Almighty painter

Chapter 1062 Gu Weijing's Symphony

August spat the tennis ball between Gu Weijing's fingers, and as before, stuck out his tongue to lick Gu Weijing's fingers. Its muzzle and eyebrows were as light as snow. When Anna first noticed that the dog had grown white whiskers, she was depressed for three or four whole days.

now.

It even sheds a little bit of fur, with only a few dark spots on its legs and front paws retaining their original color.

Gu Weijing gently tossed and rolled the tennis ball along the stone floor of the living room.

August called out.

It wagged its tail and trotted towards where the tennis ball was rolling.

Gu Weijing gazed at the dog's snow-white neck. He remembered the first time he held the dog in his arms, its thick fur gleaming golden in the sunlight. The power of time is ruthless and indifferent; whether it's people or things, it will always separate you from those things you thought would last forever, those things that appeared in your life.

To be honest, it's no longer the handsome dog that Gu Weijing first met, the one who would proudly fight with Awang. The vet said that August, at this age, could leave at any time.

Gu Weijing's thoughts were momentarily pulled away from Zurich; Hunter Bull, the magazine "Painting," and the things related to the art exhibitions no longer seemed so important.

He stared blankly at the dog's back.

“——Woof!”

Gu Weijing was drawn to the noise and turned around to see a white dog and a yellow cat circling around the tennis ball on the floor.

Some tabby cats can live to be over 20 years old, and this age is still considered a prime age. Awang looks almost exactly the same as it did back then, except that its whiskers seem to have grown a bit longer... This could also be the result of its successful weight loss after losing weight from its gas cylinder-like body shape.

He watched as Awang strolled over, then lunged forward, lunging towards the tennis ball.

"Don't!"

Gu Weijing hurriedly ran over. He was really afraid that his cat, like a dump truck, would charge and seriously injure old August. August grinned disdainfully, shoved Awang aside with his larger size, picked up a tennis ball from the ground in his mouth, wagged his tail, and happily strolled back towards Gu Weijing.

"Ok."

Gu Weijing found joy in it.

He rubbed the dog's ears.

The painter retracted his previous statement. Although August was old and his fur had turned white, he was still the same handsome big dog that had once proudly fought with Awang when they first met.

Gu Weijing took out his phone, snapped a picture of the Springer Spaniel carrying the tennis ball, and texted his agent to reassure him. August looked full of energy and seemed like he could live at least another five years.

He turned around and reached out to his cat.

"Are you leaving?"

he asked.

"Now that we've eaten and drunk our fill, it's time to get back to work."

An hour later, Gu Weijing drove his car back to his studio, with his cat sitting in the passenger seat.
-
Germany.

Berlin, the European headquarters of Krug Brothers Bank.

Time is money. To save time during meals, Kruger Brothers provides every employee with a hearty lunch, which is completely free. However, generally speaking, among the employees eating in the bank's cafeteria on the street, you will not see any employees with a rank of deputy department head or above.

Some senior partners have their schedules booked with lunch appointments with various clients and investors even for the week after next.

Time is money, my friend.

They would rather spend 100 euros on lunch at a Michelin-starred restaurant with a French chef a block or two away than eat at a restaurant.

Even for those without appointments... money is time, my friend.

They work hard for ten or twenty years, climbing to the ranks of supervisor, manager, deputy manager, and even senior partner, all for the sake of being able to drive a Mercedes, ski in the Alps on vacation, take a safari in Africa in a hot air balloon, and—not have to dine with those hardworking "worker ants" in restaurants, but be able to spend 100 euros in a Michelin-starred restaurant with a French chef just a block or two away to have some free time to breathe.
"Do you think I'll be able to get his phone number if I ask him for it?"

A stunningly thin woman wiped her lips with a napkin while glancing into the distance.

"Dating in the same department, having an office romance, violates company rules," said the chubby colleague from the same department, her back to her, with a sour look in her eyes.

There's no need to look back.

She seemed to know exactly who the other person was referring to.

“Not counting the chairman’s son!” said another female colleague from the investment department across the table.

"If I had your model face, I'd already be in that relationship," her best friend sighed enviously. "Here's a suggestion, from a risk management perspective..."

“If he could call me, I wouldn’t care about getting fired.” She sniffed. “A rich young master, he even cooks his own breakfast and brings his own lunch every morning.”

"Good heavens!"

The rich young master Ole Kruger seems to have become a completely different person.

He is persistent, hardworking, and serious.

The playboy who once had a list of ex-girlfriends that could fill an entire phone book is gone, replaced by the man who now appears to be somewhat low-key.

