Talent Without Wealth: Such Is Fate

Summary of Chapter One of All the Talent, None of the Money: It's Fate In the late spring of the twenty-third year of the Guangxu reign, the gifted Suzhou artist Shen Yanzhi was trapped in a poor alley after his family fell on hard times. Though his painting skills were superb, he could barely make ends meet by painting and writing for others, let alone afford food for his family and medicine for his wife. One rainy night, Li Mo, a man from Shanghai, came to commission a painting, offering fifty taels for A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix. Shen saw it as a chance to change his family’s fortunes and devoted himself to the work. But just as the painting was nearly finished, officials arrested him for “possessing stolen goods.” In prison, he learned that Li Mo had set him up to avenge his father, who had died consumed by grief ten years earlier after Shen beat him in a calligraphy and painting competition. First protagonist: Shen Yanzhi Second protagonist: Li Mo