Almighty painter

Chapter 946 A Dialogue Between the Wind and the Sea
"Ms. Elena, thank you for agreeing to this interview... I would like to ask you, in your opinion, what is the secret to success in art? You and Mr. Gu have held so many exhibitions together and collaborated for so long, what keeps your passion alive? Have you ever felt bored?"

"Oh. I've never felt bored, I guess... a peaceful work environment is important. Meow—woof woof woof woof—meow—"

The reporter and the woman by the fireplace turned their heads simultaneously. In the hallway, a tabby cat and a Springer Spaniel were rolling around and fighting over a chew toy, chasing each other across the carpet by the door, making a racket.

"AGAIN? Not again? Spare me!" The desperate secretary chased after the cat and dog.

Anna remained remarkably calm. She cleared her throat, signaling the reporters to come back to their senses and not let this little incident distract them.

"If there's any secret I can teach you, it's this:"

Miss Elena spoke with a convincing sense of authority.

“We never argue in our daily work, not even once. I think that’s the secret to our great teamwork.”

"Dog Hair Flying Everywhere! Things Audiences Need to Know About Perfect Partnerships" – A Short Interview Anecdote During the Paris Art Daily's Venice Biennale Interview
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"Well played, Miss Elena! Well played, Miss Elena! You played so well, Miss Elena!"

The woman picked up a sheet of piano music, her fingertips gripping the pages, and repeated Gu Weijing's words, expressing her disdain and mockery in a pretentious and affected tone.

"That's your problem. You never get to the heart of the matter."

She said.

"The point is, I'm sorry, I played terribly today! Let me tell you, ever since the first day I arrived here, I've had trouble using the pedals on this piano. I have a hard time maintaining the clarity of the half-pedal scales. You know what's worse than the stiffness when dealing with harmonics?"

She slammed the sheet music down on the table with a loud "thud".

later.

Every time Gu Weijing recalls that scene, he can clearly remember the accusation, doubt, and torment in his agent's eyes.

“The worst thing is that you never hear it. You just stand there and say, ‘You played so well, Miss Elena.’”

Anna concluded.

"This makes me deeply doubt my reasons for doing this, and makes me question the meaning of the time I have spent. I can't feel any joy in continuing to do this. I also can't feel any passion that should be present in playing a piano arrangement based on 'The Sea'."

"The third movement here was originally meant to be played with timpani and brass instruments. If I actually had a timpani, I might have played it even better. Even though I don't know how to play the timpani, when I play the piano, I really want to grab a drumstick and bang on it randomly!"

"Leaving aside rhythm, I played at least four wrong notes today, maybe five, maybe six. The notes were all stuck together. I feel ashamed of my performance. It wasn't a layered, undulating sea, nor was it a dialogue between the wind and the tide. What was it then?"

Anna let out a sigh of relief.

She gave Gu Weijing a mocking look, then answered her own question, "It's like someone randomly splashing around in a bathtub. And what did you say?"

“You played beautifully, Miss Elena,” the woman said. “Gu Weijing, I’ve always hated people who pretend to know what they don’t.”

"It's never been like that. You just put on an act, spend your time, listen to a piano piece in a dreamy way, and then clap your hands lightly at the end, and that's considered a gain."

Gu Weijing remained silent.

He stood there silently, seemingly unsure how to respond.

Anna breathed a sigh of satisfaction when she saw that she had finally gained the upper hand and silenced the little painter.

The warm breath, along with the anger she had just felt, flowed away from her lips.

The woman experiences a fleeting, masochistic thrill of revenge, followed by a doubled sense of loss.

then.

She also fell silent.

The conversation had stalled. The two of them were breathing the same air, yet they looked like two people about to drown and suffocate from the silence.

Da da da.

The room was quiet, and the large wall clock ticked in the desolate air, cutting the entire space into thousands of fragments.

"I'm sorry, this is my fault. You don't need to play the piano anymore."

Gu Weijing apologized.

"very good."

Anna frowned.

Okay, fine, if that's how you understand it.

What angered Miss Elena the most today was that Gu Weijing had said so many things about understanding from beginning to end.

