Midnight at midnight,
The moon is at the zenith.
Sakai Katsuko quietly opened the door to the hotel suite.
When she opened the door, the room was quiet and dark with the lights turned off. Her mother was nowhere to be seen on the sofa bed in the living room.
Sakai Katsuko's heart lifted slightly.
"You won't be discovered, right?"
She sneaked back to her room quietly before daring to turn on the light.
Sakai Katsuko looked around and found that there were still sticky notes on the small refrigerator, and the bedroom was exactly the same as when she left.
Glancing at her phone again, Sakai Katsuko confirmed that her mother had not sent her any messages, and there was no unanswered call notification on the screen.
"Hmm... not bad."
Then she gently fanned her face with her palms to calm herself down.
The girl kicked off her leather shoes, huddled into the King-size palm-colored bed in the bedroom, and breathed a long sigh of relief.
It seemed that my mother only slept on the sofa halfway before going back to her room.
He probably wasn't aware that his daughter had just slipped out while he was half asleep.
So much the better.
Sakai Katsuko opened her big bright eyes, staring at the crystal lamp stand on the room, thinking about her thoughts.
"What should I say tomorrow morning?"
She felt that she was not afraid to tell anyone in the world that she and Gu Weijing were in love, and she was already prepared for it.
When Ms. Sakai posted on Instagram, she knew that her mother would definitely see it.
However, when I think of Mrs. Sakai's serious face and the way she used to raise eyebrows and noses at Gu Weijing in private in front of her.
The little girl was actually a little frightened.
"Mom will definitely be very angry. Who cares about her, just let her scold me. I'll just keep silent. If that doesn't work, call dad first? He has a better impression of Gu Weijing. Oh, I hope it gets better in the morning. Slow down..."
Sakai Katsuko buried her head deep in the pillow, with a little ostrich mentality, waiting for the storm tomorrow morning.
"No matter what...she can't pack me up and send me back to Japan, right?"
Sakai Katsuko was thinking wildly.
She casually took off the sticky note on the refrigerator and was about to throw it into the trash can when she was suddenly startled.
The sticky notes are not my own handwriting.
When Shengzi left, he was worried that his mother would find out that she was missing, so he left a note telling Mrs. Sakai that she and Gu Weijing went painting together.
Now,
The words on the card turned into Mrs. Sakai's handwriting... It wasn't the scolding she thought -
[I know, I have to tell an adult in advance before leaving home. PS: Go watch a beauty tutorial on YouTube. Your eyeliner is really clumsy. I see you are anxious about putting on makeup. 】
Sakai Katsuko blinked, thinking she had seen it wrong.
My mother found out that she had slipped out, and her reply was... let herself learn how to put on makeup?
She sat up from the bed, holding the note in her hand. She didn't know whether she wanted to cry or laugh, and her eye circles suddenly turned a little red.
"What's wrong, Katsuko, I can't believe my mother is so easy to talk to, right?"
The bedroom door was gently pushed open.
Mrs. Sakai appeared at the door of the room like a ghost, squinting at her daughter.
"Mom, thank you."
Sakai Katsuko sniffed slightly.
She seemed to have secretly brought the sixty-point exam paper home to sign, but found that her parents were unexpectedly easy to talk to today. She let out a sigh of relief and said in a wet nasal voice, "I...I Thought you would be angry.”
"Thought I would be angry? Huh, of course I am."
Mrs. Sakai sat on the edge of the bed, held her daughter in her arms, touched Katsuko's smooth hair, and gently wiped away the tears on her daughter's face with her fingertips.
She shook her head helplessly.
"You're even crying. I, a mother, am so unreasonable?"
"Who do you think your mother is - the old witch who locked her daughter in a high tower in fairy tales, or a snob who hopes to sell her daughter for a good price? Shengzi, you are my biological daughter, our family We’re not short of money, your and Tsuna Chang’s happiness is more important than anything else to me.”
"Mom, I love you."
Shengzi was so moved that she gently rubbed her head against her mother's chest and said in a tired voice.
"Well, if you like Gu Weijing, you'll love me. If you don't like that bastard, you won't love me anymore. My sweetheart is much more important than my mother. Right?" Mrs. Sakai said eloquently as usual.
