161: Chapter 162 Talk to Me About Art? I Used Connections to Invite One of the World's Top Ten Music Masters
The smile on Qin Yuan's lips instantly turned cold, and the surrounding air seemed to drop by a few degrees.
He swirled the glass in his hand.
The bottom of the glass rubbed against the solid wood bar, emitting a short, creaking sound.
"Art?"
Qin Yuan tapped the glass against the tabletop with a soft "clack."
He looked up, his gaze like that of someone looking at a stray dog on the side of the road.
"Based on the pose you just struck, how is that any different from a sow wiggling its butt before climbing a tree?"
Long Aotian's face twitched violently, and his teeth chattered as he gritted them.
"What do you know! This is..."
"I don't care what this is," Qin Yuan interrupted him.
He extended his right hand, bringing his index and middle fingers together.
He clapped them crisply twice in mid-air.
"Clap, clap."
The sound wasn't loud, but in the deathly silent hall, it rang out like two thunderclaps.
"Creeeeak—"
The two heavy solid bronze doors of the banquet hall were slowly pushed open from the outside.
The grinding sound of the door seams being squeezed stretched out for a long time.
A gust of cold wind mixed with snow particles blew in, causing the hems of the dresses worn by several noblewomen at the entrance to fly wildly.
Long Aotian frowned and turned to look.
Sun Xueer also shrank her neck and hid behind Long Aotian.
Outside the door.
A row of people stood.
They were not bodyguards, nor were they waiters.
They were a group of old men and women dressed in various formal gowns and tailcoats, along with several middle-aged people with extremely powerful auras.
There was no stench of the nouveau riche about them.
Instead, they possessed a unique, aloof sense of superiority polished by time and countless camera flashes.
These people usually walked with their chins held high, looking down on others.
But today.
They stood in a single file line, as orderly and well-behaved as elementary school students lining up for morning exercises.
Leading them was an old gentleman with completely white hair, styled in a slicked-back pompadour.
He was wearing a navy blue tailored suit, with a wine-red silk pocket square tucked into his breast pocket.
He leaned on an ebony cane.
The head of the cane was inlaid with a silver-white lion's head.
"Is... isn't that the old master Richard?!"
In the crowd, a wealthy second-generation heir who studied music suddenly screamed as if he had seen a ghost, pointing at the white-haired old man.
"Which Richard?" someone nearby asked.
"Who else could it be! The lifetime honorary dean of the Vienna Royal Academy of Music! That monster who has won the Chopin International Piano Competition gold medal three times!"
The rich heir's voice cracked with excitement.
"How could he come to this dump of ours?!"
As soon as these words were spoken, the whole hall was in an uproar.
Long Aotian's pupils contracted violently.
Richard?
Of course he knew that name.
In his system's "God-level Piano Master" skill, half of the musical score annotations were written by this old man!
This was practically a living fossil of the piano world!
The old master Richard ignored those clamoring rich heirs.
He leaned on his cane, his leather shoes stepping onto the carpet, and walked into the hall step by step.
The row of people behind him followed in single file.
"My god... isn't that Vampire Princess Anna Netrebko? The world's number one soprano!"
"And that violinist, David Garrett!"
"This is crazy, this is crazy... Have they moved the entire Vienna Golden Hall here?!"
The exclamations in the crowd rose in waves.
Any one of these people, if plucked out, would command an astronomical appearance fee, and that's only if they were in the mood.
Usually, to see them once, you'd have to book half a year in advance and fly halfway across the globe to queue for tickets.
Today.
They had actually appeared in a cluster at this birthday party in the military compound?!
Long Aotian's complexion had turned from livid to deathly pale.
He felt his calves cramping.
His system skill, which he was so proud of, was like playing with a broadsword in front of Guan Yu or wielding an axe in front of Lu Ban in the presence of these true masters.
It was laughably ridiculous.
"Click, click, click."
Old master Richard walked to the center of the hall.
He didn't even glance at Long Aotian, ignoring him completely.
The old gentleman walked up to Qin Yuan.
Then.
Under the stunned gaze of this group of Beijing elites.
This God of the Piano, who usually wouldn't even give face to European royalty, actually bowed slightly and performed an extremely standard medieval aristocratic hat-tipping salute to Qin Yuan.
"Respected Mr. Qin."
Richard's voice was a bit hoarse, carrying a thick European accent.
"Thank you for your invitation. It is my honor to serve you."
