Chapter 499: Chapter 499 – Sugar Painting
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
In the end, Ge Da Tian’s clone also gave Wei Xiao Bei some advice. Essentially, he suggested he learn some skills in the mortal realm first. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t be able to learn anything even if he went to the Shing Wong Temple.
After saying all that, Ge Da Tian’s clone dove into Wei Xiao Bei’s body and vanished.
Wei Xiao Bei was still stuck in thought. He organized all the plans he had and all the things he needed to do in the near future.
When he heard Huang Kun mention that a temple festival was being held near Shing Wong Temple of Cui Hu City, he was inspired. Wei Xiao Bei decided to walk the streets and look for inspiration and see if there were any exceptional craftsmen he could learn from and attempt to obtain a related skill.
It would be very convenient if that was possible.
Huang Kun and Zhu Xin Yi were the first to respond upon hearing that their master wanted to go to the temple festival. Zhao Guang also appeared to be fairly excited. He had never even heard of such a thing as a temple festival. He was all riled up just from listening to Huang Kun describe the event.
Andre also got the whole family ready after hearing of the trip. All of them changed into traditional Chinese costumes.
The traditional costume looked good on Andre and his family, but there was no changing their faces. They still looked every bit the foreigners they were.
Of course, the gangsters-turned teenagers had no right to choose. They were just a bunch of minions. They dare not tag along with the rest of the group?
Hehe, anyone amongst Zhao Guang, Huang Kun or Zhu Xin Yi would be enough to beat them until they cried.
Wei Xiao Bei solemnly slipped into a large windbreaker for this trip, wrapping a scarf around his face, putting on shades and wearing a hat on his head, as if he was a celebrity avoiding the paparazzi.
The others couldn’t help but giggle when they saw his appearance.
Wei Xiao Bei couldn’t help it either. He had no other choice.
His Charm was too high. [Pan An’s Beauty] only made things worse. It was the daytime right now. If he didn’t dress like this, he would most definitely be swarmed and devoured by those crazed women before he could reach the temple festival.
Everyone wanted to laugh at Wei Xiao Bei’s appearance, but their chuckles were stifled by a frustrated Wei Xiao Bei.
After all, the only one amongst them who could stand their ground slightly against Wei Xiao Bei was Zhao Guang.
However, Zhao Guang was plenty obedient to Wei Xiao Bei. Huang Kun only found himself with two bumps on his head after trying to encourage Zhao Guang to rebel against his master.
It was true that Wei Xiao Bei’s Charm had been weakened after he wrapped himself up so badly. The effect of [Pan An’s Beauty] also vanished after he covered his head with the scarf and put on the shades.
Wei Xiao Bei finally let out a breath of relief when he saw the women on the streets acting normally at the sight of him.
He had to admit, being too handsome was a real burden sometimes.
It was now that Wei Xiao Bei remembered that the SUV was still parked at the Phoenixhead Mountain parking lot. Having Zhou Xing Yuan go fetch the car now would be too late. As such, the entire group called for two taxis and they set off for Cui Hu City’s Shing Wong Temple.
Shing Wong Temple was located in the north of the city. It had been completely destroyed in a war several decades ago. The current temple was rebuilt on the same location a few years ago when the major tycoons of the city decided to fund its construction.
It was almost Chinese New Year’s now. There were many people who had returned to Cui Hu City for the celebrations, causing the cars on the streets to be extremely crowded.
They sat in the car for over an over before arriving outside Shing Wong Temple.
There was still over five or six hundred meters to the temple, but the taxis could not move any further. The crowd was too large there. Even cars couldn’t make their way through.
Wei Xiao Bei frowned at the massive crowd.
For a person like himself, who had spent so much time in the Dust World, he felt uncomfortable being too close to people.
Put plainly, he felt no sense of security.
Even though Wei Xiao Bei had more than enough power to kill everyone here, that sense of unease would not just vanish with increased power.
“Andre, open a path up in front. Zhao Guang, you stay on the right, Huang Kun, you stay on the left. We will squeeze our way in! ”
After arranging his followers in a formation as if he was a general, Wei Xiao Bei and his party finally moved forward.
One had to admit that Andre, the big European bloke, was best for making way at the front. He shouted with his badly accented Chinese as he walked forward, “Make way, make way.”
Setting aside the fact that he was extremely strong, most people were too embarrassed to scold him when they saw he was a foreigner, even when he accidentally stepped on some people’s feet.
It couldn’t be helped, Chinese people tended to be the perfect paragon of politeness in front of foreigners.
Meanwhile, though Zhao Guang and Huang Kun were young, they were like unmoving mountains in the crowd. Anyone that tried to squeeze past them would feel like they were running into a solid mountain.
With these three hard laborers doing all the work, Wei Xiao Bei, Xin Yi, Andre’s family, and the teenagers finally got through the crowd and entered the plaza in front of Shing Wong Temple.
