The Versatile Master Artist

It was the only study group in that class that got an A+.

After the semester ended, the two of them have been managing this account up until today.

This year during the Spring Festival, the account’s follower count just surpassed 37,000, which is quite good for middle school students. Occasionally, they even received some local sponsored deals.

This made his cousin Gu Lin, who also enjoys making short videos and dreams of becoming a video celebrity, very jealous.

Gu Weijing noticed Mona updated a new video last Friday night.

Strange, why didn’t he receive any notifications about it?

He took out his phone, opened TikTok, and found that not only did he not receive a notification for the new video, but their TikTok account, originally pinned at the top on his follow list, had disappeared.

Gu Weijing manually searched for the account name ”Mona’s Painting Cottage” but couldn’t find any information.

If there wasn’t a software issue.

Then, there was only one answer left... he must have been blocked after Mona removed his admin rights.

That’s why he couldn’t find any related information.

Gu Weijing fell into a brief silence, then picked up Koukou’s phone.

He first opened the works section on TikTok and simply swiped down a bit.

This account mainly runs art sharing segments, occasionally posting about art students’ daily life, and has a five-part series of beginner crayon drawing videos for newcomers.

Unlike Mr. Tree Sloth’s high-end podcast segment, Gu Weijing and Mona’s videos are less in-depth, and the audience is far from professional. In truth, most come to see the beautiful girls.

Gu Weijing is usually only responsible for the planning, filming, and editing of videos, and has only appeared in very few episodes.

Even so.

Mona seemed determined to erase all traces of Gu Weijing from her life.

Among the few episodes of Douyin, all videos related to Gu Weijing have already been taken down.

The original personalized signature on the account homepage—”Mona and her good friend Gu Weijing share interesting art life with everyone.”

Had been changed to—”New life, new beginning, my brand-new art journey.”

Gu Weijing opened the new video Mona published last Friday.

After just a few seconds, he understood why Koukou knew he went to a high-end Italian restaurant in the Embassy District on Friday.

He didn’t expect such a coincidence,

While he and the Mei Quan Palace’s accounting guy were discussing contract specifics on the second floor, Mona was dining downstairs.

She shot a short video to document the dishes of this Michelin two-star-rated Italian restaurant.

The video opened with a camera sweep from a row of vehicles outside the restaurant, bearing embassy marks from various countries, before finally focusing on the blue Bentley he rode in, giving it a ten-second close-up.

”Hello, my friends...”

Mona explained to the viewers watching the video that Bistrot1836 is the most famous restaurant in Yangon, known for serving the most authentic Italian cuisine.

This restaurant often hosts diplomats from various countries as well as international stars or wealthy individuals for dinner. Today, a Bigwig (important magnate) of unknown identity has reserved the entire second floor.

She gestured subtly towards the luxury car outside, a symbol of wealth and status, mouthing with a hint of pride, saying she was dining here with friends today.

In the frame appeared Jerry with his sunny and handsome face.

Gu Weijing opened the comments.

”Wow! A pound of steak costs about 300 dollars after conversion, this is robbery! Indeed, art students are wealthy.”

”Rich lady, rich lady, seeking sponsorship!”

”This restaurant is notoriously difficult to book. Though not three-star Michelin, some of the Southeast Asian travel hosts I follow, each with millions of fans, haven’t secured seats at Bistrot 1836.”

”Where’s the guy you collaborated with? I noticed the content related to him seems to be deleted. Did you guys have a fallout?”—this comment mentioning Gu Weijing was personally responded to by the creator yesterday.

Mona’s reply was simplistic: ”Not exactly a fallout, just no longer suitable, we each wish each other well.”

Below followed various chat replies.

”Wow! Congratulations, girl! I’ve been following you for three years. I always thought he wasn’t good enough for you. You deserve better, and the handsome guy beside you now looks so much higher quality.” a long-time female viewer remarked.

”They were originally only ordinary classmates, right...”

”I don’t care, I declare, the beautiful sister’s smile belongs to me!”

Gu Weijing closed the phone screen.

”Such heartlessness, she’s not interested in you anymore.”

Koukou playfully licked her lips and fanned the flames on the side.

Gu Weijing didn’t speak.

His emotions felt a bit strange now.

Gu Weijing felt he had no position to criticize Mona’s actions, did he like Mona?

He should, right?

If it weren’t for Miss Mona intentionally keeping a distance, they might have been together already.

But in all honesty, from beginning to end, publicly they were just friends.

He was even somewhat ambiguous with Miss Sakai.

Such a person, again, what right does he have to blame a girl for being heartless?

Intellectually, Gu Weijing thought he shouldn’t feel too hurt, but he indeed didn’t feel good inside now.

He instinctively wanted to ask Mona about the account issues, opening the chat app, seeing message reminders, only realizing they are no longer social friends.

Gu Weijing switched to SMS, entered Mona’s phone number.

”I saw the account issues, Mona, are we still friends?” Gu Weijing hesitated for a long time in front of the chat box, and only managed to edit this one line.

A few minutes later, the phone vibrated.

”I checked yesterday, the total cumulative TikTok income over the past three years was about 5.7 million Myanmar Kyat. Thanks for your help, Gu Weijing, send a card number if you want, the money can all be yours.”

”From now on, don’t worry about the account stuff. Everyone’s life paths differ, let’s not entangle, peaceful parting.” Mona replied.

...

In the afternoon, Gu Weijing arrived at the Good Fortune Orphanage.

Although he felt somewhat downhearted, there were still many things to do, such as preparing for the upcoming art exhibition.

Even if fusion paintings still seemed hard to handle for him now, it didn’t mean there’s nothing to do.

There’s less than five months left before the submission deadline for the Singapore Biennale.

Making large paintings is very time-consuming.

Aside from the effort spent on the painting itself, there’s also the pre-layout and creativity.

Compared to picking up the pen, conceiving inspiration actually takes more energy.

Even if it’s a simple scenery painting, Impressionist master Monet once stood on a street in France for half a year, observing a church’s clock tower under varied sunlight daily.

Often without eating or drinking, pondering over subtle color differences, standing for a whole day at times.

Eventually, friends almost sent him to a psychiatric hospital thinking he was mad.

To present at the Lion City Art Exhibition, Gu Weijing planned a portrait set in the backdrop of Good Fortune Orphanage.

Portraits, compared to landscapes, better convey a painter’s emotions.

Previously, his initial attempt with the fusion painting ”Sunshine Orphanage” was such a try.

The reason the artwork was lousy was due to Gu Weijing’s ability issues, but the concept wasn’t wrong per se.

After repeatedly studying that painting, Gu Weijing judged that aside from needing to refine fusion painting techniques, more effort should be made on the characters’ emotions.

Brilliant technique aside, the whole painting must achieve the emotional level of ”Heartfelt” to secure a spot among the high-caliber artists in the international art biennale.

As for characters’ emotions... unless he plans only to include Jasmine as a little model in the artwork.

Otherwise, given Gu Weijing’s understanding of the other orphanage members, it would be hard to reach a level of empathy.

He would need to find more models.

Luckily,

The orphanage never lacked such intriguing targets.