Almighty painter

Chapter 1012 The Stolen Painting

A blue Skoda station wagon stopped in front of the building.

When the reporter parked the car and opened the door, a woman dressed in a smart gray turtleneck suit was already getting a little impatient.

“Guten Tag!”

The reporter greeted the other party in German.

“Hello.” The woman wasn’t going to give him a chance to build rapport with words, and said dryly in English, “You’re almost 45 minutes late, Mr. Kent.”

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

The reporter quickly apologized, "The city is a bit winding, I got the directions wrong on the navigation and ended up near the music academy, plus there was rush hour traffic..."

"follow me."

The woman had already turned around and walked to the side.

The reporter, realizing he was getting a little bored, gave a self-deprecating laugh.

Welcome to Germany.

He told himself this, then picked up his laptop bag for the interview and quickly followed the woman.

"Due to our special status, we generally do not accept interviews from outside sources..."

The woman turned her head and glanced at the guy who was almost an hour late. She didn't say anything, but she was curious—why would someone who had rejected so many major media outlets allow a visit from this seemingly unknown young reporter, "Robert Kent," in person?

"I understand, I understand. I'm really sorry. I know how difficult it was for me to come and do this interview."

The reporter, carrying his laptop bag, kept nodding and bowing, indicating that he knew this opportunity was extremely rare.

“Why don’t we interview Sophie Marceau?” Robert joked. “My colleagues all say that would be even easier.”

The woman stopped and looked at the reporter expressionlessly.

The reporter blinked.

"Sophie Marceau, that French star..."

“I know who Sophie Marceau is.” The woman looked him in the eye. “But this isn’t funny. We’re not public figures. Even if we were, we should have the right to choose our interviewees here, and the right to have our daily lives undisturbed.”

Judging from her incredibly proud tone, she seemed to think that the person Robert wanted to interview was completely more qualified than Sophie Marceau.

Or.

The other party is fully entitled to act even more unruly than Sophie Marceau.

“NBC wanted to film a short interview with us, but we were turned down,” she said meaningfully, her tone tinged with pride. “If you want to film some footage at will, you can go to a museum, which is a public space open to the public. But here, we conduct extremely rigorous screening for interviews, and even for all visitors.”

“But I don’t want you to interpret this behavior as… what you call… being arrogant.” Her tone was very serious.

"This is a school, and the school needs to maintain teaching order."

“Over the past six months, more than a hundred media outlets around the world have wanted to be interviewed. If we allowed each and every one of them, there would be no need for anything else. Besides, what if every one of them was late…”

"I understand, I understand, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Robert started apologizing again.

"Awesome."

The reporter inwardly mocked himself; he had only intended to make a lighthearted joke. He had spent two months contacting various people to secure an interview opportunity that others would envy. Instead, he had first gone to the wrong art school, arriving more than half an hour late, and then, with just a few opening jokes, offended the interviewee in less than three minutes.

genius!

What a genius he is!
"You know, because of your lateness, we could have easily canceled this interview, right?"

The woman's tone didn't sound like a warning, but rather like she was stating something that was about to happen.

"Uh, no, sorry, sorry, sorry... I'm really sorry..."

Robert hung his head and continued to apologize frantically.

The woman stood there for a moment.

She seemed to be considering whether to let Robert go back, or perhaps she was simply using this silent pressure to make Robert more obedient before the interview.

Finally, she turned around again.

"Come with me, let's hurry."

Robert didn't dare utter a single unnecessary word and quickly followed behind the other person. They walked through the campus paths, encountering many art students along the way.

Some students would stop and glance at Robert and the photographers following behind him, but their expressions did not show any surprise.

to the opposite.

Their faces were radiant with a hopeful enthusiasm. It was like the gleam that involuntarily appeared on the face of the Roberts University football coach when he talked about the star players on his team when he played in the fourth division, but ten times more enthusiastic.

Not surprisingly.

Those so-called "star players" rarely get to appear on the top stage; they're lucky if they can even be a substitute in a Championship team's match.

How can anyone compare to this person?

After all… this person is even harder to interview than Sophie Marceau. If it weren't for the fact that this person has a sufficiently "special" relationship with the "Painting" magazine, Robert probably wouldn't have been able to meet them at all.

The Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts is an open university, with many of its teaching buildings integrated into the city's road network. Some faculties are located in one part of the city, while others are located in another.

This is also a major reason why Robert Kent took the wrong turn earlier.

They walked for about ten minutes, crossing several main roads along the way.

finally.

The photographer, Robert, and the professional woman who had led the way stopped in front of a three-story Gothic building.

"This is it."

The woman rang the doorbell.

Robert stood there, staring at the burly security guard in a campus uniform who came to open the door.

"It's really heavily guarded," he thought to himself as he stepped inside.

……

Because Robert was late.

So the interviewee was busy right now, and the young woman who looked like a secretary had no intention of bothering him with Robert's work.

She asked Robert to sit down in the living room, while she looked at her phone beside him.

The two of them waited together.

Robert could only look around the room. The house looked quite old, perhaps 150 years old, or perhaps 200 years old. The sofa in the living room was in the style of Henry IV, and the walls were covered with various landscape photographs, making it look more like a small photography display board than a wall.

There are some landscape photos, but most of them are portraits.

Robert stared intently, trying to find something to glean from the photographs on the wall. He hoped to see some famous scenes or figures.

but.

