Chapter 103: Too Honest

The plane took off at a little after eight in the morning. The three of them had woken up early and were all seated in first class.

This made Lin Wan, who was flying first class for the first time, very excited. She almost started a live stream.

Three hours later, they got off the plane, then transferred to a car to a county-level city, and from there, took another car to a rural town.

Li Chungang ran a noodle shop in this rural town. The name of the shop was “Chungang Noodle Shop,” very simple and unpretentious.

Li Chungang was actually almost sixty years old, but he looked young, only about fifty.

When Chen Feng and the others entered the noodle shop, he was wearing a white apron and cooking noodles. It was past two in the afternoon, and there were still five or six customers in the shop. Business was decent.

After they met and introduced themselves, Li Chungang enthusiastically shook hands with Chen Feng and then asked if they had eaten. When Chen Feng honestly shook his head, he immediately went to cook noodles for them, treating each of them to a large bowl of pork bone noodles.

It had to be said, it was delicious. The pork bone given to each person was very large. Chen Feng took more than ten minutes to suck out the marrow with a straw, his stomach completely full.

After finishing the noodles, Chen Feng wanted to pay, but the other party refused to take the money no matter what, so he had to give up.

Then, Li Chungang handed the shop over to his wife and took them home to see the paintings.

His home was not in the town, but it wasn’t very far. They rode his three-wheeled electric vehicle for about ten minutes and arrived.

It was an old-fashioned farmhouse courtyard, a single-family house with a wall. The wall was quite high, with broken glass embedded on top, and a large German shepherd was kept inside.

According to Li Chungang, his house had been burglarized a few years ago. Fortunately, the thief didn’t know what was valuable. Although he stole many things from his house, even the rice cooker, not a single one of the paintings he had done over the years was missing.

So, after that incident, they raised the wall and got a large German shepherd to guard the house.

When they reached the courtyard gate, the large German shepherd inside started barking. It only stopped after Li Chungang shouted at it a few times.

The German shepherd was indeed very large, scaring the two women so much that they didn’t dare to enter the gate.

It was only after Li Chungang went over and held the chained German shepherd that the two women, hiding behind Chen Feng, followed him into the courtyard.

Chen Feng declined the invitation to have tea in the main living room and went directly to Li Chungang’s studio.

His studio was very large, the house on the left side of the courtyard, about two hundred square meters.

The decoration and layout inside were obviously not as exquisite or reasonable as Song Yi’s home.

There were shelves, though. In the innermost part of the room, there were several shelves of different formats, mostly wooden, filled with paintings, or rather, piled with paintings, most of which were not mounted.

Some of these shelves were covered with plastic sheets, while others were not, but they were all covered in a lot of dust.

The area near the door was a bit cleaner, with several easels and various painting tools.

In addition, there were also some completed or unfinished paintings placed against the wall, both oil paintings and traditional Chinese paintings. It could only be said that this folk painter, Li Chungang, was indeed very skilled, well-versed in both Chinese and Western painting.

“Sorry, the place is a bit messy.”

Li Chungang said with some embarrassment. Then, he gestured for the three of them to enter.

Chen Feng, of course, didn’t mind. He immediately said, “Let me see some of your recent works first. Which ones are they?”

“This whole area,” Li Chungang pointed to the shelves on his left. “Feel free to look.”

“Okay.”

Chen Feng didn’t stand on ceremony and immediately went forward to inspect them.

With the first glance, Chen Feng was filled with pleasant surprises. He found a total of three paintings that he had a connection with.

This was truly a great surprise. It was not in vain that he had come all this way.

Chen Feng immediately took these three paintings down from the shelf and then went to another row of shelves.

After looking through all the shelves on the left side of the entrance, among the fifty or sixty works, Chen Feng had harvested a total of five paintings. This made him so happy he almost laughed out loud.

Then, Chen Feng went to look at the shelves on the right. There were more shelves here, with seventy or eighty works. After looking through all of them, he also harvested five paintings.

To be honest, Chen Feng was shocked by such a harvest.

But it was a fact!
Of course, Chen Feng would not be satisfied with this. The more of these connected paintings, the better.
So, Chen Feng went to search among the shelves covered with plastic sheets.

This search took over an hour. Although he got covered in a lot of dust, his efforts paid off. Chen Feng found a full 8 works from these paintings.

