The city is always sunny. Since coming here, I haven't had a day without looking up at the sky.The blue sky is endlessly high, cool and transparent as if painted with water-diluted paint.Xiayun floats humbly in the air like a blank part of the painting paper, happily playing with the breeze and sunshine. Standing next to the cathedral like this, looking up at the light source along the church wall, and imagining the presentation of people's consciousness in the Middle Ages has become my daily homework. The cathedral stands in the very center of Florence and can be seen from almost any corner of the city.The hemispherical dome hung by the talented architect Brunelleschi looks as interesting as a medieval lady wearing a petticoat, and is the best landmark to confirm the orientation of the city center.

Known as the Notre-Dame of the Flowers, the white, green and pink marble exterior of this cathedral exudes majesty and elegance, awe-inspiring the beholders. When I left my teacher's studio after get off work, I saw the dome of the cathedral shrouded in sunlight in front of the old bridge, and I felt relieved for some reason.In such a comfortable evening, I always want to stride towards the cathedral. Of course, I also know why I feel a little guilty when I look up at the cathedral.That's the same reason I haven't been to the top of the cathedral since I came to this city.It stemmed from a small gamble, an agreement that only I must remember.

I still can't forget Aoi. Why do people meet?This pseudo-philosophical question entangles me tightly in this city that retains the spirit of the Renaissance. Every time I see tourists from all over the world enduring neck pain and looking up like me, I always suspect that they are like me, and there is an unforgettable person somewhere. Brunelleschi's architecture is so beautiful!Do not you think so? Almost everyone was taken aback by my fragmented Italian, frightened by my strange oriental smile, and hurried away without even daring to meet my eyes.Aoi once said that my personality often makes her not flattered.

You don't look at the occasion, you always make embarrassing jokes. Of course, Aoi wouldn't take her eyes off her and walk away, instead she found my nonsensical way of talking a little amusing. You are weird, but I like this weirdness. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she is the only one who will not betray a weirdo like me.Only she understands me in this world. Man is an animal that wants to forget more but cannot forget. Originally, forgetting does not require hard work.Most of the things that happen day after day have long been forgotten when they are occasionally remembered.Often I can't even remember what I've forgotten.

Sometimes, I suddenly think of something, because of the lack of a close bond, the memory is mostly like a short-lived mayfly's wings, melting in the heat of the sun and disappearing forever. Although five years have passed, the memory of Aoi who wants to forget the more firmly becomes more and more vivid. In sudden moments, such as the moment of crossing the road, the moment of rushing to the studio at full speed when I am about to be late for work, the moment of sadness and budding The moment I stared at each other, the memory came to haunt me like a ghost. I don't feel unlucky because I have an unforgettable her.I don't want to escape reality either.Every day I properly enjoy the fresh atmosphere of this city like the transparent blue sky.I'm not even looking forward to a renewed relationship with Aoi.I had a premonition that Aoi and Aoi would never meet again, and I knew that even if I did meet her, it would be all right.However, this is like a prank of memory, is it because of being in this city where time has stopped?I have an inexplicable joy in being manipulated by the past.

joy? Aoi is no longer coming back.She is such a woman.And I am not a man who expects this kind of woman.Everyone has a time when they have to leave. Such as farewell. Aoi and I have had that parting before.I assumed she was dead. It is said that one-third of the world's fine arts are in Italy. It was only natural that I came here to learn restoration painting techniques.There are many restorers of the highest level in the world, like my teacher, who is the best at restoring oil paintings. Giovanna was not only my teacher, but also a mother to me when I lost my mother at an early age.Every day of living under her care is as pleasant as being caressed by the palm of God.

The teacher often draws me naked, and asks me in a low voice when I get off work, so as not to let other students hear: Shunzheng, are you free today? I'm in my teacher's studio, posing as she tells me to.My skin breathes the motionless still air in the twilight of the skylight, and rejoices in her gaze upon my flesh. The teacher didn't move his face and didn't test my feelings, but just sketched the muscular body of the oriental people silently.As if devoutly serving the Buddha. I often think about Aoi when my teacher is helping me sketch.Because of the relationship of being penniless, I flew back to the past with a sense of liberation that was becoming bolder in my heart, and I thought of Aoi.This is why I like being a teacher and drawing models.

When I was in college, I often helped Aoi sketch from life. Aoi is only willing to undress in the moonlight.Aoi's skinny nude like a Western ceramic doll is slender and cute rather than sexy, and it looks very soft and beautiful in my eyes.Especially the ankle, the bones are thin and there is no fat. I like to draw those slack calves. The condition at that time was that I also had to be naked. If my expectations fail on the agreed day, then, from that day on, Aoi will be abandoned at the bottom of my memory like an impossible-to-repair sculpture buried deep in the warehouse of an art museum.Perhaps it is this expectation that makes me look up at the cathedral every day.

