Almighty painter

Chapter 399 Flirting

"You go out first."

Ana picked up the phone and nodded gently to the housekeeper, "I'll give you an answer tonight."

"You guys should leave together and leave the blanket in your hands. August recently likes to have something to cover himself with when he takes a nap."

The butler bowed slightly.

He walked out of the study with the two servants.

The moment before turning around and pushing the door open, the corner of his eye glanced at the contact names flashing on the screen of Anna's mobile phone.

A good housekeeper should not pry into the privacy that the owner is unwilling to share.

In this study, there may have been discussions about the reorganization of the Land Ministry, the seemingly inconsistent policies of Prussian Wilhelm II and Bismarck next door, and the secret military expansion plans of the generals of the General Staff to deal with the Russians.

Asking about things he shouldn't know could be fatal.

but.

After all, things are no longer what they used to be.

He didn't mean it, but the housekeeper couldn't help but be curious.

After walking out of the room and walking to a deserted place, the housekeeper buried the word he saw deep in his heart and covered it with two shovels of soil to ensure that it would never be dug up again.

He still murmured in confusion and repeated the name on the phone: "Miss Kate? Who is she?"
-

"Hello?"

Gu Weijing cleared his throat.

It's a bit strange to hear my own voice that has been modified by a sound card through my ears, as if there is another woman or a ventriloquist hiding in my chest.

But Gu Weijing has used it many times, so he has adapted to this sense of dissonance very well.

He was more curious.

The reason why Mr. Sloth suddenly contacted me.

"I'm still drawing the manuscript, and there are a few scenes that need to be considered again. I don't think I'm satisfied with the queenly feeling of the protagonist in the chapter. But the speed of progress is within expectations. It's from the publisher..."

"It's not about the publishing house. I just want to chat with someone. Will it disturb you?"

Anna stared at the busy crowd outside the window.

In order to prepare for the possible arrival of the presidential motorcade, from servants to chefs, the manor has been rehearsing from top to bottom many times since last week.

Although the trip has been canceled at this time, this feeling of busyness is still continuing.

Anna knew it wasn't just the manor in front of her.

The whole city, and indeed the whole country, was geared toward a gigantic administrative machine.

Modern Austria is a very small country.

The upcoming European Art Annual Conference will basically be the most important large-scale external event in the next few months.

At this moment.

There are tens of thousands of civil servants and support staff in countless departments across the country, like worker ants building a nest, busy brewing medicine for the annual meeting.

The old Fokker-100 jet presidential plane, painted in red and white with the national emblem of the black single-headed eagle painted on the tail fin, should begin routine mechanical maintenance one day in advance before flying short-distance missions. .

The security of the Secret Service has already cooperated with explosive odor analyzers and explosive disposal dogs, and is busy in that steakhouse to eliminate possible dangerous factors.

Somewhere further away.

Europe, North America, Asia.

Larry Gagosian of Gagosian Gallery, Manuel Perrotin of Perrotin Gallery, Yukito Tabata of Tokyo Gallery, Mas III of Mas Gallery...all the big gallery owners and their representatives will arrive within two days. Grizz may have arrived here.

International flights and private jets will fly here from all over the world like migrating swallows.

Glitz International Airport is Austria's largest international airport and has three main runways for large jet aircraft.

even so.

The nearly saturated flight volume will still make the control tower busy and noisy like the hall of the stock exchange.

There will be international tourists and art lovers who cannot buy air tickets.

And because there are too many business jets taking off and landing, and there are no matching parking spaces, big collectors and artists have to choose to take the slow country train to Glitz City.

Twenty kilometers away.

In the coffee shop in the city center, her secretary was having private discussions with Cao Xuan's assistant.

Sir Brown is also sitting in a suit and tie on the leather chair in his chairman's office. In front of the large picture frame of "The Last Supper", one after another is busy making phone calls, with a silver goatee on his chin. It may get stained with tea from the table.

This is just what is happening on the surface.

Anna knows.

There is another unknown world.

