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

The Sijiucheng Arts and Crafts School was located in Baiduizi, a row of gray brick bungalows with several old locust trees in the courtyard. When Zhang Dabiao reported for duty, the entrance was already crowded with students, mostly fifteen or sixteen years old, with childish faces.

"Comrade, are you a freshman... or a student teacher?" A teacher wearing glasses came up to greet him.

Zhang Dabiao was speechless. "Am I that old, you idiot?"

However, compared to those fifteen or sixteen-year-olds, he did seem too mature. He was tall, big, and had a roguish air about him, looking much like a junior or senior student teacher.

"Zhang Dabiao, a freshman majoring in interior design." Zhang Dabiao pulled out his admission notice. "Teacher, which class am I in?"

The teacher glanced at the admission notice, then looked him up and down: "You're Zhang Dabiao? The one the ministry specifically mentioned? A student admitted through the recommendation program?"

"what?"

[Damn, the way you're saying it makes me feel like I got in through connections.]

"You got first place in the entrance exam, and full marks in sketching, color sketching, and pattern design. It's impossible not to remember you." The teacher adjusted his glasses. "My name is Zhou Muye, and I teach pattern design. You can call me Teacher Zhou from now on. Come on, I'll take you to register first, and then to the classroom."

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

In Class 1 of the first-year interior design program, there were over thirty young boys, the oldest being seventeen and the youngest only fifteen. A boy from Beijing named Li Weidong came over and asked, "Hey buddy, how old are you? You look much older than us."

"Eighteen," Zhang Dabiao said casually, "I started school late."

I absolutely cannot say that I was in third grade last year!

"Eighteen?" Li Weidong stared wide-eyed. It didn't look like it. Who could grow to be over 180cm tall at 18 and still come to study art?

With your physique, shouldn't you be studying sports?

But he still laughed it off: "Then you're the eldest brother! From now on, you're the boss in the class!"

Zhang Dabiao smiled but didn't reply.

He was 30 years old before he traveled back in time, and he's 18 now, making a total of 48! Of course, mentally he believes he'll always be 18!

[Forever 18, challenge me if you disagree!]

But it felt weird to be on friendly terms with these kids.

The first day of school mainly consisted of orientation and class assignments. Zhang Dabiao's class was Decoration Class 1, and the homeroom teacher was Zhou Muye, who arrived at the classroom shortly afterward.

"Our major is commercial art," Professor Zhou said from the podium. "What is commercial art? It's about dressing up products to make them easier to sell. In the future, you'll be working in factories, stores, and foreign trade companies, designing packaging, drawing graphics, and arranging shop windows. This job requires both artistic vision and business acumen."

Zhang Dabiao listened, nodding in agreement. Wasn't this what later generations called "visual communication design"? He knew it well.

"But there's one condition," Teacher Zhou changed the subject, "we're doing socialist commercial art, not capitalist design. We can't do those fancy gimmicks; we need to reflect the aesthetics of the working people and serve the people."

The students below nodded in agreement, and Zhang Dabiao followed suit, but in his heart he was thinking—[What he said is correct, but how to implement it is a real art.]

It's not that Zhang Dabiao is arrogant, but any form of artistic expression must conform to the mainstream aesthetics of that era and society.

If you're so great, you could draw Ultraman, Optimus Prime, or even Fox Spirit Matchmaker in Beijing in the 60s.

Tell me how you want to die?

Even if you paint traditional art, such as a half-naked Venus or a fully nude David, tell me how you want to die.

There's nothing you can do about the limitations of the times.

The first lesson was sketching, still life. Zhang Dabiao picked up a pencil and drew a few lines casually. A classmate next to him leaned over to look: "Dude, your lines... why are they different from what the teacher taught?"

"What's different?"

"The teacher said it should have 'three sides and five tones,' but yours... seems to have only a few strokes, yet the three-dimensionality is there."

Zhang Dabiao looked at his own drawing, then at the drawing of the boy next to him, and sighed inwardly. This kid had learned the "Chistyakov system" of Soviet-style drawing too rigidly; the line between light and shadow was drawn like a black ditch, and the reflections were drawn too shiny, like plastic.

"Look," Zhang Dabiao took his drawing paper, "the line between light and shadow isn't a line, it's a plane. The reflected light can't be brighter than the bright side, otherwise it'll look jarring. Also, the background..."

Suddenly, Zhang Dabiao frowned, as if possessed by the teacher who taught him sketching in a prep class for future exams—

"Just like that! I snap and the light comes out, I rub and rub, I just keep rubbing and erasing, hey, the light and the structure appear..."

In no time, he brought the child's drawing to life with a few strokes.

As we all know, once people start showing off, they can't stop.

The teacher was supposed to draw a lesson, but Zhang Dabiao only needed 5 minutes to capture the overall structure and lighting.

It's completely out of control!

I'm having so much fun drawing!

I can't control myself!

"Holy crap!" the kid exclaimed, "That's amazing!"

Both male and female students gathered around—"Wow!"

The noise was so loud that it attracted Teacher Zhou's attention.

The students and teacher exclaimed in unison, "Teacher, I want to learn this!"

Teacher Zhou...

【I don't even know how to do it yet!】

Teacher Zhou picked up the painting and frowned. "Zhang Dabiao, who taught you this method of modification?"

[Damn it, this guy's been way too arrogant and showing off in front of everyone!]

[But this is a natural, instinctive habit. You want me to diligently work on hatching and creating effects? How the hell am I supposed to draw it well?]

How can this be explained?

"My father," Zhang Dabiao began to spout nonsense without batting an eye, "was a Taoist priest who understood 'yin and yang.' He said that painting is like fortune telling and face reading; you have to understand 'qi' (vital energy) and be able to perceive qi. Once you understand qi, the form will naturally be accurate."

"In visual terms, this means the space needs to be open and transparent."

Teacher Zhou stared at him for a long time before finally saying, "Come to my office after class."

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

Teacher Zhou's office is a small room on the corner of the teaching building, with the walls covered with students' compositions.

"Zhang Dabiao, sit down," Teacher Zhou pointed to the stool. "I've looked at your entrance exam papers. You got full marks in all four subjects. I've never seen anything like that in the ten years I've been here."

"Teacher, you flatter me," Zhang Dabiao said modestly. "I was just scribbling."

"Nonsense?" Teacher Zhou laughed. "Your pattern design exam paper combined traditional patterns and positive and negative space to form four characters—'Serving the Country through Commerce,' which looks like... calligraphy? But the design is very good. But do you know why it's good?"

Zhang Dabiao thought for a moment: "Because...the idea is correct?"

"Not entirely," Teacher Zhou shook his head, "because you understand 'business.' Most students at our school only know how to draw, but they don't understand why they draw or who they draw for. You're different; you know that design is for selling things, for earning foreign exchange, and for building the country. That's rare."

Zhang Dabiao blushed a little from the praise.

Commercial design is all about business; you can only call it a good design if you can sell the product first.

Your design is praised to the skies, but your products don't sell. What use are you to me?

"In addition, we know that you are working part-time as a designer at the Red Star Daily Necessities Manufacturing Plant and in the ministry."

Zhang Dabiao scratched his head: "Um, our school...?"

Are students not allowed to work part-time?