Almighty painter

Chapter 1050 The World War Between Mr. Gu and Miss Elena
Trying to squeeze out the boredom in life with busyness is like trying to wring water out of a wet sponge with your hands.

Even if she schedules her time extremely full, keeping herself so busy every day that she squeezes every last drop of time out of the twenty-four hours of the day.

But even after a brief moment of stillness, that transparent and damp sense of weariness will still seep out from the gaps between time and time, between days.

It leaves behind one annoying wet stain after another in life.

The woman was nestled on the sofa in the living room reading "Old Goriot," having declined an invitation to dinner with the president of the Hamburg Association of Painters and Musicians.

These long, boring nights are the perfect time to take some time to reread Balzac's voluminous and coherent "The Human Comedy".

August was dozing off on the floor.

After a long period of fat-loss training, this Springer Spaniel with big ears has finally returned to its well-proportioned and agile physique.

Beside it, in a porcelain bowl, was a small dish of freeze-dried dog food containing beef and bone meal, a reward for its hard work running during the day... and also to replenish the calcium it had lost.

Hamburg is a very bustling metropolis.

Once we arrived in the suburbs...

It immediately transformed into the typical European countryside scene: beautiful scenery, but utterly boring.

The green grasslands, the quiet night, and the flowing Elbe River.

If you look closely.

Perhaps it was due to Balzac's humorous writing style, but Miss Irina seemed to be in a very good mood today.

According to the Kruger banker, such a woman was a thoroughbred horse (note).

(Note: This is a quote from Balzac's *Le Père Goriot*: "Such a woman, according to the Marquis de Longero, was a thoroughbred horse...")
If any foolish horse tries to race this noble breed... with such low emotional intelligence, don't blame it for kicking you in the chin, and then a big-eared hunting dog barks and bares its teeth, biting your buttocks.

But the feeling of cold did not diminish her beauty in the slightest.

When she curled up on her side on the sofa, holding a French book in her hands, her lips slightly upturned, revealing dimples so shallow they were almost invisible.

Angels in the sky, faces like fairies—these adjectives, which seem somewhat old-fashioned even in Balzac's novels, and those ancient myths praising goddesses that fashion magazines like Vogue would never use again today, are all too common.

All of these traits manifested themselves in her.

The Springer Spaniels were the first to react.

It suddenly woke up from its sleep, stood up, and turned to look in the direction of the door.

August stuck out his pinkish-white tongue, let out a soft cry, and ran two steps toward the door.

The next moment, as if he had just thought of something, he slammed on the brakes and almost did a split on the smooth wooden floor.

It ran back, lowered its head, ignored everything, and opened its mouth to start eating its midnight snack.

"Squeak."

Just as Miss Elena shifted her gaze from the book to the dog, she heard the sound of a door lock turning behind her.

The door was slowly pushed open from the outside.

When the door was pushed open just a crack, a small plum blossom foot stretched out first, followed by a beard, a nose, a head, and then a round belly.

A round, plump cat, as elastic as liquid, squeezed through the crack in the door, sniffing the aroma of freeze-dried beef bone meal and dog food in the air, and grinned.

what.

Familiar pastures, familiar flavors.

Rejoice! Cheer! Let the chickens fly and the dogs jump! Your king is back... "Meow!"

Like a tiger returning home or a lion unleashed from its cage, it charged toward August's dog food bowl with an agility far beyond its original size, dragging the leash behind it.

I will charge in as a cat-shaped dump truck!

Good evening, Mr. Gu.

When the woman saw the tabby cat appear in her field of vision, she immediately lowered her head back to reading, her posture exactly the same as before.

She asked in a flat voice that revealed no particular tone.

"Good evening, Dr. Elena."

A man's voice came from behind.

“No, not so soon. You’re calling me ‘Dr.’ You should wait until next year.” Anna thought for a moment. “If you’re too busy with work, then maybe the year after.”

"Specifically, it depends on my schedule, and also on—"

Miss Elena said in her tone.

"What else do you need to see?" the man asked.

It also depends on whether I will take on another job as an art agent.

Anna Elena joked, "Whose performance is that going to be?"

The woman calmly turned to a new page in her book, though she felt a little unhappy.

If we consider collaboration as a dance at a social dinner party.

Anna is someone who always has countless hands reaching out to her, waiting for her favor, and her words just now already implied that quite clearly.

Having said all that, she still hadn't received the answer she wanted.

Robert told me that Gu Weijing had a special schedule to record the master's plans, and he even drew a small watch in the corner of the notepad.

It wasn't written on his face at the time.

Anna was actually quite happy inside.

"Oh, then I'm afraid you'll have to find a new job." "I heard someone needs a new watch." "Of course, I always remember our promise."

