Almighty painter

Chapter 752 Vulture
"You mean adaptation—"

Gu Weijing avoided Tonks's scrutinizing gaze. The young man stood beside the curator and looked at the night scene of Singapore.

"I guess it also includes adapting to the various challenges in front of the camera at the Esplanade?"

Tonks's blue eyes moved a few times alertly.

really.

The other party did hear some rumors in advance.

He answered vaguely: "Dealing with media interviews has always been a part of artistic life. An exhibition has a total of twelve parts from beginning to end. Although they theoretically exist around art, in fact only one or two of them are related to art itself. For the remaining ten parts, you have to deal with all kinds of people and all kinds of frustrations—"

"--Even if some people are more sharp-tongued, it happens all the time." Tonks said in an obscure tone.

A little sharper words?
Gu Weijing was very calm, as if the answer had already been written in his heart intactly, so he was not surprised at all.

He was standing by the balcony, with his head down, looking at the light below his feet without saying a word.

A moth emerged from the dark night sky, and not far in front of them, it drew an arc that seemed to be about to fall. After circling hesitantly, it chose to fly onto the lampshade of a chandelier on the left side of the balcony.

It spread its wings and hugged the light source tightly.

Gu Weijing clearly saw how, in less than two seconds, its gray-brown wings were carbonized and deformed by the high temperature, turned black, wrinkled and twisted, and then fell into the dark night sky.

A light brown mark was left on the hot glass.

The other overlapping brown marks on the lampshade, one or two half-broken and twisted wings, and the roasted and curled bodies of other smaller flying insects proved that the moth just now was not the only unfortunate one to suffer the torture of being burned in this hellfire.

The hotel was not far from the sea in a straight line. After he came to the balcony, the cool breeze unique to the seaside area was blowing in his hair.

In theory.

Gu Wei could smell nothing except the faint smell of sea salt with a slight damp smell through his mouth and nose.

One or two grams of protein and carbohydrates will be roasted dry, and the completely burnt smell will be quickly carried away by the wind and drift away.

But Gu Weijing still smelled a strong, nauseating smell of protein denaturation, like burning hair.

Staring at the center of the lamp not far away for a few seconds in a daze made Gu Weijing's eyes dry and astringent. A needle-like pain made him close his eyes quickly.

in the dark.

In the bright phantom of the light that still remained in his vision, the face of Anna Elena, who was sitting in a wheelchair and looking at him coldly, became extremely clear.

There was also the thirst for "beauty" that he felt when he looked away when they first met.

There is also the burnt body of the moth that was curled up.

The tendency to be attracted to light is an instinct that has been embedded in the genes of moths for millions of years.

The same is true for pursuing beauty.

Some people, when you look at them from afar, will make you feel the power of joy and will involuntarily want to get closer. However, if you spread your wings and get close to them, you will be ruthlessly destroyed by the associated high temperature in the next moment, leaving only twisted remains.

Gu Weijing recalled the first scene of their meeting.

Miss Irena came to him through the crowd and held out her hand to him.

"Hello, little painter."

In my memory, those bright chestnut eyes were so full and sparkling, like the stamens of a blooming flower, or like the crystal lens outside the filament of a spotlight, which could ignite all the moths in the world that were flying towards fame and fortune in mid-air.

In this exceptionally beautiful look.

Gu Weijing smelled the bitter smell of something burning, and heard the sound of wings being burned and turned black and twisted.

"Beep!"

A very clear auditory hallucination.

"Hello, Gu Weijing, you are the moth."

……

A butterfly flapped its wings once in the woods.

Finally one day.

He found a flower, and in the butterfly's wide color range visual presentation, it was so beautiful and bright that it looked like an incredible phantom light.

He flew closer and closer, until one day, he flew in front of the other party and circled around it. After analysis, he felt that this bright flower did not seem to be a real flower. It was probably a colorful fly lamp carefully set up by the hunter.

thus.

He hesitated.

And he thought he had discovered the truth.
-
Singapore.

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, 21 Shelford Road.

