47: Chapter 47 Zhao Yang's painting, and the adults all wanted to buy it.

In the afternoon, Gao Qilan and Wu Yuedong set off for Hong Kong to begin their operation to hunt down Nasdaq.

Zhao Yang was not idle either; he went to the publishing house and delivered the first two parts of his second novel into the hands of Editor-in-Chief Niu.

"Good heavens! 《The Qin Empire, it looks like a massive work at first glance!" Editor-in-Chief Niu squinted his eyes as he flipped through it.

"Ahem..." Zhao Yang interrupted him. "Read it carefully after I leave; I don't want to wait around for another half hour. By the way, those things about the ming dynasty》 has made you quite a bit of money, so let's raise my royalty rate."

Niu Jianguo gave a sheepish laugh. "For this book, based on the standard for famous authors, I'll give you a 15% royalty rate. That's the highest our publishing house can offer. How many parts in total?"

"Six parts, eleven volumes. What you have in your hand is the first part. The Qin State is difficult to write about, and historical materials are hard to verify, so I might write a bit slower."

"No problem! With your popularity, the slower you write, the better it sells! By the way, what subject do you want to write about for the third part?"

Zhao Yang rolled his eyes. "Do you think I'm a printing press? I haven't even finished writing this one yet. We'll talk about it later; I might not write history next."

"Fine, we'll talk again when you have ideas later."

...

After leaving the publishing house, Zhao Yang went to meet Chen Shuting.

Since Qilan Investment had already acquired a controlling stake in the Construction Group, Chen Shuting, influenced by the Seal of Hearts Return, now possessed the mindset of a completely loyal subordinate toward Zhao Yang.

After chatting for over an hour, Zhao Yang had a corresponding plan for Chen Shuting's future.

The next decade or so would be the golden age for real estate and major infrastructure, and the direction for the Jinghai Construction Group would be exactly that: real estate and infrastructure.

Chen Shuting's future was naturally to become the queen of the real estate world, at least to be on the same level as Old Wang and Old Xu in the future.

After chatting with Chen Shuting, Zhao Yang hurried off to Meng Dehai's home without stopping. Yesterday, he had been too busy being lovey-dovey with Gao Qilan and had completely forgotten about Meng Dehai; today, he could not ignore the mayor again.

The family dinner was a delightful affair for both host and guest. During the meal, Zhao Yang steered the conversation and successfully piqued Meng Yu and Aunt Cui's interest in stock trading, promising to take them along when the opportunity arose.

This was actually equivalent to helping Meng Dehai build a solid rear guard. Jinghai's crackdown on organized crime was on the record even in the cabinet, and Meng Dehai had also entered the view of those above. As long as he remained uncorrupted and did not take bribes, his future would be limitless.

With a solid economic foundation at home, it would be harder for people to exploit them financially. Zhao Yang remembered that in the original story, Aunt Cui had accepted a villa from Gao Qiqiang, which ultimately implicated Meng Dehai. Now that Zhao Yang was here, he naturally would not allow such a thing to happen again.

...

In the evening, just as he returned to the Public Security Bureau dormitory, Jiang Xueqiong called.

"Hello, Teacher Zhao, the China-Europe Youth Art Exhibition I mentioned to you last time will be held this Friday. Your painting will be auctioned as a special unit. Do you have time to attend?"

Zhao Yang calculated the dates. "Sorry, I won't be in the capital at that time."

"That is truly a pity. We will make a complete video recording of the auction segment, and I will send it to you after you arrive in the capital."

Zhao Yang smiled. "No need, I trust the credibility of your Qingting."

After chatting a few more sentences about art, the two ended the call.

Zhao Yang sighed. He still wanted to go and see for himself how much his painting would fetch at auction. However, he had already made an appointment with Teacher Vice Chancellor Sun Shuxin from the University of Political Science and Law for those days and had to go to Handong Province, so he would have to miss the art exhibition.

...

Although Zhao Yang did not go to the art exhibition, Huang Yimei, as a student of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, was dragged along by her classmates to visit it.

Recently, the money Huang Yimei had saved had achieved a Breakthrough of five thousand, which allowed her to see the dawn of victory. She estimated that in at most another half year, she would be able to scrape together ten thousand, and then hand the money to Zhao Yang to rightfully own that painting.

As people from the art academy, Huang Yimei and several classmates all noticed that among the oil paintings on display, the standard of those young European painters was clearly higher than that of the Dragon Country painters. Although the exhibition also displayed ink wash paintings unique to the Dragon Country, no one from Europe participated in this Domain, so overall, it seemed that the Dragon Country side had lost.

"Sigh..." Lin Wantang sighed. "This Qingting is really something; why didn't they know to invite a few high-level painters! I just understood the conversation of two foreigners; they are mocking our country."

Before Huang Yimei could speak, Shen Du beside her chimed in, "In terms of artistic standard, the Dragon Country is far behind them!"

"Shen Du..." Huang Yimei's eyebrows furrowed slightly. "Your words are biased. At most, it's just that in terms of oil painting, our Dragon Country is not as good as Europe... Actually, we also have high-level oil painters here who are much better than these young Europeans!"

"High-level ones here?" Shen Du said with some disdain. "The standard of the young Europeans at this exhibition would require someone at least fifty years old here! If it's not good, it's not good; what is there to compare?"

"They are only in their twenties!" Huang Yimei immediately retorted.

"Hmm? Who is it? Why haven't I heard of them?" Shen Du asked.

Huang Yimei was just about to say it was Zhao Yang, but then felt it wasn't quite appropriate. She couldn't contact Zhao Yang at all right now, and she didn't want Shen Du and these classmates to know about that painting. For a moment, she stood there stunned, not knowing how to answer.

At this moment, a beautiful voice sounded from the broadcast:

"Distinguished guests, friends, we will next hold a special auction event in the third exhibition hall. The work comes from an anonymous painter; his paintings are very rare and hard to obtain. Friends who are interested, please move to the third exhibition hall; the auction will begin immediately."

"Huh? There's an auction for an anonymous painter? Let's go take a look!" The three stopped arguing and, along with other interested people, rushed to the third exhibition hall.

This place had already been set up as an auction venue, and anyone who wanted to participate would receive a numbered paddle.

The Dragon Country people who entered the venue, upon seeing the person on the podium holding the small wooden gavel, all revealed a bit of surprise—Qingting had actually invited this person.

The host was none other than Teacher Wang, the "specialist in playing Heshen." He was not only a household-name actor but also a hardcore collector in private, and his eye for appreciating calligraphy, paintings, and antiques had quite a reputation in the circle.

The auction officially began, and Teacher Wang wore his trademark smile:

"Dear friends, dear collectors, hello everyone, I am Wang Gang."

"Friends who know me know that I usually like Chinese paintings and porcelain, and I consider myself half an expert. But today, Qingting gave me a difficult problem—once these four oil paintings were placed here, I examined them for a long time. To tell you the truth, this is my first time seriously coming into contact with oil paintings. But good things don't distinguish by category; the brushwork, light and shadow, and Qi of these paintings made me itch to buy them. If I may say so without fear of being laughed at, if the rules didn't forbid it, I would have wanted to raise my paddle to buy them myself."

"So, whoever can take these paintings home today, count yourself as having a good eye. After the auction ends, don't rush to leave; let's chat privately. Alright, I won't hold everyone up any longer. Let the bidding begin!"