The Heiress's Game

The weather was beautiful the day Julie returned home.

The airport's glass dome sliced ​​the sunlight into pieces, which fell onto the shoulders of her off-white trench coat.

Julie studied history in college, Chinese history and world history, dynastic changes, emperors and generals, a discipline that studies "how people lived in the past".

She chose this major without much thought; it was purely because the tuition was cheap.

Painting is a hobby, the only thing that didn't belong to soy sauce and oyster sauce that grew out of that cramped cubicle in the back alley of Chinatown.

When she was little, she would lie on the back of the restaurant's cashier and draw on the menu.

She drew the neon lights of Chinatown, the plastic wishing tree in front of the restaurant, and the bright and clean room she imagined.

Later, when she went to college, she bought a box of watercolors at a second-hand store and started drawing in the blank spaces of her notebooks.

A classmate passed by and saw it, saying, "Julie, you draw really well." She smiled and said, "It was just a random drawing."

Many people have said her paintings are good. Professors have said so, classmates have said so, and strangers in galleries have lingered in front of her paintings longer than those of other paintings.

But her paintings weren't worth much. She hadn't sold a single painting before agreeing to the collaboration with that mysterious woman.

It was priced at two hundred and hung on the wall of the coffee shop for three months. In the end, the coffee shop owner thought it was taking up space and asked her to take it away.

It rained the day she picked up the painting. She wrapped the frame in a plastic bag and carried it in her arms. When she walked back to her apartment, the plastic bag broke, and rainwater seeped in, leaving a small, blurry mark on the painting.

She stared at the mark for a long time, then leaned the painting against the corner of the wall and went to the kitchen to cook herself a bowl of noodles.

Back then, she still believed in some things. She believed in hard work, in talent, and that as long as she painted well enough, one day someone would see her work.

She would stand in the museums of Paris looking at the works of the masters for an entire afternoon, telling herself, "Look, they also started out unknown."

Van Gogh didn't sell a single painting while he was alive. You need to keep trying.

Later, she agreed to the mysterious woman's request and then saw how the mysterious woman helped her operate it.

I didn't tell her all at once; I showed her step by step.

It's like someone standing to the side of a stage, looking at the ropes and pulleys behind the curtain, watching the angle from which the lights are coming from, and seeing that everything the audience thinks is magic is actually all pre-arranged.

The first step is for the artwork to enter auction channels.

It wasn't a large auction that was packed with media; it was a small, private event where only a select group of people would be invited.

Next to her name in the auction catalog is a short introduction: "A Chinese artist residing in France, whose works blend the artistic conception of Eastern ink painting with the compositional language of Western modern art."

This passage was written by someone else. When she first read it, she even felt that it wasn't written about her.

The starting bid was set so low that she felt it was an insult.

But the mysterious woman told her through an intermediary that the lower the better.

The lower the price, the more people will try to buy it. The more people try to buy it, the more the price will rise.

The more drastically prices are driven up, the bigger the headlines will be the next day.

Everything went as the lady had predicted.

On the day of the auction, the three paddles were raised in turn.

It wasn't the kind of cutthroat bidding; it was a rhythmic, rehearsed, ebb and flow.

She sat in the audience, watching her painting being bid on round after round, the numbers jumping from the starting price to six figures, and from six figures to seven figures.

Her fingers gripped the edge of the program, her knuckles turning white.

It wasn't excitement, but a strange, dizzy feeling, like motion sickness.

It took her three days to paint that picture. On the windowsill of that small apartment in Paris, she layered watercolors, with a hazy courtyard outside the window, and painted her imagined sea.

The moment the gavel fell, she became an "emerging artist".

The media headlines were exactly as she had expected.

"Chinese-American female painter sets record in her first auction appearance," "Mysterious buyer wins Julie's work at a high price," "A rising star in the art world."

Her resume has been rediscovered—a history graduate, self-taught painter, living in Paris, and blending Eastern and Western aesthetics.

Each label hits the spot that the art market likes perfectly.

Her social media account gained over 100,000 followers overnight, and her private messages were flooded with invitations from galleries and interview requests from the media.

Some people asked her about her creative philosophy, some about her artistic path, and some about how she went from being unknown to where she is today.

She answered. She spoke sincerely. She talked about her passion, her perseverance, and the nights she spent painting until dawn in her small Parisian apartment.

