money player

After admiring Zhou Yueyu's finished or semi-finished paintings in the studio, Xian Yaowen came to the showroom next door, where he saw framed oil paintings hanging on three walls and an independent sculpture display stand in front of one wall.

When you get closer to a painting, you can see a depression in the middle of the border below the frame, with glass inlaid on the outside and a note inside that reads "Gift from neighbor Picasso, 26.2.1951."

Looking at the other picture, there is also a note, which reads "Gift from senior Chang Yu, 23.2.1951".

Looking through the paintings one by one, there are about 30 paintings donated, and in the words of later times, the donors are all well-known painters. In addition to the donated paintings, there are more than 70 paintings that were purchased, some of which are marked with the gallery where they were purchased, and some are marked with the painters who bought them.

In addition to the paintings on the wall, there are many painting tubes placed on the ground in the southeast corner of the exhibition room. If you open any of them, you can see a note stuck on the bottom of the lid, indicating the origin of the painting.

By opening a few more, you can analyze that some of the paintings in the painting tubes have not been framed and hung on the wall in time, while another part is probably not worthy of being hung on the wall, and will be kept in the utility room after being framed.

It's no wonder that Zhou Yueyu not only makes rapid progress in learning painting, but also has a strong sense of collecting. Although most of the paintings in the showroom are commissioned works and their future appreciation potential cannot compare to the masterpieces that she has worked hard on, as long as the value of the three words "Zhou Yueyu" remains at a relatively high level in the future, the paintings that come out of her hands will have their own appreciation buff.

Zhou Yueyu is a smart person who knows how to use the power of her circle. She associates with well-known painters and is also a well-known painter herself. With her connections, as long as her paintings are not unsightly, she can live a happy life by selling paintings after two or three years.

Even if you are a piece of crap that can't be helped, you won't get too badly. In this circle, the constipation of a patriot cannot be called constipation, it is intestinal obstruction caused by worrying about the country and the people. A master draws a not-so-straight line, which cannot be called a straight line, it is a state of mind, a return to nature from complexity to simplicity.

With enough status and fame, there will naturally be a group of shameless flatterers who will rack their brains to interpret it from multiple dimensions.

Xian Yaowen stroked his chin, wondering whether he should give Zhou Yueyu a push so that she could quickly skip the two hurdles of one hundred dollars and one thousand dollars and directly enter the ten thousand dollar club.

It is not difficult to promote it. It is much simpler than pushing up a stock. Invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the early stage to speculate on paintings, and then slowly recover the funds in the later stage. If you do it well, you can make a lot of money. However, if Zhou Yueyu cannot stand up after pushing it up, there is a risk of falling from the altar.

Looking around, seeing one painting after another, he gave up the idea of ​​speculating in paintings. Not to mention his identity as a fashion designer, just the awareness of collecting paintings means that Zhou Yueyu won't have to worry about money in the future. It is better for her to remain elegant and avoid being contaminated by vulgarity and commercialism.

Not everything needs to be interpreted from a business perspective.

Taking his attention away from the painting, Xian Yaowen walked out of the room and came to the small courtyard outside.

The Green Mill Street is quite quiet, with a stone path less than two meters wide and two-meter-high vertical wooden walls on both sides. Each courtyard has towering trees and green plants growing on the walls.

Zhou Yueyu's studio occupies three connected two-story buildings. The courtyards were opened up to form a long strip layout. The ground was sparsely covered with stones, and there was no gravel base. The soil was exposed on the surface through large gaps, and tenacious weeds thrived in the cracks.

It had rained two days ago, and there was still water in the low-lying areas, with mud everywhere you stepped on.

The bulb in the courtyard lamp is only 25 watts. In order to create an atmosphere, it is covered with a layer of something that makes the light dim, making everything look hazy.

