Austria, at Jelena's estate.
It was 7:45 in the morning, and the tall French butler directed the servants to push the cart to the door of the study.
"Miss's breakfast."
The nurse sitting behind the desk at the housekeeper's door said.
As an heiress trained by a traditional upper-class family.
Although the Elena family has always been known as art lovers, the workaholic style with a martial atmosphere of the old German and Austrian military monarchs and military aristocratic society can still be seen in Anna.
Miss Anna's daily routine is extremely regular and self-disciplined, as accurate as a well-wound clock.
She never stays up late and insists on doing upper body yoga for an hour and a half every day.
She cannot walk. In order to prevent the atrophy of her leg muscles, a specialized physical therapist will spend an hour in the evening massaging her to relax the corresponding muscles.
Anna goes to bed at half past ten and gets up at half past six every day.
After a simple wash, she would handle official duties for an hour in the early morning, and read the day's current affairs newspapers and various art magazines.
If necessary, relevant review outlines will also be written.
At 7:45 in the morning, the butler will order the servant to bring breakfast, which is mainly organic corn cereal and decaf coffee.
She finished her breakfast in the study.
If she needs to go to work or have a formal social event, the housekeeper will pick out suitable clothes for her and arrange a driver to prepare for departure.
If it was an unscheduled day off, she would take care of some personal matters before lunch.
Day after day, year after year, the routine is completely unlike that of a young woman in her twenties.
But today, for the first time, the study door did not open as usual with the ringing of the bell by the nurse sitting in the secretary's office at the door.
"Miss Anna? Your breakfast."
The nurse aunt rang the intercom phone in the room.
"Oh, please come in."
A few seconds later, just when the servants began to wonder if the mistress of the manor was feeling unwell, Anna's voice came from inside.
The butler opened the door.
There is an open MAC on Anna's desk. She is sitting behind the computer, staring at the computer screen.
"Leave the breakfast cart here, I'll eat it later."
The hostess said without raising her head.
Although the housekeeper was curious, he naturally had no objection to his employer's decision.
He ordered the servant to put aside the breakfast cart and the hot towel used to wipe his face, turned around, and left quietly.
before leaving,
He noticed that the newspapers and magazines he had placed in the corner of the room this morning were still there intact, without even being touched.
The housekeeper feels that Anna has been acting very unnaturally recently.
Especially after the manor was flooded with set-up crews recording the show that day. He often saw Anna frowning and looking dazed.
…
"Hurry up, why haven't you replied to the message yet?"
Anna's finger clicked the refresh button at the top of the screen again on the touch pad.
Her face was still cold, but her slightly furrowed brows and her fingers tapping on the table from time to time showed that she was definitely not calm at this time.
The computer webpage is Gu Weijing’s Detective Cat online store.
The page shows that Anna has sent a lot of messages to the other party. And the mysterious detective cat still didn't reply a word.
"what is she doing?"
"Did she see my message?"
"If you saw it, why didn't you reply?"
"Did she get scolded by people online? Would she be sad?"
"Did she get tricked by those damn art vampires into signing a contract she shouldn't have signed?"
Countless chaotic thoughts flooded into Anna's mind, causing this critic, who was always known for her elegance and calmness, to lose her usual composure.
Ever since Thomas' video recording was completed that day, Anna has wanted to contact the detective cat lady all the time.
If it were not for the confidentiality contract, I would neither be able to disclose the relevant information nor contact any of the seven illustrators before the Thomas video was officially launched.
She had already sent a message to Detective Cat on the day she saw the other party's work.
Anna's heart was not only filled with the joy of discovering an outstanding genius, but also the urgency to talk to the master.
More of it is pure worry.
Judging from the behavior of this person who has master-level painting skills but still sells cheap popular illustrations online, Anna guessed that the living conditions of the other party would not be very good.
At this time, she suddenly became famous, and all kinds of complicated news came to her at once.
There are so many people on the Internet who praise him, but naturally there are also those who think he is not worthy of being criticized alongside Jane Arnold.
Anna didn't think this illustrator, who made a living selling paintings online, could handle it well.
She might even fall into some traps.
Why does a master like Mr. Cao need a dedicated art assistant and agent to handle contracts and related content for him.
Moreover, the salary structure of these most personal staff is basically high salary + commission.
A great painter can earn a total of 100 million US dollars a year, and these assistants can easily earn salaries in the order of 10 million US dollars.
It’s not that the master is too arrogant or has too much money to spend, but that countless predecessors have fallen into this trap.
Not to mention that the ability of many masters to handle property is very worrying, and their ability to take care of themselves is almost like that of a disabled person. There are many twists and turns in the contract that normal people cannot understand.
The high commission is nothing.
I am afraid that some small galleries like to offer signing fees that appear to be very generous, but in fact come up with breach of contract clauses that are simply impossible to fulfill.
It is similar to some Korean art economic companies that have been criticized by the media as sweatshops.
I signed a 10-year contract and looked good on the surface. After I finished my job, I found that I still owed the company money.
These informal art dealers like to attract painters who have excellent painting skills and were originally unknown but suddenly gained huge traffic.
It looked like a gold mine to them.
Like slave owners, they would whip their painters, squeeze their labor and inspiration, and finally throw them away without mercy.
This kind of news is not just in the fields of painting and music, nor is it just a recent thing. Anna knew nothing about this. Balzac was almost forced to jump off the building by his publisher.
But there is something special about the field of painting... it's money laundering.
No need to shy away.
In the art market where art and antiques are rising year by year, in addition to the benign art economy, there are also shocking money laundering activities.
Behind some inexplicable auctions may even be Latin American drug lords or human trafficking and other unscrupulous activities.
If you accidentally get attached to these people, a painter will be ruined.
Even if none of these things happen, if you are anxious to make money and take on some paintings that you don't like and are not good at, this will be a huge stain on your career.
Faced with the temptation of sudden wealth, can the detective cat really be able to resist it?
Anna was worried that the other party had accepted a contract that he shouldn't have accepted. She was worried that someone was trying to use his work to launder money. She was worried that the other party would be sprayed by some jealous trolls and she couldn't accept it...
She felt like an old mother worrying about her children, and she had not slept well for several days.
"Mrs. Detective Cat, are you there?"
Anna typed again.
