"This... this!"

"On the other hand, senior Malfoy, do you still remember Mr. Diesel Winter's explosion case? When the explosion occurred on Huayu Street, do you remember who the two student council members sitting opposite you were?"

The young man below suddenly fell silent, an anonymous chill climbing up his spine, countless suspicious glances cast his way. At that moment, it was as if the world around him was spinning, and large beads of cold sweat slid down his forehead.

He was very certain that the other party knew many details about that explosion case from back then. Once the other party disclosed everything, his end would surely be extremely miserable.

The Diesel Winter explosion case, reported on the news as initiated by the Ascetic Sect, was in fact inextricably linked to members of the student council and Starry Gallery.

Yes, there were members of the Ascetic Sect in the student council, and more than one. Only a few people knew their identities, including the elders of Starry Gallery, the vice president of the student council Gao Wen, and him.

At the time, he was only the acting minister of the student council's execution planning department. To seamlessly become the minister and pave the way for himself to enter politics in the Starry Forest later, he joined forces with two Ascetic Sect members and predetermined the execution list. If it weren't for Lancelot insisting on going along, all of this should have been flawless...

Diesel Winter longed to change the foster home system. For this, he contacted various forces, putting in much effort. Just as he was about to privately contact investigators from the association and hand over the collected evidence, the explosion happened.

All of this was a political murder planned by Belvedere. The investigator was also trapped in a time rift due to the 'out of control' Heart's Desire train, with no news of life or death to this day.

Even that blonde lion paid the price for his justice, leaving the evidence he compiled on that island. This is the cruelty of the struggle.

As a link in this massive execution chain, he knew the dirt and filth of politics all too well. The mutual suspicion and wariness between politicians of different beliefs, attempting to bring down opponents, were like a vast dark forest. Once exposed to their field of vision, the old viper snakes would unhesitatingly choose to destroy them.

If this matter was exposed, Belvedere had a hundred ways to make him disappear from the world to cover up the deeper truth.

Malfoy met the gaze of that old vampire on the judging panel, lowered his head dejectedly, and vanished into the crowd before the girl could reveal the truth.

Tang Xin took a deep breath and continued:

"The people in high places in this city are too dazzling, like ever-shining stars. The brilliance of those great artists spans the Cosmos, drawing the attention of people worldwide to this splendid city."

"But ordinary people are the majority. Ordinary lives are like wild grass; some grow in wells, never able to glimpse a true sky in their lifetime, let alone peek at the silhouettes of those great philosophers."

"I believe everyone present is well aware of how 'talent' is an insurmountable chasm in the field of artistic creation."

"In places unseen by people, even if ordinary people bleed their hands, ruin their voices, and break their toes, they will die like grass rotten in mud. Oppressed, stripped of color, robbed of the power to choose, many leave numerous unresolved issues in their lives, opening their eyes in confusion and dying in question."

"Why?" Tang Xin posed the question to everyone. "Is this the price of being ordinary, the fate of being ordinary?"

She recalled her past self in this city, huddled in a small rented room, playing the guitar, trapped in solitude and bewilderment, becoming one of the many shadows in the darkness.

Many others, like her, saw their own shadows in the girl's words.

Yes, why?

How come?

In the train, the girl holding the guitar used her blood-stained fingertips to snap the resilient strings one by one, listening to the snapping sound of the expensive instrument she bought with loans. The strings in her heart also snapped, but at this moment, her tired body felt relieved.

They knew their talents were poor, and no matter how they proceeded on this path, they would inevitably crash into a wall that reached infinitely high. But they had no choice; if they didn't go with the flow, they would be abandoned by the current, viewed as social misfits and lonely monsters.

Why do ordinary people cry?

Why do they walk?

Why do they close their eyes?

Without the right to choose, where are they supposed to go?

At this moment, a deep voice broke the silence, echoing in the theater's air.

"Because these people simply have no need to exist," Belvedere slowly stood up, his sunken eyes revealing nothing but calm.

"Art is inherently noble and great. Inferior creations are blemishes on the canvas, filthy breaths in the air. Their existence only defiles this sacred hall and impedes the progress of the Star of Art."

"Only when the bugs that constitute the lower strata of society are filtered out and dead will the city's streets be clean, and this hall will be pure and sacred."

