Chapter 424: Appraising The Ancient Painting From The Yuan Dynasty – 1

“The day I invested in Hang Yuan High School, President Fu instructed the Fu Corporation to send a piece of jade to Hang Yuan.” Ouyang Ya paused for a moment before adding, “Although he didn’t go to Hang Yuan personally, he wrote something on the jade, hoping that it could act as a motto to push the students of Hang Yuan to focus on their studies.”

“President Fu? The national husband?”

“He made a splash some time ago on Weibo. I even shipped him and Fu Zhi! They would make a great couple!”

“He’s such a fine man! Even the Ford Family could not do anything to him when he forcibly took those artifacts back from them!”

The students of No.1 High School got excited, and the atmosphere in the hall was even more restless than the time Pure Feather had donated her books to them.

They had not expected that President Fu would give a piece of jade as a gift to Hang Yuan. Could the Fu Corporation be planning to select a few outstanding graduates from Hang Yuan to work at the Fu Corporation?

Well, even if that was the case, they felt that it was pretty reasonable. After all, Hang Yuan was an elite school in the capital, not to mention that the quality of their teachers was good.

They were all jealous of the students from Hang Yuan for having such a good opportunity.

On the other hand, Ouyang Ya took a furtive glance at Fu Zhi after she took a seat. Then, she offered the students below the stage a smile and said, “Do you all want to see President Fu’s handwriting?”

“Yes!” All of the students shouted in chorus.

Truth be told, even the teachers on the stage were curious as well. The recent presidents of the Fu Corporation had all been talented. Fu Zhao aside, even Fu Jiang’s artwork could be auctioned for tens of millions of dollars, and his gilded Flying White Calligraphy Technique was truly a masterpiece.

Thus, they were all wondering if the current President Fu had inherited their mantle or not.

While all of them were trapped in their thoughts, a few photos appeared on the presentation slides.

On the screen, everyone could see the words “heaven blesses the diligent” carved on the massive jade stone with a certain machine.

“I’m sure any of you who are familiar with calligraphy would be able to notice that the script that President Fu used was the Hairpin flower small regular script. It has a high artistic value and it can be sold for an astronomical price in the market, yet President Fu decided to give it to us.”

Fu Zhi put her phone on her lap while Ye Jiu turned to look at her and asked, “Really? You gave the jade stone to Hang Yuan?”

“I guess so. I can’t remember.”

Fu Zhi was telling the truth. She could vaguely remember that she had come across someone from the Wu Family before in a certain WeChat group. The Fu Corporation happened to need to expand its network at the time, so they’d picked Hang Yuan out of the bunch of schools in the capital and sent a gift over. It was actually just a small gift, and Fu Zhi did not know why Ouyang Ya wanted to make a big fuss about it.

What’s more, she made it look like she was the reason President Fu had decided to give the jade stone to Hang Yuan, which caused a few female students to ship her and President Fu, saying that they would make a great couple.

Fu Zhi was speechless.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m not homosexual.’

Ouyang Ya’s primary objective was to bring the students from Hang Yuan and No.1 High School to visit the museum, but there was more to it. Director Liu figured that it had something to do with the gift she was going to give to No.1 High School.

However, he could not tell what kind of gift it was. In any case, it was definitely not the jade stone. After all, Director Liu could feel that Ouyang Ya was pretty stingy, and unlike Fu Zhi, who would let everyone know she was stingy, Ouyang Ya often hid her stinginess beneath her generosity.

Ouyang Ya took a look at her watch and told Director Liu, “I guess it’s about time for us to depart and head to the museum?”

There were more than 1,000 third-year students, so they had to go batch by batch. In the end, the teachers decided to pick 10 representatives out of each class to visit the museum, while the rest of the students would stay back at school.

Fu Zhi was thrown into the bus by Fan Gaoda.

After getting off the bus, only the students from the two schools went to the museum, as the Hang Yuan side had informed the museum about their visit in advance.

Ouyang Ya led Wu Zhiheng to an antique street near the museum, while the rest of the students were split into two teams to enter the museum.

Fan Gaoda was walking in front of the group, and Class 21 was the first batch to enter the museum.

The students from No.1 High School were not very interested in the antiques and relics in the museum, so Fan Gaoda was mainly giving explanations to the students from Hang Yuan.

After Fu Zhi and Ye Jiu finished admiring the ancient paintings in the museum, they planned to find a spot to sit down and play games together. Just as they turned around, they saw a boy from Hang Yuan asking Fan Gaoda questions.

Fu Zhi remembered the boy. He was always around Wu Zhiheng. She just could not remember his name.

