Chapter 126 Another Identity-X She also has new friends around her who care about her...
Toudou University.
As one of the best schools in Japan, it not only has spacious and magnificent buildings and open grounds, but also has a beautiful and pleasant campus environment.
For example, the road from Teaching Building No. 1 to the Art College Building is planted with beautiful wisteria.
When the wind blows, the wisteria looks like a group of purple butterflies flapping their wings, or like a pouring purple waterfall, with a faint floral fragrance, bringing the hurried students and teachers into the warm early summer.
"Mr. Ando, are these wisteria flowers also newly planted?"
"Yeah." The man with light blond hair responded with a smile.
"But it's not too new. It's been planted for almost five years. The first two years, when it didn't grow much, it was bare, but now it's growing beautifully. You came right in the season. If you had come a month or two earlier, there wouldn't be such a dense sea of flowers."
Amuro Toru thought thoughtfully: "I see."
As the dean of the School of Arts at Toudou University, the light blond man next to him was incredibly young and incredibly handsome.
He had distinctly Germanic features, with blond hair and blue eyes. His hair was very light, but his eye sockets were shallow and he had no freckles. His handsomeness was striking, and coupled with the gold-rimmed glasses that adorned his eyes, he looked quite intimidating at first glance.
Fortunately, he always had a faint smile on his face, which neutralized the sharpness of his appearance and made people feel less uncomfortable when facing him.
When Toru Amuro saw him for the first time, he was stunned by his good looks.
He couldn't help but wonder if the dean wore glasses on purpose - he noticed that his glasses only had frames but no lenses - so that he would have a greater sense of distance, otherwise when he was teaching, the students would stare at his face instead of the blackboard.
Then Toru Amuro had a bad feeling.
He came to inquire about Lin Xi's situation. When he checked Lin Xi's information in the public security system, he could only find out that she was born in China and studied at the School of Art of Dongdu University. He could not find out more details.
He was puzzled as to why Lin Xi was so idle as a college student - although college students were indeed idle, others were only idle when they had no classes, while Lin Xi was idle all the time - so he simply came to Lin Xi's school to see her and ask about her situation.
But when he saw the appearance of the Dean of the Academy of Arts, the answer had already emerged in his mind:
Oh no, that guy didn't come here just because the dean is so handsome?!
No wonder she is never seen in class. Could it be that she only attends the classes taught by the dean?
So the first question he asked when he saw Ando Hui was not a small talk, nor was it a direct question about Lin Xi, but rather -
[“Do you usually teach undergraduate students?” Amuro Toru asked hesitantly.
Hui Ando:?
"No, I no longer teach undergraduates." He smiled in response. "Mr. Amuro, do you want to take my class?"
Toru Amuro:.
No, he just wanted to ask the dean if a student with black curly hair had ever approached him...]
"My office is in the building in front, Mr. Amuro." Ando Hui noticed that Amuro Toru was absent-minded. "If you are not in a hurry, please come up and have a sip of tea with me."
"I'll tell you about Lin Xi's situation while we're having tea."
Toru Amuro: "...Okay."
...Lin Xi's situation seemed to be more complicated than he had imagined.
It was worth it for the dean to spend enough time to talk to him over a cup of tea.
He followed Ando Hui upstairs.
The dean's office is on the top floor and has good lighting.
The Art College building is a newly built building. Two of the four corners are made of curved glass. The office is located in the southwest corner of the top floor. The afternoon sunlight shines in from the window and shines on the green plants planted by Ando Satoshi indoors, which makes people's eyes relax involuntarily.
The water in the glass pot gurgled. Ando Hui reached out and poured the boiling water into the covered bowl, shook it, poured out the first cup of tea, poured in hot water, and brewed the second cup.
Ando Hui's movements were neither hurried nor slow. She gently closed the lid of the bowl, pondered for a moment, and the first sentence she said surprised Amuro Toru:
"Lin Xi is my student."
Toru Amuro: "..."
Suddenly everything became clear to me.
"You mean...?"
"She's my graduate student, and it's her second year." Ando Hui said with a smile, "You look surprised. Did you think she was an undergraduate?"
Toru Amuro:.
I really didn't expect it.
But isn't that even weirder?
It’s ok for college students to have free time, but why are graduate students so idle every day?
As if seeing Amuro Toru's doubts, Ando Hui explained:
"She is indeed young. And her circumstances are extremely special."
"In theory, for ordinary graduate students, if they haven't completed the required credits and submitted the necessary academic achievements within two years, we will issue a notice to allow them to postpone their graduation. If they haven't met the graduation requirements within six years, we will expel them."
"But like I said at the beginning, Linxi's situation is very special."
"If Mr. Amuro is familiar with the dynamics of the art world, he should know Painter X."
Painter X?
Miss X?
Amuro Toru was surprised.
He is a rising star in the art world that has emerged in recent years.
Unlike other artists, she almost appeared out of nowhere and only appeared under the pseudonym "X". No one knew her real identity except the agent who helped her organize exhibitions and sell paintings.
