of glutinous rice flour in the corner of the space.
It had been stored earlier for making snacks.
She scooped a spoonful of spiritual spring water, mixing the glutinous rice flour into paste.
Then, she poured in the red strawberry juice.
A miracle happened.
The originally white rice paste was instantly dyed bright rose red.
And the texture was fine, with no graininess at all.
Spiritual spring water seemed to act as a sort of catalyst, perfectly combining the pigments with the starch.
Both adhesive and colorful.
Most importantly, once it dried, it wouldn’t fade!
Lin Wan Yi tried other colors.
Blueberries mixed with glutinous rice paste, produced a rich deep blue.
Mashed marigold petals, produced a bright lemon yellow.
Spinach juice, vibrant grass green.
Mulberries, a noble violet hue.
Ash from the bottom of the pot, mixed with a bit of honey and spiritual spring water, made for the purest black.
Half an hour later.
Lin Wan Yi’s table was filled with seven or eight bowls.
Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple.
Black, white.
A complete spectrum.
Under the light, these colors shimmered with an enticing gloss.
Even if the world’s top pigment master came, they’d bow before these colors.
This level of color saturation simply wasn’t of this world.
Lin Wan Yi picked up a clean brush.
Dipped a bit into the red strawberry rice paste.
On a nearby scrap piece of wood, she gently painted a stroke.
"Swipe."
A bright red mark.
If you didn’t say it was made from strawberries, anyone would think it was toxic cinnabar.
Too beautiful.
Lin Wan Yi looked at this red.
Smiled.
This was no mere pigment.
This was a key to open a new world for children.
She took these jars and jars, stepped out of the space.
Returned to the bedroom.
Two kids were still in the playpen.
Gu An had already twisted the wire into a complex shape.
Gu Ning was biting on that wire.
Lin Wan Yi placed the jars on the desk.
Found a stack of discarded drawings Gu Yanshen had brought back before.
The back side was blank, the paper coarse and yellowed but, at this moment, it was the best canvas.
She smoothed out the paper.
Used paperweights to press it flat.
Picked up the brush.
Loaded it with the pot-bottom ash-mixed black paint.
Took a deep breath.
Hand clipped mid-air.
Began to paint.
She didn’t plan to draw landscapes or birds.
Those things, the kids wouldn’t understand.
She wanted to draw the "top-stream" adored nationwide in later generations, which drove countless kids crazy.
The brilliant little sheep.
And the unfortunate wolf that never managed to catch him.
The brush tip touched the paper.
Smooth lines flowed out.
Paint mixed with spiritual spring water, it had perfect fluidity.
With a few strokes.
A round head.
A tuft of iconic curly fur.
Two big eyes.
A bell hanging on the neck.
Happy Sheep’s silhouette appeared on the paper.
Lin Wan Yi switched brushes.
Dipped into the bowl of bright lemon yellow.
Colored the bell.
Then a touch of light pink strawberry juice, adding rosy cheeks to the lamb.
Finally, with the pure white rice paste, highlighted the wool.
Ten minutes.
An animated, vibrant Happy Sheep emerged, seemingly ready to jump off the paper.
In this era of black, white, and gray.
This painting.
Was like a colorful bomb thrown into a calm lake.
Lin Wan Yi put down her brush.
Admiring her masterpiece.
This was not just a painting.
This was a dream she crafted for the kids in a material-scarce era.
A colorful dream.
"Gu An, Gu Ning."
She called out.
"Come over and take a look, what is this?"