"Without those blemishes, the Star of Art will only become more beautiful."

The theater was dead silent, clearly showing that most of the people sitting here shared Belvedere's views. They are highly educated elites, who see only lazy, stupid, and greedy traits on the people at the bottom, and wouldn't empathize with them.

"Survival of the fittest is the law of nature. Inferior people are nature's choice. After that, civilization will progress, and art will usher in a Golden Era."

Belvedere looked at Tang Xin with deep mockery in his eyes, aimed not only at the girl's naivete and overestimation of her abilities.

"Those people have no value in existing."

The people on the tram fell into silence.

Looking at the man frozen into an ice sculpture abandoned far behind at the station, thinking of the homeless people in the Piano Key District, reeking with stench, their eyes seemed unfocused.

Yeah, what do those who are filtered out have to do with them?

It is they who triggered the "artists," fading into the Exhausted, threaten public security, even if their relatives, classmates, teachers, colleagues, or even friends are filtered out, so what?

It's not them who are filtered out; they deserve it.

Maybe if all these people disappeared, the "artists" would also disappear, and those bothersome Exhausted would no longer threaten public safety.

Tang Xin looked around, for the first time deeply feeling how ridiculous this city truly is, and an emotion surged within her, a flame named anger, anger at the people she desired to save, pity for their misfortune, anger at their refusal to fight and their numbness.

But, all of this doesn't matter.

Long before stepping on the stage, she was ready to burn herself out, even if it meant melting just a tiny piece of frozen ground, it was the thing she most longed to do, within her capability.

"You are wrong." Tang Xin opened her eyes and stared straight at Belvedere in the judges' panel, "Their lives may be ordinary, and nature may have its selection, but you shouldn't deny their existence's significance."

Tang Xin recalled the scene she saw in the garden, the beautiful flowers surrounded by children, in a corner unseen by people, wild grass under rocks growing tenaciously.

"As for the future to people, some birds never manage to fly their whole life, people always notice the birds flying in the sky but overlook those that fall to the ground, can you say all birds can fly?"

"This is a forest; some trees spend their entire lives growing under the shade of others, unable to absorb sunlight, growing relatively slower, can you tell they have not strived for sunlight, wasting the nutrients in the soil?"

"The wild grasses in the garden grow in grotesque shapes, out of a pursuit for beauty, the gardener cuts them down again and again, tourists tread over their bodies, admiring the flowers. Ordinary wild grasses cannot control whether they are cut or trampled, gardeners find them bothersome, so why were they planted in the garden in the first place?"

"To set off the beauty of the flowers." Someone murmured.

"To become nourishment after quiet decay." Someone chuckled bitterly.

"Their roots are shallow, the flowers themselves are not beautiful, yet they absorb dew, absorb water, draw the blood and flesh of the decayed, and rob them of their existence."

"Even the most ordinary wild grasses have their existential significance, capable of highlighting the beauty of art, so why did you previously say ordinary people have no value in their existence?"

Tang Xin questioned everyone once again.

The people fell into thought once more.

Some had an epiphany.

If wild grasses are destined to be cut down batch after batch, who can guarantee they aren't the next batch of wild grasses?

What is the problem they are currently facing?

Their thoughts, like budding sprouts, encountered enlightenment for the first time, birthing a question never mentioned in textbooks.

If art initially brings them suffering, why choose to embark on that path?

Textbooks only taught how to create art, extolling the nobility and greatness of art, declaring it a mistake not to create art, yet never taught why to create art and why not doing so is a mistake.

Who has kidnapped them onto the path of art?

Or rather,

Who,

Kidnapped art?

"Returning to the original question, why was art born?"

"Born from people's pursuit of beauty?"

"Since even the most ordinary people have the right to pursue beauty, art should have never been above them right from the start, shouldn't resist their pursuit, and should not bring them so much pain and scars."

"Whether it's great artists or people as mundane as wild grasses, they all have the right to think, art is the spiritual fruit born from their life."

"It is you who exaggerated art, imposing all nobility onto this concept, ignoring its innate ordinariness, originating from life itself!"

"Art originates from life, transcends life."

"But it never transcends life itself!"

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