Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
The concert came to a close perfectly. Yun Xiangxiang didn’t wait until the end; He Wei sent her away earlier to elude the entertainment reporters that were blocking the way.
“Since you’re so exhausted, you can rest. No training for today.”
Song Qian saw the lethargy in Yun Xiangxiang’s eyes once she removed her makeup. She had her go to sleep early after massaging her acupoints out of consideration.
“No can do,” Yun Xiangxiang, who had her eyes closed like a languid cat, suddenly opened them. “Can’t have even a day of slacking off in training.”
“It won’t affect anything if it’s only a day,” Song Qian thought that Yun Xiangxiang was worried about her progress being stunted.
“I’m not impatient to master it quickly.”
Yun Xiangxiang got up slowly, “Humans rarely had any days when they’re not tired. It’s either the body getting tired, or the mind. If we slack off just because we got a little tired, it will set a precedent. A precedent for excusing our indolence.”
Humans have always been slothful creatures. It was a primal instinct to love leisure and eschew labour. The point was whether one could suppress it. Only by challenging it at all times could one become more resilient; only then one would they not be controlled by their impulses.
She wasn’t immobilized; nor did she sustain severe injuries. As long as she could get up, she wouldn’t leave today’s work for tomorrow.
“You have the spirit of a special agent,” Song Qian went through a training regime for special agents. She understood the most what kind of people would survive in those horrifying conditions.
And those who could survive the whole thing would be able to endure any disaster.
Their endurance was tempered through training, but Yun Xiangxiang was born with it.
Yun Xiangxiang didn’t elaborate; no one knew about her previous life.
A beautiful, orphaned girl needed to be as fierce as possible; as hardworking as possible. All so that they could protect themselves.
And whose personality wasn’t shaped by the environment they grew up in?
When one had gone through every hardship possible, nothing would feel like a hardship to them.
Song Qian brought Yun Xiangxiang back in her arms after training was done. Whatever position Song Qian put her in, that was the position she slept in until morning.
She wasn’t as energetic that morning. At the end of the day, she was still a normal human being. Yesterday had truly taken the wind out of her.
But she still freshened up and washed herself after being woken up by her circadian clock. Then she was off to train in Tai Chi.
“She’s really outstanding,” Ai Li was a cold person. She was a woman of few words, and she didn’t admire many people. But over the time, Yun Xiangxiang had come to impress her more and more.
“The one who can go to the top isn’t necessarily the smartest, but the ones who work the hardest. The ones who know how to seize every second in their hand,” Song Qian leant against the door’s side. She observed Yun Xiangxiang training diligently inside with Ai Li.
She took a bath after she was done with training. Wang Yong had already made a gorgeous breakfast after she came out of the shower.
“A life where Brother Yong is around is a very blessed one,” Yun Xiangxiang didn’t forget to compliment Wang Yong while she munched on her nutritious and delicious breakfast.”
“Yeah, it’s just too blessed,” Yun Lin nodded in assent. “I wanna look for a chef as great as Brother Yong in the future.”
Their praises made the honest Wang Yong feel embarrassed.
He was actually a poor man from a farming village. His skills were passed down since his ancestors’ time. However, their family declined over the generations due to them not being smart in managing it.
He wasn’t great in his studies either. After getting out of the village, he went to work in restaurants and hotels. He could master most things only with a glance.
But he couldn’t get his chef’s license as he did not have any qualifications. It wasn’t adequate for him to be a head chef; he was ostracized, used, and mocked everywhere he went.
He was already at rock bottom and planned to go back to his old home to muddle through his days. It was someone who looked down on him that gave him He Wei’s recruitment ad and said condescendingly, “Didn’t you always yap about having real skills, but a lack of qualifications limited you? Well, look at this. This ad says that they don’t care about qualifications.”
He thought that it would be a little place in a small corner at first. He thought those people were just waiting to see him make a fool out of himself. It took all he had just to stand up straight when he knew what kind of place it was. He even thought that it was swindlers trying to scam him at one point.
He only worked up his courage to ask about not needing any qualifications when he thought that there was nothing worth swindling from him. He endured the disdainful gaze of those people and dove headlong into it once he confirmed it.
He Wei did the appraisal himself. He was chosen from over a hundred candidates.
He was exceptionally nervous when he was assigned to Yun Xiangxiang. He thought that such a pretty lady might be a princess that was hard to impress.
But she was unexpectedly easy to get along with. Just like a little princess that made anyone want to spoil her.
He almost died when he heard about the pay Yun Xiangxiang was going to give him. He absolutely must unleash everything he had to not let such a pay down.
“Xiangxiang, I made the sauce you wanted. I even made other sauces,” Wang Yong said hastily.
“I’ll go have a look,” Yun Xiangxiang happened to have eaten her fill. She went to the kitchen.
“This here is vegetarian. And this here is made of meat,” Wang Yong opened the cabinet. Both sides were stuffed neatly with more than twenty sealed glass bottles. “All of the vegetarian sauces are made with fungi. The ones made of meat are made with seafood, beef, chicken, and pork.”
Wang Yong made so much in just a little more than a month. Yun Xiangxiang randomly took one. She opened it and took a whiff, “It smells so nice. I’ll take a few to school tomorrow. Sister Qian, take some and send it to Xiangling and Mengmeng later in the day.”
She turned around and gave a big smile to Wang Yong, “You have worked hard, Brother Yong. Make more of these if you have nothing to do.”
She would send some to her parents back home once Song Mian’s candies arrive.
“Of course, of course,” Wang Yong was only worried about Yun Xiangxiang’s satisfaction. As long as she was satisfied, everything else was secondary.
His mother had a secret recipe for making sauces. It was something that he loved to do since he was little.
Yun Xiangxiang picked some and packed them nicely when she thought that she would be meeting He Wei soon. She got into the car and went to the company.
She asked Song Qian to send some stuff and pick her up later when she arrived at the company. She took Coco with her into the company.
“Sister Xiang is here! Your singing is great, Sister Xiang!”
“Will you release an album in the future, Sister Xiang? I want to buy it.”
“Sister Xiang, can you give me your signature?”
The receptionists and the staff on the first floor gathered around her when they saw Yun Xiangxiang coming in alone.
“You can just call me Xiangxiang,” Even though her soul was thirty years old, their physical age was still older than her now.
She knew they called her that out of respect. But she still felt slightly embarrassed.
“Don’t you guys have work to do?” It was at this moment, a chilly voice came from behind.
It was a familiar voice. Yun Xiangxiang was greeted with Wen Lan’s frosty face when she turned her head around. She was slightly dazed.
The Wen Lan in her memories wasn’t so cold. She seemed to have become a different person.
Two people stood by Wen Lan’s side. One was an actress who just signed with her. Another was an old acquaintance of Yun Xiangxiang — Lu Huanong.
She didn’t follow their news anymore after her rebirth.
But she still knew something from Song Meng. Lu Huanong and Ruo Feiqun were completely smeared because of the incident of Hua Xiangrong jumping off the roof of a building.
Neither of them had any work for more than a year. The previous award ceremony was Ruo Feiqun’s first public appearance after Hua Xiangrong’s death.
She heard that Lu Huanong gave birth to a daughter. She spent her time tending to her husband and daughter at home, and didn’t star in any films these past couple of years.