Chapter 123 - The Boss Is A Picky Eater Tsundere? (1)

The moon on Saturday night was very nice.

The little garden outside of the mansion was basked under the silver moonlight.

Gu Shishi was lying inside a hammock. Her feet were sticking straight up. She was swaying and enjoying the cool, night breeze. Of course, she had applied insect repellent on herself first.

These cozy days were so nice. She covered her eyes with her hand and looked at the moon and the stars through the cracks between her fingers. Ideas after ideas of the night sky popped into her mind.

[Ding! Received fondness of Huo Sishen!]

Gu Shishi paused for a second and quickly her limpid eyes turned into a line from her smile. She knew that he’d like the fan. Black was elegant and mysterious, distant yet sumptuous, very much like his aura.

“Yay! Keep on going!”

She happily returned to her room to go to bed. She felt fulfilled.

While she was brushing her teeth, she sent over pictures of the fan mounts and pendants that she had ordered today over to Chen Kexin using her work cellphone.

[MeowMeow: Take a look. Which ones do you want?]

[These are all double-sided silk fan mount. I will add paintings and captions on both sides. Do you have any preference on topics? If not, I will just go with my own ideas.]

She sent the messages.

And that’s when she noticed a friend request waiting to be approved.

[I am Happy Chubster.]

Gu Shishi raised her brows. Was this a viewer from her streaming channel? Or someone who had found her through Taobao?

She didn’t think she shared her WeChat handle on her streaming channel though.

After a little while, her phone vibrated.

[MeowMeow: Please, can you please add my grandma? She is driving me nuts!]

[MeowMeow: She had asked me some 300 times since this afternoon why you haven’t added her yet… ORZ. Can we put our differences aside for now and just treat her like your regular customer, pretty please?]

She immediately sent her a down on her knees begging in tears emoji.

Obviously, this was very urgent.

Gu Shishi made a “pssst” noise, clicked out of the chat window, and looked again at the friend’s request.

[Happy Chubster is your grandma?]

Her mouth opened a bit. She immediately recalled the elegant and glorious old lady with white hair at the birthday banquet.

Old Mrs. Chen’s WeChat has so much character?

[MeowMeow: …. Yes (sweat).]

Gu Shishi apologized that she was just seeing the request right now.

[MeowMeow, you can just let me know next time. Or just give me a call. Let me send you my cell number.]

Chen Kexin, on the other end, almost wanted to cry! They were not good friends; why would she need her cell number? The direction that things were going was a bit odd.

Most importantly, her grandmother sat next to her the entire afternoon. Would she dare to prod the guru in her grandmother’s mind?

While she was thinking about all these, she heard a happy exclamation coming from next to her.

“Ah, Keke, the guru had approved me!”

Chen Kexin smiled bitterly. “Alright, grandma, you can go to bed now, right? It’s almost 11 PM.”

Old Mrs. Chen excitedly put on her bifocal glasses.She scrolled through the emoji library from her grandchildren. Finally she found an admiration emoji and sent it over.

Chen Kexin stuck her head over in resignation and said, “Alright, alright. You’ve sent it now. The guru should be turning in too.”

“Don’t rush me. I haven’t even said good night to the guru yet. Keke, don’t be so rude to the guru!”

Chen Kexin: “…..??”

Old Mrs. Chen typed a line of pleasantries before she officially said goodnight and expressed that she’d like to be able to see the guru’s work again in the future before she happily exited WeChat.

After she had removed her bifocal glasses, she saw the speechless look on her granddaughter. She couldn't help but shook her head.

“You are too young to appreciate the essence of the painting.

“That Mystical Peach Painting only cost you 30,000 yuan because this guru didn’t care about money and didn’t ask for an astronomical price.”

Chen Kexin immediately thought about the young and pretty face of Gu Shishi and all the horrible things that Pingting had said about her.

Feeling unjust, she grumbled in a low voice. “I don’t think she is that lofty.”

Old Mrs. Chen chuckled.

“You know that painting of Fairies Offering Up Birthday Congratulations that we have at home?”

