Chapter 286
From that day forward, "cello practice" became a new unit of time measurement aboard "Noah-01."
"When's this report due?"
"Before Mr. Russell's next practice session."
"Got it, pulling an all-nighter starting now."
Diana discovered Rupert was learning to paint one evening.
She was returning from the ecological bay and happened to pass the room that had once served as the top strategic war room.
The door wasn't fully closed. She saw Rupert standing before an enormous easel.
The canvas displayed a complete disaster.
Paint had been sloppily piled together, blue and yellow accidentally mixing into a murky, dirty green.
He appeared to be attempting an ocean scene, but the sea looked stiff and angry, like cement splattered with a bucket of paint.
He wore his spotless white dress shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing beautifully lined forearms.
Except those hands that once controlled the world's economic lifelines now clumsily gripped a paintbrush.
His brows were tightly knit, his expression more serious than when analyzing the Phaethon Project's fiscal budget.
Diana stood in the doorway for a moment without making a sound, then turned and left.
The next day, when Rupert returned to the studio, he found a set of small glass bottles beside his palette.
Each bottle contained a different ratio of paint medium to turpentine, labeled in extremely fine handwriting: "slow dry," "fast dry," "glazing," "thin application."
Beside them lay a note with no words, only a simple diagram drawn in charcoal: sun, water surface, reflection.
Just a few strokes, yet they precisely outlined the physical laws of light refraction and reflection across different media.
Rupert stared at the note for a long time. The corners of his lips curved upward silently.
He picked up his brush, dipped it in the medium marked "thin application," and looked back at his canvas.
This time, he painted slowly.
The day the tomatoes were harvested, all the fleet's high-ranking officials were "invited" to the edge of Gaia's vegetable garden.
Oscar, Julian, and Isabella appeared as holographic projections, while Kenji and numerous scientists stood in person, forming a circle with solemn expressions.
Rupert personally picked a brilliantly red tomato from the vine.
It was perfect as a work of art, gleaming under the simulated sunlight.
Carrying the tomato, he walked through the simulated rainforest to the rock where Diana often stayed.
Diana was painting a blue morpho butterfly perched on a touch-me-not flower.
Rupert held the tomato out before her.
Diana's gaze shifted from her canvas to the tomato, then to him.
Dirt still lingered under his fingernails, impossible to wash completely clean.
She didn't take it. Instead, she set down her brush, picked up an ordinary tomato she'd casually planted herself from beside the easel, and bit into it.
Crisp. Juicy.
"Mine's sweeter," she said.
Rupert looked at her, then lowered his head and bit into his priceless Angel's Tear.
The acidity and sweetness had been precisely calculated by Athena, flawlessly perfect.
Yet somehow, he felt the taste truly didn't compare to hers.
He said nothing more, simply sat down beside her.
Together.
That tomato named Angel's Tear was ultimately subjected to complete compositional analysis by Athena, its data sealed in the highest-level encrypted archives.
As for the vegetable patch Rupert had cultivated with the same energy he'd once devoted to managing hundreds of billions in assets—the very next day, Diana planted it with ordinary alliums and mint.
The Miracle Logistics Officer meetings played out like spiritually fractured tea parties.
Oscar's holographic image sported heavy dark circles under his eyes, his expression haggard.
"Mr. Russell, regarding Ms. York's comment that 'the blue in the painting lacks purity,' we've provided three solutions."
"Option A: Acquire Chromatek Industries in Valeria, which owns the world's finest Prussian blue production line."
"Option B: Revive medieval ultramarine extraction techniques, source high-grade Lapis Lazuli from the Middle East at premium prices. I've already contacted tribal leaders in the Dravash Dominion."
"Option C: Directly 'borrow' a Vermeer painting from The Aureline Gallery for Ms. York's on-site study."
He paused, his tone anguished. "The PR and Legal departments have jointly requested I convey their strong recommendation for Option A."
Isabella looked up at this, golden hair shimmering under the lights. "Boring. My people have already located the finest mineral veins in the Dravash Dominion. The local armed forces are quite happy to discuss a 'cultural exchange' sponsorship with us."
Julian added expressionlessly, "The Aureline Gallery's security system blueprints were updated three years ago. Isabella needs fifteen minutes to bypass the infrared sensors, special ops insertion requires seven minutes, twenty-two minutes total, risk manageable."
Oscar covered his face with both hands, releasing a despairing groan.
Rupert's fingertip lightly tapped the table surface, cutting off the increasingly absurd discussion.
"Option A."
Oscar looked as though he'd received a pardon.
"Additionally," Rupert's gaze turned to Julian, "convert Section B7 on Gaia into a glass conservatory. Reference the structure of Greenhaven Arboretum in Branton, but with fully automated climate control."
Julian's fingertips danced across a virtual keyboard. "Design schematics sent to Engineering. Estimated completion: forty-five days. Norvayne's rare tulip bulb supplier has reserved all this quarter's Grade-A stock for us."
"Also," Rupert's eyes finally settled on Isabella, "I need a complete catalog of Baroque-era cello scores, including all unpublished manuscripts and private collections."
Isabella whistled, her smile loaded with meaning. "No problem, Mr. Russell. The director of Vionne's National Library happens to be the card partner of an old friend of mine. His luck hasn't been great lately."
Meeting adjourned. Oscar watched the other two holographic images vanish instantly.
This supreme command system that once coordinated global shadow wars and manipulated financial lifelines now devotes its daily operations to acquiring century-old enterprises for a shade of blue, building sky gardens for a few bulbs, and scheming against a treasured national curator at card tables over aged manuscripts.
He felt the world was growing more insane by the day.
Diana quickly noticed the changes aboard Noah-01.
The studio she frequented had tripled in size overnight.
The entire north wall had been replaced with massive one-way glass, simulating the softest natural skylight.
Beside the easel stood a climate-controlled paint cabinet, neatly stocked with hundreds of colors—from "Tyrian purple" only seen in ancient texts to "relic powder" newly extracted from minerals.
Each was contained in exquisite crystal bottles, their surfaces engraved with chemical formulas and coordinates of origin.
She'd merely mentioned wanting to try sculpture in passing, and the next day, a complete set of premium white marble from Luscaro's Whitecliff Quarry appeared in the studio corner.
Along with a laser engraving machine capable of micron-level precision.
The vegetable patch on Gaia had also vanished, replaced by a true glass conservatory.
Its dome soared high with elegant structure, sunlight filtering through specially treated glass—warm without scorching.
Inside grew no precious flowers, only the peculiar plants Diana had sketched from various field guides.
Bioluminescent mushrooms. Moss that changed colors based on humidity. And a geometrically precise fern species whose watering schedule required mathematical functions.
Rupert's wood-sawing cello still sounded punctually from the study each day.
But objects began appearing periodically on Diana's workbench.
Sometimes, a baroque court music manuscript from a 17th-century Valerian principality, carefully mounted on vellum.
Sometimes, a piece of rosin that Athena had analyzed and verified came from Stradivari's violin workshop three centuries ago.
In his own clumsy way, he participated in each of her hobbies.
He didn't understand art, but he could buy all the world's pigments.
He didn't understand horticulture, but he could build a palace for a single moss.
He didn't understand music, but he could hunt down lost compositions for her.