The group of musical masters behind him also bowed in unison.
"Good evening, Mr. Qin."
The voices were uniform, as if they were worshipping their king.
Qin Yuan didn't stand up.
He leaned against the bar, swirling an empty wine glass, with a smudge of unwashed lipstick still on the rim.
"You're all here."
His tone was very flat, as if he were speaking to a group of employees who had just clocked in.
"Did you have a hard journey?"
"Not at all, Mr. Qin's private jet is very comfortable."
Old master Richard straightened up, the wrinkles on his face bunching up like a chrysanthemum, smiling very obsequiously.
"I heard you wanted to listen to 'Chopin'?"
"Yes."
Qin Yuan nodded, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Long Aotian, who was standing to the side like a wooden statue.
"Just now, there was a little monkey who wanted to play 'Chopin' for me here."
"He even said that me smashing the piano was an insult to art."
He tossed the empty wine glass onto the bar.
A crisp "clatter" sounded.
"I just wanted to let you masters see."
"Whether his meager skills deserve to be called art."
Old master Richard turned his head, following Qin Yuan's gaze, and looked at Long Aotian.
The previously obsequious smile vanished instantly, and his eyes became as sharp as an eagle's.
He looked Long Aotian up and down a few times.
His gaze paused on those hands, full of calluses and with large knuckles.
Then.
The old man shook his head, the corners of his mouth turning down, and let out a snort of extreme disdain.
"Him?"
The sound wasn't loud, but in the silent hall, it felt like a slap, striking Long Aotian's face hard.
The muscles on Long Aotian's face twitched crazily, and his teeth ground together with a creaking sound.
"You... who are you looking down on?!"
He stiffened his neck, forcing a retort.
"I am..."
"What are you?"
Old master Richard leaned on his cane and took a step forward.
The cane tapped on the floor with a dull "thud."
"Young man."
In the old man's cloudy eyes, there was an oppressive feeling that could see right through a person.
"I don't see a shred of reverence for music in you."
He pointed to the piano wreckage on the floor.
"You were sitting there just now, your shoulders were stiff, your breathing was chaotic, and even the force points of your fingertips were wrong."
"You weren't playing the piano."
The old man shook his head, his tone full of mockery.
"You were just reciting the sheet music."
"Like a machine without a soul, mechanically repeating the movements."
"Do you understand the grief and indignation of a fallen nation in 'Chopin's Etudes'?"
"Do you understand the blood and tears hidden in every single note?"
Every time the old man asked a question, he took a step forward, forcing Long Aotian to retreat again and again.
"You don't understand anything."
"You just wanted to use it to show off, to pick up girls, to satisfy your pathetic vanity."
The old man stopped, his cane thumping heavily on the ground.
"Art?"
He sneered.
"You are worthy of talking about art?"
"You are nothing but a thief who stole someone else's things and is still pleased with yourself!"
This sentence was like a sharp knife, piercing straight into Long Aotian's heart.
The system.
Everything he had was given by the system.
He really didn't understand any musical soul; he was just using that skill step by step.
The fear and shame of having his secrets exposed instantly engulfed him.
Long Aotian's face instantly turned the color of pig liver.
Red to the point of purple.
He clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging into his flesh, and beads of blood seeped out, dripping onto the carpet.
"I... I..."
He opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbing violently, but he couldn't squeeze out a single word for a long time.
In front of these true masters, his system skill, which could only mechanically imitate, was like a clown's trick.
It was as if he had been stripped naked.
Sun Xueer watched from the side, the expression on her face changing from admiration to embarrassment, and finally to disgust.
She took two steps back, distancing herself from Long Aotian.
The movement was light, but in Long Aotian's eyes, it was more painful than a beating.
Qin Yuan watched this good show and smiled with satisfaction.
To kill someone is not as effective as destroying their heart.
Physical destruction is far less satisfying than mental devastation.
"That's enough."
Qin Yuan clapped his hands, interrupting this one-sided crushing.
"Ah Fu."
"Yes."
"Have people go to the basement and bring up that 'Bösendorfer' I brought."
Qin Yuan walked over to old master Richard and patted his shoulder.
"Since all the masters are here, you can't have made the trip for nothing."
"Teach this kid a lesson."
He turned his head and looked at Long Aotian, who was sweating profusely and trembling all over.
"Let him listen."
"To what art really is, something he will never reach in his entire life."