Almighty painter

Chapter 947 Campus Life
Without turning his head, Gu Weijing opened the door of his yellow car and jumped into the seat. The diesel engine of the used POLO roared even louder than when it arrived, and sped away.

He drove all the way back to his school dormitory.

The journey there took him 40 minutes, but only a little over 19 minutes on the way back.

He successfully drove at 140 km/h on the highway!
A new record for driving skills! The price was that the car's engine warning light came on.

Gu Weijing drove the car, which had been whirring at first, then howling, and finally sputtering, all the way to the parking lot behind the dormitory building. He stopped the car, gripped the steering wheel, and breathed heavily.

The silence only served to amplify the echoes of the argument, like the rustling of paper Anna had thrown with force, continuous and persistent.

Twelve months ago.

Miss Elena casually tossed the review she was holding, looked him in the eye, and told him she had resigned and that he needed a new art agent.

At that moment, he and Anna both felt so naturally that they would have a perfect art exhibition. Their belief was naive and fervent, requiring no proof; it was self-evident and taken for granted.

Their trust in each other was naive and pure.

Just a year later, everything changed; the passion had been completely worn away. Like this car? How long has it been since it was serviced? Perhaps it was already low on fuel, and after its brief burst of power, it became nothing more than dry friction between the engine cylinders—

"The harder we try, the more nakedly we torture each other."

The noisy silence in the car was tormenting Gu Weijing, causing his eardrums to ache. He turned on the radio and blasted the rock music from the station, but even that only made his eardrums hurt. He adjusted the engine knob, trying to find a balance in the sound—a volume that wouldn't give him a headache but would also drown out the silence.

Find that balance point where the physical noise and the clamor of the mind can mask each other.

After trying for a few minutes, Gu Weijing finally realized that this was wishful thinking.

He slammed his hand roughly on the radio panel, turning off the music, then reclined his seat and silently gazed at the sky through the manually opened sunroof.

In a daze.

He felt as if he had returned to the feeling he had when he lay on the lawn in the botanical garden.

"How utterly incompetent, like a fragile piece of glass."

Gu Weijing muttered to himself.

He felt he should also write a note for himself and stick it on the car window.

"Mr. G, there are 3, 2, 1 left before the collapse - Bingo, now!"

And the note should read this sentence.

Gu Weijing didn't know how long his art exhibition would last, but he knew he lived on the verge of collapse every day. He himself found it unbelievable how calm he was in front of Hao Ge, and how calm he was during the gunfight on that ship.

When facing Brother Hao, he calmly and composedly told him, "Sorry, I just look down on you."

Standing by the railing, he jumped down without even flinching.

On a deserted island isolated from the world, the two of them, with boundless imagination and perfect understanding, created an art exhibition in their minds. Even when they were half-conscious and tormented by a high fever, Gu Weijing's heart remained at peace.

just now.

What reason could he possibly have to break down?

Everything may not have turned out perfectly, but it may not have been too bad either.

Please.

His first exhibition was held in a large art museum, and the insurance and air freight costs for the booth alone were close to 100,000 euros, enough for Tonks to stand in the sun for two months.

Gu Weijing continued to complain and cry, "God, why are you treating me like this? It's so unfair!"

How are the others supposed to survive?!

He himself felt so affected and pretentious that he wanted to vomit.

Gu Weijing couldn't even find a single obvious "enemy." Yes, university life seemed to be going very well. Grandpa adapted to his new life quite well. He encountered some difficulties with his courses, but overall things were relatively smooth.

The same applies to the Hermès Gallery.

Deckard Anlen is jumping, but all he can do is jump. Thinking about it from an optimistic perspective... perhaps this is also him expressing fear.

The insurance company and the freight company are seeking compensation for the exhibition's postponement. €87,000 is not a small sum, but for the owner of a top gallery with assets in the hundreds of millions, it's really not a huge amount; the loss is simply a loss.