He had found eighteen works on this one trip. Chen Feng was both surprised and delighted. He felt like he had really dug up a treasure. Staring at Li Chungang, this folk painter of peasant origin, his eyes were different.

In Chen Feng’s opinion, Li Chungang was the kind of true painting master who was buried in the world.

Chen Feng didn’t understand painting, but he knew that as long as a painting attracted him internally and contained that formless energy, it was undoubtedly a good painting.

Others didn’t know, but Chen Feng knew.

This could be considered a natural advantage for him in the art trade.

“Mr. Li, look, there are eighteen paintings here in total. I’ve taken a fancy to all of them. Name your price.”

Li Chungang was very honest. Without even looking at the paintings, he said very casually, “You’ve come all this way to buy my paintings, you’re showing me respect. I’ll give you a cheaper price. The price I give others now is generally two thousand for a smaller one, and three thousand for a larger one. For you, I’ll count them all as two thousand.”

Two thousand for one!? Eighteen would only be thirty-six thousand.

Chen Feng suddenly felt a psychological blow. This was too cheap!
Chen Feng had the urge to mourn for these paintings for three minutes, feeling sad for them, feeling they were not worth it.

Their artistic value was clearly much higher than those of so-called famous artists, but now they were being sold so cheaply.

A pearl covered in dust, wasn’t it?
Chen Feng almost impulsively wanted to remind Li Chungang that his paintings were very valuable. But in the end, due to his own selfishness, he held back.

“Mr. Li, you are too honest.”

Chen Feng sighed inwardly. In the end, his conscience couldn’t take it. He said, “How about this. For the eighteen paintings, I’ll give you… 100,000.”

Chen Feng had originally wanted to give him 180,000, ten thousand for each.

But then he thought, if he suddenly became rich and had no pressure in life, could he still create so many energetic paintings?

Many artists and literary creators were like this. After becoming famous and rich, with no pressure in life, the works they created often lacked the spirituality of their past works.

So, Chen Feng lowered the price slightly.

“What!?” Li Chungang obviously didn’t expect Chen Feng to raise the price for him, and by so much at once.

“I said these paintings, I’ll count them as one hundred thousand yuan for you. They are worth that much.”

“No, no,” Li Chungang immediately shook his head and waved his hands in refusal. “That’s too much. The most expensive painting I’ve ever sold was only twenty thousand yuan. It was a custom order, over two meters long and one meter wide. It took me two months to finish. And these paintings, I can finish one in two days at most. For the small ones, I can even finish them in an hour or two. I can’t take more from you. You’ve come all the way from Xiuzhou, how can I rip you off?”

His attitude and words left Chen Feng at a loss for what to say.

After a good while, Chen Feng said with sincere admiration, “Mr. Li is really too honest. I can only express my sincere admiration. Actually, the reason I’m giving you this price, besides feeling that your paintings are worth this much, is also because I want to have the right of first refusal for your works. In the future, when you have new paintings, you can send me a video or photo of them first. If I like them, you can help me keep them and not sell them to anyone else.”

Li Chungang was happy to hear this and said, “You’re taking care of my business and you like my paintings. It’s only right that I send you videos and photos first. You don’t need to give me extra money.”

“Sigh! Alright, just listen to me. If you don’t take my money, I won’t feel at ease. And to be honest, I really like your paintings, and I also believe I can resell them for a good price. I won’t lose money buying so many of your paintings for this much, and I’ll even make a profit.”

Seeing Chen Feng say this, Li Chungang no longer insisted and nodded. “How about this then. I’ll give you a few more paintings.”

Chen Feng couldn’t refuse his kindness. This man was really too honest.

In the end, Chen Feng only picked two more paintings that he found pleasing to the eye, making it a round 20.

They signed the contract, and the money was transferred via WeChat. Li Chungang was also very happy to receive 100,000 yuan at once and insisted on having a drink with Chen Feng at his home.

Chen Feng found it hard to refuse his hospitality. Plus, he wanted to build a good relationship with him in order to continue buying energy paintings from him in the future, so he agreed.

Li Chungang was not only a painter but also a cook. He raised chickens and ducks in his backyard, grew vegetables, and had plenty of ingredients in his refrigerator.

After a busy period, he whipped up an authentic farmhouse meal for them.

The three of them, Chen Feng included, were very satisfied with the meal.