This is the response Miss Elena wanted to hear.

Instead of such a pale silence.

Throughout her life, Anna rarely gave people a second chance. She never accepted invitations with phrases like "I need to think about it."

She has a lot of choices, a lot of options, a lot of options.

Then you should think it over.

“I thought I would care a lot, but… I don’t fucking care,” Anna said to herself.

She watched as the cat and dog faced off, and the fat, arrogant cat wiggled its rear end and successfully pushed August aside.

The woman felt another surge of anger.

Grab it! Scratch it! Bump it!

That was the dog's midnight snack; when has her August ever tolerated this?

“Hey Mrs. Hudson!” Anna messaged the caregiver in the room on the messaging app, “If it’s convenient, could you please bring down some more beef bone meal when you see this message?”

"I want 250g—"

Forget it.

She added a note after deleting it.

"I need 500g, divide it into two plates."

It was Miss Elena who insisted that August start losing weight, exercising more, and strictly controlling his diet. But the woman didn't want to lose this argument.

This little bit is not enough for anyone.

If Gu Weijing's foodie cat saw this, she would think that her August couldn't afford to eat.

Get a pot.

One basin per person.

"Could you repeat the address you just used?" Gu Weijing remained silent, but Anna broke her silence and put her phone aside.

"What words."

"The one for the PhD."

“Dr. Elena?” Gu Weijing asked.

Anna nodded, put "Old Goriot" aside, and repeated, "Dr. Elena, with the title 'Dr.,' sounds much better than I imagined. Perhaps I should hurry up and learn this title as soon as possible."

"Good luck to you."

Gu Weijing said.

“Yes, it should go smoothly,” Anna simply said.

Gu Weijing sat opposite the woman on the sofa, looking at her fair wrists, which she was showing intentionally or unintentionally.

"Your life is always busy, and you always have a strong sense of purpose."

Gu Weijing said.

“Yes, that’s what I learned from Kara’s diary. To truly experience life, you have to stand above life,” Miss Elena said.

“To truly experience life, you must stand above life; to do this, you must learn to climb higher, and to do this, you must learn to look down.” Gu Weijing spoke as he emptied his body, sinking into the sofa as if into a soft cushion. “Words from ‘The Laws of Life’.”

"You must have been reading Nietzsche quite a bit lately."

Miss Elena smiled gently.

She stared at Gu Weijing, who was disheveled and looked exhausted, and frowned slightly: "Did you... drink alcohol just now?"

"Yes."

“I had dinner at Mr. Kozens’s house,” Gu Weijing nodded.

“It was in the message you sent me,” Anna said, pausing slightly. “But… I didn’t know you’d been drinking. Looks like there must be something really worth celebrating—”

"sorry."

Gu Weijing suddenly interrupted Anna.

"I'm sorry," he said.

The woman's voice suddenly stopped. She turned to the side and stared at Gu Weijing with a slightly stern look.

"Is there anything I don't know about?"

“I withdrew from the art project, Anna, I’m sorry,” Gu Weijing said. “I couldn’t get that watch for you.” That New Year, more than two years ago.

Gu Weijing and Anna went to Vienna together. They listened to a concert in the Golden Hall, which is shaped like a shoebox. During the intermission, they talked about things at school.

Anna told Gu Weijing that she promised him she wouldn't be angry about Williams.

Gu Weijing told Anna that he had promised Miss Elena that he would get the watch for her.

The two people who made such a solemn promise were unaware at the time that it was a mischievous joke played by fate. Later, Miss Elena still got angry, and she flew into a rage.

She was angry not only about Williams, but also about Gu Weijing. The two had a very heated argument, which led to the end of their partnership.

It doesn't matter.

Just like the folk tales of the German countryside collected by the Brothers Grimm, even the cruelest magic has an antidote, and those broken stories will always have a moment of reconciliation.

The beautiful princess will not actually die when she turns eighteen; she will simply sleep for a hundred years.

Even a prince who has turned into a frog can be awakened by a kiss.

The watch that belongs to the winner of the Master Project—it was meant to be the warm current that melts the ice coffin, the spell that transforms into something magnificent, and the opportunity for a broken mirror to be mended.

Who knows.

Not only did Miss Elena fail to keep her promise.

Gu Weijing also failed to do so.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, “I couldn’t get that watch—”

"--alright."

Miss Elena coldly interrupted him.

"You came all the way here tonight to meet me just to tell me this, right? Now I know."

Her tone was indifferent.

The woman stared at Gu Weijing, noticing that he was referring to his withdrawal from the Master Project rather than his loss of the art project.

A voice inside her said.

"never mind."

“You gave him a chance, but he failed to keep his promise, so you can’t blame anyone else.”

