Almighty painter

Chapter 660 Bidding
"It sounds like you are very unhappy, Mr. Gu." Brother Hao raised his eyebrows at the window.

"What do you want to say?" Gu Weijing asked quietly, "Or, what do you want?"

His voice is simple and direct.

Gu Weijing did not ask sarcastically, "Should I be happy?" or roar hysterically into the phone, questioning why the other party was unreasonable. He had clearly agreed not to force him and made a promise not to actively harm his family, so why did he change his mind now?

These questions don't make any sense.

The other party is gangsters.

The underworld is bad, evil, and unreasonable. It is a collection of the dark side of society and a synonym for low-life scum.

What else can the underworld do if they don’t do bad things?
Are they philanthropists?
When a man like Hao Ge is happy, he gives Miao Angwen a sports car, a future, a woman, and a pure gold Rolex watch. When he is unhappy, he gives Miao Angwen a pistol and asks his father to shoot him in the head.

Questioning why gangsters have no integrity is as ridiculous as questioning why terrorists have no mercy.

When Brother Hao is willing to listen to him and talk about the rules.

Gu Weijing said on the phone that his persistence, his moral bottom line, and his life principles are meaningful.

It would be ridiculous for him to keep talking nonsense when Brother Hao had overturned the table and pointed a gun at his face.

In the face of unreasonable violence.

Ordinary people are as fragile and insignificant as a weed.

There is no way the weeds can reason with the sudden storm; all they can do is endure it silently.

Gu Weijing hoped that his life would never intersect with Brother Hao again, and that they would stay far away from each other and live in peace from then on.

This is naturally the best outcome.

But one day, Haoge sent a blackmail video. Instead of asking him why he did this, it would be more practical to ask what the other party wanted.

Gu Weijing could certainly say some righteous and nice words at this moment.

But what use are these words other than angering the other party?
My cousin is still in the other party's hands.

From any perspective, angering others is not a rational choice. Life is so helpless.

If life only gives you one way.

Whether willing or not, people can only muster up the courage to move forward.

"Mr. Gu, you called me." Brother Hao smiled on the phone, "I didn't force you to make this call, did I? You always have the right to choose, I promise you."

"My family was suddenly kidnapped, and I just received a blackmail video." Gu Weijing paused, "No offense, Brother Hao, but our definitions of the words 'coercion' and 'choice' may be slightly different."

"Or is it that you didn't do this? With your great magical powers... I find it hard to believe this."

"Are you talking about Gu Lin?"

Hao's tone was very calm: "Oh, that was indeed what I ordered. You know, I usually don't deal with this kind of human trafficking business, it's bloody and dirty... Of course, the key is that it's troublesome and the profit margin is very low. No one likes human traffickers. If they can't make a lot of money, they will easily be targeted by various international organizations. Only the low-class people who can't be on the stage will do this kind of business. The main source of my business is money laundering. I handle assets for politicians, act as a middleman for brokers, and launder money for military leaders."

"Oh, and the arms dealers, these are the real rich people."

"You have no idea how profitable the international underground arms market is."

The middle-aged man sighed, "A businessman born in Uzbekistan, who learned English by listening to ABBA tapes, can easily sell goods worth $1000 billion to third world countries in a few years. Ten years ago, he was caught in Southeast Asia, and taking 5% of the cash flow that was scattered along with it is an astronomical figure."

"These are the 'businesses' that are truly worth investing your energy in, but I made a small exception for you and contacted a 'professional' to take Gu Lin away. Fortunately, in this city, there is always a lack of people who want to give me face."

Gu Weijing remained silent.

He didn't know what to say.

Should I praise Brother Hao's business acumen, or express my honor?

Just speechless.

I can only remain speechless.

"But Mr. Gu, if you think this is an active coercion against you, then there may be some misunderstanding between us." Brother Hao coughed twice, "Didn't the person who sent you the video make it clear?"

"What?" Gu Weijing didn't understand.

"Well, it seems that I didn't make it clear after all."

Brother Hao sighed softly, "This is why I hate these human traffickers. They are too unprofessional and generally have a low level of education. Apart from kidnapping, they can't even do basic communication work. They are simply incompetent."

"This is a threat, but it's not blackmail. Strictly speaking, if you consult a lawyer, your cousin Gu Lin's case should be considered 'illegal detention for debt collection', and it may not even be considered kidnapping. Um... I don't know the details. If you are interested, Mr. Gu, I can introduce you to some lawyers and we can have a good chat about the relevant issues. After all, to be frank, I have some friends in the legal field."