These answers were written into an interview, accompanied by photos of her in her studio—photos taken by a professional photographer.

The light came from the side, softening the contours of her profile, and in front of her was an unfinished work of art.

Holding a paintbrush, he tilted his head slightly, as if contemplating where to place the next stroke.

When she saw that interview, she thought of the painting that had been ruined by the rain, leaning against the corner of the rented room, the paint running down the water stains like a face with smudged makeup from crying.

Julie used to think that all those famous painters were really amazing.

It must have taken countless efforts, it must have been a gifted talent, it must have been drawing stroke by stroke in countless unknown nights, drawing until calluses formed on the hands, until the eyes were sore, until finally the world saw it.

She had read those names in art history textbooks: the three masters of the Renaissance, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism.

Each name is a mountain, and as she looked up, she felt the mountaintops were above the clouds.

Later she discovered that the mountaintop was indeed above the clouds. But they hadn't climbed up there themselves. The clouds had been placed there by someone else.

She began to look at art news with a new perspective.

When a certain painter's work fetches an astronomical price at auction, which gallery is behind it?

A certain newcomer suddenly appears out of nowhere; which agency signed him? A certain exhibition causes a sensation; the curator and the collector are the same people.

Those names she once looked up to, one by one, emerged from behind the clouds.

It's not that they lack talent. They do. But in this game, talent is the least scarce resource.

What's scarce is the hand that hangs the painting on the auction house wall.

The price of Julie's item went up again at its second auction.

The third time, collectors began to specifically collect her works.

They are not the kind of casual buyers who just buy a piece and leave; they are genuine collectors who will continue to follow her creative process.

She moved her studio from a small apartment in Paris to a studio with floor-to-ceiling windows in the Marais district, where she could see a small stretch of the Seine River with its greyish-blue waters.

She stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and called her mother, saying, "Mom, I've changed art studios."

Her mother said on the phone, "Okay, okay, take care of yourself and don't overwork yourself."

After hanging up the phone, she stood by the window for a long time. Cruise ships passed by on the Seine, their lights reflected on the water, shimmering like shattered gold in the waves.

She recalled the cubicle in the back alley of Chinatown, where two beds were visible when the curtain was pulled back, and showers were taken in a public bathroom with limited hot water supply.

I think of that painting ruined by the rain. I think of the crooked lines on the back of the menu.

I remember her dad washing dishes in the restaurant kitchen, his hands white and wrinkled from being soaked in detergent, his fingerprints almost worn away.

Money really is a good thing.

It's not because it can buy things. It's because it can turn what you have into something valuable.

The same painting, priced at two hundred on the wall of a coffee shop, went unsold, but fetched a seven-figure price at an auction house.

The painting is still the same painting. What has changed is where it is hung, who holds up the number, the carefully written introduction in the catalog, and the unseen tacit understanding reached over the phone, at dinner parties, and in private rooms before the sign is raised.

Julie drew back the curtains in her studio, and sunlight streamed in, illuminating her newly painted painting.

The image showed a sea, not the sea she had imagined. It was the sea she had actually seen.

On the plane back home, looking out the window, she saw an endless expanse of gray-blue water beneath the clouds. She thought, that must be Rome.

She picked up her phone and sent a message to the middleman.

"Thank you, ma'am. I owe her a favor."

The other party replied very quickly.

You owe no one anything. You just took what you were entitled to.

Julie looked at the message but did not reply.

When Julie pushed her suitcase out of the international arrivals gate, the first thing she saw was a welcome sign held high.

—"Welcome back to China to participate in the exhibition, Ms. Julie."

The person holding the sign was a young girl in a black uniform. She came up to her with a well-trained smile and said, "Teacher Zhu, you must be tired from your journey. The car is waiting outside."

There were two staff members nearby; one took her suitcase, and the other handed her a small bouquet of white champagne roses.

The girl who picked her up at the airport introduced herself as Xiao Yang, and said she was the organizer's designated contact person for her.

On the way from the arrival gate to the parking lot, Xiao Yang's mouth never stopped.

Professor Zhu, we have already arranged your schedule. Please rest first. There will be a small welcome dinner tonight, attended by the main artists and curatorial team of this exhibition. If you feel tired, you don't have to go. It's okay.

………………