Chapter 704

After saying this, she ran out of the activity room like a summer whirlwind full of vitality, with light footsteps.

In the activity room, only Natsume Chikage, Yukimura Suzune, and Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai remained.

"Then, I'll go get an easel."

"Mm."

"Go ahead."

Soon.

Natsume Chikage returned to the club room and began to carefully organize the set of basic easels he had just borrowed from the art club.

The easel was natural wood-colored, with a few nicks and pencil smudges left from use on the corners, but the frame was sturdy.

The lively and enthusiastic girl who was the art club president not only readily lent the easel but also thoughtfully attached a thick stack of sketching paper, several sketching pencils of different hardness (HB, 2B, 4B), a soft kneadable eraser, and a small roll of paper tape for fixing the drawing paper.

"Everything is ready."

Natsume Chikage set up the easel in the position by the window where the light was brightest and most even, carefully adjusting the angle and height of the drawing board.

Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai walked over gently and stood by the easel.

With a warm and encouraging smile in her purple eyes, she began to explain patiently in her unique, unhurried tone:

"Learning to paint from scratch, especially sketching, laying a good foundation is the most critical thing."

"And the foundation of the foundation is to first learn to control your hand and the pen in your hand, drawing stable, smooth, and rhythmic lines."

She picked up an HB pencil, pinched it with her fingertips, and placed it gently on Natsume Chikage's right hand side.

"First, the posture of holding the pen. The way of holding the pen for sketching is different from daily writing; it needs to be more relaxed and more flexible, so as to exert force from different angles."

She said, naturally standing on Natsume Chikage's right side, leaning forward slightly for the convenience of demonstration.

Subsequently, almost out of a pure teaching instinct, without any plan she had deliberately made, she extended her fair and slender right hand and gently, with a bit of tentative nature, covered Natsume Chikage's right hand that had just held the pencil.

Her palm was warm and soft, but her fingertips carried a trace of the slight coolness unique to a young girl.

"Like this... the wrist must be completely relaxed, as if there are no bones, and the fingers shouldn't be held too tightly; just pinch it gently."

She said in a low voice, her voice appearing exceptionally clear because the distance was very close, carrying a kind of natural, pure focus.

"The pen barrel can lean loosely on this position of the tiger's mouth, using the side of the little finger as an auxiliary fulcrum on the paper surface... Yes, that's it, do you feel it?"

She guided Natsume Chikage's fingers, adjusting those subtle angles and the strength of holding that were difficult to describe in words.

The backs of their hands and knuckles inevitably produced slight friction during the movements, and the touch was vivid.

Natsume Chikage could clearly feel the delicate touch of her fingertips and the warm temperature from her palm, and even the tip of his nose seemed to be lingering with a trace of faint, fresh soap scent from her hair tips or collar.

He clearly hadn't expected that the teaching would start with such direct physical contact.

But when his gaze touched Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai's purple eyes that were completely immersed in the role of "instructor" and didn't contain a trace of impurities, he immediately realized that he was overthinking it, and then relaxed, cooperating with her guidance, and trying to relax his somewhat tense wrist.

"Very good... that's it. Then, try using the swing of the wrist to drive the movement of the fingers and the pencil, instead of relying on the finger joints to exert force."

Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai at this time also realized after the fact that she was holding Natsume-kun's hand.

This realization caused her fair-as-jade face to "whoosh" and flush slightly.

Her heartbeat inexplicably accelerated a few beats, and her palms even felt a little sweaty.

But things had come to this, and it would seem strange if she suddenly let go.

She could only suppress that trace of shyness, trying hard to maintain a calm teaching posture, still holding his hand gently, driving his wrist, and drawing the first long, tentative straight line on the blank sketching paper.

"Look, like this... empty your mind, let your hand naturally sweep over, sweep gently across the paper surface, try to do it in one go, don't hesitate or stop in the middle."

The pencil tip swept across the rough paper surface, making a "rustling" sound.

The lines drawn at the beginning inevitably carried raw tremors, but under Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai's stable and soft guidance, the lines gradually became stable, extended, and took shape.

Yukimura Suzune was originally sitting on an old sofa not far away, holding a hardcover poetry collection in her hand, her gaze falling between the words.

But her peripheral vision, or rather, most of her attention, was always involuntarily drawn by the two silhouettes that were almost leaning together by the window.

Seeing Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai holding Natsume Chikage's hand so naturally and without any barriers, her brows furrowed imperceptibly.

A wave of inexplicable, sour, and stuffy feeling that was not very sharp but persisted rose in her heart.

She bit her pale red lips slightly and closed the poetry collection, making a slight "clack" sound.

Then she stood up and walked to the other side of the easel, opposite Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai.

She didn't lean close like Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai, but maintained a polite distance sufficient to see the details, her cold eyes like the strictest quality inspector, examining the newly born lines on the paper and Natsume Chikage's somewhat clumsy movements.

