Chapter 55
"Tao Xi! Your painting has been shortlisted for the CAC preliminary round!"
When Tao Xi received Qiao Yitang's call, he was packing his luggage with Lin Qinhe for his trip to Beijing to participate in a competition the next day. He squatted on the ground holding the phone. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Qiao Yitang's excited voice continued to fill his ears:
"Let me tell you, you're the only one from our school who's been shortlisted this year. I think you're going to become public enemy number one in the art class, haha!"
"But the one who makes me the most angry is definitely the devil girl Jiang Lei. None of her students made the cut."
"If you win the prize, you have to treat me to a nice meal. After all, I am considered half your benefactor, right?"
…
Tao Xi stood up from the ground and waited for Qiao Yitang to calm down before thanking her earnestly. Qiao Yitang heard his calm tone and said, "Why are you becoming more and more like Lin Qinhe? You are so calm even though you received such good news. Are you pretending?"
Tao Xi couldn't help laughing when she thought of how Lin Qinhe was always calm and collected. She said a few words to Qiao Yitang and then hung up the phone.
Lin Qinhe put down the luggage he was packing, walked over and asked, "Have you made it to the preliminary round?"
Tao Xi nodded, without any joy on her face, and said, "It's still a long way to go before we win the prize. After all, there are quite a lot of people shortlisted for the preliminary round."
The CAC competition is divided into two rounds. Due to the large number of contributors, 100 paintings will be selected in the first round and publicly displayed on the official website of the competition for the public to vote. But in fact, voting is only to increase the interactivity of the competition. The impact of the voting results is minimal. The final awards are still made by the most professional judges, most of whom are well-known artists.
Tao Xi logged into the CAC official website on his computer and saw that his work was No. 82 in the exhibition area. The voting channel would be officially opened after midnight.
He turned off the computer, walked to the black suitcase that Lin Qinhe had just put away, sat on it with his arms around the handle, slid in front of Lin Qinhe with his legs kicked off, raised his head and looked at Lin Qinhe eagerly and said, "I don't want to go to school anymore, pack me up and take me away tomorrow."
Lin Qinhe thought about it and said seriously: "I'll ask for leave for you. It's still in time to buy a plane ticket now." After saying that, he really took out his mobile phone and pretended to buy a ticket.
Tao Xi was shocked, and quickly grabbed Lin Qinhe's hand, widening his eyes and said, "I'm kidding, I don't want to skip class."
But Lin Qinhe took it seriously. He raised his eyebrows and glanced at Tao Xi, then suddenly pushed the suitcase. Tao Xi was so scared that he hugged the handle tightly, but Lin Qinhe just pushed him around in the living room, like pushing a stroller.
Tao Xi immediately found it very interesting and pestered Lin Qinhe to push him a few more times.
The next day, Tao Xi took a taxi to school alone. Because Lin Qinhe had to catch a flight in the morning, the two of them only had time to have breakfast together.
As the end of the semester approached, the atmosphere in the whole school became tense. Exams of all sizes made the students dizzy. Except for the students in the art class who were heartbroken for not being shortlisted for CAC, non-art classes like Class 1 had hardly heard of CAC. However, after the head teacher Zhou Qiang learned about it from the art teacher, he made a special trip to Tao Xi at noon to congratulate and encourage him.
Tao Xi was starving but was held hostage by Zhou Qiang and talked for twenty minutes. All he heard was "you are great", "good kid", and "you have a bright future". It was not until his stomach cried out with hunger that Zhou Qiang suddenly realized that Tao Xi had not eaten yet and quickly let him go.
Tao Xi ran to the cafeteria quickly, and when he entered, he bumped into Yang Duole and Xu Ziqi who were just coming out. Yang Duole glanced at him without any expression, and Xu Ziqi's eyes were a little evasive. The two quickly passed each other and walked away.
