Chapter 471

Actually, this matter is easy to solve. As long as Wei Ming had made a phone call here before coming, letting them turn off the street lamps, the neighbors would naturally disperse, and then he could come under the cover of night to "steal fragrance."

However, those things can wait until the time comes. Now, Wei Ming holds the two women and enters the inner courtyard, opening the calligraphy and painting room.

Zhu Lin twirls her hair with her fingers: "It's late at night and you're not sleeping; why do you suddenly want to appreciate paintings?"

Wei Ming tells them: "I saw the news today that Zhang Daqian just passed away in Taiwan."

"Oh, so what?" Zhu Lin asks again. She wants to sleep; if she doesn't sleep, her "relatives" will be coming again.

Wei Ming: "Once Zhang Daqian dies, the price of his works will certainly rise. I'll pick out a few with duplicate themes from here, or ones I don't personally care for. Sister Xue, when you go to Hong Kong, hand them to A-Long and let him help me handle them."

He opens a box and takes out paintings according to the labels, "Oh, you can also take out some works by Qi Baishi and other deceased artists; let him help me handle them all."

Wei Ming is certainly not short of money, whether it's RMB or foreign exchange, so Gong Xue is a bit curious: "Everything is fine, why sell them?"

Wei Ming glances at the room full of calligraphy and painting boxes: "Because we hold too many. Contemporary art like calligraphy and painting must circulate to drive up the price."

Seeing that they still don't quite understand, Wei Ming sits on a box and explains to them: "My dad spent 300,000 Hong Kong dollars when he bought them, but in reality, if they were placed in Hong Kong, these things could be worth at least several million Hong Kong dollars."

"Ah!" Both are shocked; they didn't expect Uncle to have picked up such a big bargain.

Wei Ming says: "This is a valuation based on the current acceptance of these calligraphers' and painters' works in the Hong Kong art market. And when these works appear in the auction market, as one high price after another is called out, the theoretical value of other works under the same author's name actually increases as well. So I need to release some works to stimulate the market and let the paintings I have in my hands increase in value."

Seeing them digesting this, Wei Ming asks: "Do you think I'm too calculating?"

Gong Xue shakes her head: "I'm just curious. You could donate 1 million just like that, so how high must your expected value for these paintings be to make you put in so much effort?"

Wei Ming holds up a finger. Zhu Lin: "Ten million?"

Gong Xue takes a deep breath: "He should want to say one hundred million."

Because she knows how rich Hong Kong people are. Hearing from Gong Ying, there is a businessman known as the Superman of Hong Kong whose net worth is conservatively estimated at 10 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Zhu Lin is about to express her disbelief, but Wei Ming laughs: "I wanted to say 10 billion."

"What!?" Now even Gong Xue finds it hard to understand. Just these paintings? This, this can't be, right?

Wei Ming: "10 billion is even conservative. If our national strength is strong and the people are wealthy, the tycoons who control most of the wealth can naturally buy anything of high value. When sports cars, yachts, and private jets can no longer satisfy them, non-renewable art will naturally enter their field of vision."

As for the part of the paintings Wei Ming has already seen, it's rare for them to auction for hundreds of millions, but he has already seen several that are worth tens of millions. Most, even relatively ordinary paintings, can sell for hundreds of thousands; only calligraphy would be cheaper.

The two sisters blink with their mouths slightly open. Suddenly, Zhu Lin asks: "You just said tycoons who control most of the wealth—that shouldn't be the case, right?"

Wei Ming: "Don't think it's impossible. Not counting an outlier like me, can the wealth controlled by Little Mei and Biaozi now be compared to that of ordinary people? And New Territories is still expanding. As long as the policies are relaxed a bit more, I guarantee Little Mei will make the scale of New Territories ten times larger. The gap between them and ordinary people will become larger and larger. Alright, let's not talk about that; that's not something we can control. We just need to live our own lives well."

At this moment, Gong Xue looks at the scroll in her hand again and feels it's heavy. So these paintings are worth so much.

Before, Wei Ming even let her pick a few to give to her father and brother. Later, she must let them keep them properly; maybe they'll be worth a car in the future.

He also let Zhu Lin pick, but Zhu Lin's parents aren't into this. Zhu Lin asked Wei Ming to send two papers on weapons and medicine; Wei Ming told her to go play with eggs, and then she went.

After picking ten paintings for Gong Xue, Wei Ming lets her pack them up and asks: "So when are you leaving?"

Since Wei Ming asked, Gong Xue has to tell the truth, saying that the procedures for entering the country to visit relatives are still in progress and aren't that easy.

Wei Ming pats his head: "Entering Hong Kong has indeed become stricter now. This kind of thing should still be done through work channels. Aunt Xia Meng wrote to me saying she's coming to Yanjing soon; let's ask her for help then."

Gong Xue nods, and Wei Ming announces: "Let's go, sleep, sleep."

Now Zhu Lin, who was starting to yawn, perks up. It's still more fun here; at Tuanjiehu, she has to guard against neighbors above, below, left, and right, and everyone doesn't dare to let go.

And just as the three of them were "flying sand and moving stones, pulling mountains," a three-person thief group arrived at Nanluoguxiang.

One of them says: "Big Brother, I've already scouted the spot. There's a large mansion that used to be lived in by a woman. There's been no one there for a while, and no one at night either. I heard there's even a color TV inside!"