"That's not what I meant."
Miss Katsuko shook her little head coquettishly.
"Actually, I don't mean to blame you... Who hasn't been young before?"
"Back then, I did the stupid thing of secretly taking the raw meat sauce lasagna from the kitchen at home, baking it in the oven, and sneaking out to feed your father as a midnight snack." Mrs. Sakai said softly, "I told you, Your grandma has an exclusive secret recipe for making lasagna, which is very famous in the local community, but it’s just troublesome to make and it’s not often made.”
"I found out later that your grandpa had a very important business partner coming to the house at that time, and the lasagna was prepared by your grandma for the family dinner the next evening."
"Then what?"
Sakai Katsuko's curiosity was aroused.
"I was horrified when I realized I had gotten into trouble."
"Your grandpa didn't like the Dongfang classmate I was dating, and he once said it in front of me - do you want my grandson to look like a yellow-skinned Tatar (note)... something like that I've come here before, but now I've ruined his perfect family reception."
(Note: Tatars are a Mongolian grassland people. There is no clear distinction between Asians here.)
"Finally, your grandma calmly asked the servant to go to the supermarket and buy some instant lasagna. Faced with my grandpa's somewhat angry inquiry, she kicked me under the table, and then said that the cat at home had put the original The tinfoil plate of lasagna was knocked over.”
Mrs. Sakai recalled the memories of her youth and smiled: "That big orange cat didn't get your grandfather's good looks for six months. I have always felt sorry for the old cat at home for a long time."
"You and dad still have this kind of thing."
Katsuko Sakai rarely hears about her parents' love affairs.
She just knew that her mother's family conditions were much better than her father's.
However, every time I went to Barcelona's seaside villa for vacation in winter, the little old man of my grandfather was very kind to the family.
He kept excitedly showing off to all the neighbors that his "great artist son-in-law" had come to see them, and he wished he could be closer to Professor Sakai than to his mother's brothers.
"Shengzi, telling you this story is to tell your mother that she understands your mood and the joy you feel when you find out you like a boy for the first time. Your mother is not your enemy. On the contrary, your little boy Friends may abandon you, but your parents will never abandon you and will always be by your side.”
Mrs. Sakai stroked the side of her daughter's face.
"What really makes me angry today is that you didn't think of discussing it with me before you sneaked out. Have you ever thought about how worried I would be if I suddenly found out you weren't here after sneaking out so late? "
"I thought……"
Sakai Katsuko opened her mouth to explain.
"I know what you want to say. I really don't think much of Gu Weijing, and I certainly don't want my daughter to go out to play with boys so late. This is all right, because I am your mother."
"I hope your life will be smoother, richer, and more likely to succeed. If you treat life as a game, marrying Taro Kosatsu is the Easy mode. But if you insist on choosing Hard gameplay, then I would also like to wish you the best. My daughter had a great time.”
Mrs. Sakai said softly: "It's just that you may suffer more."
"I'm not afraid."
Sakai Katsuko raised her head from her mother's arms and repeated firmly: "I don't care."
"Whether you care or not, this is the path you choose. One day we will grow old. After all, the person who will be with you for life is your husband, not my mother."
"If your husband lives up to his standards, it will be great, and you will receive countless envious looks. Your grandpa looked down on my husband so much back then, and now he's not so precious to me? Humph, all the neighbors and friends when I was a kid were saying, The Cruz girl hooked up with a nice guy worth a billion."
Mrs. Sakai cocked her neck, looking as arrogant as a forty-year-old princess.
"What if...I mean what if Gu Jun doesn't succeed? Will you always look down on him?"
Sakai Katsuko asked slowly and cautiously.
There are too many uncertain variables on the road of art, and all agents who pat their chests and swear that you will succeed are most likely to be liars.
There are so many geniuses who have hurt Zhongyong that they are countless.
It is common for good painters to fail to become popular.
Even Sakai Katsuko herself cannot guarantee that she will be as successful as her father.
I can only say that maybe, the probability of success should be higher than others.
She believed in Gu Weijing's ability, but whether she succeeded or not, Sakai Katsuko knew that it still depended on luck.
