Exclusive Model for the Top Painter Chapter 5

Love Covered by Ice and Mist

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In the morning, rays of sunlight poured into the room through the light blue floor-to-ceiling windows.

The wooden floor was covered with a soft carpet, and Ji Xiuyuan had a laptop on his lap, handling work-related matters.

Liang Jin was lying beside him, handing him materials and serving him tea from time to time.

The sudden ringing of the doorbell broke the silence, and Ji Xiuyuan frowned in displeasure as Liang Jin sprang up from the sofa and explained, "Sorry, Ji Shen, my delivery has arrived!"

He ran to open the door, signed for an unusually heavy looking box and dragged it all the way into the living room.

Ji Xiuyuan raised his eyes and looked at it once: "What did you buy?"

"Books!" Liang Jin took a small knife and opened the box, which was full of art books: "In order to meet the requirements of your paintings, I have to work hard to raise the level of my cultural training." He took out a brick-thick copy of 'Gardner's Art Through the Ages' and waved it at Ji Xiuyuan: "Aren't I dedicated to my work?"

Ji Xiuyuan closed his computer, "Which ones have you bought?"

"Apart from this one, there's 'The History of Aesthetics', 'Famous Chinese Painters', 'The History of Art', 'The Renaissance', 'The Philosophy of Art', 'The Art of Humanity', 'Contemporary Art'..."

“Hmm,” Ji Xiuyuan interrupted, “now, move this pile of books to the study."

"Huh? Oh." Liang Jin closed the box and asked, "Where's the study?"

"Upstairs." Ji Xiuyuan put away the computer and related materials, "Come with me."

Liang Jin lifted the huge and heavy box and followed behind Ji Xiuyuan obediently. The white wooden revolving staircase led to the second floor of the villa, which had only three rooms.

The first room was the studio, where Liang Jin had been and where Ji Xiuyuan spent most of his time painting.

The one at the far end was his bedroom, so the one in the middle was the study, right?

Ji Xiuyuan pushed open the door to the study and placed the objects in his hand on the table. When Liang Jin entered the room, he was stunned.

The three walls of the study were transformed into huge bookshelves running north to south, from the floor to the ceiling beams. The dark brown carved wooden structure showed off the high cost of the books, which ranged from art and literature to social history, and even specialised works on mathematics, mechanics and medicine.

Liang Jin was amazed at the wide range of books, but then thought that a painter's control of architecture or the human body really needed to be supported by knowledge of science, engineering and medicine. The famous painter Leonardo da Vinci even built a special mathematical analysis model to depict the orientation of the branches of a tree.

Looking at the books on the shelves, which had beautiful covers and were of such quality that they could have been collected as works of art; the books that he had bought at a bargain price in his own box were no longer relevant.

Liang Jin scanned the sea of books that filled the room and asked, "You've read all these books?"

"Well," Ji Xiuyuan's tone was flat, as if it was a matter of course: "some of them have been read in more detail than others, and some have only been skimmed."

Liang Jin coughed gently, "Ji Shen, your image in my heart has become even more glorious!" He declared in a firm tone, "I've decided to read all the books here in order to keep up with you!"

"That's unlikely."

"What makes you say that?" Liang Jin was rather unconvinced, "Want to make a bet with me?"

"How is your foreign language level?"

"... Not too bad." Liang Jin swallowed his saliva: "I barely passed CET-6 English."

"A third of the books here are in foreign languages," Ji Xiuyuan smiled, "not just English."

Liang Jin's face reddened, "Can't I use Google to translate?"

Ji Xiuyuan inexplicably found his temperamental personality a little cute: "Of course."

Liang Jin pushed the box of his books into the corner and said curiously, "I have a little doubt, isn't this a hotel villa? If you keep all these books here, won't it be a hassle when you move?"

"I don't need to move."

"You've bought this place?"

"You can understand it that way," Ji Xiuyuan leaned against the table, still calm: "This hotel is one of the assets under my name."

Liang Jin: ......

At that moment, the doorbell rang for the second time, and Liang Jin consciously ran down to open the door.

