Supremely Talented Tyrant

Hao Jian pointed at Qian Shaohang's painting and said, "This painting of yours has a nice layout, excellent coloring, and the combination of colors is top-notch. One glance, and people can't help but be deeply captivated by it."

Qian Shaohang snorted rudely and a look of disdain appeared on his face. Do I need you to tell me that? Don't I know it myself?

"Handsome guy, we asked you to point out the flaws in Qian Shaohang's painting, not to brown-nose," said the sultry Zhang Qiuya teasingly, staring intently at Hao Jian.

Hao Jian nodded. "Now I am going to talk about its flaws. You focus on color but chase perfection too much, making the colors overly pronounced. Could the sea of flowers under the sunset really be this bright and vivid?"

Upon hearing this, Qian Shaohang and Elder Qiu were both startled and instinctively took another look at the painting. Elder Qiu looked especially earnest, wondering if he really had misjudged.

"Of course, it wouldn't be that vivid. The light of the sunset should be dim, carrying a sense of age, leaning more toward a shade of orange, but your colors are golden. Rather than a sunset, it would be better to say it's the blazing sun."

Hao Jian continued his critique, with just the color aspect already seeming unreasonable.

"Hiss."

At that moment, upon hearing Hao Jian's words, Elder Qiu also couldn't help but gasp, realizing there indeed was a critical issue with Qian Shaohang's painting.

Seeing Elder Qiu's reaction, Qian Shaohang's expression started to sour:

"But to say my painting is bad just because of this isn't that nitpicking? I could say that my painting aims to capture a certain mood. Since it's a mood, it doesn't need to strictly adhere to realism—you, an amateur, whether you understand or not?"

As Qian Shaohang finished speaking, he threw the question back to Hao Jian, while everyone turned their gaze back to Hao Jian, waiting for his response.

"Yes, you could certainly argue it represents a mood. But if it's a mood, what exactly are you trying to convey? Is it cheerful and charming, or melancholic and somber?

If it's the former, better to depict the blazing sun, which could more vividly emphasize the painting's brightness; if the latter, why not make the colors deeper and more restrained, perhaps also paint a young girl standing in the sea of flowers gazing at the sunset to bring depth and texture to the painting?

Your alternating between vividness and melancholy gives it an inconsistent feel, do you understand?"

After listening to Hao Jian's opinions, people looked at Qian Shaohang's painting and felt it wasn't that great anymore.

Elder Qiu too seemed contemplative for a while, then deeply bowed to Hao Jian:

"I have learned a lot."

Everyone was astonished; Elder Qiu's reaction indicated that Hao Jian's identified issues truly existed. Their gaze towards Hao Jian also changed.

"You talk as if you know so much, why don't you try painting one yourself?" Zhang Qiuya said disdainfully, standing by Qian Shaohang's side, naturally speaking up for him.

At this comment, Elder Qiu frowned and couldn't help but reprimand:

"Does it mean that one cannot critique paintings if they don't know how to paint? Does that mean I also have no right to critique paintings?"

Elder Qiu also couldn't paint, and Zhang Qiuya's remark had inadvertently insulted him too.

"That's not what I meant," Zhang Qiuya said, her face flushing with embarrassment as she hurriedly tried to defend herself!

She did not dare to offend Elder Qiu; otherwise, the art pieces in her gallery might never sell again.

"I don't care what you meant, I'm telling you what it means. Those who understand art aren't necessarily artists, just like appreciating a song doesn't require the ability to sing it," Elder Qiu bluntly said.

Then Zhang Qiuya had nothing else to say.

"It doesn't matter. Since today is Che Xiaoxiao's birthday, I don't have much to gift to Xiaoxiao. I shall paint a picture for her, and if it's not good, don't laugh," Hao Jian said with a smile, then asked:

"Do you have watercolors here?"

"You really like to joke, this is a bar, how could there possibly be watercolors? You said it because you knew they weren't here, didn't you?"

Zhang Qiuya said sarcastically, not daring to offend Elder Qiu, so she vented all her frustration on Hao Jian.

Hao Jian ignored Zhang Qiuya's mockery and said, "Since there's no watercolor, we'll use alcohol. I assume there is some here?"

"Painting with alcohol?" Everyone found it quite amusing.

"Wait here, I'll get it for you right away."

The bar owner was suddenly interested and quickly ran off, soon returning with a box of colorful liquors and a sheet of white paper.

"Brother, pick whatever you like, it's on the house!" the bar owner said generously, having never seen anyone paint with alcohol before. To feast his eyes on such a sight, a few hundred bucks was nothing.

"Thanks a lot, brother," Hao Jian nodded, then picked out four bottles.

"That's enough."

"Just four colors? Don't you need dozens of colors for painting generally?" the bar owner asked, surprised.

"It's enough," Hao Jian said with a smile, then began to paint, ignoring the skeptical looks from the crowd.

He took several glasses, then poured his chosen bottles into them, immediately creating a range of different colors in each.

Everyone was stunned; Hao Jian had somehow developed five distinct colors from just four bottles of liquor.

Elder Qiu stroked his beard and nodded, confirming from this alone that Hao Jian must be an expert.

"Wow, that's incredible," a man dressed as a guitarist couldn't help but exclaim.

"What's so incredible about that, I can do it too!" Qian Shaohang huffed, displeased.

"But he created those colors using alcohol, can you do that?" the guitarist retorted with a curl of his lip.

"..."

At this moment, Qian Shaohang didn't know how to respond. If he claimed he could, and everyone asked him to demonstrate, he could be in big trouble.

After blending the colors, Hao Jian simply dipped his fingers in the alcohol and began to add colors to the plain piece of paper, painting with his fingers.

They watched Hao Jian working on the paper, but it barely seemed like he was painting, more like he was just scribbling. After a long time, nobody could tell what he was trying to depict.

"What a load of rubbish."

Zhang Qiuya scoffed disdainfully, thinking that this kid was indeed pretending to know what he was doing—it was just a bunch of messy colors.

Hao Jian ignored her, continuing to focus intently on his painting. Within half an hour, his "scribbling" was a success.

"Mr. Hao Jian, why don't you tell us what this painting is supposed to be? A bunch of stains?" Qian Shaohang laughed out loud. Could that even be called a painting?

Hao Jian didn't say a word but simply flipped the painting over.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Then everyone fell silent.