Chapter 449: “My Neighbor’s Dog”
Fang Zhao was basically set on the house after scrutinizing it carefully without finding any major issues. All that remained was for Nanfeng to negotiate with the real estate agent and the owner.
Curly Hair was in a very good mood today and enjoyed himself thoroughly when he was let loose. After Fang Zhao called him ashore, he continued playing around in the sand. When they were finally leaving, Curly Hair stared longingly out the car window.
Nanfeng chuckled when he saw this. “Don’t worry Curly Hair, you’ll be moving in the next time we come. You’ll be able to play as much as you want and swim in the ocean every day. There are even small fish and aquatic creatures to play with.”
Curly Hair was delighted and laid down to envisage his blessed future life.
What sort of impression did Curly Hair have of the ocean?
An image of a free seafood buffet.
His cheerful mood persisted all the way until they returned back to the advanced students’ dormitory.
After Nanfeng and the other two left, Fang Zhao shut his dorm door. “Come here, Curly Hair.”
Curly Hair wagged his tail and went over.
“Did you enjoy playing today?” Fang Zhao asked.
“Woof!”
“Did you have fun there?” Fang Zhao asked again.
Curly Hair leaped up and barked again. He wagged his tail vigorously.
“Speak.”
“Fun!” Curly Hair replied.
He had already gotten used to switching languages already, and his pronunciation was rather smooth now.
“Mmhm.” Fang Zhao nodded, then turned on the learning console.
Curly Hair: “...”
His ears shuddered and he shrank back a step.
Fang Zhao ignored Curly Hair’s retreat. He turned on the learning console and opened a file for Curly Hair. Inside the file were e-books that he had purchased for Curly Hair.
“Ocean Environment Protection Law”
“Environmental Conservation Series For Young Adults”
“Protected Marine Creatures List”
“Marine Environmental Management”
“100 Facts About The Ocean That New Era People Need To Understand”
“The Ocean, My Home”
...
There was a total of twenty books. All of them were related to the ocean.
On top of that, there were twenty sets of test questions as well.
Curly Hair: “...”
His trembling ears drooped down.
“I know you read fast. You ought to be even faster now, right? After you finish reading the twenty books in the file and get full marks for all twenty sets of test questions, I will let you out to play in the ocean. By my estimates, there are probably less than fifteen days before we can move in,” Fang Zhao said.
This was all knowledge that could be memorized. Given Curly Hair’s current memory and learning ability, obtaining full marks wasn’t a difficult task.
Fang Zhao wasn’t worried about Curly Hair’s safety when he went out into the ocean. On the contrary, he was worried that Curly Hair would eat up and eradicate endangered marine creatures.
Even now, Fang Zhao didn’t know exactly how big Curly Hair’s stomach was. During the filming on Planet Bu, Curly Hair was secretly eating a lot of other creatures in the desert and the sea. It was only because of Fang Zhao’s warning that Curly Hair didn’t really go all out and eat. After all, his time in Planet Bu wasn’t very long, and Fang Zhao had given him restrictions. He also had to be careful of being seen by other people on Planet Bu and hadn’t been able to eat too much in secret.
However, after moving into the new place, Curly Hair would have the opportunity to go to the sea every day. No matter what restrictions were in place, this single dog would be an invasive force that would wreck the marine ecosystem in that area.
Fang Zhao had to get Curly Hair to understand certain things beforehand. It hadn’t been easy for the marine life to recover to the current levels of today. It couldn’t be destroyed by Curly Hair.
Forget about playing in the ocean if you don’t get full marks! There’ll only be the learning console for you!
On a certain day, Nanfeng came to look for Fang Zhao regarding the renovations of the new place.
Upon entering the dormitory, Nanfeng saw Curly Hair facing the wall with a drooped head. There were tear stains beneath his dog eyes.
Nanfeng paused for a moment, then looked away and went to find Fang Zhao. He had to settle the matters at hand first. Besides, this was normal behavior from Curly Hair. Nanfeng had already gotten used to it and could remain calm when seeing this.
After discussing the renovation issue, Nanfeng recalled something he had seen today and asked, “Oh, right. Boss, did you see the stuff online today?”
“What stuff?” Fang Zhao had been writing a thesis today and had set his personal terminal to “Do not disturb”.
There was a lot of talk online regarding Fang Zhao. Many people were looking for him. Thus, Fang Zhao could only use the “Do not disturb” mode.
“Do you know about Will’s painting?” Nanfeng asked.
“Yeah, is it regarding Will’s graduation works?”
Fang Zhao had gone to see Will’s graduation exhibition already. Will too had gotten a high A+ evaluation. Amongst his graduation pieces was a painting of Curly Hair titled “My Neighbor’s Dog”.