Xian Yaowen went to the utility room and rummaged around, and found a 100-watt light bulb and electrical wires. He pulled a line to the yard, hung the light bulb on a wooden block, and used a small shovel used for planting flowers to shovel away the stones in the low-lying areas, dug the soil, dug a shallow V-shaped drainage ditch, and re-laid the stones.

Pull up a few handfuls of weeds, tie them to a wooden block, and hold them in your hands to clean up the spider webs that are woven too low, being very careful to avoid hurting the spiders as much as possible.

There are spiders weaving webs in the yard, which means that there is the food they need here. This is the result. If the cause of humidity that breeds small insects is not solved, new fruits will grow after removing the old fruits.

Poke out the webs that are woven too low to force the spiders to weave higher so that they don't get stuck to their heads and faces.

Tomorrow I will buy some quicklime and spread it on the ground to force the small insects to move to higher places. In this way, the high net can still sit and wait to collect the insect tax, and the old city renovation will be a complete success.

It's not about preventing small insects from surviving, but about preventing them from living in comfort and proliferating. This needs to be regulated by an insect tax.

After dealing with the spider webs, Xian Yaowen stepped on the iron bench and trimmed the branches and leaves on it. Then he squatted on the ground and carefully scraped off the raised paint on the iron bench. It was probably due to its age, as there were already spots of rust underneath the paint.

I'll buy some paint tomorrow and ask the landlord to move out, and replace it with a carbonized solid wood bench.

After tidying up the yard roughly, Xian Yaowen went out with a flashlight, followed the direction of the electric wires, found the nearest electric pole, and then patrolled all the way back to the yard to observe whether the wires were aging.

I also observed the power lines on the opposite side of the trail and felt which way the wind was blowing at the two T-intersections.

The results of the inspection showed that the electrical wires were aging on a large scale, but there was still some distance to the high probability of a fire caused by leakage. For safety reasons, the electrical wires in Zhou Yueyu's row of houses had to be replaced with new ones.

But the house is not his own, and most of the residents next door are tenants, and their lives may not be well off. It is a bit difficult to coordinate and replace the wires together. What's more, the wires on the opposite side of the path are more aged, and the direction of the wind makes it difficult for the fire to spread over.

The most sensible thing to do is to stay out of trouble, just wait or speed up the process of causing a fire due to electric leakage in a house opposite. In this way, you can lower the price and buy the three houses rented by Zhou Yueyu, and put off the line modification until after you become the landlord.

It would be fine to speed it up, but if no few people are killed, the effect of lowering the price will not be too obvious. It is low-minded to endanger people's lives for such a small profit.

After instructing Qi Longque to buy quicklime, paint, electrical wires and fire extinguishers tomorrow, Xian Yaowen looked at his watch and saw that it was already ten o'clock, so he went into the kitchen.

I opened the refrigerator and took a look. I saw beef, tomatoes, eggs, and duck eggs. There was also flour in the cupboard. So I took out a few eggs, stirred them into egg liquid, and fried them in a frying pan. Before they were overcooked, I mashed them into diced eggs and set aside.

Dice the beef and tomatoes, stir-fry the beef first, then add the tomatoes and stir-fry again, cover the pot and simmer slowly.

Put a pot on the stove, add water and simmer slowly; put flour into a bowl, add water and knead the dough, when it is almost done, beat in duck egg white, continue kneading the dough, and when it is strong enough, pat the dough into a flat rectangular shape.

When the water is just boiling, cut the dough into thin slices like thousand sheets, leaving three small portions, and put the rest of the slices into the water one by one, pushing them gently with a spoon to prevent them from sticking to the pan.

When it's cooked, serve it and pour the beef, tomato and egg topping on it. The Parisian noodles are ready. Qi Longque and the other two eat it first.

At about eleven o'clock, when Xian Yaowen was washing a frying pan at the sink, his waist tightened, his back felt heavy, and a fragrant breeze blew into his nose.

"Master, are you making noodles?"