Understanding insurance companies, freight companies, sponsors, the Hermès Gallery, the painters at the Hermès Gallery, Hermès III, and Décré Arnault—

He's practically exhausted all the nice things he could say.

You can understand Deckard Anlen, so why can't you understand me?
I put in so much effort for this art exhibition...

Anna suppressed her anger; she didn't want to lose her composure or completely sever ties.

She then calmly replied, "That's what I mean."

"I really don't want to do so much only to be told that everything is because of you that things have come to this. That's so disappointing." The woman pursed her lips.

Gu Weijing remained silent.

At last.

He forced a lighthearted smile and said, "Let's call it a day then. We're all a bit impatient, but that's okay, it's nothing serious. This is our first exhibition, and there's still a lot we need to work on. I'll go back and study the works. If we can finish all the pieces for the exhibition quickly, that would be the best outcome."

Miss Elena nodded, tidying up the documents she had just slapped aside.

"Ah."

"That's fine, I'm getting a little anxious too."

She stood the file upright on the table, tapped it gently, and aligned the corners.

Yes.

Anna told herself that this was Gu Weijing's first solo exhibition, and also the first time Anna Elena had participated in an exhibition so deeply as an agent.

Good things come to those who wait.

It's normal to have different opinions.

In a couple of days, once everyone has calmed down, this matter will be over.

The two waited silently for a few more seconds.

"Would you like me to get you a cup of coffee?"

Gu Weijing asked in the most gentle and polite tone possible.

“No need. I had Elliot put some juice in the refrigerator earlier; you can go get it,” Miss Elena replied in as gentle and polite a tone as possible.

They both smiled.

Gu Weijing stood up and walked towards the back of the studio. When he passed the lintel with Miss Elena's exhibition dates written on it, he stopped and asked casually.

"Anna."

"what happened?"

"Where are this week's notes?" the man asked, staring at the display board. "Weren't they pinned up?"

Every Friday of the week.

Miss Elena would personally write a note for Gu Weijing, with a countdown to the opening of his art exhibition.

Anna is a person who has a strong sense of ritual in her work.

"I didn't write it."

Anna replied in a cold tone.

Gu Weijing took a deep breath. "Quiet. Old Cao said to be quiet."

He said to himself, and the young man shrugged and said "Oh".

“It’s alright,” he replied.

It doesn't matter?
Anna stared at the documents in her hand.

do not be angry.

Good things come to those who wait; this will all be over in a couple of days.

"I think so too. Anyway, you wouldn't care if I wrote it, so what's the point?" She sighed and muttered to herself, deliberately making her voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Gu Weijing stopped walking down the back corridor.

Quiet.

Quiet, calm, peaceful.

“It doesn’t matter. If the countdown time keeps changing, then the countdown itself becomes meaningless,” he muttered to himself.

Anna's hands, which were tidying up the documents, stopped moving.

Good things come to those who wait, and good things come to come...

NO!

That's nonsense, it doesn't matter!

Miss Elena couldn't suppress her anger no matter how hard she tried; she felt that this matter was simply not going to pass!

She looked up at Gu Weijing's back and gave another cold laugh.

"Ha. It's okay? Do you know how seriously I put into writing it every week? Do you know how much effort I poured into it? It's like playing the piano; it's not just a line of text! But did you even read it carefully?"

"I bet you've completely forgotten what I wrote each week!"

"If I write you a message with great care, and you treat it as something trivial, like a potato chip bag that you don't even bother to look at anymore, just like parking tickets that you throw around haphazardly, then I'd rather not write it at all."

"Mr. Gu."

Anna's tone became completely cold and ruthless.

“Let me be clear today: playing the piano for you has become a completely unenjoyable and extremely boring thing, so I don’t want to play anymore. If you think the countdown note is meaningless, you don’t have to look at it. It’s not just the countdown; if the 20-minute drive from the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts to here makes you feel bored, makes you want to leisurely while away the time on the road, makes you want to spend your time sitting in the car in a daze rather than discussing exhibition matters.”

"Then you don't need to come."