Brother Hao was joking in a relaxed manner on the phone.

"What... do you mean?" Gu Weijing frowned.

"What I mean is - Mr. Gu, your cousin, Gu Lin, really owes me a lot of money. It's real money."

Brother Hao said quietly.

"You lent my sister money?"

Gu Weijing was stunned for a moment.

In the kidnapping video, Gu Lin was reading the words on a piece of paper, saying that she owed someone money and hoped that her family could pay it back for her, rather than demanding a ransom.

At that time, Gu Weijing just thought it was just a word game played by the kidnapping group.

He recalled that over the past few months, Gu Lin was indeed different from before.

impression.

She often holds her phone and scrolls through it, and in the evening she goes out to have dinner with her girlfriends, eats Japanese food, buys a new phone, and occasionally takes out cosmetics and lipstick from her bag...

Gu Weijing didn't think much about it at the time.

These things are very common in international schools. He had vaguely seen similar things at Koko's place before, so he was used to it and didn't pay much attention to them when he saw them.

Gu Weijing just thought that it was the New Year's money that Gu Lin had saved up in the past, or after she became an adult, her aunt and uncle gave her cousin more living expenses for socializing.

My aunt has always been a fan and supporter of the theory of raising sons in poverty and daughters in wealth.

At this moment, Brother Jinghao reminded me.

He suddenly felt something was wrong.

Koko used to have many bottles and jars like Gu Lin, but what was Miss Koko’s family background? What was their family background?
Even if her aunt and uncle were generous, it would be difficult for them to support Gu Lin to maintain the same spending level as other rich girls in the school.

Those little life changes have actually been happening for a long time.

It's just that Gu Weijing and Gu Lin are not very close in daily life, and they don't have much contact in school. In addition, boys are naturally not very sensitive to the prices of cosmetics and bags.

Even if I occasionally felt that something was not right, I would just think of it as something worth at most a few hundred thousand Myanmar Kyats, or a fake product from the clearance market, and casually put it out of my mind.

Therefore, he had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to all the things that were wrong with Gu Lin for such a long time.

In July, even after the rain, the temperature in the studio was still not cool.

Gu Weijing's body gradually became colder.

The cold was biting and chilling.

He felt it again. The man on the other end of the phone was staring at him with a dark gaze, like a cobra hissing and observing its prey.

How long has Brother Hao been staring at him like this?

How long had he been planning around his family? That feeling was so terrible, as if when I was a child, I watched vendors on the shallows of the Yangon River leading tourists to experience fishing with fishing nets.

He slowly and methodically lowered the fishing net into the water, slowly catching the fish in the water that were eating the broken bait, and the movement hardly caused any ripples on the water.

Just when the fish thought everything was the same as usual and were peacefully biting the gift that fell from the sky, there was a "swish" and the net bag was lifted up like lightning.

By the time they realized something was wrong, they had already been lifted out of the water. No matter how they struggled, it was all in vain.

Their family is the fish in Brother Hao’s net.

When the whole family felt that life was peaceful and they were preparing to board a plane to travel across the ocean to start a new life, Brother Hao closed his net.

But...is Gu Lin stupid?
Even if a minor has no concept of money, borrowing one million dollars to spend is really outrageous. How could she be so irrational as to dare to ask for such a large sum of money?
Even if you squander as much as you can and buy as many bags, lipsticks and luxury goods as you can, you've squandered a million dollars in just a few months?

This is also an incredible thing.

"She lent you one million dollars? Sorry, but I can't believe it." Gu Weijing took a deep breath.

Please.

This is one million dollars, enough to buy countless lives in this city!
During the Spring Festival, a bald man came to the door with a fruit plate and 88 Myanmar Kyats. Gu Weijing felt that the money was as hot as burning coal. It was a joy to take these people's money, but it might cost him his life in the future.

Gu Weijing couldn't believe that his sister would be so lacking in common sense.

He didn’t even dare to touch 880,000 Myanmar Kyats, but the other party dared to take Brother Hao’s one million dollars? ? ?

Miao Angwen held a debt of 10,000 US dollars from the loan company, and wanted to force Koko, a former young lady, to break up her family. Koko was such a proud person, and even though she knew she had good intentions, she was still overwhelmed by the money she took.

She said she couldn't afford such charity, so if she had to do something, she would give herself to him and be his prostitute.

Every time Gu Weijing thought of Koko's expression as she gritting her teeth, he felt very sad.

