This is a peculiar painting.
The painting features vibrant colors and direct, crisp lines that depict the graceful figure of a naked young woman. She lies on a bright red sofa with her head tilted to one side, her face split in two, with black lines running from the background above her forehead to her nose and mouth.
If you look closely, you'll see that it's composed of half a profile and half a frontal view. This combination gives the image a sense of three-dimensionality, a technique often used by Picasso.
The strangest thing is the girl's hands. Judging from the color, size, and shape, it is obvious that these are not the hands of a single person. What's even more interesting is that each of her hands has six fingers.
"I bought this painting from the United States last Christmas." Xia Wenyuan know why Qingmu suddenly asked about it, but after coming out of the dream, he trusted Qingmu quite a bit. "It's been hanging here ever since I bought it."
Qingmu leaned close to the painting, his nose almost touching the paint. Generally speaking, this is considered very impolite to appreciate a painting like this, as it's easy to damage it. Even if he didn't touch it, the moisture from his breath would still cause serious harm to oil paintings, which are already difficult to preserve.
Knowing that Xia Wenyuan adored the painting, Wu Lixia gently reminded him, "This painting cost 150 million US dollars; it shouldn't have been hung directly on the wall like this."
"Oh, I see." Qingmu moved a little further away from the painting, but he still looked like he might accidentally smudge the paint at any moment. "You must really like this painting."
"Of course," Xia Wenyuan said. "I don't need to make a profit by investing in art. If I didn't truly love it, I wouldn't spend so much money to buy an oil painting to hang in my study and look at Tiantian, just like a book."
"Can you tell me why you like this painting so much? Judging from the style of your study and your collection of books, you seem to prefer Eastern aesthetics. If the painting downstairs is meant to match the fireplace, then this painting in your study is quite strange," Qingmu asked.
"Sir, you have a discerning eye! It seems this painting is destined to be mine."
Xia Wenyuan praised Qingmu and then recounted his experience of buying the painting.
"Last year, I was invited to the United States to attend a charity auction. At the VIP preview before the auction, I saw this Picasso, 'The Dream.' To be honest, I know very little about Western art and rarely collect related items. But I liked this painting at first sight. It had a very familiar feeling to me, as if I had seen it somewhere before."
"You must have seen pictures of such a famous painting online or somewhere else!" Qingmu said.
Xia Wenyuan said, "No, it's not that kind of familiarity, it's a feeling of 'long-lost', like meeting a long-lost relative."
Qingmu suddenly remembered a symbol of an hourglass, and he had felt a sense of "long-lost" connection to it back then, so he could understand Xia Wenyuan's feelings. But he was certain that he had an intricate connection with that symbol, while what did Xia Wenyuan have to do with a famous oil painting?
It's impossible to suddenly feel "long-lost" upon seeing a painting for no reason!
"And then you bought it?"
"Of course not," Xia Wenyuan said. "I'm a businessman. I wouldn't buy a piece of art worth over a hundred million US dollars just because of a momentary emotional impulse, even if I don't truly appreciate it. You know, a hundred million US dollars can invest in a pretty good Hollywood movie. If used to support the younger generation in the family, it could start more than ten startups."
Qingmu had little concept of money, especially US dollars, but he could still do simple arithmetic. What was a hundred million US dollars? It was the income a taxi driver would earn if he drove continuously for five thousand years; it was the price that Ruhua could sell for ten million cocktails behind the bar; even if those women in the nameless alley at the Liuying Lane did their business with no capital, and entertained thirty men every day, it would take them five hundred years to earn that much.
"So what made you buy it later?" Qingmu asked.
Xia Wenyuan said, "You know, fate is a very mysterious thing. At the time, I only had a slight emotional fluctuation and didn't intend to bid at the auction. But at the party that evening, Ronald Cohen, the chairman of the Dream Foundation and the owner of the painting, happened to be sitting next to me. He explained the history of the painting to me in detail, and that's when I realized how much of a connection I had with this painting."
"I was born in 1932, and this painting was created by Mr. Picasso in 1932. That year, my mother gave birth to me amidst the war. This may be a coincidence, but there's an even bigger coincidence. This painting by Picasso depicts his lover Thérèse. He must have painted many portraits of Thérèse, but only this one is the most perfect."
"In 1927, they met at the train station. Picasso was thirty years older than Thérèse. My father and mother also met in 1927, and they were also thirty years apart in age. At the time, my father was a silk merchant, well-off and known for his philanthropy. My mother was a student at a national university. She was injured by the military police during a student demonstration, and my father rescued her, which led to my birth. The year I was born, the Battle of Songhu broke out. My father took the supplies he had collected to the front lines to provide support, but unfortunately disappeared in the fighting. My mother was heartbroken and fell ill. When my father returned, the evergreen plants on her grave had already bloomed."
" Cohen heard my story and said that the painting was made for me. He suggested that I buy it. As a sign of respect for my father and mother, he was willing to sell it to me at a very favorable price. As everyone knows, he bought the painting from Las Vegas tycoon Michael Jones for $155 million, and the price he offered me that day was only $5 million more than the original price."
"Although so many coincidences are tempting, and the price is fair enough, I still won't buy it. As a qualified family manager, every decision I make could affect the family's fate, so I must fully restrain my inflated desires, even if this deal doesn't seem like a loss."
"It wasn't until after the dinner, when Mr. Cohen invited me to look at the painting up close again, that I finally understood where that feeling of 'déjà vu' I had when I first saw it came from—the pose of the girl in the painting was exactly the same as the pose in a photograph my daughter had once taken."
"The more I look at her, the more she resembles my daughter Xiaoxiao. I even had the thought in my mind—she is my daughter, and this painting was created by the artist for my daughter."
"So I made up my mind to buy the painting. I asked Cohen to sell it to me, thinking he would ask for a high price, but to my surprise, after hearing about my daughter's situation, he readily lowered the price by another five million dollars."
"Excuse my bluntness," Qingmu said, finding the coincidences too bizarre, "Could I see that photo of your daughter?"
Xia Wenyuan seemed a little hesitant, exchanged a glance with Wu Lixia, and then nodded.
Wu Lixia took out a photo album from a drawer in her desk and pulled out a photo.
In the photo, a beautiful young woman is leaning back on a red sofa with her eyes closed, and she does indeed bear a striking resemblance to the oil painting on the wall.
Qingmu looked at the photo, scratching his messy hair, his face showing a slightly odd expression: Isn't this Meimei young mother?
"Where is your daughter now?"
Xia Wenyuan suddenly looked sorrowful. " Xiaoxiao passed away five years ago."