The Art of Teasing - Chapter 40
Chapter 40
Wen Zhengyu didn't immediately agree to authenticate the antique painting for Ye Ling. She said, "I'm not sure if CEO Ye is free to meet right now. I'd like to understand the situation first."
Ye Ling replied, "Alright." She asked, "Are you at the art studio?"
Wen Zhengyu said, "I am."
Ye Ling said, "Good. I'll come pick you up. About half an hour."
Wen Zhengyu answered, "Okay. See you soon."
She hung up, got out of bed to wash up, applied light makeup, and brewed another cup of coffee.
When Ye Ling arrived downstairs, she called Wen Zhengyu.
Wen Zhengyu carried her bag downstairs and got into Ye Ling's car. She asked, "Is time tight?"
Ye Ling said, "Yes. My flight back to Beijing is at six this evening. I originally asked Old Master Li from Clearwater Alley to authenticate the painting for me, but I just received a call from his wife saying the old gentleman suddenly felt unwell this morning and was taken to the hospital. He's been admitted." She smiled. "Among those I can reach who are proficient in antiques, calligraphy, and painting, and who are close by, there's only you and Old Master Wen."
Wen Zhengyu asked, "What kind of painting is it? Who is it for?"
Ye Ling said, "He was my grandfather's closest friend. Last year, when my grandfather passed away, my brother and I encountered considerable difficulties. Fortunately, he looked after us, and everything turned out safely in the end. This trip back is mainly to celebrate his birthday. The painting I commissioned is Yi Yuanji's Two Apes."
Wen Zhengyu nodded slightly. Yi Yuanji was a very famous meticulous brushwork painter of the Northern Song dynasty. He possessed immense painting talent, a truly versatile figure. He painted flowers, birds, grasses, insects, fruits, vegetables, tigers, wolves, cats, and dogs, producing a vast number of paintings throughout his life. His greatest renown came from painting gibbons and deer, earning him the title of the foremost painter of monkeys in history. When Emperor Yingzong of Song built his palace, he summoned Yi Yuanji to the palace to paint screens of flowers, birds, and beasts, and later summoned him again to paint the Hundred Gibbons Scroll. The painting was never completed; the man died suddenly in the palace, with theories about his death numerous and contradictory. She then asked, "Who is selling the painting?"
Ye Ling said, "The contact is Xu Xiangling from Jiguzhai Antique Studio."
Upon hearing this, Wen Zhengyu couldn't help but widen her eyes and turn her head to glance at Ye Ling.
Ye Ling noticed the odd reaction and asked, "Is there a problem?"
Wen Zhengyu said expressionlessly, "No."
Ye Ling thought to herself: "No, my foot." She said, "Zhengyu, if you have something to say, please speak plainly."
Wen Zhengyu found it awkward to tell Ye Ling that Jiguzhai's forgery techniques had long since reached a level where the fake was indistinguishable from the real, where truth and falsehood were impossible to separate. Antiques that came out of Jiguzhai required extreme caution.
Even without Wen Zhengyu saying it, Ye Ling could guess. In the antiques trade, those were the things one had to be wary of. Seeing Wen Zhengyu's reaction, Ye Ling knew that Wen Zhengyu was quite familiar with Jiguzhai.
Lately, Wen Zhengyu had been busy, and Ye Ling had also been busy. It had been a long time since they had sat so close together. From the moment Wen Zhengyu got into the car, Ye Ling could see she had lost more weight. Wen Zhengyu's waist was so slender it could be spanned with a single hand, her chin pointed and delicate, her face showing not a trace of excess flesh. When Ye Ling first met Wen Zhengyu, although she had been slender and fragile in appearance, she had possessed a quality akin to the round luster of pearls and jade. The Wen Zhengyu now, in a tailored dress and a small suit jacket, though carrying an air of greater efficiency, with that slender waist and slim legs, set off by skin so pale it was almost transparent, made her seem even more frail. It made Ye Ling worry that if Wen Zhengyu kept losing weight like this, one gentle squeeze might shatter her like a piece of porcelain.
Wen Zhengyu hadn't slept all night. The car was very quiet. Within minutes, she felt drowsiness wash over her again. Thinking there was still some distance to Jiguzhai, she closed her eyes to rest and unknowingly fell asleep.
Seeing Wen Zhengyu's head resting on the seat back, fast asleep, Ye Ling picked up a blanket and gently draped it over her.
In a haze, Wen Zhengyu found herself walking into that club again.
Dim lighting, a long corridor, luxuriously decorated private rooms lining both sides, neatly uniformed attendants standing rigidly at the doors of the private rooms. The walls of the corridor twisted and warped, revealing countless corpses embedded within them. Those corpses twisted together, raising their heads, stretching out their hands, screaming as they clawed at the people walking through the corridor. The corridor, the private rooms, were filled with the stench of decay.
One private room door stood wide open. Inside, a hideous demon was pinning a woman down on a coffee table, doing unspeakable things.
She stood frozen in place, watching everything around her, feeling as if the sky spun and the earth shook, as if storms and clouds were shifting.
She knew she shouldn't be here. There was nothing here she wanted to see. But she didn't know why she was here.
Suddenly, from the ceiling of the corridor, money began to drift out. The money then transformed into streams of blood that poured down upon her.
Countless bills, money blotting out the sky, drifted down from the ceiling in a fluttering cascade. Countless demons burst from the private rooms on both sides, lunging toward the falling money.
The money turned to blood, then ignited, burning the demons that had lunged for it along with itself.
The corpses on the walls all transformed into her paintings. The paintings all began to burn.
Her paintings.
She watched as her paintings burned one by one, turning to ash that drifted away into nothingness.
As the paintings burned, the Kunlun Divine Mountain crumbled in response, shattering into countless fragments that drifted into the boundless, infinite expanse of the starry cosmos.