Chen Kexin paused for a little bit. Fairies Offering Up Birthday Congratulations was a painting that her aunty had purchased in an auction overseas. It cost 85 million yuan.

“Grandma, is her painting really that good?”

She knew that Gu Shishi’s paintings were good, but isn’t that a bit much comparing it with something like Fairies Offering Up Birthday Congratulations?

That was a painting by the current number one ink painting artist in the world!

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Chapter 124 - The Boss Is A Picky Eater Tsundere? (2)

Old Mrs. Chen patted her on her hand with a smile.

“When you look at a painting, it’s all about one’s appreciation. Everybody has different experiences and aesthetics, and therefore, different preferences. If you ask me, I like the Mystical Peach painting more.”

Chen Kexin bit her lower lips. She couldn’t believe how highly her grandmother thought of Gu Shishi.

“When you reach the mastery level, the way they use the pen and ink are more or less on par with each other, yet not all paintings can touch the viewers.

“Making the viewers pour in their own emotions and finally, not being able to tell whether they were appreciating the painting or themselves. To me, that’s the kind of touching that is most valuable.” Old Mrs. Chen put her cellphone away and got up slowly.

“All in all, Keke, you must be respectful to the guru. Artists like them all have some kind of quirks. If the guru didn’t want to do something, don’t push for it; and also don’t offend him or rush him for paintings.

“You must go along with his wishes. Do you understand?”

Chen Kexin felt a tingling sensation on her scalp and could say nothing more than a simple acknowledgement.

If Gu Shishi was so mighty, why was she bullying on Wushuang? Or was she was telling the truth at the banquet the other day; that she didn’t really care about the Gu’s inheritance?

And if that’s the case… why did Wushuang want to paint her in such a negative light?

Pingting had plotted so much against Gu Shishi but Wushuang had never said a thing about it, never stood up and clarified for Gu Shishi. Wasn’t that the same as painting her in a bad light purposefully?

But, Wushuang has always been such a considerate person. She was pure and kind like a piece of white paper. What was going on?

“Oh my God! I am going to go crazy! What is the truth here?!” She couldn’t help but hug her head and grunted loudly.

Old Mrs. Chen turned around. “Huh?”

“Oh, nothing… The guru just sent us a bunch of fan mounts for us to pick. But I felt that they are all pretty… em… I’m not sure which ones to pick.”

“Really? Quickly, show me!”

Old Mrs. Chen was revitalized all over again!

Chen Kexin: “……”

***

While Gu Shishi was sound asleep and drooling all over the place, the progress on the “Chen Kexin” assignment went up significantly.

Even Gu Shishi herself hadn’t expected that hadn't expected that her one “Four Sons Offering Up Mythical Peaches” painting would have received such high praise from Grandma Chen.

Along with the painting, even her own status among the Chen’s had gone up by a lot!

She hasn’t even done anything yet, but Grandma Chen’s words had planted the seed of doubt about Gu Wushuang in Chen Kexin’s head.

Just a small inkling right now. That in and of itself wasn’t enough to make Chen Kexin completely turn around, but it was, after all, a seed that was planting in her relationship with Gu Wushuang.

All it needed was an opportunity for it to explode!

***

A night with a good dream and Gu Shishi slept till the sun was beating down on her butt the next day.

Gu Shishi was still smiling. She had a great dream that the boss had bought her a houseful of gifts.

The system informed her that she has 100 years of life left and she was so happy that she rolled all over the gifts…

And then, she was woken up cruelly by her alarm clock.

Gu Shishi opened her eyes and sadly realized that it was all but a dream.

“That’s alright. It must be a premonition dream,” concluded Gu Shishi shamelessly.

She stanchly crawled out of bed. With her eyes still half closed, she walked into the dining room toward the scrumptious food using just her instinct.

Nonetheless, while she was enjoying her crispy and smooth fish filet porridge, she received a notebook from Mr. Chef.

“Miss Gu, I have written down dishes that Young Master likes and the directions to make them. Thank you for helping me out next week.”

