Almighty painter

Chapter 561 Gentle Gentleman
Xihe Guild Hall.

On both sides of the mahogany low table, there were two golden cushions placed opposite each other.

On the table were a half-opened copy of the Kinabanchon Sutra written in Thai and a copy of the Tripitaka.

In front of the shrine.

Next to the golden holy water bowl, several incense sticks that were lit by the other party for the ritual were still burning before Luang Pu went out to avoid the phone call.

The room was not lit.

and so.

The smoke curled up and the candlelight flickered.

The Bodhisattva's appearance is looming.

In contrast.

The back of the thin man sitting behind the low table.

Also looming.

"This is the offer I'm making to you. $300 million for a painting, oil painting, I like oil paintings, at least they don't have to be so old. No limit on subject matter, style, or size."

"Don't worry about privacy. I've already said that I won't hinder your future, Mr. Gu. This deal is known only to heaven, earth, you and me."

The man scraped the teacup in his hand with the lid.

Said casually.

He doesn't need to hold up his phone to talk.

On the table of Xihe Club, there is always a conference call terminal in the center that collects sound like an octopus.

It has many uses.

It can scan the surrounding wireless channels and analyze the surrounding signals through frequency band scanning, frequency synthesis, channel selection and other technologies.

It will not simply and crudely block the mobile phone signal.

However, it can prevent interference with possible recordings or local eavesdropping when talking in a conference room.

After Brother Hao bought the Xihe Hall, he put a lot of effort into renovating it.

The investment in renovation is no cheaper than buying the land here.

The rich and powerful need privacy.

He knew that no one liked to see a recorder working under the table or in someone's bag while they were chatting.

When the content of the conversation may be about laundering tens of millions of dollars in dirty money or making a large bribe to a senior local official.

Especially so.

Regardless of whether Brother Hao recorded it or not.

Anyway.

Convincing your partners that your privacy is guaranteed is a very important thing in their business.

and so.

Just like what Hao said.

Apart from the few people present, perhaps only the Bodhisattvas in heaven knew about this conversation.

Wu Qinlai stared at the young man next to her with extremely jealous eyes. His luck was so good that it would be hard to find him even with a lantern in the world.

300 million US dollars!

This is enough for a person to live comfortably for decades in any country in the world.

Brother Hao is definitely not stingy with his subordinates, but such a generous "unrequited" gift is almost unprecedented.

Uncle Alai frowned even more.

Throughout his life, he was considered a person who hated evil.

Uncle Alai once vowed to make this land a better place.

Not a success.

But he never mixed with the dust and became corrupt.

He can tell anyone with confidence that he is a good person.

He walked into the shadows of the world and did not illuminate everything, but even when he ran away to work as a janitor in an orphanage, he did not give in to the devil in his heart.

now.

He opened his mouth to say something to Gu Weijing, but hesitated again and again.

But he shook his head again.

Finally it turned into a low sigh.

"Different."

He thought to himself.

Similar choices had been placed before him.

He looked deeply at the young man holding the phone in the deep night on the long street.

It seemed like I went back a long, long time ago, and saw the Cherokee Jeep brake suddenly and stop in front of me.

The deputy officer wearing captain's epaulettes got out of the car, ran over with a smile, and handed him the "general's" phone number.

The scene of sacks full of loose US dollars being carried down from the truck like rice and piled in front of him.

At this moment.

That time and that moment.

How similar the scenes are?

The same historical passages are repeated again and again.

It’s just that the protagonist of the story has changed from my former self to a new generation of young people.

Vaguely.

The gatekeeper seemed to hear a sinister laugh, but he didn't know whether it was the sneer of fate or the sneer of the locked devil deep in his heart.

"Isn't it obvious what he will choose?"

Uncle Alai asked himself in his heart.

"Don't say that this child is only eighteen years old. Just ask yourself, after so many years of loneliness and desolation, have you ever felt any regret in your heart?"

Even if I don't regret it.

But if history could go back.

He was once again at that turning point in his life. What if the general on the phone didn't ask him to release a few truckloads of goods, but just said that he admired him and wanted to "make friends" with him today?
Does he really have the courage to refuse?
Maybe not.