Then, the boy introduced himself to Fan Gaoda. “Hi, sir. My name is Zhu Mingjie, and I’m a third-year student from Class 1 in Hang Yuan. I like history very much.”

After he introduced himself, he pointed at a painting behind Fan Gaoda and asked, “Sir, can you tell us what dynasty this ancient painting is from? I like it very much, but I don’t know any specific information about it.”

He sounded as if he was genuinely asking a question, but when the students around him looked in the direction of his finger, they did not know why, but they suddenly had a bad feeling about it.

It had only been 11 years since the establishment of the museum in Yu City. Many of the artifacts inside, in addition to those bought at auctions or donated by some wealthy bigwigs, had been discovered locally.

The origin and history of the first two were clearly identified, but when it came to the latter, archeologists would need to examine the artifacts in person to recognize their origins.

Since they had discovered quite a lot of artifacts in Yu City in the past few years, the archeologists were working under a lot of stress. Some of the relics or artifacts that could not be identified would be brought to the museum in advance and wait for the appraisal of the experts in the capital.

The painting that Zhu Wenjie was pointing at was one of the artifacts that could not be identified.

Fan Gaoda frowned.

“Could you not know either?” Zhu Wenjie continued when he saw the frown on Fan Gaoda’s face. “I’m sorry, sir. I thought you would know about it, but it seems like I was wrong. If a teacher can’t even recognize his own country’s cultural relics and can’t explain their origins clearly to his students, isn’t he just misleading his students by being a teacher?”

Fan Gaoda pressed his lips firmly. The fact that he had been appointed as a guide meant that he really knew his work. Even though he did not know much about archeology, he knew quite a lot about ancient paintings.

Squinting his eyes, Fan Gaoda walked toward the painting and said after a few minutes, “Well, it’s not easy to identify the origin of this painting, but in my opinion, it’s from the Yuan Dynasty. It seems like the work of Huang Gongwang, the oldest of the Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty, but this is just my speculation. I’m not very sure about it, so I guess it’d be better for us to wait for a proper statement from the museum.”

“Oh, I see…” Zhu Wenjie nodded meaningfully. Then, he turned around and told the student behind him, “Mr. Fan Gaoda said he doesn’t know how to appraise ancient paintings, but why do I remember our history teacher knowing a lot about this?”

“Our history teacher has a postdoc and retired from the archaeology department of a good school!”

“It’s just a painting. I’m sure that if our history teacher was here, he would be able to tell us everything about it!”

“I don’t understand why we came here. He doesn’t know anything about artifacts or ancient paintings at all. How can he help us gain knowledge?”

“Hah! Even a student like me knows what this painting is, but he, a teacher, doesn’t know anything about it? How can he be a guide with such minimal history knowledge?”

Every student from Hang Yuan was criticizing Fan Gaoda.

When Song Fang heard their comments about his teacher, he said, “Why the hell would you guys ask if you know everything about it, huh? What can you guys possibly gain by making things bad for my teacher? Don’t you know how to respect teachers?”

“So? He’s the guide, yet he cannot explain the origin of an artifact to us. In my opinion, he should not be a teacher but a student!”

“That’s no reason for him to be an incompetent teacher!”

“We are making things bad for him? Look at the painting yourself. Can you see the imperial seal of Emperor Qianlong? That means this painting is from the Qing Dynasty, yet he said this painting is from the Yuan Dynasty! Do you know how funny that is?”

“…”

Song Fang did not know what to say.

Lifting his brows, Zhu Wenjie then added, “Mr. Fan Gaoda, with all due respect, you’d be fired if you were a teacher at our school.”

That was it.

The students from Class 21 threw all caution to the wind and got into a brawl with Hang Yuan.

Fan Gaoda tried his best to calm them down, but nobody listened to him. The security guard that was standing not far away immediately called the manager when they saw the scene.

The situation was getting out of control.

Then, Zhu Wenjie shouted, “A public school? Do you think your school is great just because you’re a public school? You guys are just…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a blue water bottle was suddenly smashed against the spot by his feet, startling everyone.

They all stared at the blue water bottle springing on the floor a few times before coming to a complete stop. Then, they looked in the direction the water bottle had flown from.

Fu Zhi was standing not far away, and her face was dark.

Everyone fell silent.

She squinted her eyes and glanced through the two crowds of students with a cold gaze.

“Still want to fight?”

Both the students from Hang Yuan and No.1 High School shook their heads in unison.

“Alright then.” She then looked at Zhu Wenjie and commented, “Yes. I think my school is great.”

She paused for a moment before adding, “At least we don’t have an *ss like you as a student.”

Fu Zhi then walked toward the ancient painting. She studied the painting for a moment before saying, “You guys said this painting is from the Qing Dynasty?”