Almighty painter

Chapter 684 Life is so beautiful (Part )
(I rushed a chapter.)
"There was a period of time around the Spring Festival when my grandfather was really nervous."

Gu Weijing couldn't help but laugh as he recalled, "Every day when he went out, he looked nervous. When the street vendor selling Vietnamese spring rolls changed, he would look at him furtively for a long time...During that time, if you had expressed any dissatisfaction or threats, even the slightest threatening action, my grandfather would have taken our family abroad in a hurry."

"Later on, there were several times when Mrs. Sakai invited me to transfer to Japan. At that time, my family felt that since you didn't make things difficult for me at the beginning, the situation wasn't serious. There was less than half a year left, so we just dealt with it casually and muddled through it, so we didn't bother."

The smile on Gu Weijing's face disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

He looked at the floating window screen, as if he saw memories of the past on the glass behind the swaying shadow.

He sighed softly.

"Now that I think about it, if we had agreed at that time, or if you had clearly expressed your dissatisfaction at the beginning... no matter which one it was, then all the things that happened afterwards... wouldn't have happened. When we made the choice, who could have known where the road under our feet would lead to?"

Many people have one or two such nodes in their lives.

A conversation, an invitation, a decision.

They are the forks in life, representing different circumstances, different lives, different joys and sorrows, and separations and joys.

People always make the most important decisions in their lives lightly or even without knowing anything, taking this or that path, only to look back with regret much, much later and realize that the last chance in history to choose their own destiny just passed them by on that ordinary spring afternoon.

Gu Weijing has always firmly believed that the biggest challenge in his life, the most important stage, and the biggest turning point in his career will be this month's Singapore Art Biennale.

He has been fighting for this for countless days and nights.

Who would have thought.

Gu Weijing painted the best painting of his life so far, which was far better than imagined.

The Boeing 737-8 mainline aircraft that took him to the art exhibition is now being inspected and refueled on the runway of Yangon International Airport, preparing to take off.

But he may not be able to go to the art exhibition.

It turns out...the turning point of his career actually happened before the exhibition actually took place.

And when my grandfather finally let down his guard, hung up the phone, and said with a smile, "Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Sakai," I thought the days ahead would be peaceful as usual.

Gu Weijing has lost the last chance to save everything.

"Maybe there has never been any choice in the world, there is... just fate." Chen Shenglin might have been touched somewhere in his heart by Gu Weijing's sigh.

He regained his composure, looked at the drawing board in front of him, and spoke in a low voice.

"We all know what happened afterwards. You didn't send anyone to break my hand, nor did you forget about me. On the contrary, it seemed that it was from that time that you became more and more interested in me and more and more patient with me as I refused. From the fruit plate to the Bentley sports car, from the forger to the national painter, from 8.88 million Myanmar Kyats to 3 million US dollars."

"Every time I shook my head, you would immediately push more chips onto the table. This is not your character, Mr. Chen. You told me yourself that you are a person who writes checks with one hand and holds a gun to the other person's head with the other hand. You are heroic and cruel. If you make friends with us, we will get rich together. If you reject you, you will send the other person a bullet."

"I have rejected you so many times. This is such a great disrespect for your dignity. Why haven't you asked me to give you a bullet yet? After so many offers and millions of dollars, you must want to buy something, right? So, what do you want to get from me?"

Gu Weijing looked up at the picture frame on the wall.

In previous conversations, no matter whether the person being talked to was "Chen Shenglin" or "Brother Hao".

Whether it was "Brother Hao" instructing Gu Weijing on painting composition as "Chen Shenglin", or "Chen Shenglin" instructing Gu Weijing on how to face the major choices in life over the phone as "Brother Hao" and telling him the canned theory.

The other party behaved like a kind elder or a kind godfather, standing in Gu Weijing's perspective, guessing Gu Weijing's thoughts, analyzing his psychology for the young man, and helping him sort out the situation he was facing one by one.

just now.

It was Gu Weijing who was left to guess Hao Ge's deepest and most secret desires.

"I have been asking myself, there are so many talented young people in the world, what do I have that they don't? You are so rich and powerful, what do I have that you don't? And what is so important that you can't even take it away from my dead body with a bullet shot from the muzzle of a gun?"

"It's just too hard to understand."

Gu Weijing put his ten fingers together on his chest, as if thinking.

"Is it money? Stop joking."

“Yangon is a beautiful place with its own art tradition. Poverty does not mean an art desert. I believe that even the most miserable and barren places in the world can produce great painters who are no worse than anywhere else in the world. But poverty means it is difficult to develop sufficient local market potential. Modern art auctions are often a game for the rich.”

"Given the current situation in Myanmar, how many local art market consumers can be tapped? Even if you really train me to be a national painter, how much money can you make from me in your home country, $200 million? $300 million? If you push me to the European market, then the question is again, if you just want to hype, you can hype the paintings of anyone in the world, why did you choose me?"

"I don't even know how many years it will take me to sell one of my paintings for $300 million. I don't even know if my works in this lifetime can ever sell for $300 million. Even some of the gold medal works from the Singapore Biennale sold for less than $."

"It's like someone spending a million dollars to make a counterfeit bill worth $100,000. It completely defies logic."

"So it's connections? I do have a very good personal relationship with Mr. Cao Xuan and Uncle Sakai, but it shouldn't be so good that they can control them through me."

Gu Weijing nodded and gave a truthful evaluation.

"Besides, what do you want to control them for? If you are associated with these great painters, it may be a devastating blow. But if you are associated with them, it will also be a very big destabilizing factor for you."

Chen Shenglin has always been a person with such a steady and low-key style!
Understanding what can be done and what cannot be done, what money can be earned and what money will be hated by everyone if touched, is the most crucial factor that has enabled him to get to where he is today.

