Rebirth: He Decides to Lie Flat
Chapter 235 - 235 232 The Chinese Zodiac (Third Update)

Chapter 235: Chapter 232: The Chinese Zodiac (Third Update) Chapter 235: Chapter 232: The Chinese Zodiac (Third Update) “What kind of painting do you guys want? Traditional Chinese painting? Or sketching? You surely don’t expect an oil painting, do you?”

She wasn’t good at oil painting, so the deal wouldn’t happen today if that’s what they wanted.

“Traditional Chinese painting will do. After all, it’s our country’s traditional art. Why? Do you have a way to buy one? Or can you get one for free from the Academy of Fine Arts?”

When Shen Mengfei asked that, it wasn’t because he knew about Mu Chenyan and her relationship. Although he and Xue Weisong now knew that Professor Yu was her brother, they had just entered the school less than half a year ago as freshmen, and art and physics were too different. To them, they didn’t even know Master Mu’s full name.

At the mention of “free,” Mu Jiawen looked up at Shen Mengfei with a distant gaze, “Isn’t the class fund in your hands? You’re thinking about getting something for free when buying something? Why are you so stingy? You should know that when pies fall from the sky, what comes down isn’t always pies.”

“Then what is it?”

Both looked at her, curious.

“What it is isn’t important. What’s important is I can paint the painting you want, but first, you have to tell me how much you plan to spend on one? What type do you want? What size?”

“You can paint traditional Chinese paintings?”

They looked at her in surprise. They only knew she could draw circuit diagrams so vividly, with every little detail of the wires drawn clearly, that even the professors had used it for their teaching materials.

But traditional Chinese painting…

Xue Weisong wanted to ask if she had learned before?

Since finding out she was kidnapped as a child, he and Shen Mengfei, though curious, had never asked her more about it, and they hadn’t even discussed it privately.

Now that she said she could do traditional Chinese painting, he was curious.

“Sure, I used to sell a painting for this much in Yunzhou—”

As she spoke, she held up a finger, wondering if they would guess ten thousand. If they guessed ten thousand, she would give them a discount this time.

“A thousand?”

“A hundred?”

Both spoke at the same time.

Mu Jiawen looked at them expressionlessly.

The two exchanged a glance, eyes wide with surprise.

Just as they were about to guess again, Teacher Luo pushed open the front door and walked in. “Hand in the homework from last time first. Xue Weisong, Shen Mengfei, each of you collect half, and make it quick. Mu Jiawen, give me yours first.”

The topic of the price of traditional Chinese paintings was dropped for the moment, but Shen Mengfei didn’t go to the Academy of Fine Arts to buy a painting. Instead, he let Mu Jiawen freely create four festive paintings for each side of the classroom and then he would buy some other stuff to hang up.

The limit set by Counselor Tang An was two hundred.

Meaning, the classroom decoration shouldn’t cost more than two hundred yuan.

Mu Jiawen: ….

She mentioned this to Jiang Yan while having dinner that night. As he served her food, he said, “You’ve already made up your mind and still asking me? Paint the Chinese zodiac. You’ve been wanting to do that anyway.”

Mu Jiawen was easily content; as long as she wasn’t short on money, she didn’t care much about it. So, selling or not selling the paintings didn’t really matter to her.

“Twelve paintings, all for the classroom?”

“Hang them. Since it’s free, you should make them even better. That way, when you open a gallery in the future, it will only help in building up your reputation.”

Mu Jiawen glanced at him, asking, “Do you really think my paintings are that good? That they’ll definitely become famous?”

She had not taken up the path of painting, nor had she thought of relying on it for a living, but every time Jiang Yan talked about her paintings, he made it sound like success was guaranteed.

He was even more confident than she was!

“You’ve got to have confidence in yourself. With your aunt’s level, she can’t stop praising your paintings, so how could they be bad?”

Mu Jiawen couldn’t help but roll her eyes, “That’s my mom, even if I just randomly draw a line, she’d think it’s more vivid than anyone else’s work. So just listen to her and don’t take it to heart.”

Though she said that, Mu Jiawen still took her work seriously and drew a little rabbit when she got back to her dorm that night.

Liang Yujun sat nearby watching, occasionally marveling at how well the painting was done. As for describing exactly how well with more professional terms, she didn’t know any.

Mu Jiawen glanced at her and asked, “You mentioned your grandma’s 70th birthday celebration, is it on New Year’s Day or over the Spring Festival?”

“It was originally on New Year’s Day, but it’s been pushed to Spring Festival. My grandma said she doesn’t care about these things; she just wants the family to be together and have a meal. For New Year’s Day, since I’m far from home and the school only gives us three days off, I wouldn’t have been able to make it back, so we might as well wait until the Spring Festival when there will be more people and it’ll be more lively.”

She spoke of a lively gathering, but her expression clearly showed some disappointment.

The main reason her grandma postponed her birthday was to wait for her, which caused some resentment from a few cousins who lived and worked in the same city as her family. When they phoned her, their tone was often sarcastic.

“Wow, Yujun, such a big face you have. Grandma doesn’t even want to celebrate her birthday without you there.”

“After all, you got into Beijing University. It’s just not the same as us who went to regular universities.”

“Look at you, Yujun. Grandma even postponed her birthday party for you. You have to prepare a decent gift for her birthday, don’t let us down when the time comes.”

Just thinking about these things made Liang Yujun annoyed. One by one, they were all envious because she got into Beijing University this year and her grandmother had thrown her a fairly big celebration party for her university admission.

Isn’t that meaningless?

If you have the ability, you also get into Beijing University!

I’m not stopping you, am I?

Mu Jiawen, of course, had no idea what she was thinking but after pondering for a moment said, “I’ll teach you how to write the ‘shou’ character for longevity. Although we’re short on time, if you practice every day and I coach you hands-on, you should be able to write something decent in a month.”

Liang Yujun’s eyes lit up. Right, why hadn’t she thought of that?

Her grandmother had two major interests in her lifetime: one was history, which was related to her being a history professor; the other was Chinese painting and calligraphy. It was hard to get a painting from Master Mu, and famous masters’ calligraphy was out of her price range.

But actually, none of these compare to the characters that you learn and write with your heart.

Jiajia was good at Chinese painting, and her brush writing was excellent too, a ready-made teacher indeed!

“I’ll go to the dormitory near the Art Academy and ask around where to buy brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones.”

Having said that, Liang Yujun got up and ran off in a hurry. Mu Jiawen wanted to tell her that she had those supplies at home, no need to buy them.

But her mouth had just opened when the girl had already disappeared.

Moreover, she had also prepared one of her mother’s paintings for her but didn’t get a chance to mention it before she ran off. Well, she could just bring it over when it was closer to the holidays.

After finishing the rabbit painting, Mu Jiawen put down the pen and was about to pick up a novel to read when the dormitory door was pushed open.

Ding Yuanyuan and Sha Yali, who had gone to the library to look up materials, were back.

But, it wasn’t just the two of them; they also brought a bunch of flowers.

Ding Yuanyuan teased Mu Jiawen with a wink, “Guess who gave these to Yali?”

“It must be that third-year senior with lush hair, Yali’s fellow townsman, your cousin.”

“Bingo, Senior Ding just confessed his feelings to Yali and asked her out to a movie on Christmas.”

Mu Jiawen cocked her head and asked Sha Yali, “You said yes?”