The exhibition had already ended two days ago. Furthermore, because Fang Zhao had been working on a thesis in his dormitory since morning, he really wasn’t aware of the online news.
Nanfeng told Fang Zhao what he knew.
It turned out that after Will’s graduation exhibition had concluded, the school had displayed his art pieces on the school’s website. This had garnered a lot of discussion.
Will had successfully both of his goals set last year from his advanced student plan. His short-term objective had been to paint Fang Zhao. His final objective had been to paint Fang Zhao’s dog.
His short-term objective had long been completed. Back then, Will’s painting of “My Neighbor” had generated quite some buzz online. There were even netizens joking that Will had painted Fang Zhao like an alien.
Following “My Neighbor”, “My Neighbor’s Dog” became a trending search on that day.
“My Neighbor’s Dog” was the art piece that Will had spent the most time and effort on during his advanced studies period. At the same time, it was also the piece Will was most satisfied with.
This painting had a similar style to the previous “My Neighbor”, but it was even more difficult to interpret. One could still make out a human form when viewing “My Neighbor”, but “My Neighbor’s Dog” didn’t seem in any way like a dog. If not for the title of this piece, nobody would think that the dog in this painting was a little pet dog.
The vivid colors were both mysterious and imposing, They pushed the boundaries of the ordinary. But, there seemed to be something off. The longer one looked at it, the more apprehensive one would feel.
“Is Fang Zhao’s dog really that terrifying?” A HuangArt student thought back to when he had encountered that curly haired dog in the school’s garden. He then went to do a quick online search of Fang Zhao’s dog. Indeed, he hadn’t remembered wrongly.
Over at HuangArt, those who had attended Fang Zhao’s graduation concert and also viewed Will’s painting up close had other thoughts.
“I must say, the feeling I get from this painting is similar to what I felt from Fang Zhao’s song ‘η’. It seems to surpass ordinary people’s scope of comprehension.”
Even industry outsiders standing before the painting and observing it silently for a few seconds felt eerie sensations. Even though they didn’t understand, they still shivered.
On the Internet, the discussions became even more intense.
“Will has really let loose after entering advanced studies. His thoughts and ideology are free-flying. It’s no longer something we can understand.”
“What sort of grudge does he have to actually paint Fang Zhao’s dog in such a way?!”
“OP definitely hasn’t seen Will’s previous painting ‘My Neighbor’. First go see how Will painted Fang Zhao before you try to understand it.”
“Perhaps Will was bitten by a dog before and has a psychological scar. Otherwise, why would he have painted it in such a terrifying light?! A little cutie has been turned into a monster!”
“This is called art.”
“Indeed, ordinary people like us aren’t able to understand an artist’s world.”
“Objectively speaking, after staring at it for a whole five minutes, I am still unable to decipher what it is that he wants to express. However, I undoubtedly feel that is impressive despite the weird sensation.”
“This probably classifies as a more abstract art which requires more meticulous viewing.”
“This painting wouldn’t sell well, right?”
“It can be purchased to ward off evil spirits too.”
“I think it’s worthwhile as an investment. This artist Will is still young.”
In actuality, Will had already received some inquiries about purchasing the painting after it was displayed on the school’s website.
Finally, it was a collector from Muzhou who bought “My Neighbor’s Dog”. His bid far exceeded HuangArt’s estimated valuation.
Some people reckoned that this Muzhou collector was overly crazy about Curly Hair. After all, many Muzhou people couldn’t stay calm when it came to Curly hair.
There were also some who felt that this was purely hype, whether because of Will or because of Fang Zhao’s dog. The way that Muzhou people viewed dogs could be impossible to understand sometimes.
Thus, Huangzhou TV Station’s painting and calligraphy channel specially dispatched someone to interview the person who had bought this painting.
During the interview, the Muzhou collector said, “Many people that buy Will’s paintings invest in the artist Will and not the painting. I am different because what I look at is both the painting and the dog in the painting. I have a hunch that this painting’s value will skyrocket in the future.”
Little Bear was watching the interview broadcast. “Muzhou people really have a fearsome intuition towards dogs. Humans are indeed peculiar creatures.”
Thus, because of Will’s painting “My Neighbor’s Dog”, Curly Hair too became a hotly searched topic and appeared on Huangzhou’s trending headlines.
After Nanfeng left, Fang Zhao browsed through the news online and said to Curly Hair, “You can forget about going out these few days. Stand for another five minutes before going back to hit the books. You only scored 62 for the morning’s test. Go read through the section of protected animals twice more! Can whales be eaten?! You can’t eat corals either!”