Chapter 1644 The Museum's Fakes
Albrecht looked at Xiao Peng and shook his head. "Xiao, you're exaggerating a bit, aren't you? It's just a staple food. What does it have to do with destroying a country? This is too high a level, isn't it?"
Xiao Peng explained, "Our country has always had potatoes, and the whole world has also had potatoes! But people are still hungry! I'm not exaggerating when I say that there's only one person on this planet who deserves everyone's respect, and that's our country's Dade! In the era before hybrid rice, over 1.5 billion people were starving! Our Great Xia was economically backward at the time, and there were even more people starving! Everyone was struggling to make ends meet! Potatoes could save lives back then, but they also caused malnutrition, and most people were skinny and short! Life isn't just about avoiding starvation! What did our ancestors struggle for? It was to allow future generations to live without hunger."
"By the way, I have a painting at home, right in the Orange Garden. It's Van Gogh's 'The Potato Eaters.' The family in the painting is an ordinary Dutch peasant family, gathered together to eat potatoes after a hard day's work. The people in the painting have heavy faces, looking at the pile of earth with worry. Look, you yourselves think eating potatoes is not good and don't want to go back to the era when people relied on potatoes to fill their stomachs, but now you want us to eat potatoes? You use 'emissions' as an excuse to madly suppress developing countries. Are you really doing this for the earth? The corpses of developing countries are buried behind your current lives! You always have some fake environmentalists who talk but don't do anything but shout loudly to incite those immature teenagers. Look at your so-called 'little environmental princess', she looks like she has a low IQ and is easy to control - Albrecht, it's really easy to make friends with me, or even the entire Daxia people. Remember, keeping your mouth shut is also a kind of kindness. Take care of yourself first!"
Albrecht waved his hand and said, "Xiao, I was wrong. I shouldn't have discussed this with you. For the first time, I feel that not reading has its benefits... Wait, you said you have the painting 'The Potato Eaters'? Shouldn't that be in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam?"
Xiao Peng lowered his voice: "Shh, don't talk about this. The painting in the Van Gogh Museum is a fake."
"What?" Albrecht exclaimed.
Xiao Peng waved his hand and said, "Keep your voice down. You know, the Eikenhorst Villa where I used to live was where Princess Christina lived when she was alive. She loved collecting all kinds of art, and I even donated paintings to the Royal Gallery of the Netherlands. In fact, The Potato Eaters is part of Princess Christina's collection. It's all piled up in the attic of Orange Garden now."
Albrecht coughed dryly, "'All'? Are there many more collections like this?"
Xiao Peng nodded. "Yes, there are quite a few. Princess Christina loved Rubens's works. So I still have quite a few Rubens collections. I originally wanted to donate all these paintings to Christina's eye disease research fund, but William rejected this idea."
"Why?" Albrecht asked in confusion.
Xiao Peng said helplessly, "Why is there any need for that? You said it too! 'The Potato Eaters' should be in the Van Gogh Museum. What will happen to the Van Gogh Museum's reputation after this painting appears? I wanted to give this painting to William, but he didn't dare let me enjoy it myself. But the painting only has four bitter faces and the back of a head, which I really couldn't appreciate, so I just threw it in the attic. I still remember when Prince Hedingen was still alive, I went to his house and saw the cultural relics in his basement. I didn't expect to be in the same situation now - it's really painful to have a lot of antique works of art that can't be seen by the public."
Albrecht curled his lips after hearing this and said, "The Dutch just love these fake things. They don't even notice the fakes in the museum, but others find the real ones and have them hide them."
Xiao Peng waved his hand and said, "You can't blame them for this. 99.99999% of the people on this planet can't tell the difference between real and fake paintings. They're all just pretending to know. 'Mona Lisa' is famous, right? If I were to replace a print with a real one and hang it up there, I'm afraid no one would be able to tell the difference—who could tell from such a distance? And how many people in this world truly understand art?"
Albrecht burst into laughter. "What is art? Art is anything that people can't understand. Art isn't art if people can understand it! Why don't you sell me The Potato Eaters? It's better than just putting it away, right?"
Xiao Peng shook his head and said, "Forget it. If I sell it cheap, I'll be upset. If I sell it expensive, you'll be upset. Just let me be a miser and watch over these things."
"I wouldn't mind selling it to me, even if it's a bit more expensive," Alfred said with a smile.
Xiao Peng blinked: "Are you planning to leave it to your children to pay the inheritance tax?"
Alfred smiled as if to say 'you know what I'm doing'.
"By the way," Alfred said, "I have an old friend who wants to meet you."
"Who is it?" Xiao Peng asked.
Alfred said, "It's Dietrich Mateschitz."
"This name sounds so familiar..." Xiao Peng thought for a moment: "Mateschitz from Austria?"
"Yes, that's him!" said Alfred.
Xiao Peng suddenly understood.
Who is Mateschitz? Austria's richest man, the founder of Red Bull!
Who in Daxia doesn't know Red Bull? The slogan, "When you're tired or sleepy, have a bottle of Red Bull," is well-known.
However, most people in Daxia may not know that the "Red Bull" produced in Daxia actually comes from four different companies. Three of these companies' Red Bulls are packaged in golden cans, and one is packaged in blue and white cans.
And Mateschitz is the owner of this blue and white packaged Red Bull.
The famous 'Red Bull Suicide Squad' and 'Red Bull F1 Team' are organizations under their company and have nothing to do with the yellow cans of Red Bull.
It's just a borderline move.
Of course, domestic companies will not admit this and will only make people think that those competitions are sponsored by them - everyone knows the principle of taking the opportunity to promote themselves.
Take Erguotou, for example. While all Erguotou brands are different, there are different varieties, such as Red Star Erguotou, Niulanshan Erguotou, Jingdu Erguotou, Yongfeng Erguotou, and Yidanliang Erguotou. Suddenly, Red Star Erguotou sponsors a tournament, and the other brands all start promoting themselves, saying, "Erguotou sponsors XX tournament," to capitalize on the hype.
That’s roughly what I mean.
Xiao Peng was just about to ask him what he wanted to do with him when suddenly the water in the cup began to shake.
"Earthquake?" Albrecht was stunned. But before he could come to his senses, he felt a flash of light before his eyes, and he was flying!
Albrecht felt like his brain wasn't enough - what was going on?
Can I fly?
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