The car drove to a quiet and remote old street in Nancheng District. It slowed down and stopped by the side of the street under Guo Dongyue's guidance.
Zhang Zian and the two cats got out of the car first.
Before liberation, Nancheng District was the most prosperous area in Binhai City. There were many foreign consulates and offices. Now, those buildings had become memorials or museums. The street they were on was next to the embassy street, so it still looked the same as it did decades ago. On both sides of the narrow street, there were rows of French plane trees. The golden leaves were as big as a palm, rustling in the late autumn wind. From time to time, some dead leaves were blown off the ground, covering the ground with golden leaves.
It was a nice day. It was a bit cold and cloudy in the morning, but it was sunny at noon. The sunlight was like countless sharp swords piercing through the gaps between the leaves, creating mottled light and shadow on the roof of the car.
"What a nice day," Zhang Zian said to himself, "It's perfect for a walk."
He bent down to pick up a whole leaf and held it above his head to the sunlight. He could clearly count the veins on the back of the leaf.
There were no particularly tall buildings on either side of the street. The highest one was three stories high, and many of them had a western architectural style. There were a few buildings with private gardens, which looked like the villas of the past. There were half-naked statues of goddesses in the fountain, well-trimmed shrubs, swinging swings in the wind, and relief sculptures of little angels with wings. The exotic atmosphere was intoxicating … How to describe it? Compared to the Chinese architecture of the same era, it was indeed elegant.
Guo Dongyue also got out of the car with the birdcage. The driver waved his hand and drove away.
"Why are you looking at me?" Guo Dongyue looked down at himself, not understanding why Zhang Zian was staring at him.
"Nothing." Zhang Zian shrugged.
In fact, for a moment, he thought that the reason why Guo Dongyue became a designer might have something to do with the fact that he grew up on this artistic and romantic street. People were always influenced by the environment they grew up in. Just like how he grew up in a pet shop, he was interested in pets.
The environment shaped people — it was true.
Perhaps because it was noon, there were very few pedestrians on the streets. A few young people who looked like university students were taking pictures with their cameras, and a few girls in exaggerated cosplay costumes were their models. They were holding giant styrofoam weapons in their hands and posed arrogantly or pitifully.
Zhang Zian felt that those young people looked familiar. They seemed to be from the university photography department that he had met at the top of Mt. Hidden Fog. It seemed that they had finally found their subjects. As for the appearance of those girls … sorry, the makeup was too thick, so I couldn't tell.
This street was indeed a good place to shoot cosplay. The old atmosphere of the declining European aristocracy was especially stylish.
The setting they chose was the outside of a Gothic church. The church was not too big. It was about four stories high, and it was made of red brick and wood. There was a tall Gothic bell tower on each side, and there was a pure white cross on the spire of each bell tower. It was just like the impression that churches gave to ordinary people — solemn, solemn, and old-fashioned.
With this church as the background, he could easily tell outsiders that he had gone to Europe to take photos.
Outside the fence of the church, the photography club members were having a lot of fun. Since there were not many pedestrians, there were not many onlookers, especially without the perverted uncle onlookers. The only problem was that the weather was quite cold now. The girls were dressed very skimpily. Their thighs and arms were exposed, and they shivered when the wind blew. There was also a girl who had just posed and sneezed without any ladylike demeanor. Her sneeze landed on a professional-looking and expensive SLR camera …
The photography club members were probably rookies as well. They couldn't find the right angle and lighting for the camera. Their partner who was holding the reflector had both arms sore …
"My house is in that alley." Guo Dongyue pointed at an inconspicuous alley with the birdcage in his hand.
As the two of them were walking, they heard the sound of leaves being stepped on.
"Hey, wait, please wait!"
Zhang Zian turned around and saw a tall boy from the photography club crossing the road with his long legs. Seeing Zhang Zian turn around, the tall boy waved at him to ask them to wait.
When a truck rolled up a large pile of sycamore leaves and drove past, the tall boy crossed the road and ran to Zhang Zian, slightly out of breath.
"Then … can I borrow your cat for a while?" the tall man asked.
"What?" Zhang Zian was shocked, "Borrow my cat?"
"Yes, our club is in the middle of a shoot. The cosplayers think your cat is pretty, so they asked me to borrow it." The tall boy turned around and pointed at their club.
Zhang Zian saw that their club had paused the shoot, and they were all looking at him. A few female cosplayers were huddled together in green military coats.
"Don't you bring your own things for your club activities?" he asked.
The tall boy nodded, "Yes."
"Then why don't you bring your cat?"
The tall boy was speechless, "Actually, we didn't plan to do that at first. The cosplayers saw your cat, so they came up with this idea."
"Excuse me," Zhang Zian said straightforwardly.
"Why?" the tall boy was shocked.
"It's none of my business that you are taking pictures of girls!" Zhang Zian saw through the truth. Their so-called photography club was nothing more than a way to pick up girls by taking pictures. As a single man, how could Zhang Zian work for others?
Simple and straightforward truths often hurt people the most.
The tall boy scratched his head awkwardly and looked back at his friends. His friends didn't know that he had been rejected, and they were still smiling and waving at him, urging him to hurry up.
He quietly took out his phone, opened Alipay, and said to Zhang Zian in a low voice, "Can I rent it? One day … No, half a day. How much is it? "
Zhang Zian was speechless. Do you have to work so hard to please girls?
"Sorry, we have something else to do, so we can't play with you." He refused decisively, not because he was jealous, but because he was afraid that the young man would go astray.
"Wait!" The tall boy stopped them, "You may not know, but the pictures we take this time will be sent to the school's photography exhibition and will be uploaded to the Internet."
Zhang Zian didn't understand what he meant, "So what?"
"Think about it, when our pictures win the school's photography exhibition, when our exclusive cosplayers become popular on the Internet, won't your cat be honored too?" the tall boy said confidently.
Zhang Zian was speechless. Where did this confidence come from?
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