Life is always full of compromises. Every young man who is full of vigor and ambition has to be crushed by the wheels of society.

He was such a drug hater.

But that day.

In the end, he could only find a remote forest and destroy both the car and the goods, hoping that the big shot would pretend that this incident had never happened.

But he didn't dare to let the truth leak out, lest everyone suffer the consequences.

He doesn't care about his own life, but always thinks about the lives of his brothers.

Who really doesn’t have weaknesses?

He couldn't do it himself, so, at this moment.

Uncle Alai didn't feel he had the right to say anything.

Moreover.

He also admires Gu Weijing.

At first, he was just curious.

I was curious about this young man who donated a large amount of money to the orphanage but only had a few hundred dollars in his pocket and wanted to ask me to be their assistant.

What exactly do you want to do.

It's more or less a joke.

He looked at the other person with caution and cold eyes.

He didn't trust Gu Weijing very much, and he wasn't even willing to let Gu Weijing trust him.

Uncle Alai knew that Gu Weijing had a secret.

It doesn't require any strong criminal investigation experience, it's completely obvious - an ordinary young man whose family runs a small art shop, even if he really has a heart of a bodhisattva who is willing to spend all his family's wealth, it is impossible for him to easily come up with a donation amount of six figures.

It’s just that Uncle Alai doesn’t want to know Gu Weijing’s secret.

It's not just a question of professional ethics between bodyguards and employers, special agents and leaders.

Uncle Ale also doesn't want the relationship between them to be too close.

The only person that Gu Weijing had seriously considered revealing the identity of "Detective Cat" to was Uncle Alai.

Instead, Uncle Ale took the initiative to refuse.

trust.

In his worldview, this is a very, very dangerous thing.

If you trust the informant, you are putting your life in his hands.

The informant trusts you, and the other party will entrust his life to you.

Trust is a weight in your hands, a responsibility on your shoulders, and a burden in your heart.

It is a hemp rope noose tied between the necks of two people at the same time.

"Drawing illustrations" - what Uncle Alai needed was that Gu Weijing at least gave him the possibility that the money in his account was clean.

That's all. I believe you if you say it, and I don't care whether you got the money from winning the lottery, selling paintings, or speculating in Bitcoin.

Give me a tangible reason.

As for the inside story, I don't need to know.

I don't want to know either.

I can't tell that you are lying, so I will help you.

If you are caught lying, get out.

If the money is heavily stained with blood, then... hehe.

It’s not that he looks down on Gu Weijing.

Who is Uncle Alai?
When he became famous and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on heroin, Brother Lian Hao was just an unknown small boss.

Where are the small businesses worth thousands of dollars being played out in the mud.

If he was willing to climb up at all costs, Brother Hao today might not be more powerful than him.

He was just tired and frustrated.

It's not like I'm mentally retarded.

Why do you have to tie yourself to a young man like Gu Weijing just for a salary of a few hundred dollars?

Uncle Alai makes hundreds of dollars a month, not because he is worth that much.

But because he just wanted this little money.

He deliberately controlled the employment relationship between himself and Gu Weijing for the sake of the friendship worth a few hundred dollars.

This is just the price of hiring a full-time driver.

Uncle Alai was willing to do the rest of the things only because he wanted to help Gu Weijing, not because he was "working for" Gu Weijing.

when.

Gu Weijing didn't deserve his help, or he felt tired and bored.

He would also turn around and leave without any regrets.

But the days passed.

As the time of contact became longer and longer, Uncle Alai witnessed the warmth and coldness of the world. After experiencing the shattering of his ideals, he deliberately erected a layer of indifference and defense in his heart when dealing with interpersonal relationships.

It is shaking a little bit.

It's also softening a little bit.

He really liked this young man.

Gu Weijing is the kind of person whom you might not feel anything for when you first meet him, but the more you get to know him, the harder it will be to feel disgusted with him.

The one thing that Miao Angwen has never understood is why everyone likes Gu Weijing but hates him.

This actually has nothing to do with family relationships.

At least it has nothing to do with whether Old Man Gu likes to show off.

It has nothing to do with the amount of money.

Lin Miaoang is a person who has given up material pursuits, Sakai Katsuko is a person who has never lacked money, and even Uncle Alai, who looks extremely poor, is a person who has truly seen a lot of money.