Xian Yaowen raised his left hand above his shoulder, pressed his thumb against his middle finger and flicked it, causing water droplets to fall precisely on Zhou Yueyu's face. "The mother rat made such a loud noise when she was stealing food, didn't you see it?"

"Hateful." Zhou Yueyu wiped her face and said angrily, "You are an old man doing this."

"Haha." Xian Yaowen turned around and said, "Your Guluma didn't come back? I didn't hear any movement from mine."

"My Guru's tire is punctured. The repair shop is working hard. I will pay you a lot tomorrow."

"Baga, your wasteful wife's work is the hard work of my laborious wife."

"Hahaha." Zhou Yueyu couldn't help laughing and said, "Master, where did you learn the Northeastern dialect?"

"My Chinese teacher in junior high school was transferred from Manchukuo to work there, and he spoke Manchukuo dialect very well."

[Xiehe language, the language promoted by the Japanese in Manchukuo to solve the communication problem. A language variant that is a mixture of Chinese and Japanese, interpreting Chinese characters according to the meaning of Japanese, but not according to the Japanese pronunciation, but according to the Chinese pronunciation. It is neither Japanese nor Chinese.

Note: Because it is mainly popular in the Northeast, people in other places call it Northeastern dialect or Manchurian dialect (Manchurian dialect). The name Concord language was given after liberation. During the Japanese occupation period, the so-called national language taught in schools in the occupied areas was actually Japanese.]
"Master, what does your little traitor do?"

"You're right." Xian Yaowen pinched Zhou Yueyu's face, "Are you hungry?"

Zhou Yueyu nodded, "Hungry."

"Ask Ms. Huang if she wants to eat. I'll come down."

"Ah."

Zhou Yueyu went to ask, and Huang Yifan's answer was to eat.

Xian Yaowen cooked all the remaining noodles. Zhou Yueyu took out the early-ripening strawberries and prepared to wash them and squeeze strawberry juice. Xian Yaowen cooked the noodles and came to help.

When Zhou Yueyu went to the restaurant, she said, "Master, I heard a piece of news that Coco Chanel is going back to France."

"It's a good thing that the old woman is back. She is quite capable. I believe she can make the Chanel brand a success. In a few years, I will be able to reap the benefits." Xian Yaowen washed a strawberry, gave Zhou Yueyu a bite, and put the rest into his own mouth.

"A little sour."

"Put more sugar when squeezing."

"Oh. This is France. How can you be sure that the peaches will be left for you to pick, sir?"

"The origin of this old woman, Chanel, is a mystery. She has given three or four different versions of her origin on different occasions, trying her best to conceal her origin. This only shows that she is not willing to be exposed to the public. The surname Chanel may not be her real surname. She may have given it to herself when she grew up."

"What does it matter if she came from a poor background? She's successful anyway." Zhou Yueyu said disapprovingly.

"Having a poor background is not a big deal. I just want you to have a comprehensive understanding of her." Xian Yaowen said slowly: "Chanel's success was achieved by clinging to men. When she was a little tailor in an orphanage, she hooked up with a cavalry officer just to get more work mending pants.

After leaving the orphanage, she became a mistress for a fabric merchant, which provided her tailor shop with a good quality and cheap fabric supply channel. She also used the fabric merchant's relationship to frequently attend parties and met an industrialist. She kicked out the fabric merchant and became his mistress.

She climbed up step by step and met the Jewish man Pierre Wertheimer. With his help, she launched Chanel perfume. Chanel No. 5 was an unprecedented success and her career finally reached a new height.

However, she was only a small shareholder of Chanel Perfume and could only share one tenth of the profits, which she was naturally unwilling to accept. Especially when World War II broke out, her clothing business fell into trouble, and she was even more eyeing Chanel Perfume's shares.

Later, I guess she accurately predicted that France was no match for Germany. Before the Maginot Line was broken, she met a German officer who was responsible for extorting money from the Jews. The latter embezzled a Swiss bank deposit to help her expand her business, but was unsuccessful.

