Almighty painter

Chapter 663 TickTickTick
“Instead of waiting ten years later when things get out of hand, it’s better to think about many decisions now when you have your first choice.”

"Families of gamblers always face the situation of 'paying off the money will end it' again and again. Every sum of money seems to be stuck at the limit of what can be tolerated, and then it goes on and on."

Brother Hao put out the cigarette in the ashtray.

"Borrowed $980,000 and paid back $1 million? This is the only good thing that will happen to Gu Lin once in her life. The interest-free loans provided by the Bush administration to small and medium-sized enterprises after the financial crisis cost more than this. By then, no one will calculate all the debts like I do and then clearly present them to you. The normal operating procedure is that these debts will be split into small amounts. Do you think Miss Gu Lin dares to tell her family how much she owes?"

"No, she doesn't even dare to know how much money she owes."

"At most, she would only tell you that she owed $100, or $ at most. And if someone who is carrying a gambling debt of $ million gets $, will the first thing that comes to her mind be to pay back as much as she can and reduce the debt to $? Or will she be ready to take another gamble and see if she can win a big one, and if successful, she will suddenly turn her life around?"

Hao added in a joking tone, "You know the answer, right?"

"In fact, her idea is not unreasonable. Normally, the interest rate of underground banks is 10 to percentage points... every day. Those who can charge percentage points a week are considered to have a conscience. Even if she really paid back $, it would be a drop in the bucket and not even enough to pay the interest. The bank wants you to have no other possibility of paying back the money except to continue gambling in the casino."

"This 100 million will quickly become 200 million, 300 million, 400 million. In the end, the number of debts doesn't matter anymore. It's a bottomless pit anyway. People only care about how much money they can suck out of you."

The middle-aged man let out a long breath.

"Do you think I'm kidding you when I say I can feed you for the rest of your life with one million?"

"Even if it was the first time, and you calculated out all the money and paid it off, and really gave her one million dollars, are you really sure that when she sees that much money in her account, she will be able to resist the urge to cosplay as the God of Gamblers again, to make back all the money she put in with interest, and then quit her job? Isn't it scarier the more you think about it, and the more you think about it, the more you feel that giving up is the right choice?"

Brother Hao asked with interest into the receiver, as if he wanted to observe the young man's reaction at the moment.

Gu Weijing also took a deep breath.

He still didn't say anything, just listened to the voice on the speaker of his phone.

"I don't think it's likely that she'll turn things around. Friendly reminder, Gu Lin went from big wins to small losses to big losses and small wins. The change was indeed because I had someone secretly change the odds in the background... Well, I raised her chances of winning at the beginning, which is why she had a balance of over 100,000 yuan in her account at the beginning."

The man laughed softly.

"As for the rest, technically speaking, she really played a fair game, and then, she lost everything, just like the vast majority of gamblers who lingered in the casino."

"In other words, you win money by cheating and lose money by real ability."

"It's not surprising. My sister is just an ordinary high school student. It's normal for her to lose control of herself after encountering the trap you set."

Gu Weijing spoke slowly, he seemed to have regained his composure.

Brother Hao frowned.

He expected a reaction from Gu Weijing, but not this kind of reaction.

He expected Gu Weijing to calm down, but not this kind of calmness.

In the middle-aged man's imagination, the tone of the young man on the other end of the phone will inevitably carry the painful struggle after realizing the seriousness of the matter being considered.

Or cold, or resentful... or that kind of silent, bleak sadness.

No matter which one.

No matter it is as fierce as fire or as cold as ice.

Brother Hao will be able to see the surging emotions flowing silently, appreciate a person's transformation under heavy pressure, and his struggle under the constraints of the thin thread of fate.

He believed in his ability to read people's minds.

Reading people's minds is actually like reading a work of art.

Some people are dull by nature, perhaps because they are covered by the sand of life and have lost the touch of their hearts.

Even if they open an art magazine, they will only stare at the zeros of the transaction amount at the bottom of the album.

With enough zeros, they excitedly declared it to be a great epic painting.

There are so few zeros that they just shrug it off.

There are also some people who, the more they are exposed to wind and rain, the smoother their surface becomes after being polished by sand and gravel.

They are like a mirror, able to reflect the most intense and frenzied emotions from the calmest and coldest brushstrokes, as if standing under the lonely and cold night sky, with no one around, but the third movement of Beethoven's boiling and passionate "Moonlight Sonata" ringing in their ears.