Three of them.

In the eyes of ordinary people, they are the kind of people who are a bit cold, difficult to approach, and even more difficult to get into their hearts.

But they were not at all indifferent when it came to matters related to Gu Weijing.

What makes them different is not money.

What impressed Uncle Alai was probably the warmth from Gu Weijing.

Gu Weijing is a passionate and warm person.

The heat of the soul can dispel the coldness of the world and melt the indifference in people's hearts.

Whether a person is noble or not has nothing to do with whether he is rich or not.

Anyone can donate money, provide free medical consultations, or hold charity shows. All of these can be faked.

Arranging for Jasmine to attend a municipal primary school can be done with some power.

Only patience.

Patience is one of the few things that cannot be faked.

Uncle Alai watched coldly day after day, watching Gu Weijing holding the autistic Budao and doing the rehabilitation dialogue contact left by the language teacher.

Watching him teaching Jasmine to paint there.

Watch him run to feed the child with congenital disabilities little by little.

Then he caught a kid who ran over and tried to eat the fried dough sticks with his dirty hands and dragged him out to wash his hands.

……

Children are not always cute.

Quite the opposite.

Only those who have volunteered in similar places will often understand.

In real social welfare work, the "interesting" element only accounts for a tiny part of it.

The remaining 90%.

It's all repetitive work that's boring, mechanical, even dirty and smelly.

The world of children has never been an innocent fairy tale paradise.

Places like orphanages often have more serious problems of discrimination, bullying, violence and even crime than ordinary schools.

Before Gu Weijing took Jasmine's hand.

Because of AIDS, Jasmine was severely discriminated against among children of the same age.

No one wanted to play with her.

Younger ones are often better.

Especially those older children who are in adolescence and no one is willing to adopt them after many communications.

Some people have physical illnesses, some have mental illnesses, and none of them are autistic like Budao.

this kind of place.

Some people are born motivated, while others are hopeless.

Jasmine has always been very well behaved and cute. She would hold the fat baby and talk to him, and slowly feed him chocolate. If she was calm, she could find fun in it.

But life in an orphanage.

These aren't the only things that can be fun.

During this period, Gu Weijing had his paints stolen and someone tried to break into his studio in the middle of the night to steal things.

I have encountered a child who sent a message to a couple who were volunteering here, saying that he was sick and had no money to buy medicine, and hoped that the uncles and aunts could help him.

The couple kindly transferred 100,000 Myanmar Kyats to him, but later found out that he had used all the money to recharge the game, and they were furious.

Katsuko Sakai had her drawing boards drying in the yard. One of her paintings, titled "Girl Reading Poems to Cats," had the word "BITCH" and some obscene Burmese words for girls written on it.

An adolescent boy came over, pretending to be curious and wanting to see the painting, but suddenly reached out to touch under Shengzi's skirt.

As a result, Awang, who was acting cute and begging for cat food next to him, jumped up and gave him a hard claw.

These ones.

They are also part of life in an orphanage.

There is no paradise in the world as pure and flawless as white snow.

There was no Garden of Eden created by God for Adam and Eve, a place with only happiness and perfection and without the dark side of human nature.

Heaven, sanctuary, thousands of Buddhist kingdoms, paradise...even if these things really exist somewhere in this world.

At least.

It is certainly not in an orphanage in Yangon, Myanmar, which mainly houses drug orphans.

It's not fun when you have to deal with issues like coordination.

Even a little nauseous.

This is true even for a person with a good temper and a calm demeanor.

Gu Weijing is not a saint and is no exception.

Uncle Alai could see that Gu Weijing was also very angry, very upset, and even heartbroken.

but.

He still had room for patience in his heart; at least he could treat them as children who needed guidance and education.

Even have some pity for them.

Willing to regard them as victims of a cruel fate.

Instead of treating them as some scary monsters or untouchables.

This is really rare.

Draw two pictures for the children, read a few poems, buy some bread and stationery, and then ask the female director to take the children out and take two photos holding thank-you signs.

These things are easy to act out.

But when they infringe upon your personal interests, you can still feel a warm sense of fraternity.

That is a true gentle gentleman.

(End of this chapter)