Chapter 36 The Pig-Headed Immortal
“Cousin, this canvas is really expensive, are you sure you can do it? If I continue to waste it, my mother will definitely beat a prodigal like me to death!”
“ Just tell me if you want to sell your paintings?"
In the Rong family's studio, Zhang Xuezhou and Rong Tianding murmured for a while.
Rong Tianding looked embarrassed, but also a little moved.
His paintings were disdainful to wealthy families and unaffordable to small families.
It's not that the price of Rong Tianding's paintings is high, but the cost of Rong Tianding's paintings is there. He can't sell the paintings at a price that breaks his bones and vomits blood.
Let him sell paintings cheaply. Rong Tianding keeps his cheap paintings and sells them today. Tomorrow, he will see someone washing his canvases by the river and using them to sew clothes.
And this kind of loss-making business will also be discounted by Rong Li.
This is the reason why Rong Tianding has not sold a single painting for such a long time.
If he couldn't sell his paintings, Rong Li wouldn't be able to support him to continue painting. Instead, he would have to work at the pig-killing stall.
But to do as Zhang Xuezhou did, Rong Tianding couldn't be more cruel.
Cutting the canvas, painting with pig blood, depicting the ferocious pig-headed fairy that exorcises evil...
All of these things, Rong Tianding felt unreliable.
But his father, who is studying, has been planning for several years, but he has never let him sell a painting. If he does not sell the painting, Rong Tianding feels that he will definitely inherit the pork stall and live a life of murder. Pig life.
"Can we..."
"If you are good at drawing other things, let's draw something else to exorcise ghosts and gods!"
"No, I'm only good at drawing pigs, I'll just press You're talking about painting those gods with pig heads and human bodies!"
Rong Tianding waved his hand, then blushed a little.
He observed the pigs carefully, but his ability to draw pigs was only average.
The reason why he is outstanding in the field of drawing pigs is simply that others do not draw pigs.
But painting a pig is indeed difficult to achieve elegance.
Rong Tianding’s dream is to become a court painter who visits the royal family, but he is aware of his own abilities and knows that he may not even be able to leave Chengdu.
Unable to leave Rongcheng, he could only continue to work on this three-acre land until the way to make a living from selling paintings was completely opened.
But Rong Tianding did not expect that his painting skills had not improved to the point where people in Chengdu were buying pictures of hundreds of pigs. Zhang Xuezhou suddenly came up with a sexy idea.
Apart from the fact that it requires an investment that will inevitably be punished if it fails, this is not a bad idea and is worth giving Rong Tianding a try.
After thinking for a long time, he took an ink line and marked the cutting area on the canvas.
A piece of canvas is expensive, but it becomes cheap after being cut into dozens of pieces.
But Rong Tianding is not very confident in using pig blood to draw pig-headed gods and sell them.
The cost has been reduced, but whether people are willing to buy such smelly paintings and take them back is another matter.
He thought about it for a long time before he decided to cut and paint according to Zhang Xuezhou's method.
“What if people think it’s a pig demon if we draw it like this?” Rong Tianding asked worriedly.
"What pig demon? This is the pig god who restrains ghosts and evil spirits," Zhang Xuezhou corrected.
“I really can’t see that this is a fairy!”
Rong Tianding looked at the pig blood monster in his painting and felt that it looked ugly no matter how ugly it looked. Whoever bought such a thing would have a bad brain. sick.
"Cousin, I think you don't understand painting at all," Rong Tianding said sadly.
“Cousin, you don’t understand the market!”
Zhang Xuezhou waved his hand.
Although Zhang Weimeng failed in business, Zhang Xuezhou knew some basic factors of sales due to his exposure to Zhang Weimeng's theories.
Business and sale will occur only when there is demand.
Rong Tianding practiced painting for another ten years, and his level of painting pigs improved by another ten steps. However, the people did not have the demand to buy the picture of a hundred pigs. It was useless no matter how high Rong Tianding's painting skills were. In the end, he could not sell a single painting.
But if there is demand, even if Rong Tianding's current painting skills are limited, Rong Tianding can sell this unqualified work. "Market?"
Rong Tianding looked confused.
He glanced at his father, who did not express any opinions behind him, and found it difficult to understand what the market was and why Zhang Xuezhou was generally certain that he could sell these paintings.
"I probably understand some of my nephew's thoughts, but Ding'er's paintings really make it hard for people to want to buy them," Jia Zhiyuan said.