That voice was disappointment, anger, and raging flames.

It is burning fiercely.

Miss Elena felt as if a smoldering oven was burning beneath her heaving chest. She didn't want to ask why the other person had withdrawn from the art project.

"Which is more incompetent: losing a game you were certain to win by playing it yourself, or running away because you can't accept the loss?"

Or, to put it another way.

Gu Weijing could have won.

But Miss Elena doesn't want the original; Miss Elena only wants the result.

There are no "what ifs" in this world, only results.

Which is worse: not daring to face one's failures or not having the courage to face even the outcome of a victory?

The voice continued to question Anna.

"If you can't even win such a small art project, how can you possibly achieve those distant and glorious goals? You should focus your energy on those who are more promising."

Horses that are not capable of competing.

No matter how beautiful.

According to Vice President Lynch's theory, it was just a lame horse, and for horses with limp legs, euthanasia is the usual fate.

"Now, stand up, push open the door, and turn around and leave."

The voice spoke in Miss Elena's ear; it was not anyone else's voice, but Anna Elena's own voice, the voice of Anna Elena herself, a voice she could not defy.

She took out her cane from beside the sofa.

The woman stood up.

Looking down at Gu Weijing from his high vantage point.

“Do you know—” Miss Elena stared at the other person, her eyes devoid of any emotion.

August was the first to realize that something was wrong.

The dog, with its soft chestnut-brown spotted fur on its chest and belly, raised its head from its food bowl. It stared at the man and woman facing off in this icy atmosphere, its eyes filled with a pitiful look. It whimpered and wondered whether it should approach them.

Awang nudged it with his head.

Meow.

"What are you doing standing still?"

"Let's eat at the banquet!"

The tabby cat reminisced about the wonderful life it once had, where all it did was eat and sleep, and its feeder was always full of food.

My daily schedule is completely packed.

Breakfast cat food, brunch cat food, lunch cat food, afternoon tea cat food, dinner cat food, midnight snack cat food...

Our Hamburger cat does nothing but eat and sleep all day long. This is the first thing it does when it opens its eyes, nothing else!
Once the man and woman start fighting, they'll turn around and leave, and this place... will be our King Awang's territory again.

Awang licked his paws.

"war!"

The cat was really looking forward to it.

Grab him! Scratch him! Bump him!

You think you can just run away after offending Miss Elena?
That was her watch. Miss Elena could have whatever she wanted. She could never tolerate this.

Do you know—

Miss Elena looked at Gu Weijing and said, word by word.

"I-Don't-Fucking-Care."

The words left the mouth.

The angry roar that was emanating from Anna Elena's heart dried up in an instant and then vanished like the wind.

She knows what she really wants.

She also knew clearly what she had truly chosen.

then.

The angry and annoyed Miss Elena disappeared, and in an instant, she burst out laughing.

Gu Weijing didn't quite understand at first.

“I know you withdrew from the Master Project, and I know you didn’t get the watch that Breguet provides to the winner of the Art Project.”

"you said so."

"I see."

The woman repeated, “But—in your own words, Freud said that a person’s personality has all sorts of plots, and Anna Elena has a plot called ‘I fucking don’t care.’”

"Did you listen to that podcast episode?" Gu Weijing asked.

“You need to know what those people are saying behind my back, Mr. Bond,” Anna said, smoothing her hair at her temples.

"I did not mean that."

“It’s alright, well said, Miss Elena doesn’t care,” Miss Elena said. “I originally thought I would care a lot.”

"but."

"The words were already on the tip of my tongue when I realized, 'I don't fucking care.'"

Anna sat back down on the sofa and waved.

August immediately wagged his tail and came running over, straightened up, and placed his big head on Anna Elena's lap.

Cats are just naturally brainless.

It has to be a dog.

The Springer Spaniel sensed from the start that Anna wasn't really angry, and ran over wanting to join in the fun and play with everyone.

August licked the mistress's wrist with his tongue.

Anna nodded.

"I have only one additional request regarding our new contract."

the woman said.

"And you must agree."

"What?" Gu Weijing asked.

“Awang.” Anna glanced at the cat over there and said, “You can’t let it keep bullying August. Your cat is too fat. August is already an old dog. It’s not fair.”

“Awang didn’t bully anyone…”

“Shut up,” Miss Elena said. “I’m not going to discuss this with you. Just one thing: starting today, Awang has to lose weight. He has to strictly control his diet every day.”

"It doesn't even have fatty liver..."

"Shut up."

Anna said again.

She didn't want to discuss this issue with Gu Weijing either.

"Not having fatty liver does not mean you are at a normal weight, and even if you are at a normal weight, it does not mean you are at the healthiest weight."

(End of this chapter)