The Versatile Master Artist

”What... two slaps?” Gu Weijing was shocked.

”Yes, in all the years they’ve been married, there’s only been one incident where hands were raised. It was when my mom gave my dad those two slaps, hitting him so hard that the protrusion of her wedding ring gouged a deep cut into my dad’s face, and he bled quite a lot. Even now, if you look closely, there’s a very faint mark on his face.”

That was quite a heavy hand.

”And then Uncle Sakai hit him back to his senses.”

Gu Weijing sniffed.

Getting slapped by his wife but deciding not to die as a result, Professor Yajima was quite a peculiar character. Who would have thought he had a hidden, masochistic tendency unknown to the world.

”Not at all.”

Koizumi Katsuko shook her head, ”As I said, it was the first time my mom hit anyone, and my dad was completely dazed by it. He didn’t even feel pain, just a sense of disorientation, feeling like his wife suddenly became a stranger. He couldn’t even die in peace; he felt like everything in the world was against him, and that he was truly a worthless failure at everything he did.”

”Hmm, Shengzi, keep going. So, how did Uncle Sakai manage to get through it?”

Gu Weijing felt he really couldn’t fathom the mindset of the so-called ’perfect couple’ that Mr. and Mrs. Jiaokai were.

Better not to make random guesses.

”My mom grabbed my dad by the collar, and in her own words, it was like leading a lost and helpless little puppy to a nearby unfinished building. At that time, my dad’s face was both bleeding and crying. It was only later they found out that even a concerned citizen who saw the scene thought my dad was suffering from domestic abuse and called the police station to report it.”

Koizumi Katsuko smiled softly.

”Osaka is a city that ’grows quietly amidst decay.’ During its construction, many abandoned buildings were left behind. Keigo Higashino even wrote ’White Night’ based on this theme. When they went there, it was a well-known local suicide spot; just two weeks prior, an unemployed middle-aged man had jumped from there.”

Miss Sakai held Gu Weijing’s hand, interlocking their fingers: ”Mom led him to the top of the unfinished building. She told my dad that carbon monoxide poisoning suicide could potentially be revived and that dying this way wouldn’t be clean. I love you very much, but I’m truly exhausted. I don’t want to desperately work hard while anxiously waiting outside a hospital room for the doctor trying to save my husband.”

”But I really do love you, so if you’re ready, I’m willing to accompany you through the last journey of life. There’s seventeen floors here, fifty meters high, and the probability of death from jumping is 100%, just a matter of an instant.”

Koizumi Katsuko’s tone was neither hurried nor slow, calmly recounting the desperate conversation of the young couple to her boyfriend.

This was a story she had heard countless times in her childhood, perhaps the most important conversation in her parents’ lives.

As she retold it now as their daughter, Gu Weijing almost had the illusion of being there himself.

”My mom was the first to take off her high heels and stood on the edge of the prefabricated slab of the abandoned building, with Osaka’s night lights behind her. My dad said she looked like she was standing amidst the endless neon lights of the city, and with just one gust of wind, she might be blown away.”

”My mom said she was someone who wouldn’t turn back after making a decision. She wouldn’t bow her head to find my dad, crying that marrying him was a mistake. No matter if you die, I’ll jump down with you. And she’s a Catholic; according to her faith, people who commit suicide will fall into Hell and never find redemption. So she asked Mr. Sakai for a favor.”

”But if you’re really prepared to end your life so abruptly, please push me down first and then jump yourself. Just always remember, I gave myself from my dad to another man I believed would cherish me. Your cowardice would kill not only yourself but also another person who loves you.”

”I won’t blame you, nor will I regret it. But our souls will never embrace again. I will ascend to Heaven, and you will descend to Hell. I’ve already paid for my love with my life, and from now on, in every lifetime, I refuse to stay with such a cowardly man.”

Gu Weijing lay on the deck, staring blankly at the sky.

With his blindfold on, he was better able to imagine the scene Miss Sakai’s words were painting.

A beautiful blonde woman standing on a concrete and dust-covered floorboard, with the city lights of a modern metropolis behind her, her high heels at her feet, and her husband, caught in a quagmire of depression, before her.

She stood barefoot at the cliff’s edge, her clothing fluttering in the wind, as she spoke those heartfelt and resolute words.

I am willing to die for you, but our souls will not accompany each other.

Gu Weijing’s impression of the sharp-tongued Mrs. Sakai was actually quite ordinary, but he also thought the scene he imagined in his mind was incredibly cool, astonishingly beautiful, like a dialogue that would only happen on an opera stage.

”But if you still have the courage to write a different ending for your life, then pull me back. Your paintings’ quality doesn’t matter, nor do the critics’ opinions. Whether anyone understands your work, whether you can find the next contract or the next gallery willing to sign you, none of this is important. Even if there’s not a single person in this country who wants to appreciate your work.”

”I will still be your only audience.”

Koizumi Katsuko spoke each word deliberately.

”Shengzi.”

”Hmm?”

”Your mom is amazing.” Gu Weijing was so shocked that even his hair stood on end.

”Yes, she’s actually very gentle at heart. She’s a wonderful mom and a wonderful wife. I can feel it; my dad can’t be without her for the rest of his life.”

Koizumi Katsuko nodded seriously.

”That night, my dad stood there in the cold wind at the top of the building for ten minutes, then suddenly hugged my mom, crying and kissing her desperately, afraid she would run away from his life. When he got home, he locked himself in the studio for seven days. Except for eating and when the police came once, he didn’t leave the studio for a whole week. Then he painted what he considered the most exceptional work of his life.”

Two weeks later, the agent came with a contract termination notice from the Ota Art Gallery, feigning a false sense of regret, handing over the contract for him to sign.

Uncle Sakai calmly took the contract, pointing to the work drying on the easel, asking the agent if he wanted to take a look at this painting before finalizing the decision.

The agent intended to refuse.

Whenever a young artist who was being dropped by a gallery received a termination notice, they would come up with various ways to struggle, like a frog that finally glimpsed a corner of the vast sky beyond the worldly stretch, only to be thrown back into the bottom of the well.

They would always try their utmost to resist.

He had seen such scenes many times before.

He had seen artists hysterically tearing up the contract, refusing to sign, or kneeling and begging the gallery for one more chance to hold another show.

Taking out a painting, hoping to make the gallery change its mind, was indeed too naive.

The agent had no intention of dealing with this young failure.

The decision to terminate was made by the higher-ups at Ota Art Gallery; even if the artist painted a masterpiece that moved the agent, it wouldn’t make any difference.

He was merely a messenger, also informing Uncle Sakai that he needed to vacate the studio quickly since it was a gallery asset.

After the termination, it was to be immediately reclaimed and allocated to the next trial-signed artist.

Yakai Ichiro simply nodded to show understanding, took the contract, and got ready to sign with scribbled strokes.

Perhaps it was Ichiro’s unique calmness and poise that surprised the agent, or maybe it was just a sudden curiosity; the agent tiptoed to peer through the gap of the studio door at the easel facing the door.

After staring for three seconds.

He snatched the contract from Yakai Ichiro’s hands.

Without hesitation, he tore it into pieces.

”Ms. Sakai, you will stay; I might not be the person in charge, but I can assure you this. Please give me a chance to make a call, and give yourself a chance.”

Twenty minutes later.

Uncle Sakai received an invitation to participate in his first ever art fair.