In the same year, she closed the Chanel clothing company, laid off more than 4000 workers, and went to Switzerland with German officers. While in Switzerland, she became a member of the German intelligence agency Abwehr, mainly involved in plundering Jewish wealth and reinvesting it, and providing logistical support for the German army.

In the third year, that is, in 1941, she was years old, but her sleeping skills were still as good as before. She slept with an officer of the French occupation army and tried to use the Aryanization anti-Semitic laws to buy all the shares of Chanel perfume, but failed.

She was unaware that the Wertheimers had foreseen the coming anti-Jewish decrees and had legally transferred control of Chanel perfume to a French businessman, Felix Amiot, before fleeing France for New York.

After the war, Amiot returned Chanel perfume to the Wertheimer family. "

Zhou Yueyu took the washed strawberries while Xian Yaowen powered up the juicer. After the juicer started working, he continued, "Chanel didn't get the Chanel perfume, but she drank the blood of the French Jews. Before the end of the war, it is unknown how much wealth she seized, and it is also unclear how many Nazi officers had a share of the wealth in her hands.

There is no doubt that she committed war crimes during the war, but due to Churchill's intervention, she was not arrested and tried after the war. There are rumors that she and Churchill attended a party with men and women, and it is possible that the two of them got along well. "

Zhou Yueyu was surprised and asked, "Chanel and Churchill are doing well?"

Xian Yaowen smiled faintly and said, "It's all gossip, which may not be credible, but it is certain that the two are acquaintances. In short, Chanel has a Jewish blood debt, and all Jews have the obligation to take revenge.

As the saying goes, it is never too late for a gentleman to take revenge. When she returns to Paris and works hard to build a career again, I, a Jew, should also hear about her blood debt by chance and take revenge even if I have to force her to do so. "

Zhou Yueyu smiled and said, "Master, do you want to join forces with other Jewish businessmen to pick peaches together?"

"Well, it's not convenient for one person to pick them. We have to join forces with a group of people to pick them together."

"Chanel doesn't have the master's blood debt, right?"

"It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. What matters is whether anyone refutes what I say. It's important to have a legitimate reason." Xian Yaowen hugged Zhou Yueyu and whispered in her ear, "Keep what I just said to yourself. Don't tell anyone. The time is not right yet. We have to wait a few more years."

Zhou Yueyu nodded seriously, "I know."

"The noodles should be ready. I'll go get them."

A minute later, the two of them came to the dining room outside with noodles and strawberry juice. While eating noodles, Xian Yaowen told Zhou Yueyu the story of another Abwehr member, Oskar Schindler.

Schindler saved thousands of normal-minded, penniless Jews during the war, which led to his impoverished life after the war, where he received no rewards from the Jews he saved and only limited returns.

To be objective, when the harm is far away and one is barely able to make ends meet, how many people can save a little from their own food rations to give to their savior?

To put it another way, when you become a billionaire, who can give half of their assets to their savior?
It is difficult for people who truly own something to do so. They will only try their best to lower the valuation of their own lives and repay the grace of saving their lives with a figure that is insignificant relative to their assets. They may even say, fuck you, you gave me a job without salary, and now I will repay you a hundredfold.

The lie "80% or all of it will be given to the benefactor" can only be heard from the mouths of people who have nothing. They are generous just because they talk big, but once they really start to act, haha, they are all ordinary people, not Guanyin Bodhisattva. They complain that the salary is too little when they receive it, but when they get the salary, they wish the workers would pay for it.

Well, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, was very generous. In return for his savior, he borrowed his life again as a contribution to the Zhu family's empire. At most, he would let the historian cross out the page and pretend that this person had never existed.

Schindler had been used to a good life during the war, and these few dollars were not enough for his expenses. Later, he heard about an organization called the "American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee", so he submitted an application for reimbursement of wartime expenses, reporting more than 100 million US dollars, but actually received 1.5 US dollars, a huge difference.

