Chapter Ninety-Six: Artist of the Painting Kingdom

On the plane, the pilot had been flying along when he suddenly wanted to turn back and say something to the co-pilot possessed by Xia Zi.

"Um..."

But every time, Xia Zi would not let him finish.

"Just fly the plane. Understand?"

Then the clown would, from the side, manipulate his thoughts so that he would instinctively obey Xia Zi.

Before long, the pilot turned around again. "The plane..."

"I already said it. Just fly!"

Xia Zi seemed a little annoyed.

This time the pilot did not dare say another word and could only keep flying.

An hour later...

"What is going on? Why is the plane losing altitude? We have not even reached the Sunset Kingdom yet!"

Watching the aircraft plummet, Xia Zi was utterly stunned and demanded an explanation from the pilot.

The pilot looked on the verge of tears. "This plane only has short range. We were supposed to stop at a transfer station. I kept trying to say so, but you would not let me..."

Xia Zi: "..."

In the next instant, Xia Zi immediately detached from the co-pilot's body, abandoning the plane without the slightest hesitation, and at that very moment drew the clown and Wang Hui into his forbidden domain.

Just then, the plane slammed into the ground and exploded at once.

Because of Xia Zi, the two pilots did not even have time to use their parachutes and were utterly swallowed by the sea of fire.

"Where are we now?"

Looking at the architectural style around him, Xia Zi was at a loss.

"This is a Western country called the Paint Kingdom, a vassal state of the Sunset Kingdom."

Wang Hui opened his phone and instantly located their position.

"The Paint Kingdom, then? Since we are already here, we might as well do something. It is a little too early to enter the Sunset Kingdom anyway. We can just wait here for the system prompt and finish the Deep-Sea Revival quest."

...

The Paint Kingdom lived up to its name: a nation that produced painters by the thousands.

In truth, it was not only the Paint Kingdom. All the countries under the Sunset Kingdom were art nations, devoted to the pursuit of so-called beauty.

And this country pursued the beauty of painting.

"The beauty of painting..."

Xia Zi murmured the words to himself, and a bold plan began to take shape in his mind.

Then he looked toward the largest building in the area. "That is where they learn to paint, I suppose? Interesting."

...

Paint Kingdom, Saint Mirdo Academy.

The teachers here were famous artists across the entire Western Hemisphere, and even the students were the most outstanding geniuses from several nearby countries. This was a holy land of art.

An old gentleman past fifty stood on the podium, dressed in a standard outfit of Western nobility. Pointing at the blackboard, he said, "Today I want you to paint a desert. No reference. Paint only what you can picture in your mind."

He struck the blackboard twice with his hand. "If you cannot do it, get out immediately!"

Faced with such a stern teacher, all the students were so frightened they hardly dared breathe. They lowered their heads and hurriedly began creating.

Three hours later, students began submitting their work one after another.

The teacher did not even glance at them the whole time. His face remained dark and stern.

The students who had turned in their paintings did not dare leave either. They could only stand to the side and wait in silence.

Five hours passed. Most of the class had finished and handed in their paintings, leaving only a few still working.

Another hour later, everyone had placed their paintings before the teacher, and only one person remained seated calmly in his chair, staring motionlessly at the blank paper in front of him.

At last, the teacher could no longer hold back. He began to examine the students' paintings one by one.

In an extremely short time, he had actually finished looking through all of them. Then he gave the students a "kind" smile.

"Heh."

The veins on his face bulged as if something had snapped. He flew into a rage and began tearing the paintings apart, madly, one after another.

"Trash! Trash! All of it is trash! Are you robots? Do you not put any feeling into your work at all?"

To be fair, those paintings were quite beautiful. If placed outside, they would absolutely fetch a high price and even be sought after.

But in his eyes, they were nothing but a pile of soulless waste paper, trash not even fit to be toilet paper.

Faced with this conduct, these so-called geniuses did not dare make a sound. One and all, they merely kept their heads down and forced their bodies not to tremble.

Finally, after tearing up every last painting, the teacher turned to the only person in the room who was still seated.

"Fernanda, I hope the one who took the longest can present me with a satisfactory work."

With that, he walked toward Fernanda.

At this point, the students behind him had already started whispering among themselves.

"Fernanda is finished this time. When I handed in my painting just now, I clearly saw he still had a blank sheet."

"What? When you submitted yours, his was blank too? I thought he had already finished later."

"Hmph. I kept watching him after I handed mine in, and that kid just kept staring at the blank page. He did not even move once. He is completely done for!"

"He is going to be expelled, right..."

Amid the students' quiet gossip, the teacher slowly reached Fernanda's side. He lowered his head to look, and nearly choked from fury on the spot.

"You... you... you!"

He managed to say "you" three times. The immense rage left him unable, for a moment, to think of anything else to say.

He had worked in education for more than ten years, and over those ten years he had forged an image of himself as a demon among men. Anyone who attended his class was terrified, doing everything possible to learn.

Whenever he tested them, they gave it their all and created with everything they had.

But someone daring to hand in a blank sheet?

This was absolutely the first.

"What exactly are you trying to do!!!"

The teacher pointed at Fernanda's nose in fury, his voice shaking.

Those words seemed to startle Fernanda.

His whole body trembled at once, then he looked at the teacher, his eyes filled with an indescribable contempt.

Everyone was dumbfounded. None of them had expected the usually timid, invisible Fernanda to dare look at the teacher with that sort of gaze.

The teacher was stunned with rage as well. He pointed toward the door.

"You are the worst class I have ever taught, and you are the worst one in this class! Congratulations. You have been expelled!"

But Fernanda, as if possessed, completely ignored the teacher's words. He kept staring at the paper before him, and from time to time a faint red glimmer flashed in his eyes.

Just as the teacher was about to lose his temper and strike him, Fernanda finally moved.

His hands seemed to speed up beyond human limits, drawing on the blank paper at astonishing speed.

This naturally aroused the teacher's curiosity, and he decided to see exactly what this fellow was up to.

The more he watched, however, the more shocked he became. The more he watched, the less he could believe it.

His expression changed from anger to calm, then to interest, and finally to pure astonishment.

"This... this is impossible! To paint this fast and still control the details so well! No—no, this is not something a human being can achieve!"

In less than half an hour, a painting of a desert sharpshooter appeared before the teacher.

The teacher, trembling, reached out and carefully lifted the painting from the board, as though afraid he might damage it.

"A work of divine craftsmanship! Divine craftsmanship indeed!"

Staring at the painting before him, he found himself at a loss for words. Perhaps only that Eastern saying could express what he was feeling.