Chapter 33 of 100

Chapter 33

17 min read4,259 words

But as Yang Kang sat down on the bed, he felt his gaze glued to a painting on the wall, staring at it in a daze.

It was a painting of new bamboo shoots. The paper was slightly yellowed, and the painting depicted two bamboo shoots and a few old bamboo roots exposed on a rocky hillside. A green bamboo stood tall in the wind, with just a few strokes, yet it exuded a wild charm. There were also a few cursive characters, which Yang Kang couldn't fully recognize, but he recognized the signature at the end—it was the Master of Plum Blossom Hermitage.

The painting was quite large, about 50cm by 80cm. There were several seals on the painting. Yang Kang looked at the signature and then at the seals—Wu Zhen.

Wu Zhen—one of the Four Great Masters of the Yuan Dynasty, alongside Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan, and Wang Meng. The last time, a small ink bamboo painting by Ni Zan sold for 800,000 yuan. These two paintings were much larger, so they would naturally be much more expensive. He reached out to touch it and was momentarily speechless—this painting was actually an authentic piece... an authentic piece?

"Hey, hey, hey... Fatty..." Yang Kang called out.

Guo Fatty was holding the carp he had just bought, preparing to go outside to clean it. Hearing this, he hurriedly said, "Sit down for a moment, I'll clean the fish."

"This painting?" Yang Kang pointed to the painting on the wall.

"Huh?" Guo Fatty asked in confusion, "This old paper is quite thick. The lime on my wall was falling off badly, so I stuck it up. If you want it, I can take it down for you. I'll find some old newspapers to stick up later."

Yang Kang looked around. This old house was from who knows when. The lime on the walls had fallen off due to dampness, and it was normal for Guo Fatty to find some old paper to patch it up, but using this painting was a bit excessive.

"Fatty, do you know that this painting is enough to buy you a large new house?" Yang Kang didn't know what to say.

Then, he saw Guo Fatty looking at him as if he were a fool. After that, the fatty wiped his hands, climbed under the bed, pulled out a cardboard box, rummaged through it, found a flathead screwdriver, took off his shoes, climbed onto the bed, and started to remove the painting from the wall.

"Fortunately, you didn't use glue or tape, otherwise, you would have destroyed this painting," Yang Kang said with a sigh.

"At first, I wanted to use glue," Guo Fatty said as he used the screwdriver to remove the tacks, "but the lime on the wall was damp, so the glue wouldn't stick, and the tape wouldn't adhere either. I could only use tacks."

"Thank goodness!" Yang Kang said.

Guo Fatty continued talking as he removed the painting from the wall, then handed it to Yang Kang and went outside with the carp he had just bought.

Yang Kang lay on the bed, carefully admiring the painting. Wu Zhen was a painter of the Yuan Dynasty, with the courtesy name Guizhong and the pseudonym Plum Blossom Daoist or Plum Daoist. In his early years, he taught in a village school, later studied the "Heavenly Nature and Destiny" philosophy, and made a living by fortune-telling. He was skilled in painting landscapes and ink bamboo, using both dry and wet brush techniques, especially excelling in wet-point moss, with a rich and powerful ink style. His ink bamboo followed the style of Wen Tong, with a simple and vigorous character.

Yang Kang looked at the painting while comparing it with the knowledge of antique appraisal he had learned, verifying it bit by bit.

Unfortunately, the room only had a dim light, which was fine for everyday use but was too dark for the detailed examination of antiques.

Almost instinctively, Yang Kang picked up a black flashlight from Guo Fatty's bedside and was about to turn it on to examine Wu Zhen's painting in detail. But at that moment, there was a loud "crack," and he felt a tingling sensation all over his body, collapsing softly to the ground.

"Little Prince!" Guo Fatty, who was busy washing vegetables outside, heard the noise and hurriedly ran in, picked up Yang Kang from the ground, helped him sit on the bed, and patted his back, asking, "Are you okay?"

Yang Kang finally came to his senses, feeling a sharp, tingling pain in his arm, as if pricked by needles. He couldn't help but exclaim, "You... What was that thing?"

It looked like a flashlight, but how could it be something like a stun gun?

Yang Kang felt that he and Guo Fatty were incompatible. The first time they met, Guo Fatty had injured his leg, causing him pain for several days. This time, he came to visit, and this burly man had a wolf-defense flashlight on his bed? Could someone be trying to do something to him?

Guo Fatty looked at the flashlight and immediately picked it up, asking, "You mean this?"

"Uh-huh!" Yang Kang said, shaking his arm and exclaiming, "It hurts! How does this thing have an electric shock function? A wolf-defense flashlight?"

He had seen similar things on Taobao, but he never thought that a burly man like Guo Fatty would have such a thing on his bed. He had no guard up. The problem was, if he had really done something, he would have accepted his fate, but he hadn't done anything; he just wanted to appreciate a famous painting, and he got electrocuted.

The key was that he had never seen such a thing before. He turned on the switch himself and got electrocuted. Fortunately, the voltage was low, causing him only a brief pain and tingling, with no serious harm.

"This flashlight is for catching frogs in the summer," Guo Fatty gestured and laughed, "Regular flashlights from the supermarket aren't bright enough."

Yang Kang felt like a fool and couldn't help but ask, "What are frogs?"

He was puzzled. Could they be chickens raised in the fields?

Guo Fatty gave him a mysterious smile, "You don't know, do you?"

Seeing Guo Fatty's expression, Yang Kang almost cursed and said, "Say it if you want, or don't bother, hmpf!"

Guo Fatty couldn't help but laugh, "I knew it. You, a city boy, have never eaten frogs—what you call frogs are actually toads, and their meat is very delicious."

"Why didn't you just say toads?" Yang Kang shook his head, thinking that "frogs" might be a local term he didn't know. Was it necessary to show off?

"I've eaten toads; they sell them in the market," Yang Kang said不满地, "There's nothing to show off about, calling them frogs. I thought they were some alien species."

"Ha!" Guo Fatty couldn't help but laugh. Alien species, what a wild imagination!

"The toads sold in the market are all farmed, and they're called bullfrogs. Their meat isn't as good," Guo Fatty shook his head and said.

---