Would Marx III really turn against him over a few tens of thousands of euros?

will not.

At least not until we see feedback on the first exhibition.

Maes III wouldn't even say "no" to him. Yes, Gu Weijing really couldn't treat Maes III as an enemy and blame the obstacles to the art exhibition on him.

Maestro III was very cooperative.

He was nothing like the current head of this family gallery with over a century of history. In front of Gu Weijing, he acted like an exceptionally docile old lamb. He cooperated in whatever way was asked, postponed the exhibition if asked, provided the funding if requested, and cooperated in the publicity as requested.

We stretched out our necks and let them fleece us.

Contact artists, exhibition lenders, sponsors, donors, news media...

So well-behaved!
They handed over the initiative for the exhibition to us, and didn't even say "NO" once.

If they insist on postponing the exhibition again this time, Maestro III might jump out and bleat a couple of times, but he will still continue to fleece people.

They wouldn't even shout too loudly, for fear of upsetting their own side.

What can the third generation of Maestro do?
He's desperate too, you know. He's already gone all in, he can't just fold halfway through the game, can he? That would mean all his preparations would be for nothing.

All the sponsors ran away. Even this bald sheep, with tears in its eyes, will jump out, waving its shears, and shout, "I still have wool! Pull me!" before charging forward to topple it.

Maes III was never a true sheep; he was an incredibly shrewd art dealer. Perhaps out of respect for Cao Xuan, or for Miss Elena, or perhaps because he genuinely looked forward to Gu Weijing's art exhibition, he was willing to pretend to be a sheep until the exhibition's curtain was finally raised.

That's why.

Gu Weijing cannot take all of this for granted.

He was the captain of a ship that got lost on the vast ocean. The furnace in the engine room caught fire, but he still took out his pocket watch to pretend to look at it before telling everyone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please rest assured that everything is going smoothly and we will arrive at the port on time."

Then he returned to the captain's cabin, staring blankly at the nautical chart, wanting to have a good cry.

This is a completely different kind of pressure he faced compared to before.

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Of course, of course.

This is a difficult question.

Sometimes, when a person has enough courage to face death, the choice is not so difficult.

How to cope with a confusing life?

This is the eternal problem. Gu Weijing raised his head, took out two drops of eye drops from the armrest box, took a deep breath, and straightened his collar in front of the mirror on the sunshade.

When he pushed open the door.

He seemed to be back to normal.

A man can't solve all his problems by having a good cry, and a person can't live in someone else's hands like a fragile crystal.

Then let's tidy ourselves up and get back to life.
-
Gu Weijing took out his phone and dialed the number in his contacts labeled "Agent".

He waited a moment.

There was silence from the phone's earpiece at first, then the message appeared: "Der Anschluss ist zurzeit nicht erreichbar (The phone you dialed is currently switched off. You will be transferred to a voice message shortly after a beep.)"

Gu Weijing hung up the phone.

He found Elliott's phone number again, hesitated for a moment, and did not choose to dial it.

Forget it.

At this moment, perhaps they both needed some space to calm down more than they needed to talk. Gu Weijing sent a message to Miss Elena on social media, then put his phone in his bag, picked up his backpack, and headed towards his dormitory building.

"Hey, great painter!"

"Want to go to the tennis courts tonight? We've booked the whole place; there's an outdoor party going, and the student council girls are coming!"

When Gu Weijing walked into the dormitory building, someone greeted him.

"The Great Painter"—this was Gu Weijing's nickname among the students, given to him by Kozens, the head of the art-in-residence program, who knew that Gu Weijing had won a gold medal at a biennial. This was naturally considered a very, very impressive achievement among the students; however, Gu Weijing suspected that Kozens's use of this nickname carried a hint of sarcasm.

Mr. Samuel Kertzens was the most sarcastic and sarcastic person Gu Weijing knew.

The students said that even if the beech tree at the school gate were unlucky enough to take his class, it would cry for three days. They also said that Hamburg has so many rivers because so many people were made to cry by Mr. Kozens's scolding.