This plaza in front of Shing Wong Temple served a different purpose from the Downtown Plaza. The Downtown Plaza was meant to display the landmark buildings of Cui Hu City, while the Shing Wong Temple Plaza was for the temple festival held during Chinese New Year’s.
There were all sorts of snacks for sale, along with performers, antique sellers, and even some fortune-tellers.
This place would always be so lively when the holidays came.
In truth, this was the first time Wei Xiao Bei had come to the temple festival of Shing Wong Temple Plaza despite having lived in Cui Hu for so long.
There wasn’t such a lively place back at Wei Xiao Bei’s old hometown. At best, there were some parades during New Year’s, but there was no festival.
“Everyone brought your phones with you? Meet here at noon. Let’s split up for now.”
Wei Xiao Bei saw the excitement on everyone’s faces when they reached the flagposts at the center of the plaza. He decided to just have everyone go enjoy themselves.
Huang Kun was the first to jump in excitement upon hearing these words. He dragged Zhao Guang with him and vanished into the crowd in the blink of an eye.
Xin Yi dragged the teenagers by her side, knocking them in the head if they refused to listen to her. So, one by one, they followed obediently behind her like little ducklings.
Naturally, Andre’s family walked together, examining one street stall after another like they were looking for treasure.
Everyone split up and soon, they had all disappeared into the crowd.
Wei Xiao Bei looked around and saw a group of kids gathered around a sugar painting stall. He slowly walked over there.
He hadn’t intentionally picked this sugar painting stall. He was just walking around and trying his luck to see if he could obtain some skills.
Sugar painting was one of the famous traditional folk arts in China. It was most popular in the Sichuan region and used very simple tools. A small furnace, two spoons, one large and one small, a spatula and a flat marble board. Of course, you needed a spinning board. All sorts of animals were drawn on the board, mostly the twelve zodiacs, along with a dragon, a phoenix, a dragonfly, a butterfly and a bunch of other animals. You would decide what sugar painting you get by spinning the wheel.
The syrup was made by adding white sugar to the big spoon with a bit of water and roasting it until it turned into a fine golden color. The syrup could then be poured onto the marble board where it could be shaped and fashioned.
Since it was a craft, the technique of the craftsman was key.
Sugar painting was one of Wei Xiao Bei’s favorite things when he was a kid.
Now, there were already machines that could automatically make sugar paintings. It was said to be a revolution in traditional sugar painting folk art. Wei Xiao Bei couldn’t help but click his tongue when he read the news.
Crafts had to be made by hand for it to have meaning. What’s the difference from a commercial product off the factory line if it was made by a machine? It would lose all its meaning and significance.
He stood at the stall and looked on for a while. He nodded. The technique of this sugar painter was pretty decent. The sugar was not too thick or thin and the designs were fine and delicate, perfectly balanced. He must have been working on sugar paintings for over twenty years, given his skills.
“Dragon! Dragon! Dragon!”
A kid paid the money and spun the wheel, shouting loudly as he did so.
Unfortunately, his luck wasn’t too good. The pointer landed on the dragonfly and the kid became dejected.
It was simple. How much sugar went into the painting had to do with the design of the painting.
For instance, the dragon and phoenix used the most sugar, while the dragonfly and the butterfly used the least.
When he was younger, Wei Xiao Bei preferred a flat piece of sugar candy, the thick kind. It used just as much sugar as the dragon or the phoenix, but he got to lick it for longer periods of time.
Wei Xiao Bei finally felt like he had learned something after watching for so long. He was itching to try his hand.
Coincidentally, the sugar painting master got up and looked around, a sort of urgency written on his face.
Wei Xiao Bei didn’t need to look to know that he was looking for the restroom.
However, the business was doing good now. Yet, he had no one to take his place. He couldn’t help but get worried over the whole situation.
“Sir, go to the restroom. Lend me your stall for me to play around. Here’s the deposit.”
Wei Xiao Bei said as he passed him five hundred dollars.
The sugar painting master was in his forties and was a bit reluctant to just do so.
After all, anyone would be concerned if a stranger just stepped forward and said something like that.
However, in the end, his intense need to use the toilet defeated him. He gave it some thought as well. This was five hundred dollars. His whole stall put together wasn’t even worth that much. There was nothing he needed to worry about.
At the thought of this, the master took the money and slipped into the crowd, making straight for the public toilet.
The children gathered around the stall became upset when the sugar painting master left. After all, this sugar painter used the most sugar in his art and had the best drawings of them all in this temple festival.
These children were not as silly as the adults made them out to be. They knew how to make the most of their money as well.
Just as the children got up to leave, Wei Xiao Bei sat on the stall and started hollering, “Big giveaway now! The first ten kids get a free sugar painting. Who’s up for it?”
The stall immediately became lively with children when they heard him say that.
After all, who wouldn’t want something that was free?
The children got into a crowd and almost pushed the sugar painting stall over.