The allegro piano sound crashed into the ground like a river from the sky, splashing thousands of water splashes in the heart.

The difference between these two types of people is not wealth, status, or whether they can wear a suit and tie and be elegant in entering and leaving the annual social cocktail party held by Christie's auction house for high-end players.

Some of them are nonsense that critics and scholars write in newspapers day after day, even though they themselves don't believe in it.

Some collectors speculate in art, stocks, and Bitcoin. Every day, they stare at various appreciation curves, buyers' guides on major well-known websites, and various transaction price lists of galleries, looking at them word by word and number by number with a magnifying glass.

Year after year, they spend huge sums of money at auction houses, make hundreds of calls to auction consultants, and are busy researching the investment prospects of various major artists.

Mondrian, Edward Hopper, Picasso...these names appeared over and over again in their mouths, as familiar as if they were talking about close friends.

But these names mean no more to collectors than the S&P 500, Saudi Aramco, and Berkshire Hathaway do to stock market investors.

Do investors fall in love with the S&P 500 Index because they mention it so often?

Collectors buy these "names" on the trading market, display them at home, or put them in bank safe deposit boxes and keep them for a few years.

The market is rising, sell happily.

The market fell, and people cried and cursed the investment advisors, buyer magazines, auction houses and the painters' ancestors for eighteen generations.

Artworks are merely objects of transition between buying and selling.

They hung oil paintings all over their living rooms to show off their taste and wealth to the guests who came and went.

day after day.

Oil paintings are seen by collectors every day, but collectors have never looked at oil paintings seriously.

He purchased it but never owned it.

Some are ordinary people - they are white-collar workers without artistic training, street cleaners, or even beggars, lunatics, and mentally ill people.

An insignificant little person, by chance, stumbles into an insignificant art exhibition.

suddenly.

I burst into tears.

They don't understand what "point, line, and plane" art is, what is the difference between concrete art and abstract art, what is a decorative work... They may never have heard of Henri Rousseau, Albert Marquette or Kandinsky in their entire lives.

These people don't even understand what the words on the signboard next to the exhibition stand mean.

They just opened their mouths and said--

"what."

They didn't understand anything.

They understood everything again.

Can you afford to buy art? Can you speak confidently in front of the media? Can you get a share of the rising tide of art?

Whether you can buy them or not is related to your status and your wealth.

Whether you can understand works of art and whether you can own them depends solely on whether you have a heart that is strong enough to reflect the spark of the works of art.

What does it take to touch the moonlight?
Maybe $300 billion, a Saturn V rocket, an Apollo spacecraft.

Maybe……

Just a bowl of water on the windowsill.

……

The same principle applies to reading a person. Perhaps you need extremely rich psychological theories as a foundation, or perhaps you just need a keen mind.

For example, Lao Yang.

Lao Yang is rustic, greasy and likes to pretentious, but at certain times, he is indeed very clever, as if possessed by a dog's nose.

Before others could react, he had already started licking it, making a "woof woof woof" sound.

For example, middle-aged men.

Keen insight is a gift that Haoge is almost born with.

He discovered a long time ago that he could easily see through the little thoughts that people deliberately hid in their hearts, just like a magician who could always guess the numbers on the playing cards drawn by the audience.

Such talent makes Brother Hao always feel at ease at the negotiating table, allowing him to move freely between corrupt officials and military leaders from all over the country.

Someone was pointing a gun at his head, but he was shaking with fear.

Someone raised a glass with him at the table, but there was a sinister look in his eyes.

When you can read people's minds and see through those who appear to be powerful but are actually weak and those who say one thing but mean another, it's like playing an open-card game with hidden cards on the gambling table.

He can see other people's cards, but others don't know his cards.

For him, the world has become a game in easy mode.

Tonight, this "card game" has always been firmly in Brother Hao's hands.

Gu Weijing may be an interesting young man.

He is one of the few people who does not always follow Hao Ge's will. But this is interesting, and this is what an "Artist" is all about.

Outstanding puppets with spirit and self-will do not always listen to the words of fate, the puppeteer, like those dull, clumsy and lifeless puppets.

Sometimes, you raise your arm and it moves its legs.

If you lift your leg, it will tilt its head.

It doesn't matter.

Just a reaction is good.

Brother Hao believes that one day he will be able to figure out the logic behind Gu Weijing's behavior and make him dance along with his fingertips.

But suddenly...