Citibank's art investment department, the Rockefeller Family Foundation, the Abu Dhabi National Sovereign Fund, the French Public Pension Fund... In the glittering glass buildings, on London's financial streets, in the investor offices of Wall Street, there are countless people who are either explicit or not. Yami's eyes were all directed towards the opening ceremony venue.

Deloitte's report the year before last showed that in the two decades from 1995 to 2021.

全球当代艺术品价格年化增长率达13.8%，远高于同期标普500指数、环球股票、黄金、北美房产的10.2%、5.7%、6.2%、4.2%。

High-end art investment is still one of the best choices for wealth inheritance and tax avoidance operations for high-net-worth individuals.

In the past twenty years, all the ripples caused by insider information in the art market combined have not been as influential as the soon-to-be-established "Oil Painting" Foundation.

The world's hot money is closely watching the big news that Sir Brown is about to release at the opening ceremony.

Sitting in the study room at home, Anna could imagine in her ears the sound of hundreds of millions of dollars of funds flowing from one account to another, and finally forming a great tide like a rushing river.

Smell the smell of burning tobacco and cigars in the offices of professional investors.

If only at this moment.

All the harmful gas-emitting tobacco on the lips of the financiers who are meeting to study "Lord Brown's big news" will surely form a blazing torch enough to light up the city's night sky.

Or restless, or restless.

The atmosphere of tension and excitement was spreading rapidly.

"What a burning world." Anna sighed in her heart.

The only thing that flows faster than money is gossip.

When even various ordinary retail netizens on Reddit and Twitter began to pat their chests and talk mysteriously about the upcoming changes in the art market.

Countless rumors are woven into a huge spider web like spider silk.

Sir Brown and Miss Irina are like two big spiders crawling in the center of a spider web.

No, Sir Brown is a big spider. She is just a little dragonfly or butterfly that is stuck by the spider thread and is helpless as its fangs and mouthparts are about to be inserted into her body.

"Talk to me, Ms. Cat. I want to hear you talk."

Anna begged into the microphone at hand.

She rarely spoke in such a weak tone, not even as a young woman facing the relentless advances of Kruger Bank.

But she was really tired and tired.

Intellectually speaking.

She felt that she should have more important things to do than chatting with people and staring at the blue sky outside the window.

It's like sending a text message to the secretary to ask about the progress of the negotiation with Cao Xuan, or concentrating on studying how to persuade the president during a one-hour dinner.

Now at this point in time.

It is no exaggeration to describe that every inch of time is worth an inch of gold.

An ounce of gold was only two thousand dollars. She was holding the microphone in front of the window. Every minute she wasted was something that no amount of money could make up for. The butterfly, tangled in cobwebs, will also try to flutter twice.

But Anna just couldn't cheer up.

Very strange.

She was not as interested in these things as in giving August a bath. Now she just wanted to put down her pretense and find someone to have a casual and undisguised chat with.

She considered calling her college roommate Aurora, but she hesitated, hesitated, and somehow picked up the cell phone that was used to contact Detective Cat.

Anna had only known each other for a few months.

But she found that the other person had become the person in her heart who made her feel closer.

Agent Mr. Sloth and her chosen painter.

Never met.

But it is the purest relationship.

"Uh……"

Let yourself speak?

Gu Weijing on the other end of the phone was a little hesitant. He had never heard Mr. Sloth speak to him in such a tone, nor had he ever heard such a weird request.

In his mind, his agent is someone who can easily help him secure a tens-billion-dollar listed company like Scholastic, the leader in the publishing industry. He talks about some industry anecdotes and art secrets, more like a walking encyclopedia. Know everything.

In his mind, Mr. Sloth is simply an omnipotent jingle cat.

suddenly.

His Dingdang Cat's tone suddenly revealed fatigue and trouble, which made Gu Weijing feel at a loss.

"If it's inconvenient, forget it. I'm just a little irritable. I'm sorry that this negative emotion has disturbed you. Next Wednesday, we will continue to study the manuscript of "The Burning World". We talked about that last time..." Anna heard the hesitation in Gu Weijing's tone.

He immediately changed his mind quickly.

No matter how powerful she looks on the outside, Anna is still a delicate and sensitive person on the inside.