Some speculate that she is a well-known painter, but in her works, people can't find any clues to other contemporary painters; others scoff, thinking that she only uses a pseudonym just to attract attention, just like her installation art that has caused people to talk about it. (Note 1)
But there are other aspects of Miss X that people agree on.
For example, Ms. X is very financially strong.
This brings us to the exhibition that made Miss X famous - she funded the construction of a new exhibition building for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The project was extremely fast, almost like a building built from scratch, and was completed on the eve of the opening of the Global Contemporary Art Exhibition, and was exhibited in the building on the same day as the exhibition.
The effect was naturally very good - visitors to the art exhibition were naturally willing to check out the new exhibition nearby, which immediately brought her a lot of exposure. Coupled with the media hype and the outstanding performance of her solo exhibition, "Miss X" and her solo exhibition quickly became a hot topic of discussion.
Although Toru Amuro is not interested in art, he also knows Miss X, which shows how famous she is.
What did Ando Hui mean by mentioning her now? Could it be...
"Yes, it's just what you think."
Ando Hui seemed very satisfied with Amuro Toru's surprised expression and poured the brewed tea into the cup in front of Amuro Toru.
"Xiaoxi is Miss X. Now you understand why I invited you to my office before I could talk about this, right?"
"I am one of the few people who know her identity." The man with light blond hair seemed quite proud when he said this, with a smile on his face, which was quite different from his usual unapproachable appearance.
Amuro Toru watched, and something in his mind moved:
This dean seems to be really familiar with Lin Xi.
Did he know that Lin Xi kicked criminals, punched gangsters, wandered freely in the gray area, and even became an informant for the cadre of the most terrifying, darkest, and most evil organization in Japan (yes, he is talking about Punch)?
"But I guess you didn't come here to ask that." Ando Hui leaned back in her chair leisurely. "Is it because of that child's absence from school every day?"
"It really comforts me. She has new friends around her who care about her life."
Hearing this, Amuro Toru felt a little guilty for some reason.
Are he and Lin Xi friends?
...maybe.
Toru Amuro can have many friends, but Bourbon cannot; Toru Amuro can be friends with Lin Xi, but Bourbon cannot.
But Lin Xi was exactly the kind of person who knew about his dual identities and wanted to get close to him.
Toru Amuro himself doesn't know what their relationship is now.
Just thinking about her gave him a headache...
"I knew her a long time ago. Her family went through some changes. After her parents passed away, she didn't have any familiar relatives or trustworthy friends in China who could take care of her. So I suggested that she come to Japan."
"It just so happened that I was the dean here at the time, and I had a quota for supervising master's students. So I invited her to come and study."
"I did have some selfish motives at the time. If Miss 'X' appeared in Japan, or even at Toudou University, it would be a great thing for the Japanese art world and Toudou University."
"So when she was studying with me at the academy, I hinted that she could hold another exhibition here. To this end, I even had several discussions with her agent."
"Xiaoxi also told me that she is going to exhibit her latest works."
"Thus, with the efforts of many parties, the stage was gradually built, waiting for the leading actors to take the stage."
“…I was full of anticipation.”
Ando Hui took a sip of his tea. A subtle expression appeared on his face, as if sad, but more of a regret:
"But what I didn't expect was that maybe I put too much pressure on the child. The night before the exhibition was ready to be released, when her curator was working with her to materialize her brilliant ideas in the exhibition hall, an accident happened."
"The exhibition hall caught fire. Her paintings were burned beyond recognition. She was even injured."
"I thought it was some clumsy staff member who did it, or some student who was driven by twisted jealousy."
"But just as I was about to retrieve the surveillance footage from inside and outside the exhibition hall to find the culprit of the arson, Xiaoxi suddenly stopped me and told me that she had set the fire herself."
Amuro Toru frowned.
His first reaction was: With Lin Xi's reaction speed and skills, it is impossible for him to wait until the fire starts before noticing the existence of the flames, let alone get hurt.
His second reaction was: Lin Xi lied to Ando Hui. Amuro Toru intuitively felt that Lin Xi would not do something that might harm others.
Was she trying to exonerate someone? Was it someone else who set the fire, and Lin Xi took the blame on herself to prevent Ando Hui from discovering who it was?
"I didn't believe it at first." Ando Hui glanced at Amuro Toru and said, "So I checked the surveillance."
"In the end, I found out that it was Xiaoxi herself who destroyed her work."
"The surveillance footage was crystal clear. The fire was contained perfectly by the creek, destroying only her work and harming no one else."
"She destroyed her newly-made works in the blazing fire, stood by the fire and watched the works made of special materials curled and deformed by the fire, and even let the flames climb up the corners of her clothes and engulf her in the flames."
When Ando Hui said this, her brows furrowed, as if she had witnessed something very unpleasant.
————
(Note 1: An artistic method that uses specific artworks to interact with the audience at a specific time and place.)
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