My Extraordinary Achievements

He was already freelancing his own performances, like performing at wedding ceremonies and painting for company events. He was an employee who was able to bring profits consistently to the studio and was a person who could make a living off of sand painting alone.

He didn’t have any work recently but would still come to the studio early every day just so he could practice and create some videos to submit online. This included work for some short film platforms that provided revenue.

“Huh?”

Ding Quan Kai immediately saw Meng Fan when he came into the studio. Curiously, he asked, “Iron bro, did you not go home last night? You’re here so early!”

Meng Fan smiled. “I got up early.”

He was early indeed. He had come after running ten kilometers, showering, and eating breakfast. It was just that it was still very early for Ding Quan Kai and the others.

“When did he leave yesterday?”

Ding Quan Kai asked a staff member who was on duty last night.

“I’m not too sure, but I got up at 2:00 am, and he was still here.” The guy said. “This guy is too hardcore! And he came so early, what a god.”

Ding Quan Kai let out a sigh. “Some people are successful for a reason. You don’t know how talented he is at sand painting…”

The entire morning, Ding Quan Kai’s practice time and his time spent observing Meng Fan didn’t even come close to how much he had been talking about Meng Fan to other people. It was almost like he wanted the world to know Meng Fan was an insanely talented and hardworking individual.

At around 10:00 am or so, Wen Wan dropped by. She watched Meng Fan for ten minutes or so before being unable to take it and went off. She then gave Qin Jiao a phone call, curious as to what kind of person Meng Fan really was.

What could Qin Jiao say, she still couldn’t figure out how Meng Fan’s drawing skills had improved so much in the last few days. She couldn’t repeat what Meng Fan said and tell Wen Wan he was a small genius… But that was all she could say.

Otherwise, Qin Jiao was curious about how good Meng Fan was at sand painting to make Wen Wan this startled, so she asked her to send a video over.

She watched the entire thing.

Qin Jiao was a bit stunned. He was very good but not that great at the same time. It was just a regular sand painting video with nothing super outstanding.

She thought about it again then understood.

He had only been learning for a day!

Actually, Wen Wan didn’t mention that this video was recorded at 9:00 pm the night before by Ding, who forwarded it to her. If he filmed it today, then it wouldn’t just be regular but very good!

Learning made one happy and practicing made one lose their sense of time while being serious made that person as a whole… His stomach rumbled; a timely reminder to Meng Fan that it was time for dinner.

From seven-thirty in the morning until now—5:00 pm—Meng Fan had been practicing the entire duration with the exception of a quick lunch. He had indeed forgotten about the time and was in deep concentration with efficient transition speed. Meng Fan felt that up until now. He was able to transfer about +8 or +9 of his drawing skills into his sand painting.

Because there was no bottleneck effect for his skill transfer, Meng Fan believed that he could reach +10 if he practiced enough tonight. As long as his sand painting was precise and reached a certain level, then he could design a sand painting routine for Su Qing Cen and Bai Zhi’s respective songs. When the time comes, he would film it and send it over which would make it acceptable to request such a thing.

If his sand painting wasn’t at a level of performing on stage, Meng Fan didn’t want to trouble them too much. Meng Fan didn’t bother to think about what would happen if they or their organizers rejected him. If they refused, then he couldn’t force it; he could only go as an audience member and hope to get some cameos.

Meng Fan was working so hard because time was limited. It was already November 7th, only a few days from the 11/11 gala. He had to quickly transition his skills into an acceptable level for performance, on the 9th at the latest. Otherwise, no matter how good his sand painting skills were, the organizer wouldn’t allow such a last-minute addition. He had to give them time to process it.

He had to leave time for practice and rehearsal.

So time was limited.

Meng Fan continued after eating dinner.

“Still working?”

It was 8:00 pm when Wen Wan finished her work at hand and was prepared to leave the studio. She looked at Meng Fan in the studio and curiously asked Ding Quan Kai, “He hasn’t stopped?”

Ding Quan Kai nodded furiously. “He’s crazy!”

“All the greats are crazy.” Wen Wai remembered the days when she was learning sand painting herself. She then turned to Ding Quan Kai. “You should work harder, otherwise, he’ll catch up to you.”

Ding Quan Kai smiled bitterly. “You don’t know. He’s already better than me!”

What else could Wen Wan say? Was sand painting that easy?

At around 3:00 am, Meng Fan yawned as he stumbled home. He took a shower and went to bed, where even his dreams involved various versions of the music video for the song “Into the Sand”. It was said that water could enter people’s brains, but it seemed Meng Fan’s brain has leaked sand instead. All he could think about every day was sand, so was it strange to dream of it too?

Several variations of sand with several variations of sand painting.

“You’re learning sand painting?”

The next morning after their run, Wu Tong asked him curiously. In the last two days, Meng Fan had been sending her videos of his sand art, all containing cringeworthy and shameless content. She couldn’t help but be curious.

“Mhmm, I think it’s pretty fun, something else to stream.” Meng Fan nodded. He was scared to bring up the videos he’d been sending her.

Wu Tong smiled. “Why don’t you learn some sand sculpting? I’ve seen a few sand sculpting shows; they’re pretty interesting*.”

*In Chinese, sand sculpting (Sha Diao) can be a slang term for dumbass.

Meng Fan’s skin was thick too. “If I really were to learn, I’d only sculpt you.”

Wu Tong “angrily” shoved Meng Fan, who was barely able to maintain balance in his current stretching posture. With this push, he fell flatly onto the ground. His expression and posture were quite dumb. Wu Tong saw this and immediately began to laugh.

“Huh?”

“Holy sh*t!”

There weren’t many people on the track, but it wasn’t empty either. Seeing Wu Tong laugh so openly, all their eyes and ears were on the two.

In the beginning, the entire school had rejected the idea of Meng Fan + Wu Tong. But slowly, they had grown used to it; they were even hoping for Meng Fan and Wu Tong to end up together. Others straight up wanted them to go public with their relationship.

In private, several boring people had given them several couple nicknames already. For example, WuMengDa CP, Chinese Painting and Manga CP, morning run CP, running date CP, Rice Tub CP, same house CP, and several other strange CP names. The most common however must be calling them Team True Love CP.

The Tea in team came from being synonymous with Iron for Iron hero, while the M came from the Mu making up the Tong character in Wu Tong’s name. True love of course meant that Wu Tong and Meng Fan being together had to mean it was true love. At least, Wu Tong must have felt true love when she was with Meng Fan.

Of course, if Meng Fan were to choose, he of course wanted…

“Already fighting like a couple?”

“I’ve never seen the Chinese Painting Department’s beauty laugh like this.”

“She could push the iron tower to the ground! Is the Chinese Painting Department’s beauty that strong?”

“No wonder you’re single. You can’t even understand such a simple concept! He’s obviously letting her!”

To come outside and run so early and be able to see some PDA as well, it felt so… good!