Let’s take the matter in front of us as an example:
An artist like Detective Cat, who has almost perfect sketching skills and a profound understanding of aesthetics, wasn't she still drawing ten-dollar illustrations before she was noticed by Mr. Hyperion on YouTube?
"If your husband is useless and will be just a little painter with no reputation all his life, actually... that's okay."
Mrs. Sakai smiled and said: "Even if I can't stand him anymore, can I still help him? Even if Gu Weijing accomplishes nothing and is laughed at when he is laughed at, who makes him incompetent? You can live your life behind closed doors. In your little days, as long as he treats you well and you can gain happiness, that's great. I am also willing to bless you."
"I only have a few hard requirements for my daughter's other half that are absolutely not allowed to change. First, he cannot gamble excessively, and secondly, he cannot take cough medicine. You know, because it is too easy to make money, playing with women, men, racing, and surfing I’m tired of these exciting projects, and there are quite a few people in our circle who are into these two things.”
Mrs. Sakai held Katsuko's porcelain cheek, looked at her daughter, and said seriously.
"Gambling breaks up the family too quickly. For a family like ours, if we go on vacation and buy some consumer goods such as bags and shoes, we can spend a lifetime without spending all the money. But gambling to lose millions of wealth may only take one night. As for drugs, People who are addicted to desire don't care about their family at all. If they are addicted to drugs, their whole person will be ruined. If they kill themselves, they will die. The probability of drug addicts domestic violence and beating their wives is also very high. I can never allow it to be on your pillow. That’s what people are like.”
"Last point, don't get involved in the dirty business of money laundering."
Mrs. Sakai thought for a while and added: "Let's not talk about gangsters. Even if the group of underground artists related to gang culture is chaotic, I shouldn't need to tell you specifically."
Among the street artists who started out as underground art or street spray painting, the most successful one is KWAS.
The godfather of global trendy toys, he has received both praise and praise.
His street art became a hit on Instagram, and his various co-branded artworks, clothing, hand-made figures, and trendy toys became popular all over the world.
The co-branded products of UNIQLO and KWAS are all sold out from Asia to Europe, from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, and queues can be hundreds of meters long in clothing stores.
Every year, the turnover of KWAS's various co-branded products is close to that of Kanye's coconuts, and the fans are even more sticky. In the past two years, a single piece of work has repeatedly exceeded 100 million US dollars.
The success of KWAS has led a large number of semi-gangster street spray-painting gang members to enter the art field, similar to rap culture.
An investigative reporter once published a special news report that a large amount of crime-related funds poured into the art industry, hoping to launder money by hyping up trendy art.
However, art investment has always been a hot spot for traditional money laundering, and it is not bad at all.
It's just that this kind of street spray-painting is even more chaotic. Several gang members are broadcasting online and painting on the territory of other bosses, just like hyenas peeing on the territory of other ethnic groups, and it easily turns into a gunfight.
What is quite darkly humorous is that although KWAS is popular on the streets, it is not a street person at all. KWAS is a serious graduate of the Illustration Department of the School of Visual Arts in New York and a Disney illustrator.
"This kind of money is not reliable. If it is credited into your account in the morning, your head may be shot for no reason at night. Besides, your father Kazunari Sakai is a serious person who has become famous through his own efforts. This kind of thing is not allowed in our house." Mrs. Sakai warned.
"What's left is to live a life. Whether a man can live up to expectations and have the ability depends on his own life." Mrs. Sakai pinched her daughter's face and teased: "It also depends on your ability to train your husband. .I think your dad has been trained very well and well by me."
"Um."
Sakai Katsuko made a nasal sound, her cheeks red.
She thought for a while and suddenly asked: "Mom, did you see the painting I posted on Instagram? I think Gu Weijing is quite impressive for being able to draw such a painting."
"That painting... is just so-so. The brush used is green and there are many frizzy areas."
Mrs. Sakai glanced at her daughter with a straight face.
Seeing her daughter's expression of eagerness to show off her sweetheart's talents to her, hoping to gain affirmation and expectation.
She finally smiled.
"Considering this guy's age, I can barely give him a good review."
Mrs. Sakai patted her daughter on the head.
"Gu Jun wants to participate in this year's Singapore Art Exhibition. Mom, I also want to participate." Sakai Katsuko suddenly said.
(End of chapter)