A color TV is one or two thousand; stealing one is enough for the three of them to eat well for a long time.

However, when they arrived at that alley, the street lamps on the road were bright, especially with a lamp post near the main entrance.

Under the light, they really didn't have the courage to stand at the entrance of that wooden door.

They walked there and took a look, seeing no lock on the outside, which meant there was someone at home, making them even more timid. They walked straight past. The guy who scouted the spot earlier even took a punch from Big Brother.

This is called "no one living there"!

And even if there was no one, they didn't have the guts to work under the street lamps.

Doing this kind of work, one most fears the light.

The next day, a refreshed Wei Ming pushes open the door of the inner courtyard.

This courtyard has two doors; even if the first door is conquered, there is still a second door, as well as the third bedroom door.

And there are two bicycles in the outer courtyard; ordinary small thieves should stop when they see this.

However, Wei Ming is still worried. He feels that besides fearing the light, thieves also fear one thing: "noise."

He touches the door between the inner and outer courtyards, thinking whether he can set up a trigger alarm on this door. The kind of siren on a police car is very scary for people with a guilty conscience.

As long as it rings, they will guarantee to run away immediately.

For this problem, Wei Ming rarely returned to Peking University today to ask classmates in the electrical and mechanical major to help him think of a way, the reason being that his home had just been robbed.

Everyone is very happy to be able to help Teacher Wei Ming and puts forward plans one after another.

They have plans but no money, so Wei Ming calls Wei Hong over, telling them to ask Wei Hong for money to buy materials for experiments. It doesn't matter if they can't make it; just treat it as social practice.

A few days later, Xia Meng arrives in Yanjing and brings the Mandarin version of the script for *Paper Butterfly*.

Xia Meng's status is here, so Wang Yang calls Siqin Gaowa over, and they meet at the Beijing Er Yingchang, finally successfully securing Siqin Gaowa as the female lead.

At that time, Wei Ming, the middleman, was also present. After this matter was settled, Wei Ming talked to Xia Meng about asking her for help.

She readily agreed. Gong Ying is now mainly working for her family's garment factory, and Xia Meng's husband has now hugged the thigh of the Langning Company and is also preparing to open a garment factory in Shenzhen. Because the land Langning wants is large enough, they directly carved out a small piece to rent to them for use.

"Little Wei, have you finished that *Spring of the Sheep-Herding Class*?"

Wei Ming says: "Still doing the final adjustments; it should be watchable this weekend."

Xia Meng: "That's good, I'll leave after I finish watching it."

During this period, Wei Ming introduced Gong Xue to Xia Meng.

By the weekend, Ge You arrives early at his parents' home at the Beijing Er Yingchang. He is so old now and usually lives in the unit dormitory.

And today is the first unofficial screening of *Spring of the Sheep-Herding Class* at the Beijing Er Yingchang. He certainly can't miss it. Not only him, but his father and mother will also go to see it.

On the other side, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Chen Kaige, Feng Xiaoning, and Feng Xiaogang, who was specifically notified by Wei Ming, also come.

Tian Zhuangzhuang and several other classmates' *Red Elephant* have also completed post-production work, so they want to see what another young director's work from the Children's Er Yingchang is like, and whether it's really as Kaige boasted.

As for another important member, Zhang Yimou, he didn't come. Besides the long distance, it was also because his daughter had just been born, and his wife hadn't finished her confinement yet.

In his previous life, the date of his "daughter's" birth happened to be the day before they decided to film *One and Eight* in Guangxi, so the daughter's birthday was the last day of their ordinary life, hence the name Zhang Mo.

However, in this life, Zhang Yimou couldn't participate in the other classmates' *One and Eight*, but instead participated in Wei Ming's *Spring of the Sheep-Herding Class*, so this eldest daughter of his and his wife's is named "Zhang Fangchun."

"Yo, Brother Han, please come in, please come in."

After Feng Xiaogang arrives, he doesn't sit down immediately but stands at the door as a greeter. His dog-legged appearance makes Tian Zhuangzhuang and Chen Kaige, these "director second generations," quite disdainful.

However, Feng Xiaogang doesn't think so. He hasn't seen Master Ming for a long time, so he has to perform well.

Han Sanping and Mi Jiashan have recently been studying at the Film Academy. Wei Ming has also invited them to dinner twice before, and Han Sanping often comes to the Beijing Er Yingchang to care about the post-production progress. This first screening naturally couldn't be without them.

Of course, Gong Xue and Zhu Lin certainly couldn't be missing. They are even more concerned about the quality of the finished film than those participants, because they saw the efforts and sacrifices Wei Ming made for it.

Someone who likes bed sports so much and likes a comfortable life, for the sake of this film, stubbornly drilled into the mountain villages of the Southwest for several months, living a life without any quality of life. This film must have placed great expectations on him.

Finally, the two factory directors and Ms. Xia Meng arrive. With everyone here, it can start. Factory Director Wang Yang and Xia Meng modestly let Yu Lan sit in the middle; today is their Children's Er Yingchang's home court.

The film wasn't shot in chronological order but started directly from the skin-child blocking the village head's chimney, leading to the fact that the village primary school no longer had a primary school teacher.

So the first one to appear is Xizi. Xizi and Lele are sitting between Gong Xue and Zhu Lin right now. As the biggest star of the whole film, Teacher Xi was also invited.