Is it to declare death to memory? Yashi and sunflower are completely different. In contrast to Aoi with a thin body and plump cheeks, Ya's fleshy figure comes from blood, and she has a perfect enthusiasm that is far behind me, but her cheeks are thin, her nose and eyes are straight, and she is as beautiful as a statue when she is silent. However, her personality is completely childlike, just the opposite of Aoi, so wild and dangerous that even when I met her when I was a student, I had to restrain myself. Aoi is only willing to love in the dark.In a bright place, she would hesitate to even kiss.When I teased her for being shy, she must have replied in a voice like the wind coming in through doors and windows in winter: She is sensible.But Yashi likes to have sex in a bright place, and she wants to have sex with the windows open in broad daylight.I advised her to close the curtains, but if she refused, it made me fearful, for fear that the spring would leak out!

My apartment is located on a plateau overlooking Florence, with the Aruno River in front of me.Looking out of the window, you can see the old bridge a little far away.Dull orange roofs, roofs, roofs in downtown Florence.Therefore, her persistence is actually out of a mischievous psychology that knows that this room is difficult to be peeped at. Many times, I feel that Ya, who shyly buries her face in my arms after whispering in her ear about exhibitionism, is really like a kitten.As long as you open the doors and windows, you can disappear for several days without caring, and come back smelling of smoke.Other men soaked in the stench of her long hair.Even so, I have no complaints.