The red-roofed villas are hidden among the surrounding shrubs. Ever since the British set up a nature sanatorium on Bukit Timah Hill more than a hundred years ago, this area has been one of the richest areas in Singapore with the highest average land prices, and is deeply loved by local and Malaysian and Indonesian wealthy businessmen.

A taxi stopped in front of the villa.

The door opens.

The visitor got out of the car. He looked to be around 30 years old and was wearing a gray-blue T-shirt that could be seen everywhere. Even in the car, he was wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball cap. The baseball cap covered the part above his brow line, while the part below the bridge of his nose was covered by a dark mask.

He stood there, with only a little skin on the sides of his eyes exposed, and he was wearing a pair of large thick-framed sunglasses to cover it.

If this happened in the United States, such a secretive person who wrapped himself up tightly in the middle of summer would appear in a wealthy area at night. Someone who saw this might have secretly called the police.

Fortunately, the security situation in Singapore is indeed very good.

The probability of burglary and robbery is very low.

The taxi driver who brought him here would occasionally glance at the passenger in the back seat through the rearview mirror, wondering in his heart whether the passenger was some unknown little star in Southeast Asia or something.

The visitor stopped in front of the villa's door. Without wasting too much time, he glanced at the house number next to him and then pressed the electronic answering machine in front of the gate.

He spoke a few words into the answering machine, took off his sunglasses, and pulled his mask down a little so that the camera in front of the door could capture his face.

Ten seconds later.

The door opened and he walked in.

……

"Hey, don't touch this, these are just papers. Paper? OK?"

When entering the villa, the visitor was checked again, and someone who was either a Filipino maid or a security guard took away his electronic products and mobile phone.

The visitor knows that the owner of this room does not want any audio or video recordings of this meeting to be left as evidence.

He hadn't planned to do this in the first place. The person he wanted to meet wasn't some second- or third-rate celebrity. He learned a little about the other party's background, but not in depth, just checking the entry on Wikipedia.

Just by taking a look at his personal Wikipedia entry, he realized that the risk of blackmailing such a person was too high and too uncontrollable, and he would not lose his mind for money.

But he didn't hate the other party for being on guard against him like a thief. He liked the other party's caution.

In a sense, he is a "small thief". Prudence is a good virtue in transactions, which can avoid a lot of unnecessary troubles, both for employers and employees like him.

Employers don't like careless subordinates.

He also disliked imprudent employers.

and so.

The visitor was very cooperative until the other party wanted to open the brown paper bag he brought, then he shook his head and refused for the first time.

He held the file bag tightly and shook it back and forth in front of the other person repeatedly, indicating that there were only some documents in it.

The other party hesitated for a moment, and finally gave in. He stepped back, allowing him to put on his shoe covers and enter the entrance of the room.

The decoration inside the villa is surprisingly simple.

It's a very simple French modernist decoration style, without those complicated octopus-style chandeliers. It's dominated by a milky white main tone, matched with solid wood furniture with an original wood texture. In the corner of the living room grows a tiger tail orchid that's more than one meter tall.

It feels cheap, but it is definitely not cheap.

But it was very different from the man's imagination of a wealthy and powerful family with a magnificent and splendid home.

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The TV in the living room was on, and the screen was showing a program interpreting public opinion forecasts for the Malaysian general election.

There was a bottle of whiskey on the table.

The cork of the whiskey bottle had been opened, and there were several clean glasses on the tray next to it. A middle-aged smoker was sitting on the sofa, facing the TV, pouring tobacco from a round aluminum tobacco box. Next to him was an exquisite sandalwood pipe.

"Take a seat. If you want to drink, please feel free."

Said the middle-aged man with a quiet temperament.

"Okay, okay." The visitor was not polite and sat down on the sofa next to him. He grabbed a whiskey glass from the table, picked up the bottle next to it, took a look at it, and uttered an exclamation of admiration.

"What a great wine! Mr. Liu is so generous. Thank you very much."

"You're welcome."