Even Miss Kokoo's father, Officer Dan, didn't feel happy when he saw the check Kokoo took out. Instead, he told her with red eyes that he could sell anything but his daughter.

This is the normal reaction when faced with such a large debt.

And that's a hundred times more.

People will die if they don’t breathe, they will die if they don’t drink water, and if they borrow some money... they will also die, or live a life worse than death.

It is not a question of greed or not, it is the most basic common sense of survival.

Gu Weijing couldn't believe that his cousin would be so lacking in common sense.

To put it bluntly.

If you throw ten dollars on the street in Yangon, it will be gone in a flash. If you throw a hundred dollars on the street, maybe people will get their brains knocked out. But who would put a million dollars on the street? Maybe it will still be there after an hour.

It's not that the security conditions here are so good that no one picks up things on the road and no one locks their doors at night, but the more chaotic the place is, the more survival wisdom people tend to have.

The money just sits there.

Ordinary people don’t dare to take it.

Even the beggars on the street may know that if they dare to touch this kind of money, they will die without knowing how.

So Gu Weijing really couldn’t understand...how all this happened.

but.

His intuition told him that what Brother Hao said might be true.

"Gambling, online gambling."

Koko said coldly.

She has always been a very smart girl.

A girl who comes from a family of senior police officers obviously knows more about the dark side of society.

Before in the bar, Koko was the first person to realize that the gun Uncle Alai was holding was a fake. Now, she was also the first person in the studio to realize the truth.

It is impossible to incur so much debt in such a short period of time.

Usually it can only be gambling.

A gambler who has lost all his money has no reason and no common sense.

Uncle Alai crossed his arms and stared at the phone in Gu Weijing's hand. His dark face did not fluctuate at all and no one knew what he was thinking.

"Ms. Koko, right?"

A man's faint laughter came from the receiver of the phone.

"A very lovely little girl. Say hello to Officer Dan for me. I'm sorry that all his years of preparation went to waste, but unfortunately, I can't express my regret."

Brother Hao said jokingly.

Koko sat upright, her legs lightly crossed, her face tense.

She wasn't afraid.

She is angry.

With Koko's personality, even if the person in front of her was a gangster godfather like Brother Hao, she would still bark her teeth and say a few words back. However, she glanced at Gu Weijing, hesitated for a moment, and just said lightly.

"Okay, I'll pass it on."

She thought the same as Gu Weijing.

Now that Gu Weijing's sister is in the hands of the other party, angering the other party is not a good choice.

Gu Weijing clenched his left hand into a fist in his sleeve.

He remembered the fishing and connect-the-dots apps he had seen on Gu Lin's phone, which made him feel uneasy.

What made Gu Weijing even more uneasy was that the other party seemed to know everything.

Brother Hao is like a spider weaving conspiracies in the shadows, as if nothing in this city can escape the web he has laid.

From the time their flight from Yangon took off, to who was sitting next to him when he made the call - Brother Hao knew everything, as if he was observing the fish tank on his desk.

"Ms. Koko is right, but Mr. Gu, you are wrong. I did not lend money to your cousin." Brother Hao said with a smile: "On the contrary, I just gave her money. Remember the party hosted by Miao Angwen? You didn't go, but your cousin went happily."

"At that party, Miao Angwen and your cousin exchanged some critical opinions about you in a very sympathetic manner. For example, your stinginess, your family's partiality, and saying that you robbed her of the life she should have. Hehe... After the criticism meeting, Miao Angwen took her to play some 'small games'. As a sign of concern and sympathy, he also gave her chips worth 600 US dollars, and then... everything started just like that, and it went smoothly with almost no setbacks."
-
"Win-win, lose-lose, win-win-lose, small losses, big wins... until two weeks ago, Gu Lin's account even had a balance of nearly $10. She also transferred 500 million kyats to your aunt and bought a cashmere scarf, saying that she earned it from her part-time tutoring job over the years."

"She probably thinks she's the god of gambling, right? It's so easy to make money, isn't it? Just a few swipes on the phone, and you can get more money than the whole family can earn from working hard for a month, or even a year. Maybe she wants to prove something. Our little Mr. Gu is so arrogant and self-righteous at home all day long, and grandpa always mentions you to everyone, as if you are the only precious grandson and the granddaughter is not worth mentioning. You can choose the university you want to go to, and your family is completely relieved. She must go to the UK with her parents."

In Xihe Guild Hall.