Gu Shishi quickly wiped her mouth and solemnly accepted it.

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Chapter 125 - The Boss Is A Picky Eater Tsundere? (3)

Gu Shishi flipped through and was not sure what to make of it.

Steaks, lamb chops, bacon, salmons…

“Why is it all meat?”

“Young Master doesn’t like vegetables, especially the green ones.” Mr. Chef stretched out his hand in resignation. “Usually I will add some green vegetables as garnishments. He’ll eat some if you mix them in the gravy for the meats.”

Ugh… Did the boss just graduate from the kindergarten this year? He wasn’t just a tsundere, he was a picky eater tsundere?

Gu Shishi wasn’t sure what to make of that. More important, how did he not have breakouts with his diet? How was his face so smooth? It made one jealous!

“Okay, don’t worry. I got this~”

Gu Shishi placed her hand over her forehead.

She felt that she has a tough assignment coming next week.

She took a look at the time and quickly finished her porridge. “Mr. Chef, let me add you on WeChat. I’ll ping you if I have any questions on these. I’ve got to run now. I am running late for work!”

“Okay, you go,” replied Mr. Chef quickly.

Before she took off, Gu Shishi shoved another sunny side up into her mouth and wrapped a German sausage with a napkin.

She shoved the notebook into her purse and dashed toward the door!

Inside the car, she flipped through the notebook that the chef had given to her and studied the recipes.

“They look very complicated…”

Each and every one of the chef’s dishes have at least 10+ steps.

Even the simplest steak, the mushroom gravy required tens of ingredients to be put together and also a stock that would take over 10 hours to simmer.

Gu Shishi’s headache got progressively worse as she looked through the notebook.

She made crazy notes in it and made cheat sheets.

She’d shoot to learn one a day!

Before she arrived at the studio, she was able to rely on her somewhat decent memory and memorized some 70-80% of the steps for the steak. All she needed to do was to test it out.

***

“Good morning, Xiao Mei~”

As soon as she got inside, Gu Shishi immediately saw Ling Xiaomei, who was just about to put her apron on.

She quickly wrapped her arm around Ling Xiaomei’s shoulder from behind.

Ling Xiaomei was even shorter than her and had on a pair of black-framed spectacles. She was also a soft and cute nerdy personality by nature.

When Gu Shishi has something bothering her, it was always very healing to mess around with her.

“Thank you so much for standing in for me yesterday~”

Gu Shishi had been working here for a few days and truly liked this girl a lot.

“Come, let me show you something!”

Part of the reason she had bought several fan mounts was to also make one for Ling Xiaomei.

Ling Xiaomei first blinked in excitement, then looked down listlessly. “Oh.”

Sensing something was wrong, Gu Shishi raised her brows and said, “What’s the matter? You are not feeling well?”

Looking distressed, Ling Xiaomei looked around before she bit her lower lip. She looked at Gu Shishi with a little sadness.

“Shishi, I am quitting. I am going to tell the store manager today.”

“What’s the matter? Didn’t you say that you want to get good results and use the bonus to buy yourself a FENDI purse just last Friday?”

Ling Xiaomei smiled bitterly. “But it seems I am not fit to be an instructor here. I am not talented in painting. Perhaps it’s better if I go teach kindergarten or something.

“The elites here have high standards… I am not good enough to be their instructor.”

Gu Shishi frowned. Ling Xiaomei was fine on Friday. She substituted for her on Saturday and now she started questioning her own ability?

“Did someone give you a hard time yesterday?”

Gu Shishi recalled the series of incidents recently – Luo Zheng, the man that brought her flowers, and a bunch of girls picking on her at the banquet yesterday. Her heart sank.

“Did you have a new student yesterday?”

Did someone come for her, but dragged Ling Xiaomei in because she was absent yesterday?

Ling Xiaomei turned a little pale when she was asked.

“Yeah, there was one…”

She wasn’t even done talking when an arrogant voice rang from behind her. “Instructor, do you have the answer to my question from yesterday yet?”

Ling Xiaomei shuddered and her face turned beet red instantly.