This "cool" little doll doesn't move. No matter how you pull its arms or lift its legs, it just stands there and looks at you silently and calmly.

No matter whether Gu Weijing showed anger, indifference, or the desolation after suffering a blow today.

Whether he chooses to help his cousin, or make Gu Lin disappear, or even proposes other ways to negotiate with Brother Hao, Brother Hao can accept it.

I'm not afraid of making conditions, I'm afraid of not having any requirements.

I am not afraid of playing small, I am just afraid of not getting to the table.

As for negotiation, as long as the young man opposite has a request, many things can be discussed between you and me.

Count Dolokhov also started playing with one ruble and ended up losing his entire estate.

Only.

This kind of calmness of Gu Weijing.

Suddenly, Brother Hao was a little confused.

"What do you mean by an ordinary high school student? You can still be called an ordinary high school student if you can lose a million dollars. Mr. Gu, okay, I may believe that you are a person who regards money as dirt. I may also be willing to believe that you may think that family ties are more important than anything else."

"Let's take a step back and say that money is a bastard. You saved Gu Lin, but if you exchanged Gu Lin back, can you gain family affection?"

Brother Hao thought that Gu Weijing still didn't quite understand what he meant, so he quickened his tone impatiently, "No, gamblers don't have family affection. You saved Gu Lin, and I believe that Gu Lin must be grateful to you at this moment, and must be thinking of your kindness. But if one day, you suddenly don't want to save her anymore, you will be her enemy."

"Do you think it's the underground banks that will blackmail you to pay back the money? No, no, no, the underground banks are not that stupid. They are unwilling to use violent means to put pressure on a successful painter. They will only put pressure on Gu Lin, and it's Gu Lin who will blackmail you to pay back the money."

"If you ignore her, she will beg you. If you continue to ignore her, she will kowtow to you. If you still don't want to pay attention to her, she will blackmail you. She will go to the gallery to make a scene, she will go to the art exhibition to make a scene, she will go to Miss Sakai's art exhibition to make a scene, she will go to the media to spread negative information about you, just to ask you for money."

"Money, money, money. You can't talk about family affection with someone who is so desperate. The only thing that matters is money."

Brother Hao waved his hand vigorously.

"You see, when everything was normal, Gu Lin would complain to Miao Angwen about how biased her family was towards her and that she had robbed her of the life she deserved. When she lost money, she told the kidnappers not to hurt her. Her brother and grandfather had signed a contract with a big gallery and they were very powerful. My brother's girlfriend was a rich lady. As long as they were given enough time, they would be able to raise the money."

"She even said that Lian Hao has taken a fancy to my brother. If he contacts Hao, you will all be in trouble!"

Brother Hao waved his arms vigorously.

"Do you want me to have someone record a video so you can see her speech?"

He sneered, "Brother Lian Hao has taken a fancy to my brother! What's that? Should I praise her for being smart, or is it some kind of flash of inspiration from someone who has lost all hope?"

"She can only remember your kindness when she needs you. She complained to others today that you robbed her of her life. Mr. Gu, believe it or not, one day on TV, she will be the one who talks about your entanglement with the underworld just to blackmail you for a little money?"

"Mr. Gu, do you think that just because you spent a million dollars today, you can make Gu Lin appreciate your kindness? You are wrong. She will feel ashamed at first, but later she will just think it is her due. Anyway, you have so much money, why not give her some."

“These… are all real things. The previous “Elena NFT Trading Platform” was the blackmail letter that Mr. Kara sent to her niece. ”

Brother Hao said dimly, "Don't even mention a million dollars. Miss Irina paid nearly 10 million euros back to her uncle. Do you think she will be grateful to him? Don't be ridiculous. He is the person in the world who most hopes that she will die. If Miss Irina is alive, he can only get 7 or 8 million euros. If Miss Irina dies, he can get billions of euros! But what's the use of getting billions of euros?"

"In three years, five years, or at most ten years, the wealth of the Elena family will disappear from the world. In the 19th century, countless ancient families in Europe disappeared in history in this way. We are lucky to have survived for two hundred years."

"So, Mr. Gu, don't you understand? From the perspective of wealth, gambling is much more terrible than drugs. A million dollars' worth of drugs is enough to kill a person several times. But gambling will completely destroy a person's view of money, whether you have 500 yuan or 5 billion yuan in your pocket. The outcome is the same. You are bound to lose. The so-called family affection is just the first chip put on the table when a person is turning into a non-human."