Sensitive people are always afraid of getting hurt.

Through numerous windows, in the inner castle, they put their noses against the cold glass surface and watched the world vigilantly.

Occasionally, occasionally.

She will carefully open a corner of her heart and try to tell herself to those close to her.

But once rejected or aware of the other party's impatience.

She would immediately retract herself into the powerful and indifferent shell of "Elena's Patriarch" quickly and obediently, like a little turtle that has discovered danger, and not give others the chance to hurt her.

Anna regretted a little and dialed the number rashly.

She didn't want to hear a rejection or a perfunctory answer from Detective Cat, so she took the initiative to end this nonsensical conversation.

"No, no, no, I'm happy to listen, and I'm happy to speak, but I don't know what to do." Detective Cat's voice came quickly from the receiver, "Are you..."

Gu Weijing thought about it.

Possible answers come to mind.

"Are you falling out of love? I'm just afraid that I don't have any good advice on this kind of thing, and I don't know much about feelings."

Probably just lovelorn.

Only then can someone as powerful as Mr. Sloth feel so tired inside.

He didn't know Mr. Sloth's specific age. In his mind, he should be a cool uncle who was thirty-seven or eight years old. When they first came into contact with him, Gu Weijing thought that with such a gentle temperament and a slightly aged voice, Mr. Sloth should be a wealthy gentleman in his fifties.

Talked a lot.

Even though Gu Weijing didn't ask about his age, he vaguely felt that judging from the content and tone of the conversation, the other party looked quite young.

So much so that there are certain moments.

If this word had not been applied to Mr. Sloth, it would have seemed strange.

He even felt that the other party was a bit "contrastingly cute".

There will be that feeling of a young girl emerging from the voice of an uncle.

Like a delicate flower blooming from the dark gray iron tree.

"Lovelorn?"

Anna pondered for a moment.

"You can put it this way." She nodded and actually admitted.

"Graham Green said that after a short and sweet love period, couples in love will either become soul mates and move towards the sanctification of piety. Otherwise, they will recognize each other's ugly faces in trivial life. There is no third possibility in trivial arguments that lead to vulgarity.”

She thought of the uncles and aunts on the board of directors whom she had known and even been close to when she was a child.

Even Sir Brown.

Even if he and his aunt have some differences in concepts, they have been a good pair in their cooperation for more than ten years. To be honest, the booming development of "Oil Painting" magazine after the millennium is a big part of Sir Brown's work. A share of the credit.

once.

The other party was also a frequent visitor to Elena's manor, and even took her as a little girl to play sailing on the lake behind the manor.

Time passes.

When everyone embarks on different paths, everyone is drifting apart, which is indeed the end of a love affair.

"If the partner you are talking about refers to the disillusionment of some abstract beautiful fantasy, then lovelorn is a good term, and what you said is not wrong." She smiled.

"I don't understand."

Gu Weijing said honestly that he didn't understand.

"It's okay, let's talk about you."

Anna asked curiously, "Ms. Cat, I don't want to be rude. But your information says that you are 36 years old. You shouldn't know anything about relationships, right? Even if you are not married, you should have talked about it a few times. Fall in love.”

"We talked about it, we talked about it!"

Gu Weijing realized that the image he inadvertently conveyed between the lines was inconsistent with his persona on the Internet, so he hurriedly found out: "I have been in love, and I have been attracted to people. I have a lot of emotional experience!"

"Really?"

Anna, who was originally filled with a touch of sadness because of "Oil Painting", now couldn't help but was amused by the other party's youthful appearance.

It's so green that it makes you want to take a bite.

Only a very immature brother in love would answer in such a hurry when faced with this kind of question.

"You are so cute."

Anna bit her lip and said.

As the words came out of her mouth, she realized that she had also made a mistake.

The other party didn't act like a wolf-like middle-aged elder sister, and she didn't act like a steady art blogger today.

It doesn’t matter if best friends gossip.

Use the voice of a middle-aged man to speak to a girl like this.

A bit frivolous.

It also smells a bit...well, flirting.

(End of this chapter)