If it weren't for the fact that he happened to know someone named Anna Elena, Gu Weijing would have been willing to place her on the throne of the most sarcastic person in his social circle.

"Great painter."

Gu Weijing always thought that this title sounded pretty good.

I don't know if it's because there are so many students with the same name on European campuses, but many students have their own nicknames.

For example, the Irish man who is greeting Gu Weijing is named Ed, and his nickname is "Promzilla," a combination that can be understood as "party animal" or "party party monster."

Some people seem to call him "the beer devourer".

Anyway, just by hearing this nickname, you can roughly tell what kind of behavior this guy usually does.

He's the kind of guy who seems to go to college just to throw parties. His sole purpose in going to college is to have parties.

Gu Weijing saw the other person every time he met him in the dormitory.

If it is morning.

That usually means they've just come back from a party.

If it's at night.

Then you must be going out to have a party.

It's quite amazing, by the standards of many students' comments... you could even say it's quite impressive.

For example now——

"Hey buddy, that's like a miracle!" He patted the waist of the girl next to him, who was wearing a crop top and had a nose ring. "I know you're learning German, that's definitely a great place to practice a language. You know, it's like HIV, it only relies on—"

Gu Weijing automatically ignored the crude jokes in the other person's words.

He spent another 0.5 seconds trying to figure out whether Ed meant the girl in the student council, the girl next to him, or the party that night when he said "like a miracle."

Gu Weijing put all of this behind him.

He shook his head and stepped aside, clearing the way to the stairwell.

"never mind."

Ed wasn't disappointed. He put his arm around the girl beside him, walked out the door with a flourish, and invited the others to join him.

Gu Weijing took an opaque combination lock box with his name on it from the refrigerator in the kitchen on the first floor, opened it, put his eye drops inside, locked it, and then put it at the very back.

Eye drops are best stored at low temperatures. Yang Dekang knew this, so he specially bought an opaque, coded pillbox from Taobao as a gift for him.

Perhaps for this reason, there's something rather absurd: back in May, someone reported Gu Weijing to the police for secretly storing prohibited drugs, only to later find out it was a false alarm. However, since the refrigerator and such are shared, Gu Weijing was genuinely worried that someone might be hiding prohibited drugs in it, which is why this medicine box seemed so necessary.

He walked up the dormitory stairs.

Finally, I stopped in front of the room on the top floor, swiped my student card, and opened the dormitory door.

The on-campus dormitories at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts are quite difficult to apply for, but the rent is not high and the conditions are good, like a three-story townhouse. There is a large communal kitchen on the first floor, with refrigerators, cooking utensils, washing machines, microwaves, etc., shared by all students in the townhouse.

Each individual dormitory room houses two to three people.

It's called a dormitory, but it's more like a series of three-bedroom suites, with each student having their own bedroom and sharing a living room and bathroom.

When Gu Weijing pushed open the door and entered.

Someone is listening to music by the bedside, casually flipping through a thick textbook on art history and theory.

What is the third-to-last painting?

When Gu Weijing entered the room.

The other person asked him.

Gu Weijing knew that he was asking about the art history and theory exam that morning. The exam format was very simple: you sat in a classroom, and the professor would project paintings one by one onto the screen. Then you would write a short essay about each painting.

"The one by Van Gogh?"

Gu Weijing replied.

Do you have any works by Van Gogh?

"Larks in Wheat Fields?" Gu Weijing recalled for a moment, "I'm not quite sure either, but the brushstrokes and style seem a bit like Van Gogh's."

"The one from 1887?"

"I think so," Gu Weijing said. "My memory of the exact time is a bit hazy."

The student flipping through the textbook turned off the music beside him.

He covered his face and groaned as he spoke.

"Gu, I think I bombed the exam. I thought the old monster looked down on oil painting. Damn it, I just rushed through these parts."

(End of this chapter)