This is like a man named Zhang, who spent a lot of money to help a group of people named Xian, and then found Xian Yaowen to claim reimbursement. Xian Yaowen gave Zhang a little compensation as a token of his gratitude because "they were one family five hundred years ago". Now Zhao, Qian, Sun and Li were not happy about this and accused the Xian people of being good-for-nothings, and Xian Yaowen of being even worse.

"Schindler should be dissatisfied with the result, even though his business was successful at the beginning, he actually started with nothing, and the start-up capital came from several Jewish investors.

However, with $1.5 and funding from other Jewish organizations, the Schindler couple immigrated to Argentina two years ago and opened a chicken farm there to try raising chickens. I heard that the situation is not very good and the chicken farm may be about to go bankrupt.

Based on my understanding of Schindler, this man had no talent for business. He only achieved success by abusing his power for personal gain and colluding between the military and businessmen in special periods. He made a living by plundering. If Germany was doing well, he would be well. If Germany was not doing well, he would be the first to fail.

Despite this, I still plan to help him and invite him to Paris to run a business together. I also plan to make a movie to praise him. I will give him a deposit first, and give him a share of the profits after the movie is released. "

Zhou Yueyu knew immediately that Schindler and picking peaches were related. She was not sure whether Huang Yifan would hear about picking peaches, so she asked vaguely, "What kind of business do you want to cooperate with Schindler?"

"Schindler doesn't know how to run a business, but he's good at socializing. Maybe I'll work with him to open an advertising company." Xian Yaowen picked up the cup and took a sip of strawberry juice. "I have advertising companies in Hong Kong and Singapore. Although I haven't managed them yet, I'm very optimistic about the prospects of the advertising industry. I'll focus on developing them later when I have time."

"I also think the future of advertising is very good. At the party today, a man named Philippe approached me and introduced himself as a shareholder of Publicis. He used to be in charge of Radio-Cité and talked to me a lot about advertising."

Xian Yaowen nodded. "Publicis is a good advertising company. It's a pity that Radio City is gone. The French government has monopolized the broadcasting business, and private radio stations are no longer viable. You keep in touch with Philippe. I am somewhat interested in Publicis' shares. Maybe I will buy some shares in the future."

Zhou Yueyu said with a smile: "Philip seems to like me, won't the master be jealous?"

Xian Yaowen glanced at Zhou Yueyu and said, "Why should I be jealous? You spend so much money, I wish you could go with someone else."

Zhou Yueyu kicked Xian Yaowen and said coquettishly, "You're annoying."

Xian Yaowen chuckled and didn't continue the joke. "I saw quite a few paintings in the showroom. Are you planning to collect all the works of the painters living in Paris?"

Hearing this, Zhou Yueyu smiled triumphantly, "I collect works by either famous or quasi-famous artists. In a few years, the prices of those paintings will increase several times. I can use them as collateral for a bank loan and use the money for investment."

Xian Yaowen asked jokingly, "Is that it? Is there anything else?"

"Of course I have." Zhou Yueyu smiled slyly, "If the painting continues to appreciate in value, I will redeem it. If it drops in value, I will default on the contract and let the bank take the painting away."

Xian Yaowen chuckled and said, "It seems that attending more parties is beneficial. You have a lot of knowledge. Which banker did you hear this idea from?"

"Yes." Zhou Yueyu nodded.

Xian Yaowen took a mouthful of noodles and said slowly, "Don't believe everything others say in the future. Artwork mortgage is not such a simple matter.

Everyone in the bank is a shrewd person. If a bunch of shrewd people get together and let you take advantage of them, it only means that something is against the rules. If nothing goes wrong, the benefits will be shared by everyone. Once something goes wrong, you will bear the greatest responsibility.

If something goes wrong, your reputation in the banking industry will be ruined, and you will never get low-cost funding again."

Zhou Yueyu was surprised and said: "I was deceived?" (End of this chapter)