Jia Zhiyuan is a scholar who joined his wife's family and is Zhang Xuezhou's cheap uncle.
Although Jia Zhiyuan is not a rich scholar, he is still well-educated and has a certain degree of thinking.
He vaguely understood Zhang Xuezhou's idea of selling these pig-headed gods based on the haunting incident, but Jia Zhiyuan also had corresponding questions.
"If we say this is a pig-headed fairy, do others really believe that it is a pig-headed fairy?" Jia Zhiyuan asked doubtfully: "And this is just a painting smeared with pig blood. It cannot be used to ward off evil spirits and exorcise ghosts at all. Things!”
"Li Erlang said that pig blood, chicken blood, and dog blood can ward off evil spirits. Everyone thinks so. Why can't we use pig blood to make paintings to ward off evil spirits?" Zhang Xuezhou said with a smile: "When others see this kind of painting for the first time, they will definitely not Believe it's magic, but we can Make a mark and explain it!”
“Explanation?” Rong Tianding asked: “How to explain it?”
“Other people don’t know what kind of god it is. Can’t we just write the name of the god? " Zhang Xuezhou said.
"Wonderful," Rong Tianding said, "What is the name of the immortal?"
"Uncle, do you know the name of the immortal in this world?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.
"I have heard that there are gods in the sacred mountains in the West. The gods established the Heavenly Court. The Lord of the Heavenly Court calls himself Emperor Haotian, and there is also the Queen Mother of the West as the queen and mother-in-law." Jia Zhiyuan thought for a few seconds before responding: "But those gods and heavenly beings The transformation is dazzling, and I have never heard of anyone with a pig head and a human body."
"There are no gods with a pig head and a human body?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.
"Probably not. I heard those Taoists say that the gods are all handsome, and all of them are the most beautiful men and women in the world," Jia Zhiyuan replied.
"It's a little troublesome" Zhang Xuezhou nodded and said: "But it's not a big problem. Since there is no pig-headed fairy, let's make one up!"
"Make it up?"
Rong Tianding and Jia Zhiyuan exited almost at the same time.
Compared with the limitations of their thinking, Zhang Xuezhou's thinking was too out of the ordinary, and he was even a bit daring, going so far as to pretend to be a god.
But the father and son stared at each other for more than ten seconds, and then succumbed.
If they can no longer make a living by reading and painting, one of them will need to continue to sew and mend clothes and do fine work, while the other will have to kill pigs.
For their own destiny, Rong Tianding and Jia Zhiyuan had to participate in this bold decision.
"Can gods also make it up?" Rong Tianding asked in a low voice: "What if it is found out that there is no such god?"
"How can he check?" Zhang Xuezhou waved his hand and said: "Is there really someone who can check? Immortal big shots, they can come and make things difficult for us little old men. Common people?"
"There is a Puyun Temple three miles outside the city. There is a Mu Taoist who is good at exorcising ghosts. If our selling of pig blood fairy pictures affects his business, he will definitely come to us. Expose us and prove that there is no such fairy in the world," Rong Tianding said.
"Then let's make it look more like it so that he can't find fault." Zhang Xuezhou said: "It's just a Taoist. We are not afraid. He can still know all the gods in the world. Besides, no gods can do it." It is made up by people, so let others make it up, but we are not allowed to make it up!"
Zhang Xuezhou is also a person who has experienced great storms, and has even interacted with great practitioners.
With this kind of knowledge, he didn't have much fear of a mere Taoist. He just felt that the soldiers were coming to cover up the water and earth, and he could just deal with it and get back.
"Then how do we make up the names of gods?"
"The names of the gods we make up must be uncommon, long, and have official titles. The official titles cannot be too high. Just say they belong to such and such a god. His subordinates specialize in the hard work of killing monsters and catching ghosts. We also need to be able to compile a rough background and what important things they have done to catch ghosts..."
...
A night of painting.
The next day, Rong Tianding started to work at the stall with his panda eyes wide open.
Compared with the hard work of killing pigs, he just felt that selling paintings was great. This was what a scholar should do.
The only problem is that the paintings sold this time are a bit unfair.
He thought about his past ambition to paint, and then thought about the current business of selling paintings. He felt that unknowingly, his painting career seemed to have adjusted in a direction, and became in line with those who exorcised evil spirits. There is little difference between ghosts and Taoists.
(End of this chapter)