Not only is he ruthless, he's also smart.

There are many people in the underground world who are far more ruthless and powerful than Boss Chen, who started out as a counterfeit painter. They do not care about food or meat, and dare to touch any business and make any money.

These people may be very successful and make a lot of money in a short period of time, but they often die soon without even knowing how they died.

Just like Chen Shenglin would kidnap Gu Lin and follow Koko, but unless he had no choice, he would never touch Sakai Katsuko.

Facing Ms. Sakai.

He would say with a smile on the phone: "Yangon is a beautiful city. I hope you can have fun."

As a new upstart, he was able to stand firm in the power arena of both the black and white worlds. This is where his cleverness lies.

There is no need for Mr. Cao. Uncle Sakai tied up his daughter and wife and ran away in a private plane overnight because he had a wife and children, a warm bed, countless young ladies waiting for him to draw, countless donuts and yakitori waiting for him to eat, and small islands in the Pacific waiting for him to buy and sunbathe on.

Not guilty.

He is one of the top ten painters in Japan, a professor at an art academy, and a respectable upper-class person. Why would he fight to the death with a gang leader like you? Even a strong dragon will defeat a local snake.

It’s really not worth it.

This is also where Uncle Sakai is smart.

But you can't treat Uncle Sakai as an easy target just because he runs fast, even if you are a local tyrant.

Brother Hao, why don’t you try to tie up a Shengzi?

A "heavyweight" master like Kazunari Sakai is not someone who can be easily bullied by a nobody like Gu Weijing.

He was willing to be killed and dared to pull the emperor off his horse.

Uncle Sakai was really driven crazy, and he gave up his two or three hundred pounds, rushed over, jumped up and sat on your face, playing the porcupine riding on the face. Chen Shenglin had to stick out his tongue and couldn't breathe for a long time.

Don’t say anything else.

Whether the person can be rescued is hard to say, but the international public opinion pressure brought about by this incident alone may be enough to make Brother Hao suffer a heavy price.

It is also completely inconsistent with his "low-key" code of conduct.

The rules of the game are:

Brother Hao can control some middle and lower-level painters like Gu Weijing, hold him firmly in his hands, and hype him up from scratch.

This is well within the capabilities of the Godfather.

He could also try to make money and work with some big painters who are greedy for money, drive up the price and then split the profits 30% to 70% privately.

One is willing to fight, the other is willing to suffer.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

However, if Brother Hao wanted to hold all those famous painters firmly in his hands through kidnapping, coercion and other means just like he did with Gu Weijing.

Then a line has been crossed.

It is very likely that the forced melon is not sweet, and the result is that no one pleases, and both sides suffer.

"Tell me the truth."

Gu Weijing smiled bitterly. "At this level, if you continue to do your big business as a political broker and arms dealer, won't you make much more money than selling paintings? You said that an underground arms dealer arrested in Southeast Asia made a market of 1000 billion US dollars in a few years. This is higher than the total sales of all auction houses, all galleries, and all legal and illegal art transactions in the world combined."

Strictly speaking, the entire art market is a very small business, while the arms market is one of the largest businesses in the world.

It is illogical to spend a million dollars to make a counterfeit bill of one hundred thousand dollars.

It is also unwise for someone who eats with a golden bowl to try to snatch the brown rice from the bowl of someone who eats with a clay bowl, risking breaking the golden bowl as well.

Chen Shenglin is already wielding guns, so why does he have to hold on to those who wield pens?

"It can't be that you have a pure artistic dream and want to control a few great painters to hold your own solo exhibition, right? That's too crazy. I have seriously suspected the possibility that I am your illegitimate child, but that's too ridiculous."

Gu Weijing said jokingly.

"I have really thought about this question for a long time, but I have never found the answer. Until two days ago, a wonderful girl performed a wonderful dance for me in the moonlight. When she jumped into the lake without hesitation or fear in the moonlight, I finally got the answer to this question -"

"fear."

Gu Weijing was not asking, he gave the answer with an extremely firm tone.

"Brother Hao, you are afraid."

"You're dying, so you're afraid."

"You are afraid of the coming of death, afraid of the moment when the eternal silent night will swallow you up, you are afraid of the unknown fate."

"You both despise fate and fear it. You neither believe in ghosts nor fear them. In the face of death, no matter how much money or power you have, it cannot bring you enough inner security. Because what grabs you is not an external enemy, nor an object that can be bought with money. What grabs you is yourself, your heart. You know most clearly how many evil things you have done in your life."

"So, Brother Hao, on the one hand, you work so hard to do good deeds, do charity, burn incense, worship Buddha, kowtow and pray, and believe in superstition. On the other hand, you keep telling me that there is no good or bad, good or evil in the world. You told me that sometimes, the poor have no right to choose, because there is only one way."

“And a road with only one path is no longer a road, but a destiny.”

Gu Weijing's tone was low and powerful.

this moment.

He no longer seemed to be Gu Weijing, but the middle-aged man beside the easel behind the stand-in, expressing his own thoughts.

"It was fate that forced you to steal, forced you to rob, and forced you to do evil things. Should this be blamed on yourself?"

"so--"

"You want to gain my approval. You probably see yourself in me and want to prove to me that when there is no other way to go, even the most principled and self-reliant people will take the same path as you and bow to fate."

"In this way, moral judgment will no longer exist. And you——"

Gu Weijing turned his head and looked directly at the man behind him. "You can calmly say that life is so beautiful and die calmly."

"You want to gain my approval. And this will be the final bid of this man called Chen Shenglin... a bid to his fate."

(End of this chapter)