Chapter 53 - Best Piece!

The Head of Department and other lecturers present could not help but voice out multiple lines of praises.

"Impressive!"

"This is a great piece!!"

"This is definitely the best piece I've seen in a long while!"

"It is unbelievable that it was a student in their first year who painted this!"

Zhu Yunqing entered the office and greeted everyone inside with a charming smile on her face. She was met with surprise and disbelieving looks on the faces of all present there. Yet, they also could not seem to hide their subtle gazes of awe directed at her.

Mrs Park, who did not know her by name was even more shocked as she recognized Zhu Yunqing. She had met her once in the staff room when she overheard one of the other lecturer was reprimanding her about her failing grades. She knew about how poorly she was as a student.

Almost every lecturer in their department knew how much trouble Zhu Yunqing was for Mr Yang. Not a day of class went by that Mr Yang did not return from class grumbling about a certain student. They never expected that same student had just produced what seemed to be a master piece.

Who would have thought? The person who always came in the last position in class, never attended most lectures and was always a trouble magnet could paint so well? And that such a magnificent art piece would one day come from the worst student in the art class.

How could they have had such great talent hiding right under their noses? And they knew nothing of them.

If she had such talent, what could be the reason for hiding it all these while and why reveal it now? Those were the crippling thoughts running through all their minds.

Those were the questions that everyone present in the room before Zhu Yunqing came in, could only ask themselves. After all, being an artist was not even something a person could learn in one day. Art, itself was an embodiment of stories. Stories of how one feels, speaks, moves or even thinks. Stories an artist wants to express in all the different languages of emotions.

Artist have to express the innermost and deepest feelings through their arts. Being able to understand and portray that feeling was the biggest obstacle an artist had to overcome in order for the painting to have value. Artists learn to carry beauty and put down pain in the most beautiful and eccentric forms. Artist speak in the language of woven metaphors and visual puns. Expressing them in lingering dreams and hopes of life becoming dreamy and as such creating the greatest meaning and healing powers of their art.

Seeing Zhu Yunqing's clean appearance also added more to their disbelief. If she really painted that art work shouldn't she be dishevelled or have her body or hands smeared with colours.

They could not dismiss her creativity though. One could really feel the deep emotions she had imbibed in the painting. She was even able to focus on portraying trivial details of the painting.

When their minds was still clouded by doubt, Mr Yang had to even vouch that he had seen her through and through as she completed the painting. Mr Yang might be a lot of things but a liar was not one of them. Besides, what would he gain from sprouting such an outrageous lie?

They still spoke words of praise as they told Zhu Yunqing how exceptional her painting was.

Suddenly, Mr Liu asked her, "What made you paint this?"

Zhu Yunqing simply smiled and replied calmly, "The ironic farce of power. A tool that could consume even our souls but also help us survive. Something we all sort for but never realize that it is nothing but an entrapment to those that have it."

Listening to her reply, most could not believe that someone this young could come up with such a concept for the painting.

After a few minutes digesting what Zhu Yunqing said, Mr Long Hui, who was in charge of the Painting Carnival suddenly spoke, "I believe we have one of the works for this year's exhibition at the carnival."

"We will definitely bag a good position with such a marvellous piece," Mrs Park added.

"Then we won't be needing three more entries for the carnival exhibition," The Head of Art Department, Mr Liu seemed to agree with their suggestions.

Zhu Yunqing respectfully returned to class with Mr Yang coming back a few minutes after her. The students noticed that Zhu Yunqing only came back with her drawing board while the painting was nowhere in sight. So, they started murmuring again about how she would soon be expelled from the school.

By now the class was over and Mr Yang asked them to all turn in their paintings after making the announcement that there they only needed two paintings for the art carnival. The announcement got the student a bit rowdy. Some actually suspected that Zhu Yunqing's painting was selected seeing how strangely Mr Yang had acted up until now. Yet, looking back at Zhu Yunqing's past "achievements" were clear indications that it was impossible for hers to be selected. Her previous acts and arts definitely made them doubt themselves and why they even initially thought about it in the first place. Some thought maybe the carnival organization had been too disappointed with the art pieces from their school that they only gave two slots to Zhi Shi College. So, every other student turned in their own painting hoping for their work to be selected as the final two and moved on from what happened.. They all went ahead to their next engagements.