The Versatile Master Artist

Gu Weijing was unaware of how startled Miss Sakai was at that moment; he was deeply immersed in a state of painting.

His mind centered solely on the scenery outside the window, the easel before him, and the brush in his hand.

Gu Weijing’s brushwork was swift and fluid,

without the original work before his eyes as a reference. The angle from which the porter’s lodge window viewed the building differed slightly from Carol’s vantage point when sketching.

Moreover, the passage of one hundred and fifty years caused weathering and subtle changes in the sheen of the Old Church’s stone surface.

If one were to measure with a ruler and protractor bit by bit, the shape of the Old Church as painted by Gu Weijing would have a few discrepancies compared to the one depicted by Carol.

Suppose we judged by the criterion of similarity—where not a single line or speck of color could differ from the original, replicating at a one-to-one ratio.

In that case, the accuracy of this piece might not even match what he did initially at Gu’s Painting and Calligraphy Gallery, where he projected ”Old Church” onto his easel using a projector and meticulously traced it with pencil.

But artistic copying never seeks to demand the copier replicate the original as a printer would.

It seeks consistency in brushwork and alignment of spirit.

The expressiveness of brushstrokes and the richness of color in Gu Weijing’s current painting exceeded those of the past by leaps and bounds.

The improvement brought by Experience Points,

was not limited to depicting the glow of candlelight but also showed significant progress in illustrating the architectural structure of the church, the colors of the walls, and the shadows.

For the first time in his life,

Gu Weijing felt Carol’s depiction of ”Old Church on a Stormy Day” emanate from his heart. Various pigments flowed freely at the tip of his brush, intertwining with the linen canvas.

The feeling was so vivid and real.

He had previously only clumsily imitated like the proverbial story of a boy aping the learning of others.

But what he was doing now was earnestly ”printing” the original from his soul.

This was a fundamental difference.

Three thousand Experience Points poured down like a cascade, enabling Gu Weijing finally to cross the invisible threshold between [resemblance in form] and [resemblance in spirit]. Amidst this, he seemed to sense the silent gaze of the female artist from a distant time.

Gu Weijing slightly embellished a few strokes of the storm clouds and lightning of the stormy day, perfected the reflection effect on the white brick and stone structure of the church’s surface, and completed the details until the copying was done.

A prompt from the virtual panel emerged:

[Current copied artwork—”Old Church on a Stormy Day” is completed!]

He heard the voice of the system.

[Similarity of this copy: 59.6%, you have earned one Intermediate Treasure Chest from the system!]

Gu Weijing gently wiped the faint sweat from his forehead with his wrist.

He did not rush to check the treasure chest.

The spiritual resonance with the female artist from the past left him, after putting down the brush, wandering like a sleepwalker, with a slight daze in his expression.

Gu Weijing gently handed the brush in his hand to the silent and astonished Koizumi Katsuko beside him, then walked out of the porter’s little house.

After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped into the rain in the courtyard.

It was as if he had walked into the scene depicted by his own brush.

The rain was not cold, just slightly cool, and the darkness concealed the factory chimneys of the modern world in the distance. Good Fortune Orphanage seemed frozen in time like an island within the canvas, part of an unawakened dream from the long nineteenth century.

Gu Weijing squatted down lightly, touched the rain-soaked ground with his fingers, and greeted what seemed like a ghost that briefly revived under his brush.

”Hello, Miss Carol.”

”Hello, little painter of later generations.” A clear and cool female voice responded to Gu Weijing’s greeting in the darkness.

Gu Weijing awoke from his daze,

it wasn’t an illusion; he indeed heard a response.

He turned back, surprised, to find Koizumi Katsuko holding an umbrella and approaching him.

The girl smiled playfully, tilted her head, and said, ”I witnessed the birth of a miracle; I believe Senior Carol must have seen it too, so I answered for her.”

Koizumi Katsuko tilted the umbrella to shield Gu Weijing from the rain above, her eyes reflecting a mixture of awe, reverence, and affection.

...

”Shengzi truly has grown up.”

At this moment, Mrs. Sakai was in no mood to enjoy herself.

On the contrary,

she felt like any mother who discovers her cherished little jacket has been worn away by some scoundrel, filled with a mix of agitation and helplessness.

Mrs. Sakai sat silently on the hotel sofa, next to her on the coffee table was a bottle of white wine from the hotel cabinet.

The bottle of white wine was open; the television played some news program without purpose.

Mrs. Sakai had no inclination to drink wine, nor to watch television.

The blonde lady merely held a wine glass in both hands, sniffing the aroma with her nose, distracting herself with the scent of ethanol and vanillin alongside the sound from the television.

Only thus could she suppress the incessant urge, welling up inside her, to rush out and drag Shengzi back.

She felt anxious like a desperate housewife in TV dramas, troubled over her child’s education.

Mrs. Sakai’s sleep was not so deep.

When Koizumi Katsuko rustled around in the living room like a small hamster applying makeup, her eyes had already opened.

Mrs. Sakai fought back the urge to scold or question her daughter, watched as Koizumi Katsuko disappeared at the hotel door, opening her mouth several times but ultimately saying nothing.

Mrs. Sakai wasn’t the kind of parent who needed to treat her daughter like a prisoner.

Her constraints on Shengzi were only in hope that her daughter could have the best life.