Tao Xi looked back at the two people's backs, took the card to get food, ate quickly and returned to the classroom. He walked to the last row of seats as usual, but he was keenly aware that the atmosphere in the class was not right.
Several classmates were secretly looking at him, and when they met his gaze, they quickly lowered their heads. Several familiar classmates, such as Li Xiaoyuan and Bi Chengfei, saw him and surrounded him with anxious looks on their faces.
"Brother Xi, what's going on with your CAC competition?" As soon as Bi Chengfei came over, he took Tao Xi in his arm and walked to the corridor outside the classroom. His usual playful smile was gone, and his eyebrows were almost twisted into a knot.
"What's going on?" Tao Xi staggered after being dragged by Bi Chengfei and frowned.
After Li Xiaoyuan looked around to make sure no one was around, he handed his phone to Tao Xi and whispered, "Look at this Weibo post. It's been forwarded quite a lot."
Tao Xi took the phone and looked at it.
This is a long Weibo post that was published just a few minutes ago. The publisher is a yellow V account with the ID "Wenhua Academy of Fine Arts Things". It is obviously a Weibo submission platform.
The title of the Weibo post is very eye-catching: "Work No. 82 in the CAC preliminary round plagiarized the first prize work in the Jincai Cup competition."
Tao Xi narrowed his eyes and continued reading. The main text first compared his work with the first prize winner of the Golden Color Cup, which he had never heard of. The two paintings were almost identical, except for a slight difference in color. The line composition and creativity were almost the same. If it weren't for the different sources of the competition marked under the two paintings, many people who didn't understand painting would probably think that the two paintings were just adjusted in color using software.
The anonymous contributor did not directly name the authors of the two paintings, but only used the abbreviations TX and FYD, and compared the publication time and platforms of the two paintings. It is obvious that the Jincai Cup announced the winners last week, while CAC only announced the preliminary results yesterday. In terms of the time when the works were published, there is a clear time difference between the two paintings.
Then the contributor, posing as an alumnus of the Golden Color Cup author FYD, described in a very provocative way how FYD came from a poor family, how he was both a good person and an excellent student, and how difficult it was for him to win the first prize of the Golden Color Cup.
Tao Xi didn't read the nonsense that followed, and went straight to the Weibo comment section. There were already thousands of comments. Some curious people had already dug out the information and wrote the names of the two authors directly on it. FYD's full name is Feng Yadong.
"Am I seeing things? This isn't plagiarism, this is simply copy and paste, right?"
"How could such a big competition like CAC approve such a work and let it enter the preliminary round? Did the judges have their brains eaten by dogs? I'm going to send an email to complain."
"This painting is really good. Although I don't quite understand it, why did the author submit it to such a small and insignificant competition like the Jincai Cup? He should have submitted it to CAC."
"I checked and found out that the plagiarist is a high school student from Wenhua No. 1 High School. How could such a great high school produce such a person?"
"The families of those who can have their children studying in Wenhua No. 1 Middle School are not simple. Who knows if the parents asked someone to find a ghostwriter, and the ghostwriter was irresponsible and directly copied other people's paintings."
…
These comments are relatively peaceful, but there are more abusive comments. All sharp accusations and attacks are directed at Tao Xi alone. There are even rumors that Tao Xi has a strong background, and these rumors are very plausible.
A poor college student had his painting plagiarized by a prestigious high school student from a powerful family, and the student used the plagiarism to enter a more prestigious competition. This, combined with the recent news about educated parents helping their children forge research papers, can easily ignite the public's sensitive points.
Even if everything is just groundless speculation, no one cares whether it is true or not. The malice on the Internet is crazy and cheap. They just need a target and enjoy the pleasure of knocking the target down. The truth is not important.
Tao Xi clicked on the repost with an expressionless face and saw that three or four big Vs had already reposted this Weibo post. The words were fierce and full of gunpowder. They were anxious to escalate the matter to various levels before the final conclusion, for fear of not being able to stir up public opinion.