Most of the photos Robert could recognize seemed to be related to campus life at the Hamburg Art Academy. The few photos whose subjects Robert couldn't identify were more like hazy blocks of color, exuding a texture similar to Mondrian's grid paintings.

Next to the photo board is a statue, or rather half of one, which looks like an exquisite but strange root carving, but only the left half is completed, and it is made of bronze.

The rest are bookshelves.

The bookshelf was large, not so large that a special ladder would be needed to reach the upper books in an old-fashioned manor, but it was still nearly two meters high, filled with books of all sizes.

The top floor houses various theatrical performances.

Goethe's "Faust", a complete set of Shakespeare's works... The two middle floors contain various books on art history and theory, as well as hundreds of copies of the magazine "Oil Painting" arranged chronologically.

The bottom shelf contains all sorts of miscellaneous books.

One book, which seemed to have been read by its owner not long ago, was now lying face down on the small table next to the armchair beside the bookshelf.

Robert couldn't resist, so he stood up and quietly moved over.

He pretended to be engrossed in examining the bookshelf, his fingers lightly tapping the surface of the table. His middle and index fingers, like the legs of a sneaky thief, moved step by step until they touched the corner of the book.

Robert grabbed the spine of the book and picked it up to look at it.

That was Nietzsche's *Thus Spoke Zarathustra*, and the book's owner had drawn a long line on one section—

"I will teach you what a superman is: a person is something that should be surpassed. What have you done to surpass yourselves?"

There are also small notes written by the book's owner next to it.

It seems like a commentary, yet it also seems like an interrogation.

"Do you want to become that kind of person?"

Robert was about to turn a few more pages when he heard the woman behind him cough softly. In his mind's eye, he could feel two searchlight-like eyes staring at him from behind.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Robert smoothly launched into a frantic apology mode, then obediently placed the book back on the table.

……

About half an hour later...

The reporter heard what sounded like a door opening on the second floor, followed by a series of footsteps. About five or six people were coming down from upstairs, chatting with each other.

Robert craned his neck to look at the stairwell, his ears perked up.

These people were both men and women, and they all sounded young, like students. They were talking to each other in German, but Robert's German level was only at the level of saying "hello," "good morning," "good afternoon," and "good evening," so he couldn't understand much of what they were saying.

He could only tell that everyone was talking very enthusiastically, even... perhaps only a word like "admiration" could perfectly capture the passion in their words.

The young woman's melodious voice made the otherwise strong and cold German sound crisp and clear.

Robert felt a sense of longing.

The crowd stopped at the other end of the corridor. The room's owner was probably saying goodbye to each of them, but the people seemed reluctant to leave, crowding around each other.

Robert stood up.

Among two tall male students and three slender young women, the reporter finally spotted his interviewees.

That campus star, admired by everyone, sought after by a hundred media outlets, and even harder to interview than Sophie Marceau—

The young man interlaced his ten fingers, which hung down to his abdomen, and said something to each of his classmates in that manner.

That was Gu Weijing.

Of course it's Gu Weijing. Otherwise, who else could be the campus superstar at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts?

Anna Elena, huh?
-
"Goodbye, Lily, see you next week. Your interpretation and explanation of Hegel by Chassler was very interesting. I'll borrow the book you mentioned from the library—"

Gu Weijing escorted the students to the door.

Wave goodbye.

"Thank you."

He nodded his thanks to the campus security guards at the entrance before turning around to face the people in the living room.

"I suppose you must be Mr. Kent," Gu Weijing said, extending his hand. "We spoke on the phone a couple of days ago, but you're arriving a little later than I expected."

Robert has been trained very well.

He immediately stood up.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

“Uh, there’s no need for that—” Gu Weijing paused for a moment, then explained, “The school told me that you went to the wrong place and would be quite late, so I moved the group discussion time forward.”

"Mr. Gu has a lot of work right now, and his time is very tight. He is extremely busy."

The woman who brought Robert spoke from the side.

The young painter smiled.

"It's not that I'm particularly busy, it's just that the school's public art studio was burglarized a while ago," Gu Weijing said frankly.

"Was the theft... related to your work?"

Robert was startled, then realized what was happening.

Several months ago, a piece exhibited at Gu Weijing's solo exhibition was bought by a Belgian collector for £100 million per work.

This should set a new record for a new painter's sales.

It's no exaggeration to say that the name "Gu Weijing" is incredibly famous now. Many European museums have a history of frequent thefts, with some famous paintings being stolen five or six times throughout history.

The safety of the school's public art studios is even more questionable.

For petty thieves, robbing a school's public art studio might be a faster way to make money than robbing a bank.

“Someone smashed the studio window in the middle of the night and stole my graduation work, which I created for the ‘Master Artist Project’,” Gu Weijing said. “His target was very clear: that should be my most important work in recent months.”

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Robert's conditioned reflex of apologizing.

"No need."

Gu Weijing waved his hand.

“I believe the police should be able to catch the thief soon. Actually… these kinds of works are very difficult to sell. Even if someone wants to buy them, he has absolutely no way to prove to the buyer that ‘that’s my painting.’”

Gu Weijing shrugged.

"But the school felt it wasn't safe, so they've now assigned me a dedicated private studio with security, which should be much safer than before."

Gu Weijing looked towards the door.

"Perfect timing, Mr. Kozens has now also put me in charge of guiding part of the art-in-residence program."

(End of this chapter)