The middle-aged man asked casually without even looking up, "What's your name? We can't call you 'Five-Eyed Four-Eared God', can we? To be honest, this name sounds like a character from a children's cartoon."

"It's up to you. If you don't want to, you can call me Basong in private."

The visitor casually gave a Thai name whose authenticity was unknown.

"Mr. Liu, this kind of business is not common. I usually only accept orders from Thailand, and occasionally from Malaysia. Yangon... this is the first time. Myanmar is not a stable place nowadays. Besides, I have done the work of digging up the dirty laundry of singers and actors, but it is rare to come across someone digging up dirt on an 18-year-old painter--"

He sounded somewhat familiar.

"But others say that you are the best and fastest in this field in Southeast Asia." The middle-aged man's tone had the aura of someone who has been pampered for many years.

"That's right." Basong smiled.

"Not only am I the best and fastest, but the best part is, I'm the most reliable."

"If you want to buy political secrets or enrich uranium, you may have to find 007 or Ethan Hunt. But if you want to get gossip about someone, please find me, Basong. In this line of work, Ethan Hunt is just a layman in front of me. They don't know how to uncover the real secrets, and they don't know how to approach the nannies and maids in the stars' homes..."

"The money is in the bag, the white one."

Mr. Liu interrupted the other party directly.

As expected, Basong pulled out a white handbag from the side of the sofa, which was full of bundles of US dollars.

He stopped drinking.

He pulled a bundle of bills out of the bag, felt the texture of the coins, and cheered softly.

"Do you need a money counting machine? I thought you people in this business would like to take some Bitcoins or something. I can take out so much cash, but won't there be problems at the entry and exit customs?" the middle-aged man asked curiously.

"Some people do, but I am old-fashioned and prefer cash transactions. It is old-fashioned but reliable. The US dollar is the best, Franklin, my eternal friend."

Basong smiled and indicated that he had his own special channel.

"There's no need for a money counting machine. I believe the son of the shipping tycoon would not look down upon such small amounts of money."

That being said it is a compliment.

The visitor simply opened the bundle and counted the bills one by one.

Liu Ziming finally filled the pipe with tobacco, used a small cleaning rod next to him to clear the pipe, put the pipe and pipe together, and did not rush to light it, but put it aside.

He muted the policy analysis column on the TV screen, took the file bag brought by Basong, and unsealed the rope.

The documents slipped out of the brown paper bag and scattered between the middle-aged man's legs.

The first page is a large photo of Gu Weijing on the Fitz International School student ID card.

Liu Ziming looked at the young man in the photo for a few seconds, then he picked up the document from between his legs.

Gu Weijing's eighteen years of life so far have been read through by the middle-aged man's fingertips.

Let the secret out.
-
If Gu Weijing, who was attending a dinner at the Raffles Hotel, knew the existence of the set of documents that Liu Ziming was reading, he would probably be so shocked that he would be speechless.

Proof of matriculation.

Teacher comments.

Records of participation in social activities.

The newspaper reported on his interview with the children in the orphanage.

What his classmates think of him.

Photos of various works he created during his school years.

……

His life trajectory over the past eighteen years, and even his "love life", can almost be completely restored through this set of documents.

This is the vastness of Basong’s magical powers.

He is neither Bond nor the spy agent played by Tom Cruise.

He is a vulture.

Vultures are a special kind of eagle. They live in groups of three or five and are extremely patient. They can circle over the grassland waiting for injured and dying animals for hours until the moment they fall down, then they fall to the ground and peck at their rotting and decaying bodies.

In the cultural industry, vultures often refer to two specific types of people.

Vulture reporter or vulture lawyer.

There is a natural similarity between journalists and lawyers. There is always a lack of truly brave and noble practitioners who go deep into the dark side of society and bring light. Similarly, this industry will always have people like vultures who also go deep into the dark side of society and peck at the darkness, enjoying a gluttonous feast in the darkness, living on carrion and making up lies.

Lives by eating carrion and making up lies.

And Basong.

He is the latter.

(End of this chapter)