The Divorcee Amazed the World

Eric couldn’t believe it, “How old are you this year?”

“Twenty-three.”

Eric thought, this young girl is not very old and quite good at bragging. Let’s see if she can live up to it!

As they were talking, one of the staff downstairs came up to call someone.

Helena and Eric went downstairs.

They saw a man in his thirties holding a dirty, old painting, asking if it could be restored.

Eric took a glance, and it didn’t even look like a painting anymore-just a dark, tattered piece with wrinkles and wormholes.

For damages of this extent, even the top restoration experts in the country would have only a few chances of success.

He looked at Helena with a gloating expression, “Helena, everyone is watching you. Don’t disappoint them.”

Helena walked over, picked up the old painting, carefully examined it, and said to the customer, “It can be restored.”

The customer, overjoyed, asked, “Who will do it, and how long will it take?”

“I will, and it will take three days.”

“You?” The customer looked at Helena, who appeared youthful and doubtful, “This is an authentic work by Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows! The auction price starts at millions. Don’t ruin it for me!”

Others also cast skeptical glances at Helena. Three days? That seemed too audacious.

Eric chuckled, twirling his beard, and said, “Helena, you young people are fearless, which is a good thing, but you also need to be realistic. If you mess up this customer’s painting, you’ll damage the reputation of our Antique Attic. Even top restoration experts wouldn’t dare to claim they can fix it in three days. It usually takes months or even years for them to restore a single ancient painting.”

Implicitly, he was saying: Don’t overestimate your abilities!

Helena spoke with determination, “Three days is enough. If I ruin it, I will compensate at double the market value.”

The customer, who initially wanted the painting restored for auction, was enticed by this offer. He immediately agreed, “Words alone are not enough. Let’s sign a contract.”

“Sure.”

After estimating the price and signing the contract, Helena took the antique painting to the upstairs restoration room.

Opening the door.

Inside were two large red solid wood tables, various restoration tools like brushes, knives, woolen towels, goat hair brushes, and Xuan paper.

Ancient book and painting restoration mainly involved four processes: cleaning, revealing, complementing, and finishing.

Helena had someone boil a pot of hot water and started cleaning the ancient painting with a dipped brush.

Each stroke was meticulous. She had to remove the stains carefully without damaging the fragile paper fibers of the ancient painting.

It sounded easy, but it was challenging in practice.

Fortunately, she had been restoring ancient paintings with her grandfather since childhood, so she was adept at it.

Willis’s grandparents also had a fondness for collecting antiques. In the past two years, Helena had almost taken on the responsibility of restoring ancient books and paintings for them.

Not to mention paintings of this level, she had even restored more ancient and severely damaged ones.

Busy with restoration, Helena hardly raised her head in the next few days.

Being busy was good; it helped her temporarily forget about Willis, even diluting the sadness.

Three days later, the customer came to collect the painting.

Helena brought the restored antique painting downstairs.

The customer, looking at the vastly improved painting, was stunned, “Is this the painting I brought in? You didn’t switch it, did you?”

Eric, the store manager, and the staff were also surprised as they gathered around.

Was this the same as the ragged, unclear ancient painting from before?This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

Helena said calmly, “You can verify its authenticity with instruments.”

After the verification, the customer gave Helena a thumbs-up and left with the painting satisfied.

Word spread quickly, and soon, the entire antique street knew that Antique Attic had a young and beautiful ancient painting restoration master, only in her twenties but with skills comparable to a national restoration master!

In the evening.

Willis called, “My car is parked outside your shop. Come out.”

Hearing the familiar voice, Helena’s heart throbbed painfully.

She glanced at her watch and said softly, “It’s getting dark. We won’t make it to the Civil Affairs Bureau now. Can we go tomorrow morning?”

Willis fell silent for a moment. “Grandma wants to see us. She says there’s something very important.”