No parties, no alcohol, no promiscuity.

For the past seven years, he has lived a life that resembles that of a Puritan, like a monk in a meditative state.

Money is freedom in disguise.

The irony of life is that while the human soul may be born free, when a person is penniless and doesn't even have a penny or two in their pocket, they can hardly talk about the freedom to choose.

But when someone has eight figures in their Euro account and pockets full of "freedom," they can still live a low-key, ascetic life.

Such a person has already achieved complete spiritual satisfaction, and compared to that satisfaction, the decadent lifestyle and all fleeting pleasures are no longer important.

Otherwise... one might harbor immense desires, and compared to those intense desires, all past pleasures would become insignificant.

Ole picked up the last floret of broccoli from his plate with his fork, downed it with the last sip of unsweetened sparkling water in his glass, put away the food container, and stood up. A polite but distant glance, like an invisible spell, froze the beautiful colleague holding the napkin with a phone number written on it in lipstick, and the potential "romantic encounter," several meters away, in the most socially appropriate manner.

He walked back to his office, put the food container aside, took off his coat, and set an alarm on his phone.

then.

He glanced silently at his computer screen, which was Gu Weijing's painting "The Magic Flute," which had recently sold for $2000 million.

Ole was calm.

Seven years was enough time for Ole's mind to become as calm as the lake at the foot of the Alps, and he would not easily reveal his emotional changes in his eyes.

He put on his headphones, placed his hands flat on his knees, and began to relax and meditate to the music playing in the headphones.

Twenty minutes later.

The alarm on his phone went off. Ole stood up, straightened his tie in front of the full-length mirror in his office, and put on his coat.

"Now that we've eaten and drunk our fill, it's time for battle."

Ole Kruger said to himself.

A few minutes later.

He appeared in front of the chairman's office on the top floor of the bank.

"I'm sorry, Ole."

The banker's secretary, a man in his fifties, recognized the man as the chairman's son, but still stopped him.

"Mr. Kruger is busy with something for the time being."

Ole stood still.

He took a deep breath.

Ole never understood one thing: there were countless people in the world who wanted to revolve around him, and countless people in the world who wanted to see him.

But it was always difficult for him to see the people he wanted to see.

Those who try their best to earn the respect of others often disrespect themselves.

Mr. Kruger has countless people to meet every day, and he has his own schedule. Even for Ole, if he wants to see the chairman during working hours, there is only one way: to go through the appointment process in the internal office system.

Tell the banker that if there are five things to do throughout the day, their priorities from highest to lowest would be 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

A score of 1 is roughly equivalent to meeting with the head of the German central bank.

A 5 is roughly equivalent to feeding the cat at home. So, meeting with Ole Kruger would be a priority of around "3" or "4," not even second priority, let alone Mr. Kruger's top priority.

Really sorry.

It's not shameful to lose to the central bank governor, but in this contest of "who gets to meet the banker," Ole Kruger's confidence was only enough to defeat his family's British Bobtail, even though he also shared the Kruger name and was the other man's biological son...

They're probably related by blood, right?
Ole felt it might be necessary to do a paternity test again.

Being disrespected is undoubtedly the greatest insult to a man, especially when such disrespect comes from his own father.

Ole exhaled heavily.

He followed his therapist's advice and exhaled all his unhappiness from his chest with each breath.

Putting the paternity test aside for now, from a young age, Ole quickly understood that his father was never the type to give a child a lollipop just because they were crying. Faced with a crying child, the banker would simply wave his hand and indifferently tell the nanny to quickly take the child back to their room.

Indifference is a deeper form of disdain than punishment.

Fortunately.

If Aurelius were still that crying, snotty little kid, then his work card wouldn't be qualified to open the door to the private elevator leading to the top floor of the bank.

To a banker, if you are valuable to them, even if you are a child adopted from the street, you will be more adorable than their own.

“Did I make a mistake? I should have had an appointment beforehand. I have something very important to do today,” Ole said to his secretary.

"Yes."

“It’s two o’clock this afternoon.” Ole raised his wrist, looking at the Lange mechanical watch on his wrist: “It’s two minutes past two now.”

"Yes."

The secretary, as precise as a clock, replied, "2:02."

“Mr. Kruger said he has something to do.” The man moved the mouse and glanced at the computer screen next to him. “If you don’t want to wait, I can reschedule the appointment for 5 p.m..”

Ole thought for a moment.

He went over, got a glass of water, and then turned and sat down on the sofa.

"never mind."

He calmly said, "Then I'll just wait here."

……

About thirty minutes later, Ole was finally allowed to enter Mr. Kruger's office.

