Chapter 43
Xu Zhuwen sent over the book she was reading.
The book is titled "Winning and Losing".
Gao Yinxi became interested and started discussing it with Xu Zhuwen.
Li Chian calmed his son down, picked up his phone, and saw Gao Yinxi and Xu Zhuwen chatting enthusiastically in the group, sometimes about "Winning or Losing," and sometimes about Qian Song.
She checked her notes and found they were talking about a live stream.
I couldn't resist joining in the group chat.
"Qi An Yi Chi: A friend suggested I try live streaming, what do you guys think?"
The three of them discussed it and agreed that it was feasible, but the question was, what content should they stream?
Li Chian hadn't made up his mind, but Gao Yinxi and Xu Zhuwen quickly offered their suggestions.
After deciding on a few directions, such as beauty, parenting, health and wellness, and reading, Li Chian said he would think about it carefully before making a final decision.
After chatting for a while, Li Chi'an got up from the sofa, intending to go to the study to read for a while before going to sleep. Just as he put his phone down, he received a WeChat message from Yu Shi.
"A Soft-Hearted God: 'Image'"
"A Soft-Hearted God: Congratulations!"
The sound of the study door closing was very soft, but it resonated deeply in Li Chi'an's heart.
She leaned against the wall and slowly slid down onto the meditation cushion placed in the corner.
The phone screen was still lit up, showing a picture of the trending topics list that Yu Shi had just sent—#Li Chi'an's new book pre-sale# was ranked seventh.
Six months ago, her name first trended on social media because of the scandal involving Chen Li and Lin Ying, and netizens dug up her as the "poor first wife".
Now, those pitying glances have turned into admiration.
Her new book, "Women's Victory," suddenly made her famous due to the controversy, and its pre-sale results exceeded everyone's expectations.
Her editor, Jin Jin, immediately shared the news that her new book's pre-sales had gone viral, and also told her that the publisher had decided to reprint it.
Li Chi'an's new book was expected to be a bestseller, but when it actually became a bestseller, editor Jin Jin couldn't help but excitedly call her a "genius".
Li Chi'an felt he hadn't been happy in a long time, but today he was overjoyed and cried tears of joy.
She had been trending on social media before, but back then, even though she gained a lot of traffic and fame from that trending topic, as well as sympathy from netizens, and even used the power of the internet to seek justice for herself.
However, in private, people would always send her WeChat messages asking all sorts of questions. Li Chi'an ignored them and simply stopped updating her Moments. She also rarely browsed Moments anymore and even streamlined her WeChat friends list, decluttering her Moments.
Some people may appear to be there to comfort you, but behind their backs, they may be harboring a desire to watch the drama unfold and have a gossipy mentality.
Of course, since she dared to report it by her real name and post it online, she wasn't afraid of being laughed at.
However, since you've known each other for a while, it's fine for you to just watch from behind as a friend, but to constantly expose her wounds by bringing them up in front of her is rather unseemly.
What truly matters is always the action itself, and the results it produces.
Although this time the trending topic didn't generate as much buzz or traffic online as last time, she was confident that most of her friends would see it.
However, very few people sent me private messages, whether they were inquiries or well wishes.
In the vast majority of people, there are many who enjoy seeing others fail, and few who genuinely wish others well.
Li Chi'an smiled, and at that time he was one of the very few.
...
For Li Chi'an, the past few days have been a period of chaos and turmoil.
It wasn't entirely because of her entanglements with Chen Li and the Chen family; it was also due to her own career.
With the divorce certificate in hand and the property confirmed to be hers, Li Chi'an's first action was to hire a designer to come to her home and prepare to transform the house into a bed and breakfast, turning it into a liquid asset.
This was her first time running a bed and breakfast, and things were more difficult than she had imagined.
Although her house has an excellent location facing the sea, her lack of experience in running a guesthouse resulted in a lower-than-expected occupancy rate, not to mention issues such as cleanliness and customer maintenance.
She handles customer maintenance herself, which, although she can do it with her phone, still takes a lot of her time and effort.
Secondly, her guesthouse is small, so hiring a regular caregiver is not cost-effective. If she books a caregiver on a platform, the quality often varies, and hygiene and quality cannot be controlled.
Li Chi'an had to admit that doing anything well is not easy, even running a small bed and breakfast.
Fortunately, she has two industry leaders supporting her: Gao Yinxi and Yu Shi.