"Brother Xi, we definitely believe you. Someone is definitely trying to trick you!" Bi Chengfei said indignantly. In his opinion, Tao Xi would never do such a thing.
Li Xiaoyuan was afraid that Tao Xi would see too many negative comments, so he quickly took the phone back from Tao Xi. He didn't really understand what was going on, so he could only comfort her meaninglessly: "Yes, everyone in our class will stand by you."
The two people surrounded Tao Xi and tried to comfort her, fearing that Tao Xi could not bear the shock. However, they found that the person herself looked calm from beginning to end, and only frowned when she was reading Weibo.
Tao Xi's cell phone vibrated. He took it out and saw that it was a call from Lin Qinhe. After thanking both of them, he walked away and answered the call.
"Tao Xi, I've asked for leave for you. You can take a taxi home now. Don't look at your phone when you get home. Wait for me at home. I'll be there soon this afternoon. I know what's going on. Don't be afraid. It will be resolved soon."
Lin Qinhe spoke a little quickly, but his voice was still as steady as usual.
Tao Xi walked to the corner of the corridor, looked at the dead branches outside the balcony, and said to Lin Qinhe:
"Don't come back. Just concentrate on your exam tomorrow. I can handle this myself."
Lin Qinhe paused, and said without question: "I have already bought the plane ticket."
Tao Xi took a deep breath, and after a moment of silence, he still said stubbornly: "I wanted to tell you after the competition because I didn't want to affect your competition. If you come back, my previous plan will be in vain."
After he finished speaking, a hand suddenly patted his shoulder. He turned around and saw Qiao Yitang with a serious expression. He whispered to him, "Grandpa asked me to take you back."
Tao Xi nodded and continued to say to the silent Lin Qinhe: "Really, trust me, I will handle it. Just take the exam peacefully. I want to see you win the first prize in the country."
He reminded Lin Qinhe several times, but after a few minutes of persuasion, Lin Qinhe still did not give a clear agreement. He just gave him a business card on WeChat, whose name was Su Yun.
Tao Xi opened WeChat and found many new messages, all from his classmates. Some said they believed in him, some comforted him, and some expressed indignation.
He was a little surprised because he had been in this class for less than half a year and he had never expected to gain the trust of his classmates in this matter.
After getting in the taxi, Tao Xi added Su Yun on WeChat. Su Yun first sent him a bunch of information, which was Feng Yadong's personal information and past paintings. He read it carefully from beginning to end. This person was indeed from a poor family. He was a sophomore at Wenhua Academy of Fine Arts. He participated in many art competitions and his resume looked good at first glance.
Qiao Yitang sat aside and read the comments on that Weibo. The number of comments had doubled again. The latest comment was extremely abusive. She was so angry that her eyes turned red. She wanted to have a big fight in the comments, but after thinking about it, she held back and cursed a few dirty words in a low voice.
Tao Xi tilted her head to look at Qiao Yitang and said comfortingly, "Don't look at it, just let them scold you."
Qiao Yitang was stunned for a moment. Seeing that the person who should be the most angry had a calm expression and was not panicked at all, he asked with anger on his face, "Why aren't you in a hurry? I saw you were so calm on the phone with Lin Qinhe just now, and I thought you were pretending to be calm because you didn't want to make him worry. But you really acted like nothing happened?"
She and her friends were almost going crazy with anxiety. Plagiarism in artistic creation is the easiest to explain. Once this label is attached, it will affect the creator's reputation for life. Tao Xi was about to apply to foreign schools. If he left a disgraceful record in the CAC competition, no school would be willing to accept him.
“After all, I didn’t do it.”
Tao Xi smiled at Qiao Yitang, leaned back in her chair, raised her eyelids, and enlarged the painting that won the first prize of the Golden Cup on her mobile phone. After looking at it carefully for a while, she found a person's WeChat ID in the WeChat address book, clicked into the circle of friends, and found a few paintings from a pile of selfies to open and take a look.
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