Gu Weijing turned around and looked directly at Anna.

"how?"

Miss Elena gave her a disdainful glance. "Do you have anything to say in your argument? Do you think nobody knows what you've done? Nobody's a fool, Mr. Gu."

“I am definitely not.”

"Two weeks ago, I was waiting for you, but I just saw you driving out of the school. You told me that the school was running late for class? What? This is the first time I've heard that a professor at our school decided to hold a class in a Polo. This is also the first time I've heard that someone can drive for almost an hour for such a short distance."

He was still there, confidently telling me—

"Time is running out!"

"Stop talking, Mr. Gu. Has anyone ever told you that you have a talent for comedy?" Anna's voice was extremely cold.

Gu Weijing shook his head sadly.

"You want to say sorry?" she sneered.

"Besides empty apologies, what else can you say? I don't need to hear such fake apologies. The hollow lies I hear every day, just that one sentence about Miss Elena playing well, is enough. I don't need to add, 'Miss Elena, I'm sorry.'" She spread her hands. "You're such an ungrateful person."

"He was not of age, but for all time."

Gu Weijing said, "He is not confined to one generation; he will shine for all ages. This comes from Ben Jones' poem to Shakespeare, 'To My Most Beloved Master.' Ben Jones and Shakespeare were playwrights of the same generation. In the centuries after their deaths, Ben Jones first became more famous, then his brilliance was gradually overshadowed by Shakespeare, and finally he was rediscovered by T.S. Eliot."

"The two of them together constituted the golden age of English-language dramatic arts."

“A week earlier, 37 weeks before the exhibition, you wrote ‘small paintings are better than empty formalities.’ There’s no clear source for that quote, but I guess it was referring to Shakespeare. Because when Hugo wrote a collection commemorating Shakespeare, he wrote…”

"I guess you mean that it's better to do those empty and boring creative works than to do something that makes a baby happy with careful coloring."

"Going further back, weeks 38 and 39 are respectively—"

Gu Weijing stared into Anna's eyes.

He read the two sentences in an orderly manner.

“Miss Elena, from the first note you wrote to me when we arrived here until last week, there have been a total of 47 notes. I can recite what was written on each one if you want to ask.”

"Here's the thing."

"I'll be honest, I'm getting more and more confused, and I do drive very slowly, even stopping for a while on country roads. But I'm not going to apologize for that."

"Because I said I felt discouraged. I was confused and lost about many aspects of the art exhibition. I didn't want to infect you with these feelings, and I didn't want to give you false, perfunctory answers in our conversation. I felt that was really going too far. So, I'd rather spend more time alone and quiet."

"Miss Elena."

Gu Weijing inhaled.

"I believe you are not stupid. You are very smart, eloquent, and have a strong reading comprehension ability."

“You accused me of shifting all the blame onto you. You said it was all your fault that this happened.”

Gu Weijing was also furious.

"Was that what I meant exactly? Did I mean anything like that? I don't believe you didn't understand. What I meant was that if it weren't for you, King Maestro III wouldn't have agreed to these conditions. So... we should cherish them even more."

“I mean, I’m saying.”

"Thank you, Miss Elena."

“Well played, Miss Elena,” Gu Weijing said. “I was also saying thank you, Miss Elena, I am truly grateful.”

“I am truly, truly grateful.”

“Every night before I go to sleep, I think about the sponsors, the Hermès Gallery, the advertising agency, and you. I think about everyone’s expectations. I can’t sleep because of this. To be honest, I’m even afraid of it.”

"So, it's actually me who made you unable to draw well!" Anna asked with a smile.

Again.

Here she comes again.

Gu Weijing really felt that he couldn't calm down.

“If you say you’d be happier staying here in the school’s common art studio than here,” Gu Weijing replied, “then yes.”

He also spoke sharply.

"Is such that."

“There, at least I can have a moment to reflect, without having to worry about where the artwork will be delayed.”

静？
Gu Weijing simply couldn't calm down. He strode out of the room and started the car.

Anna casually tossed the file into the air.

Paper fluttered and scattered.

Like falling snow.

(End of this chapter)