"The flexibility and control of the wrist are clearly insufficient."

"The tail of the line is clearly weak, and the closing action is too hasty."

"Sister Xiyuan Si, don't always lead his hand to draw; this way he won't form his own muscle memory."

"Let go."

A trace of imperceptible regret flashed in Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai's eyes, and she let go:

"... That's true."

Yukimura Suzune stood on the side, watching Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai's hand finally leave Natsume Chikage's hand, and the string that was inexplicably tight in her heart relaxed slightly.

But the expression on her face remained cold, her gaze sharp as a ruler, continuing to "snipe" every detail precisely.

Her comments were always concise, direct, and merciless, yet every time they hit the key points of the mistakes beginners were most prone to make.

Natsume Chikage, under the hand-in-hand guidance of Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai and the sharp, real-time "artillery fire" coverage of Yukimura Suzune, repeated the most basic line practice clumsily but extremely earnestly, like a child who had just learned to hold a pen.

And precisely because he possessed the implicit blessing of the "Auxiliary Learning Set"—the ability to understand all knowledge increased by 50%, and learning efficiency increased by 30%—his speed of understanding and absorbing the points and techniques pointed out by the two was far beyond ordinary people.

Coupled with his own excellent concentration and understanding ability brought by the 7-point spirit attribute, and the good control of subtle body movements given by 5-point agility.

Added to the guidance of two girls, his learning progress could be described as rapid.

When Natsume Chikage moved his wrist and controlled the pen tip, he could almost adjust to the "correct feeling" described by the two at an astonishing speed.

After not long, he integrated the "loose, stable, light" pen-holding secret taught by Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai with the "start, move, close" force control emphasized by Yukimura Suzune.

After only more than ten minutes of uninterrupted practice.

The lines on the paper that were crooked and uneven in depth at the beginning gradually became regular, stable, and rhythmic.

He had already achieved the perfect standard of "horizontal and vertical, uniform thickness" for "pen control."

Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai and Yukimura Suzune looked at the rapidly improving lines on the paper and couldn't help but freeze for a moment.

Apparently, they hadn't expected that Natsume Chikage's speed in mastering basic pen control skills would be so fast.

You have to know, among all visual art learning, the most basic and also the most time-consuming thing to polish is precisely this seemingly simple "pen control."

Only after taming the pen in hand can one talk about drawing what is in one's heart.

When the two of them first learned to paint, both were praised by their tutors as having "some talent," but even so, they each spent many classes doing boring practice to reach the level of stable pen control.

Natsume-kun's learning speed... was a bit unreasonable.

However, the two had only guided for a while, and the surprise in their hearts hadn't been fully digested.

The door of the activity room was slammed open with a "whoosh."

Classmate Classmate Tengyuan Kui, who had finished her exercise and still had a healthy rosy flush on her cheeks from the exercise, jumped in, her short hair drawing a lively arc in the air, and announced excitedly:

"Aoi is back—! Training finished, state perfect! Let's go shopping now!"

Yukimura Suzune and Sister Xiyuan Si Xiyuanji Qilai heard this and subconsciously looked back at the clock on the wall.

The hour hand had actually pointed to past one o'clock in the afternoon.

More than an hour had really passed since Classmate Classmate Tengyuan Kui left.

Time passed silently in focused teaching and practice.

Thinking about it, Natsume-kun's borrowing of the easel, moving, and debugging earlier also took quite a bit of time.

It's just that now Classmate Classmate Tengyuan Kui was back, full of interest, and Natsume-kun's painting practice in the afternoon was afraid it would have to be interrupted temporarily.

However, the two's gazes still couldn't help but fall back on the drawing paper in front of Natsume Chikage—it was covered with line practice from raw to regular.

They looked at each other, and their hearts had roughly similar judgments:

Natsume-kun indeed had his own superiority in physical coordination and movement control.

After all, his athletic nerves were outstanding, whether it was the baseball hitting with amazing explosive power or the swimming that required full-body coordination, all proved his excellent control over his body.

Perhaps, it was precisely this excellent "bodily intelligence" that allowed him to get started much faster than ordinary people in the "pen control" link that required fine wrist control.

However, painting was a long and arduous path of cultivation.

"Pen control" was ultimately just the first step of a long march, an instrumental foundation, and was far from being a decisive "painting talent."

Therefore, they thought secretly in their hearts, Natsume-kun still had a very, very long way to go.

According to normal progress, I'm afraid it would take one or two years of continuous practice to barely reach the normal painting level of the two of them.

As for wanting to reach the level of his sister Ruri, that "painting genius"...

I'm afraid it would be difficult to reach in a lifetime.

Because certain levels of painting, like mathematics and music, exist with a cruel "talent barrier."