In the spacious office, the banker had his feet propped up on the desk, his chair facing the door, staring blankly at the LCD TV on the wall. Following the banker's gaze, Ole looked over. The LCD TV wasn't displaying a video call with an important person, nor was it showing the fluctuations of the German stock market or the S&P 500 index across the ocean; instead, it was playing a recording of a concert.

Despite being a prominent figure in the German financial world, the banker was surprisingly frugal in his daily life.

or.

He is like a modern version of the character in "The Merchant of Venice". The most classic example is that the banker almost never bought coffee outside in his life.

He believes this is a matter of ideology.

Money is money once it's spent, but if you invest it wisely, one cup of coffee can become two cups of coffee, and two cups of coffee can become four cups of coffee.

Sons beget grandsons, grandsons beget sons, and coffee begets coffee.

Their descendants will be endless.

You might even argue that this falls into the category of "pathological" stinginess, but that's exactly what Mr. Kruger, the banker, was—a miser and a workaholic whose only hobby was listening to classical music.

The high-end stereo system in his office alone cost over 150,000 euros, but that's less than the 10 million euros he once sponsored for the renovation of the Berlin concert hall.

This sound system is now worthless.

"Shhh."

Hearing the door open, the banker pinched his thumb and forefinger together and pulled them to his lips, signaling the person entering to be quiet.

Ole looked at the television screen.

With his cultivation.

At that moment, even the young master couldn't help but frown noticeably. He could tolerate his father postponing their meeting because he had more important business matters to attend to.

There's no one in the office right now.

The banker preferred to idly listen to music inside rather than wait outside for a full half hour.

"Do you know what this is, Ole?"

When the pianist bowed to the audience, applause from the audience at the recording studio came through the speakers.

“I have something very important to tell you, Father.”

Ole reminded him that he wasn't there to discuss classical music with the banker.

"This is a live recording of pianist Menaheim Pressler performing Bach's 'A Musical Gift' concert, one of his greatest instrumental compositions, at a concert in San Francisco in 1955."

"That's what the banker said."

“Bach represents the absolute pinnacle of polyphonic music in the European Classical era. If Mozart represents the romanticism of piano music, then Bach represents the mathematical nature of piano music. Often, people have a misconception that art and mathematics must be two completely opposite things.”

"Mathematicians are definitely tone-deaf, and artists can't do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division within 100. What these two professions have in common is that neither mathematicians nor artists can take care of themselves."

The banker stroked his beard and smiled.

“I must say, this is a strong misconception. Many mathematicians have artistic talents, but Bach… he was a great mathematician among musicians.”

"I don't know."

Ole showed obvious confusion.

“Yes, you don’t understand.” The banker sighed: “Composing polyphonic music is considered one of the most difficult tasks in composing piano music. So-called polyphony is like a piano piece with multiple protagonists, each reciting a completely different speech. Each speech must have independent value, beautiful wording, and rhymes that all fit together.”

"With each additional key change, the difficulty of the performance increases exponentially..."

The banker looked at the LCD TV screen.

Even now, several days after the events in Zurich, some people online are still confused as to why Hunter Bull's copy of a painting has led to a collective pessimism from critics who once so adored Gu Weijing.

Ok.

One must admit that Hunter Bull's idea of ​​painting a huge pile of dog poop on Gu Weijing's work was quite creative.

But this isn't the first time this has happened in history, is it?

If a few people make a copy of the Mona Lisa, does that mean they can replace the value of the Mona Lisa? Duchamp did something similar back then, buying a copy of the Mona Lisa, then adding a mustache to it, and writing "a hot ass" in French.

Duchamp's Mona Lisa is almost as famous as his The Fountain.

But we haven't seen the Louvre announce that it will throw away the Mona Lisa, nor have we seen collectors' enthusiasm for Leonardo da Vinci cool down as a result.

Duchamp became one of the most important European artists of the 20th century.

This made him one of the most important artists in Europe during the Renaissance, along with Leonardo da Vinci.

The two are neither substitutes for each other nor in opposition to each other.

It cannot be said that Duchamp became an important painter, and therefore, conversely, Leonardo da Vinci was not an important painter.

Correct.

Of course, this principle is correct.

A copy of Leonardo da Vinci's work cannot replace the real Leonardo da Vinci. No matter how exquisitely Yu Shinan or Feng Chengsu copied the "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering," even if the copy was only on par with the original, no one would say that Wang Xizhi was not the Sage of Calligraphy.

but.

Gu Weijing's work "Human Comedy" is different; it is full of musicality, or more precisely, it is like a polyphonic piece of music.

(End of this chapter)