Brother Hao tilted his head, looked at the river outside the window, and speculated with interest: "It's really unfair, isn't it? She wants to prove that she is better than you. If it were me, I would feel jealous too, right? You signed a contract with a foreign gallery, and your whole family revolves around you, and your grandfather pampers you like he wants to praise you to the sky."

"How much is the signing fee given by the Metz Gallery? I want to prove that I am much better than you through my own 'hard work'." Brother Hao smiled and imitated Gu Lin's tone.

"I didn't say that. The person who kidnapped her told me that. That's roughly what I meant."

The middle-aged man picked up the teacup on the table and took a sip of water. "Every family has its own problems. The original families of great artists are always not happy, right, Mr. Gu? However, if you put yourself in her shoes, you can understand the girl's thoughts."

He continued to laugh.

Gu Weijing couldn't smile, his face seemed to be covered with a layer of ice.

"However, our Lady of Gamblers seems to have bad luck recently. She went from making hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit to owing 21,000 dollars in debt in just one night. Mr. Gu, given your family's original assets, the 'lending' company will not let her owe so much money. They can lend her 10,000 dollars, and then when she loses it all, they can come to her house to collect the debt with interest."

"Of course, I just said hello and continued to help her a little. So... a new round of win-win-lose-lose, lose-lose-win-win cycle began again. However, this time, no matter what game she played or what kind of betting method she used, she started with small losses and big wins, and turned into small wins and big losses."

Brother Hao was playing with the teacup lid in his hand.

Use the cup lid to hang on the steaming rim of the teacup.

"It's not quite accurate to say that she kept losing. There was one time when she won a hand on the 'Link the Kansas slot machine' and the profit was enough for her to pay off her debt. Miss Gu Lin did withdraw the money immediately and deleted all the gambling apps on her phone, but we all know that for people who are addicted to gambling, quitting gambling is only a fantasy."

"Three hours later, at 4:31 a.m., she started betting again. She was probably planning to take advantage of her good luck and win back all the money she lost, and then..."

The man shrugged and blew a breath of tea.

"Well, that's the situation now."

Brother Hao smiled.

"Brother Hao, you are worthy of being a tycoon in the underworld. You really have great means to do these things." Gu Weijing let out a deep breath.

"Angry."

"Do I dare to be angry?" Gu Weijing couldn't help but ask back.

"You are angry, Mr. Gu." Brother Hao shook his head. "I can hear that you are filled with anger. I understand how you feel, but Gu Weijing, if you think about it carefully, this is completely unnecessary."

"I told you that I will always give you the power to choose. You have two choices before you. By the way, Mr. Gu, do you know how many artists have gone bankrupt because of gambling, and how many people have been implicated by their family members' gambling?"

Brother Hao continued to laugh.

Gu Weijing did not answer.

"Remember that night when I called you and told you that you didn't respect me." The middle-aged man looked out the window and said to himself, "If I say that I am a nice guy who is used to being polite to others, then I am obviously lying."

"However, although I am not a polite person, I have always been very polite to you from the beginning to the end, right, Mr. Xiao Gu?"

"I didn't send anyone to kidnap you. No one poured a frying pan on your grandfather's face when he was out. No one shot a few bullet holes in the body of your old car that was waxed so well that it looked like a mirror. No one sent a bomb to your house, and no one skinned the cat named Awang and put it by your bed in the middle of the night."

"I have never done these things. This is my tolerance for you. As an artist, it is a good thing to have personality. I only did some things within the boundaries. The most severe warning I gave you before was just to push Miao Aung Win in the selection of the Art Association, that's all."

"I told you that if you want to be an artist, you will encounter this kind of insider trading everywhere in the world. In Yangon, there are insiders, in Tokyo, there are insiders, in New York, in London, in Paris, from the moment the art industry was born, it was tied to all kinds of insider and secretive transactions."

Brother Hao licked his lips.

"People call me the godfather of Yangon's underworld, but I am not the only one who is involved in insider trading. Lord Brown, the European pope who is so famous in the art world, is also involved in insider trading. The godfather, the pope, those on the stage and those off the stage, are all the same."

“That day, I told you that this is the reality you will have to face if you embark on the path of being an artist. If you can’t even accept this, it means you are too fragile to be an artist.”

“It’s not necessarily true that a fragile person cannot create good works, but in contemporary society, those who can climb to the pinnacle of success and fame in the art world must generally be strong enough, right?”

"Correct."

"This matter is exactly the same, isn't it?" Brother Hao asked back.

(End of this chapter)