Free Web NovelChapter 214: Chapter 191: Moment of Reckoning
"How could they do this!"
Furin furiously stormed into Zog’s office, her high heels clacking authoritatively on the floor. For a moment, Zog thought his head teacher had arrived.
His neck craned back uncontrollably, as if to check for a sinister face secretly observing him from the back door’s window.
’Oh, right. The office’s back door doesn’t even have a window.’
Furin snatched the cup from his desk and GULPED down a large glass of cold water, her chest heaving as she breathed.
Zog was curious about what had made Furin so angry.
The last time he’d seen her this worked up was during her "Break the Frame" art exhibition.
It was an exhibition of exploratory works by her and other like-minded artists, delving into painting styles that departed from realism.
They had held it several times, and each time it was thrust into the storm of the art critic world.
It garnered both praise and criticism, though most were silent spectators, waiting for the two sides to fight it out before picking a team so they could act like they were the ones who understood art best all along.
Zog had gone to see it. Furin and her friends were actually quite skilled; they were on the verge of creating Impressionism.
However, during the last exhibition, some unknown person had snuck in late at night, stuck a rotten orange to a blank wall, and even forged Furin’s signature next to it.
When Furin woke up the next day, a rotten orange had been added to her collection of masterpieces.
She was so mad she practically exploded. Wait, no, dragons don’t have fur to bristle.
She was so mad her scales bristled.
And yet, the rotten orange received considerable praise from industry insiders. They said it "shattered the fetters of traditional artistic thinking," was "a bold exploration of artistic form," and "showcased the creator’s limitless innovative spirit and free imagination..."
Later, someone even bought the orange for the high price of 15 Gold Coins, making it arguably the most valuable orange in history.
Surrounded by onlookers, the buyer ate the orange on the spot, remarking that it tasted a bit like alcohol.
Zog would call it an absolute masterpiece of performance art, the one piece that best embodied the "Break the Frame" theme. He even suspected the buyer was the one who had secretly stuck the orange there in the first place.
Furin suspected the same, but she didn’t consider it a "masterpiece."
So she challenged the buyer to a duel.
The buyer, being a respectable person, turned and ran without the slightest hesitation.
"So who are ’they’ and what did they do? Did someone stick a banana to your exhibition this time?" Zog asked casually.
"This isn’t about the exhibition!" Furin was clearly triggered by any mention of fruit being stuck at her exhibitions now. "It’s the play, *Prosecution Witness*! Something’s wrong with the online reviews."
Furin recounted what had just happened to her.
After the New Drama Guild began openly recruiting, vowing to replace the old organization, the other two troupes sponsored by the Zog Group—Shepherd and Mixed Giant Beast—immediately answered the call. They jumped ship, joined the new guild, and brought *Prosecution Witness* to Twin Tower City.
Today was the play’s premiere in Twin Tower City.
As a celebrity in the local arts scene, Furin naturally had to show her support, so she invited many industry insiders to watch it with her.
Before the show started, she had hyped up the play to high heaven. She hadn’t even seen it yet, but that was how much she trusted Zog.
However, she quickly noticed that the expressions on her guests’ faces were a bit awkward. They only offered polite agreement to her praise, showing no interest in the performance—and even a hint of disdain.
What puzzled Furin even more was that while the theater’s ordinary seats were packed, many of the private boxes were empty.
This was highly unusual. Normally, when a new play premiered in the city, plenty of wealthy people would show up just to be part of the buzz, even if they weren’t interested.
Anyone who wasn’t up-to-date on the latest artistic hotspots would be ridiculed by other rich people.
When the performance ended, the people Furin had invited had little reaction, offering only a token round of applause.
During the curtain call, Furin was the only one in her box who stood up to salute the troupe.
It made her doubt her own taste; she had been completely engrossed in the play.
She hadn’t seen such an interesting script in a long time, and the acting and stage effects were more than passable. There was no reason for such a cold reception.
It wasn’t until after the show that a painter, a good friend of Furin’s, told her that the play had recently been getting extremely negative reviews in the theater world, so people couldn’t show that they liked it too much.
The logic sounded bizarre. Logically, whether the reviews were good or bad shouldn’t have much to do with whether you personally liked something.
After all, taste is a very subjective thing; your own preference should be the primary standard.
But for industry insiders, that was not an option.
These were people who had to conform to the standards of their circle in every aspect of their lives.
Their style of dress, their forms of entertainment, even what they were "supposed" to like to eat—everything was governed by a set of rules.
You love to gnaw on chicken feet? Not allowed.
That’s something poor people like to eat. If you like it too, it means you have no taste.
By the same token, liking a play with poor mainstream reviews was also a sign of no taste.
Their lives were like a masquerade ball: glamorous on the surface, but they always had to adhere to the party’s theme.
Hearing this from her friend, Furin decided to see for herself what exactly the mainstream critics were saying.
If the critiques were well-reasoned, she would treat it as a learning experience; drama wasn’t her area of expertise, after all.
But she was unprepared for what she found.
Several negative reviews of *Prosecution Witness* were trending.
The authors all had ridiculously long lists of titles.
Things like: renowned author, playwright, poet, traveler, literary scholar, master of theology, theater manager, Drama Guild-certified critic.
That entire string of titles belonged to a single person.
The titles of the critiques were just as outrageous.
"A Detailed Accounting of the Ten Deadly Sins of *Prosecution Witness*"
