During the grilling process, the grease will slowly seep out from beneath the chicken skin, mixing the aroma of fat with the scent of green onions and garlic. It’s savory and sweet without being greasy, a quintessential dish in Japanese cuisine.

This yakitori restaurant named "Negima" does not belong to the expensive Michelin-level Japanese cuisines.

Instead, it has the flavor of a hidden little joint amongst the hustle and bustle of the world, offering not only various skewers but also stews and filling miso ramen.

"Mr. Sakai, still have a good appetite, huh." The chef, wearing a bathrobe-like tie white robe, placed three skewers of grilled beef in front of Uncle Sakai on a black plate and said with a smile.

"Oh!"

The chubby, round Professor Yakai Ichiro put a skewer into his mouth, sucked it in, pleasantly gulped down, and the entire skewer was gone.

He took a sip of sake from the cup, happily resembling a 230-pound chubby man.

"Master Takatani’s skills remain excellent, this meat is aromatic and succulent!"

Yakai Ichiro raised a thumb and casually wiped the sparkling grease off the corner of his mouth, lacking any semblance of a refined artist.

Actually, Master Takatani’s grilling skills can only be called proficient.

He can’t compare with those big chain barbecue restaurants, let alone the meticulously cooked grilled steaks in high-end Kaiseki or Michelin restaurants, where even the raw materials and cooking techniques surpass this small shop.

Perhaps the only advantage is its affordability.

A skewer of chicken skin yakitori costs seventy yen, chicken breast yakitori ninety yen, beef yakitori one hundred ten yen, and if you don’t mind eating grilled chicken butt, it’s only fifty yen a skewer, affordable even for poor students studying in Tokyo.

Among the Three Volumes of East Asia Immortal Cultivation,

It is said that Dongxia People don’t take vacations, Koreans don’t sleep, and Japanese don’t eat.

The reason why Japanese don’t eat, to a considerable extent, is because Japanese cuisine is too expensive.

Living in Tokyo is not easy.

This is a place bustling with prosperity, with extremely high living costs, and casually eating something decent could easily cost six to seven thousand yen.

Uncle Sakai is unlike his peers who are fond of anime, baseball, or idol stars.

His biggest hobby is eating.

During his youthful student years, every Friday, he would work part-time as a coach for a private high school’s painting club. After class, he would drive to this little shop of a dozen square meters.

While mulling over the accounts in his notebook, calculating how much more money to save for tuition fees, he relaxed by eating a few skewers of grilled meat.

Even if eating two beef yakitori skewers made him feel the pinch for a while, these were his happiest times.

Professor Sakai has long since become successful, able to afford to buy this small shop ten times over by selling just one painting. His wallet allows him to eat truffles like potatoes and foie gras like pig liver, yet he still enjoys the vibe of this shop.

Especially when his wife is not at home, and there’s no one to watch his weight.

Uncle Sakai often sneaks over for a night snack.

Here, there is the taste from his memories,

In this small shop, he is not the millionaire admired by everyone, the great artist; he is still the "Mr. Sakai" with a good appetite, according to Master Takatani.

Even if "Mr. Sakai" has transformed from a slim and melancholic handsome man like a bamboo stick into a chubby, merry meatball, he still feels relaxed.

The only discordant element in this small eatery is the young man in a suit sitting beside Professor Yakai Ichiro.

His complexion pale, a gold Vacheron Constantin watch on his wrist, and his golden hair slicked back so well it might give flies a place to do the splits.

"Professor Sakai, please consider Ma Shi Gallery, one to two over 50×60 cm oil paintings per month, can be delivered quarterly. Each piece fifty thousand US dollars. Within four years, to hold a solo exhibition for you at the Zurich Art Museum, and Ma Shi Gallery is willing to provide a total signing fee of eight million US dollars, making the total contract price reach the fifty million dollars range for four years."

The young man quietly pitches the gallery he represents to the great artist beside him, with contracts of hundreds of thousands to millions of US dollars flowing easily from his lips as if it’s mere waste paper.

Hanks Ma Shi is a broker at Ma Shi Gallery.

If the astronomical auction prices are like fireworks blossoming momentarily, then the prices of artists’ works at primary market galleries are the steadfast beacons in investors’ hearts.

The factors like hype, bubbles, and financial speculation that can influence the ever-changing auction market prices are numerous, but gallery prices remain relatively stable for a long period.

To sustain a healthy market development and attract great collector interest.

There is an unwritten industry rule,

The prices of works by represented artists displayed in top galleries are slightly below their future market estimates.

For a long time, artworks sold at major galleries like Gagosian and Lisson were often at the million-dollar level, but collectors usually make a profit after holding them for a few years.

This is like a left foot stepping on the right for a skyward cycle.

The appreciation of a proxy artist’s work enhances the gallery’s reputation, and the improved reputation further boosts collectors’ purchasing confidence.

Behind almost every great artist stands a giant level gallery.

Giant galleries are like top-notch soccer teams, complementing excellent artists.

They can rake in heaps from the talents and names of artists, and in cases of market price collapses, it’s also the galleries behind the artists willing to invest heavily to save them.

The most classic case in the art market is Damien Hirst, briefly crowned as the priciest living artist.

Hirst encountered market fluctuations around the millennium, faced a cold reception in auctions, and sales prices plummeted.

Rumor has it that Larry Gagosian led his buyers into the market with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash flow to stabilize the market.

Picasso, Andy Warhol, Mondrian, Damien Hirst...

Today, for any artist chosen by such a giant gallery, to only achieve art sales worth millions in a lifetime would truly be a failure.

Canadian high-profile beauty artist Anna Wyant, merely due to some scandalous rumors with Larry Gagosian spread by paparazzi, saw her value skyrocket over 100 times.

It’s common knowledge among art students that it is the galleries behind them, more so than the artists themselves, that determine art market trends and directions.

Ma Shi Gallery is such a giant gallery, or rather, used to be such a giant gallery.

This ’used to be’ refers to before the 1970s.

Grand galleries aren’t magicians; they might sell brass as gold or gold as diamonds, but they can’t sell dog crap at gold prices.

Collectors are no fools either.

To sell at sky-high prices, the artist himself must at least be gold.

In opera, there’s the famous lead, in films the lead actor, in galleries, there must be significant enough resident artists.

To become a giant, money alone isn’t enough; you also need well-known art stars and works familiar to collectors.

Similar to how Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol are to Gagosian, Yayoi Kusama is to OFA, and John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono is to Lisson Gallery.

Ma Shi Gallery is an old-school gallery,

Founded in 1943 amidst the smoke of World War II, it was once one of the top three in the industry, but after missing the Pop Art wave in the 70s and relinquishing the opportunity to sign and represent Andy Warhol at the last moment, it no longer has enough weight to "hold the fort".

Several artists promoted did not succeed very well, greatly impacting the investment confidence of family collectors who had good relationships with Ma Shi Gallery in the past.

Ma Shi Gallery slipped from a giant gallery powerhouse to the very edge of first-tier galleries and began to develop like a second-tier gallery.

The Ma Shi Clan desperately needs to cultivate a sufficiently successful, even great artist to regain its past glory, sparing no expense to achieve this.