"During such a long phone conversation, it seemed that you really wanted me to leave Gu Lin alone?" Gu Weijing suddenly asked.

"No, I just hope that before you make a choice, you can clearly realize what each choice you make means."

The middle-aged man replied coldly.

The phone fell silent.

For about half a minute, neither of them spoke.

Until Brother Hao coughed again.

"cough."

Gu Weijing didn't give him the response he wanted. He seemed unwilling to wait any longer. His cough interrupted the calmness, and he immediately said, "If you decide to save Gu Lin, then I'm willing to do you a favor."

"The conditions I offered you before are still valid. Draw a picture for me, with no restrictions on subject matter and type, and let's be friends." Hao Ge paused, "Not only can you solve this matter and write off her debt, I am even willing to give you a check worth three million US dollars, as an extra."

"I have always been an exceptionally generous person to my friends."

"What if I don't want to save you?"

"If you don't want to save him... I'm still willing to do you a favor." The man had an unfathomable smile on his face, "Then you won't have to worry about Gu Lin's troubles anymore."

Gu Weijing fell silent again.

"Don't worry, call me when you have thought it through."

Brother Hao looked out the window.

The sun had completely disappeared from the horizon. It was not completely dark, but the sky was dim and gloomy. The moon after the rain looked like the debris of reed catkins, or like a drop of wet tear on white rice paper.

The half cup of tea that Brother Hao had placed on the windowsill had not even cooled down yet. The hot vapor was emanating from the teacup and condensed into a layer of mist on the glass.

The mist in front of him was like the cigarette smoke from the stove behind him, smearing the man's appearance - both his back view and his reflection in the glass - into a dark and hazy look.

"Tick, tick, tick (note)... Time is passing. The plane to Singapore for the art exhibition will take off soon. Please don't make me wait too long, Mr. Gu."

The man said and hung up the phone.

(Note: Use your mouth to imitate the ticking sound of the second hand of an alarm clock.)
……

Miss Koko, who was lying on the table, raised her head. She wanted to see something from Gu Weijing's expression at the moment.

In those bright and clear pupils, Gu Weijing's figure was as calm as a marble statue.
-
『Time: Night of June 2023.6.25, 』

"Time remaining until departure of flight to Singapore: +123 hours, 50 minutes and 16 seconds"

The light blue Lexus four-wheel drive SUV stopped in front of Gu's calligraphy and painting shop.

The bodyguard lady who was driving pushed the cars aside and got out first, even though Brother Hao had assured her on the phone that nothing would happen to Miss Sakai in Yangon.

She first carefully glanced around the calligraphy and painting shop before opening the car door and letting Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko get out of the back seat.

Gu Weijing followed the female bodyguard into the door of the calligraphy and painting shop.

Almost all the lights in the house were on. Unpacked luggage, half-packed crates, and all kinds of messy tapes and plastic bags were thrown haphazardly on the ground.

"Mom, Gu Weijing's place——"

When Miss Sakai entered the room, she saw her mother and ran over immediately.

The woman in high heels pulled her daughter into her arms, patted her junior gently, and consoled her: "It's okay, Shengzi, it's okay, it will all be solved."

The chubby, iconic fat uncle next to the blonde aunt, who almost took up half of the sofa, turned his gaze to Gu Weijing and nodded slightly at him.

"Hello, Mr. Sakai."

When he just got off the car, Gu Weijing saw a black Mercedes-Benz S600 parked in the yard and guessed that Mrs. Sakai was coming.

did not expect.

Even the fat uncle came along.

Kazunari Sakai looked at the young man, and he opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something to comfort him like his wife.

finally.

He just shook his belly and sighed.

"Ah~ This matter, ah."

"I have borrowed a private plane that can seat up to ten people. It will land at Yangon International Airport in less than an hour. Taking into account the time for refueling, preparation and applying for routes, it can take off again at the latest in the early morning. If something goes wrong, or..."

Kazunari Sakai paused for a moment and said, "We can all go together at any time. I have also contacted the government officials in Yangon who were in charge of the Shwedagon Pagoda project. As for the rest, I don't know what I can do."

"Thank you for your help." Gu Weijing nodded gratefully.

"Well, the old man and your aunt are in the inner room." Kazunari Sakai pointed to the inner hall of the calligraphy and painting shop.

Gu Weijing pushed the door and walked in.

As soon as he entered the door, he smelled a very strong smell of smoke, which was so choking that he couldn't help but cough slightly.

(End of this chapter)