At the entrance stood a man dressed in a suit, carrying a briefcase in his hand and wearing metal-rimmed glasses. When he saw Liang Jin, he visibly froze for a moment and pushed his glasses up, "Sorry, I made a mistake." He looked up at the house number and said to himself, "It shouldn't be."

Liang Jin asked, "Are you looking for Ji Xiuyuan?"

"Yes."

"He lives here, you're right."

Thinking that Liang Jin was Ji Xiuyuan's business partner, the man introduced himself, "I am Ji Xiuyuan's agent, Wen Di."

Liang Jin smiled at him, "My name is Liang Jin, I'm his model, and I'm staying here temporarily."

Wen Di was shocked, as if he had heard that an alien had invaded the earth, and did not respond for a while: "You live here?"

"Yes," Liang Jin was puzzled, “what's wrong?"

Ji Xiuyuan's voice came from behind him, "Let's go to the studio and talk."

The two people went to the studio to talk, and Liang Jin plunged into the study to start reading.

Ji Xiuyuan led Wen Di to a curtain-covered easel: "How are the preparations for the exhibition next month?"

"According to your idea, the money raised this time will be used to establish a special education fund to support poor students. As it is a non-profit project, it has received a lot of support from various parties and is going very well. Have you decided on a theme for the exhibition?"

Ji Xiuyuan lifted the curtain and three emotionally charged paintings with different styles were displayed in front of him.

At first glance, Wen Di recognised that the person in the paintings was Liang Jin.

Even though he had seen many top-notch works from Ji Xiuyuan, Wen Di couldn't help but exclaim, "This child is so malleable, it's almost as if he was created for you."

After examining the paintings again and again, Wen Di said, "I was wondering how you could bear to live with someone else. After looking at these three paintings I can see that he is your muse. I have a feeling that you will win the Alexander Rutsch Award this year."

Ji Xiuyuan looked at the figure in the painting and was lost in thought.

Wen Di asked, "Are you going to attend the Vogue Awards this Sunday?"

Ji Xiuyuan withdrew his eyes: "I'll see."

In the evening.

A small gurgle of water sounded in the corner of the room.

Liang Jin was sitting half naked in the bath, the water just over his lower abdomen.

He was wearing only a thin pair of shorts underneath and a fringed shirt on top. His half-damp hair was dangling over his ears, and there seemed to be a haze of water under his eyes.

Ji Xiuyuan leaned down and ruffled his shaggy hair: "You're in good condition, I'll pour some dry ice in now, it might be a bit cold."

"Ji Shen," Liang Jin looked at him with sincerity, "you actually told me in advance this time, I'm so touched."

Ji Xiuyuan rubbed his hair and poured a small tub of dry ice into the bath.

Immediately, a large white cloud of mist rose from the water.

The curtains were not closed, and outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the background was a deep blue night sky with bright stars.

The mist filled the room, framing the young man's beautiful figure. He was half lying in the bathtub, his eyes intoxicating and detached from the mundane world.

Under the pleasure of extreme beauty, Ji Xiuyuan's fingers trembled slightly and touched Liang Jin's lips, which were slightly purple from the cold: "Is it cold?"

"It's okay," Liang Jin's voice trembled slightly, “you... paint faster."

"Okay." Ji Xiuyuan returned to his easel and began to paint.

"Did you paint like this before?" Liang Jin's expression was hidden in the mist, and it was hard to see: "I'm curious about how your previous models viewed this work, they weren't all scared off by you, were they?"

In the extremely quiet night, the brush made a faint sound against the canvas.

He heard Ji Xiuyuan whisper, "My previous paintings were mostly historical, religious, theological and philosophical, and rarely involved real people. Among the few people I have worked with, I have not been particularly interested in them, and after I finished working with them, I stopped contacting them."

The next words, word for word, were like the sharp claws of a cat, scratching at his leaping heart.

"So, I don't have any other models." Ji Xiuyuan held his brush in his hand, his low voice rippling through his heart like a stone falling into a pond: "You are the only one."

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: April 14, 2023