Scratch Paper for the Last Subway Train

Lin Xiao clutched the hard-seat ticket on the green train and packed the "examination packet" stuffed by her mother into the bottom of her suitcase - this was all the "confidence" for a small-town girl to break into Shanghai. The calculus class in the Chinese Department, the unintelligible urban topics in the dormitory, and the daily income trap in the part-time group trapped her in the folds of "grouping in". Only the drawing book in the corner of the library is a secret: the extra half a spoonful of food taken by the cafeteria aunt, the dust-stained gloves of the subway security inspector, and the white-collar workers lying on the bar counter to catch up on their sleep during the night shift in the cafe were all kneaded into her sketches. During the video call, the sketchbook unexpectedly came into view, and my mother's words of "not doing my job properly" made the draft paper full of wrinkles. It wasn't until the professional class assignments that those urban sketches "with the atmosphere of a small town" were pushed to the corner booth of the club exhibition by the teacher - the senior sister from the design department handed over an invitation for cooperation, and the neighbor on the last subway train said, "This painting shows me after get off work." She finally said on the phone, "I want to try painting." After the silence on the other end of the phone, her mother said, "Go home if you feel miserable." This is the breakthrough of a piece of scratch paper: from the green train to the last subway train, the wind of the small town can finally blow into the light of the city.