Raindrops slanted against the hospital window glass. Lin Wan clutched a faded movie stub as the rhythmic ticking of the cardiac monitor suddenly turned into a piercing, continuous tone. The smell of antiseptic mixed with the scent of white peach oolong tea from her memory, dragging her back to that midsummer when she first met Shen Xingye.
On the first day of sophomore year, Lin Wan tripped at the entrance of the lecture hall while holding a stack of heavy textbooks. Her scattered notes were steadily caught by a passing boy. Sunlight pierced through the gaps of his black baseball cap, casting a fan-shaped shadow beneath his eyelashes. A faint scent of mint hand cream lingered on the youth's fingertips. "Classmate, your *History of Western Art* notes are very special."
That notebook, covered in watercolor paintings of Van Gogh's starry sky, became the prologue to their story. Shen Xingye was a genius in the architecture department, yet he always appeared in the back row of Lin Wan's elective oil painting class, using a sketchbook to secretly draw her brows slightly furrowed as she mixed colors. One dusk, he gently placed the drawing paper over her palette. The girl on the paper was gilded by the setting sun, and in the bottom right corner were the words: "Lin Wan, can I be your exclusive model?"
Chapter 95