The Kunlun Divine Mountain collapsed, shattered, and she, too, died along with it—
"Zhengyu."
"Zhengyu."
A woman's voice called out from the darkness, pulling her back from death. She followed the voice, drifting, and then in an instant, traversing ten thousand miles. When she opened her eyes again, she saw light, and then she realized it was Ye Ling appearing before her.
Wen Zhengyu was dazed for a moment before remembering she had come with Ye Ling to look at a painting.
Ye Ling said, "We're here."
Wen Zhengyu made a sound of acknowledgment. The sudden wakening seemed to bring a fleeting clarity to her mind. For a brief instant, her thoughts seemed detached from the mortal world, while simultaneously, a vast rush of ideas flooded her mind's eye. In that one moment, she felt a glimmer of understanding.
She wanted to paint. She needed to earn money to support the family, but most importantly, she needed to reassess her life plans and find a path suitable for herself—a path she could only walk independently, relying solely on herself. She and Wen Li had grown up together. Wen Li understood her personality. Wen Li taking her out to socialize was not necessarily intended to push her down such a path. Taking her out allowed her to broaden her perspective, to interact with and understand the outside world better, so that she could use it as a reference.
Ye Ling took out a bottle of mineral water she kept in the car, twisted off the cap, and handed it to Wen Zhengyu, saying, "Have some water."
Wen Zhengyu took the water, drank two sips, and said to Ye Ling, "Thank you." Then, with an apologetic tone, she added, "Sorry, I fell asleep just now."
Ye Ling chuckled softly and said, "It's fine. It's good that you can sleep peacefully beside me."
Wen Zhengyu: "..." She silently glanced at Ye Ling and extended her hand toward Ye Ling, saying, "CEO Ye, the bottle cap."
Ye Ling placed the cap into Wen Zhengyu's palm.
Wen Zhengyu didn't know if it was intentional or accidental, but the tip of Ye Ling's finger lightly brushed across her palm. The sensation was like being gently grazed by a feather. Subconsciously, her gaze flicked to Ye Ling's hand. Only then did she notice how neatly trimmed and clean Ye Ling's fingernails were, how her fingertips were as smoothly rounded as pearls and jade, her fingers long, slender, and well-proportioned—very beautiful.
She screwed the cap back on, picked up her bag, and entered Jiguzhai with Ye Ling.
As soon as the two of them entered Jiguzhai, Xu Xiangling came out to greet them, all smiles.
Wen Zhengyu and Ye Ling's assistant, Dong Yuan, accompanied Ye Ling into the meeting room, while Ye Ling's bodyguards remained outside.
Wen Zhengyu had dealt with Xu Xiangling a few times before.
She had grown up by the side of her paternal grandparents and was deeply influenced by them. As a child, she followed her grandfather like a little attendant. Her grandfather took her to look at antiques, calligraphy, and paintings, unknowingly teaching her a great deal. As a student of painting, she naturally couldn't avoid copying the works of ancient masters, which meant she had extensive exposure.
Before long, Xu Xiangling brought out the painting.
Wen Zhengyu put on gloves and carefully unrolled the painting, seeing it was indeed Yi Yuanji's Two Apes.
Yi Yuanji often ventured deep into the mountains of Jinghu, living among monkeys, observing and contemplating the living habits of wild gibbons and apes. The gibbons he painted were vivid and lifelike, possessing immense agility and vitality. Like the painting before her, the brushwork was incredibly meticulous, finely detailing the gibbon's fur, its clever and nimble movements, and its remarkably expressive countenance. The artistic conception reached the heart directly through the eyes. The lifelike quality that rushed forth gave Wen Zhengyu the feeling of traveling back through a millennium to witness the glory of ancient apes reborn.
His signature was often placed among the trees and rocks.
Wen Zhengyu's habit of hiding little sprites within mountain rocks, vegetation, and trees was influenced by this.
This painting was executed on Xuan paper, not silk. Xuan paper is a multi-layered paper. Low-quality Xuan paper can be peeled apart into two or three layers; good Xuan paper can be separated into eight or nine layers, sometimes even more. Some highly skilled scroll-mounting masters and forgery experts would take an acquired painting and peel it apart to create two or even multiple paintings. The separated painting would have its colors fade, but after a painter retouched it and then underwent an aging treatment, it could be made to look indistinguishable from the original. Such a painting, having been split and remounted, contains portions of the original authentic work itself, often making it impossible to distinguish the real from the fake. This method of forgery is already widely known, but identifying it is extremely difficult—though not impossible.
The difference lay in the subtlest of details, so subtle that she couldn't even articulate it in words, relying purely on instinct. For example, the spirit of the ink, the coloring of the painting. The ancient, weathered patina of a painting that had passed through a thousand years was formed by the gradual erosion and transformation over vast, long stretches of time. The colors and sense of antiquity created by aging techniques, while appearing identical, lacked the true breath of ages accumulated over time. This was something artificial aging could not fully replicate.
This painting was an authentic work. It was indeed authentic. However, it had been split and remounted. Such an authentic work now existed in at least two or more versions.
Xu Xiangling hadn't been too deceitful; he had provided the top layer, the one with the brightest colors and the deepest hues, the head-layer painting.
Wen Zhengyu said to Ye Ling, "It's authentic." She paused, then added, "But I'm not sure if it will suit the old gentleman's taste."
Ye Ling understood the implication in Wen Zhengyu's words. She glanced at Wen Zhengyu, then said to Xu Xiangling, "President Xu, I need to think it over. If I need it, I'll contact you again." With that, she rose and took her leave.
By the time Ye Ling and Wen Zhengyu exited the studio, it was already mealtime. Ye Ling invited Wen Zhengyu to have lunch together.
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