The Versatile Master Artist

A few minutes later.

Uncle Ah Lai slowly parked the car in front of the orphanage gate, and Gu Weijing opened the car door, allowing the somewhat impatient Ah Wang to jump out from the back seat.

The tabby cat sniffed the ground.

Familiar with the place, it dashed towards a brown floral-patterned rain shelter under the eaves of the gatehouse.

There was a portable cat house.

It contained small glass bottles of catnip essence, canned food, and cat toys.

For Ah Wang, it represented something nice to sniff, eat, and play with.

As it happily wagged its tail and ran towards its stronghold at the orphanage, it caught a glimpse of a figure holding an oil lamp in the corner of its eye.

Instinctively sensing trouble, Ah Wang tried to slow down.

However, the claws that Koizumi Katsuko had trimmed with nail clippers previously reduced its paw grip, and its recent weight gain from eating high-calorie cat food slightly restricted its agility.

Its feet slid slightly on the tiles in front of the gatehouse, and it rolled on the ground like a liquid ball of meat.

By the time Ah Wang tried to jump up again.

It was already too late.

”Meow!”

Ah Wang let out a heart-wrenching meow.

A devilish hand precisely grabbed the soft flesh at the back of her neck and lifted her off the ground.

The tabby cat flailed her limbs and opened her mouth as if she wanted to bite.

But her chubby limbs were too short compared to a human arm, making her thrashing in the air adorably fierce.

”Sniffing too much catnip will reduce your tolerance, Sister Sakai specifically instructed before she left not to let you near any catnip powder these days. Be a good kitty.”

Jasmine put down the lamp, took the catnip aroma bottle from the portable cat house in front of Ah Wang, tightened the cap, and put it in her pocket.

This weekend, Koizumi Katsuko was not in Yangon.

Counting the time, Miss Shengzi had transferred to Myanmar for quite a while now.

Mrs. Sakai felt a bit sad for her daughter, who spent every day painting in the studio, to prevent Shengzi from growing mold in such a backwater as Myanmar.

Her mother took her to Bangkok to shop at the famous Siam Paragon and relax.

They flew on Wednesday and will fly back on Monday morning.

Buying a jet for weekend trips to neighboring countries was somewhat extravagant on Professor Yajima’s income.

However, weekend trips to nearby countries are quite common. Many of the local big businessmen in Myanmar work in Yangon but live in the more bustling Bangkok nearby.

And as long as it’s under the name of a field trip,

The contract with the Tokyo Gallery could reimburse all the air tickets.

Jasmine, holding Ah Wang, greeted Brother Gu Weijing, ”Coming so late today, are you still going to paint?”

”Yes.”

Gu Weijing nodded, ”Ah Wang might not be able to play with you today. I want to find Bu Dao.”

For an autistic child and a cat, there couldn’t be a better live model subject for painting Amy’s portrait.

...

In the small studio.

”C—CA—CAT.”

The chubby child, Bu Dao, sat alone on the teak floor, pointing to the cat in the corner of the room, struggling to say the word.

Ah Wang, on the other hand, sat back on its haunches, cautiously eyeing this unfamiliar chubby child, its head swiveling around.

Koizumi Katsuko didn’t put on airs by inviting everyone in the orphanage to a French banquet.

However, Miss Shengzi also didn’t mind offering help to those in need within her means.

The main expense of Good Fortune Orphanage each month was not food, but the medical expenses for these children with congenital diseases.

Jasmine’s AIDS cocktail therapy was funded by a United Nations medical fund, requiring hardly any money.

But Bu Dao’s situation was not covered by the United Nations aid project or the local health insurance.

Feeding Ah Wang $160 cans of food while kids beside can’t afford their treatments would be truly pitiful.

Jasmine was so popular in the orphanage not only because she was Gu Weijing’s girlfriend,

but also because she was like an angel who generously took on all the expenses for Bu Dao’s language rehabilitation classes and strabismus correction surgeries for two other children.

Bu Dao now attended weekly sound production and pronunciation training with special word cards under the guidance of a tutor.

After all, he was still young.

It was the golden period for learning ability, and his autism symptoms were relatively mild.

With the help of the rehabilitation training,

Though he still babbled some alien language that ordinary people couldn’t understand, he was able to manage several simple words with relatively standard pronunciation.

Cat is one of the few words he mastered best in pronunciation.

Separated by a wall.

Gu Weijing sat in the hallway on a beanbag sofa, watching the scene unfolding in the small studio through his phone, the drawing software on his iPad ready at his side.

By early April, the modernization of water and electricity throughout the orphanage had been nearly completed, and there was even wireless internet coverage.

After all, it housed a painting, ”Hundred Flowers Painting,” worth at least six figures and of special significance.

And although Koizumi Katsuko was young, her work was also worth several thousand US Dollars, with her most expensive pieces potentially reaching tens of thousands and being of incalculable future appreciation potential.

To be cautious, a high-definition network camera was installed in this small room.

Both he and Miss Sakai could access the camera’s backend via password to check the situation in real time.