Because I don't want to talk about love that will only bind each other. Can I erase memory? Maybe as long as I don't drive Aoi out of my memory, I can't really love Yashi.So I can't be mad at her like a wild cat.I concealed this thought, but said that I didn't want to restrain the other party. As long as Aoi remains in my heart, I cannot like others.Or, it's just that I haven't experienced a love that can drive Aoi out of my heart! I mistakenly called Yashi as sunflower only once. blurted out at the climax of love.Feelings surpassed reason, and both of them were in selflessness.You can't love in the dark, the darker you are, the more careful you are. I pressed Yashi's head to my chest, and unconsciously called out: "Kui! My physical body was far more sensitive than my conscious mind when I made a blunder.The distance between the two was too close to cover up and make up for. In Yashi's body, I couldn't bear to shrink. After the body and Yashi were separated, we talked about completely unrelated words, spying on each other's feelings.Deliberately talk about traveling to Africa.In a feigned calm, enthusiasm stagnates because it has nowhere to go. The embarrassing silence lasted for a while, and the uncontrollable Yashi suddenly roared: Who is Aoi? I shrugged and pretended not to know, but it was rare for Yashi to be so serious and refused to let go. Aoi has been refusing to disappear. My own analysis is because the past is too big or should be said to be too cruel, making it difficult for my heart to land in reality.Precisely because the days with Aoi were so vivid, I continued to be bound by that undead past. The light still stops at the tip of the dome. Should I love light?Or should I love the wind that stirs the light? And Aoi's memory is not as cheerful as the sky in Florence.It feels like a moderate amount of gray mixed with silver, blue and white.That's the color that symbolizes who I was five years ago. When I was in Tokyo, I never looked up at the sky like this, I always walked with my head down.The New York sky of my childhood was farther and narrower.In an old apartment, living with my most hated father. In order to find the memory of my mother who never hugged me, when I was a child, I always stuck my head out of the window and looked up at the sky like a fragment of a picture.The Chinese mother-in-law who came to clean for three days every week taught me to sing about my mother working the night shift in the Japanese words she remembered during the war. The next day, I will definitely ask my father: What is the night shift? Since I was a child, I wanted to be a painter who only painted the sky. So, I started a journey to explore the sky.Although it is the sky of the same earth, in different places, there are completely different sky styles.The sky is very scary. Tokyo sky.New York sky.Florence sky. As long as I look at the shy sky, I feel that I am not alone. When I returned to China to study at Seijo University, I saw the Tokyo sky that I hadn’t seen for more than ten years.The cabin announcement proudly said that the sky over Tokyo was very clear.Am I surprised this is called sunny?Because the sky seen from the small window was covered with a cloud of gray smoke. The biggest reason I like this city is the vastness and generosity of the sky.Although it is only the sky, as long as you look up, you will feel that your whole heart is enveloped in endless tenderness. The 360-degree unobstructed Florence sky seen from the observation deck on the top of the cathedral will definitely shock me.The vastness of the blue sky will definitely free the twenty-seven-year-old me who is firmly fixed on the ground from the bondage of memory, and fly away with wings. I want to climb up.Go at once if you can. When I gave up being a painter, Aoi was no longer in front of me.On our last date, we went to an art gallery.That's where we met, too. The museum is holding medieval art.Restoration of the Exhibition of Women in Famous Paintings.The museum is decorated with restored medieval paintings, accompanied by photos of the tragedy before the restoration. I was moved by the restoration technique that ingeniously restores the original appearance of the scarred famous paintings.What kind of technology allows famous paintings to restore their vividness and beauty?The restored painting is so vivid that it doesn't feel like the same painting. For the first time, I found out that there are people in this world who can save the lives that are gradually being lost, and I was shocked. That day, Aoi and I quarreled in the art museum as if we were looking for an outlet for our smoldering emotions.That was the only time, and also the last time, that I saw such a sudden change of expression on her usual quiet face. Aoi who rarely contorts her face and speaks loudly, and the woman in the famous painting are still clearly superimposed in my memory.Silent memory.Aoi without a frame is in the quiet gray hall of the art museum.It was a still picture, but I was impressed by the sense of incongruity in which the expression was extraordinarily vivid. When I was doing the restoration work, every time I reached the most nerve-consuming subtle stage, I must think of her face at that time.Aoi's face vibrates in the picture, and my heart keeps shaking.An unforgettable memory. While our relationship was facing a tragic end, my heart gradually turned towards the restoration of oil paintings.I don't think I'm not suitable to be a painter, in fact I still paint now and will continue to paint in the future.I didn't choose to restore this road because I couldn't paint, but because I found that restoring painting is the only profession in the world that can recover lost time, allowing me to find the value of survival in the restoration work. A job that can bring back life that has disappeared. Historical works of art in the world have survived to the present through roughly three periods. The first period is the era of works creation, which is the passionate moment when the painter is moved by what he sees and feels of the times, and puts the paint on the canvas with pure mood and energy; the second period is when the works exude gorgeous charm and attract people in front of many people. The remarkable period; and then the third period, when modern restorers devote themselves to restoring famous paintings that have survived through time, but have faded from their glory and are falling into ruin. My work belongs to the third period, trying to regenerate famous paintings that are gradually decaying to a state close to the first period.I started by projecting my consciousness into the past as much as possible, imagining what the artist thought to paint the painting, and investigating the artist's life, and sometimes incarnate as a painter to restore the painting. It's almost like the homework of bringing the dead back to life.The idea of ​​reviving the painter's life entrusted to the canvas is always in my heart. When I imagine that the work I have restored will be restored by other restorers after a thousand years, I am always excited.I am taking on the task of handing over the baton to people a thousand years from now.My name will not be passed down to posterity, but my thoughts do live on.The life of the famous paintings that dreams have been revived by my hands will be passed down forever by the power of future generations, which is the value of my existence at this moment. I am the person who brings the painter from the distant past where he lived to the present, and then sends him into the future. The Italian Renaissance is Rinascimennto, which used to mean rebirth, but now refers to a major cultural activity centered on Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Florence is the birthplace of Rinascimennto, and it is almost impossible to find modern architecture here. This is a city where time stopped after the sixteenth century.It feels like the whole city is like an art gallery. It is not warm in winter, and it is as cold as everything freezes; in summer, there is no wind, and the heat is steaming.If you don't love this city, you can't live here. Can I regenerate myself in this city?Can you fulfill your inner Rinascimennto? The church bell announcing noon rang, and a few pigeons flew from the dome. I blink.Feel dizzy for a moment, and there is a phenomenon of sensory detachment like a coma.Looking up at the relationship above my head for too long, my feet are a little unsteady.The memory was stirred by the light, and several shots flashed back.The gentle wind brushed by my ears.I close my eyes gently.Feel the sun on the inside of your eyelids, relax your shoulders, and retract your chin. If I open my eyes immediately, I might faint.I suppressed my excitement and started counting. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Then slowly open your eyes. I saw the sprouts running on the road west of the cathedral.She spotted me and waved to me.I also respond.The sun was shining fiercely between us.The dense light appears to be an endless stream of shining particles. Am I the only one who sees this scene?Or did many tourists in this square see the same scene? Yashi's arms wrapped around mine.No words.We decided a few days ago on the rule of not speaking when it is not necessary.Still a game without penalties.I was the one who brought it up, of course. She kept smiling, there must be something good going on.I can't ask her because of the boring rules.I can only perceive her true mood when I am far away from her. Yashi blocked my view, hooked my neck without any scruples, and kissed me on tiptoe.The softness of her lips surprised me.Unconsciously, when he was about to say something, he hurriedly shut up thinking that this was not an important matter. Is there really a time when it is necessary? How many such important things are there around us?At least in this elegant city of Florence, there is nothing that will be too late if you don't do it right away. Silent buds are very similar to sunflowers. Because Mei is now the same age as Aoi at that time, I have the illusion that I am walking side by side with Aoi when I was a student.When Yashi is silent, she looks more and more like sunflower.Aoi only said the minimum necessary things to me.Is that why we became like that? Now, I can understand a little bit about Aoi's mood at that time.There is really no compulsion to do anything. The city is always sunny.