When an emergency occurred at the guesthouse and she knew that Gao Yinxi was busy and didn't want to bother her, she sent a message to Yu Shi. Yu Shi simply replied "wait a minute" and then there was no further news. Just when Li Chi'an thought that Yu Shi was too busy to help her and was preparing to find a solution herself, she realized that Yu Shi was busy and might not have time to help her.
The doorbell rang.
She sat in her former home, which is now a guesthouse, opened the door, and was surprised to find Yu Shi standing there.
"Hello, you must have been waiting impatiently, right?" He smiled, holding a black umbrella in his hand.
It was raining heavily outside.
He arrived carrying an umbrella and wearing flip-flops. His shoes were fine, but his pants and body were mostly soaked by the wind and rain. Even his hair was wavy from being wet.
"Why are you here?" Li Chi'an asked in a flustered manner, stepping aside to lead him in.
An indescribable emotion welled up in her heart in an instant. She didn't know what to say, but she was overwhelmed with emotion.
Yu Shi walked into the lobby of the guesthouse and scanned the surroundings with keen eyes. "The design is excellent. If it is managed well, the occupancy rate will not be a problem."
This statement hit Li Chi'an's sore spot, and she nodded with a wry smile, "Indeed, I'm not very good at operations."
"You have to figure it out slowly."
Yu Shi turned around and smiled. Rain dripped down his curly hair onto his angular face. Li Chi'an hurriedly ran to the cabinet and pulled out a clean towel, handing it to him. "I'm sorry, it's raining so hard. Please come over and dry your hair first."
"It's nothing." Yu Shi smiled brightly, took the towel, and slowly began to dry her hair.
The young man's white t-shirt and black pants clung to his muscular body because they were damp, exuding a strong masculine aura. In the humid air, his scent was as pleasant as ever, except today it wasn't sandalwood like last time, but rather an orange fragrance.
After carefully observing the guesthouse, Yu Shi had a general understanding of Li Chi'an's business practices.
From an outsider's perspective, he pointed out several key issues in the operation of homestays: insufficient online promotion, unclear target customers, and lack of distinctive features.
What surprised Li Chian even more was that he did not stop at criticism, but proposed specific and feasible solutions.
“I can help you reshoot the online operation images and design the booking system,” Yu Shi said, taking out his phone to show the platform pages of several of his own guesthouses. “These were all designed by me, and the results are quite good.”
Li Chi'an hesitated, "This is too much trouble for you..."
Given her current status, it would be unsettling for her to take promotional photos for her guesthouse without paying, but paying her would exceed her budget.
“I really like the design of your house.” Yu Shi’s deep eyes looked directly into hers. “Besides, I think this place has great potential. How about this, I’ll help you by contributing my expertise as equity, and we’ll split the profits. What do you say?”
The shareholding percentage proposed by Yu Shi satisfied Li Chi'an.
The proposal was fair and reasonable, and Li Chi'an couldn't find a reason to refuse. Moreover, if Yu Shi could really take over the operation of her guesthouse, it would be a piece of cake for him. After all, he had many guesthouses and a dedicated operation team, so adding her guesthouse wouldn't be much of a job.
But for her personally, it saves her a lot of time writing.
From that day on, Yu Shi began to appear at Li Chi'an's guesthouse from time to time for business communication and exchange.
He is extremely efficient; in just two weeks, he established a brand new brand image and online booking system for the guesthouse.
He also personally took a set of stunning promotional photos for the guesthouse, with precise and creative control over composition and lighting.
"You take really good photos." Li Chian was present when the promotional photos were taken, and he couldn't help but praise them after seeing the photos taken by Yu Shi.
Without comparison, there is no harm. The photos of the guesthouse were taken by her own, and they weren't bad, but to be honest, compared to Yu Shi, the difference is obvious.
Moreover, she herself knows that she is better at photographing people, while she is better at photographing spaces and landscapes.
Yu put down the camera, smiled, and said, "It's all about practice. I've been playing with cameras with my dad since I was very young. The more I take pictures, the better I get."
"You're being modest."
Li Chi'an smiled in agreement.
In her opinion, Yu Shi's ability to take such photos is not just due to the quantity of photos he takes, but more so to his personal interpretation and the spirit that his talent imbues in his photographs.
To be honest, she learned a lot about spatial photography from Yu Shi during that day's shoot, and gained a lot from it.
In their spare time, they would also chat about other things.
Li Chi'an discovered that Yu Shi was a man of broad knowledge, capable of speaking eloquently about everything from literature and economics to food and travel.
He never deliberately inquired about her past, but he was always able to keenly sense her emotional changes.
A month later, the number of bookings for the guesthouse increased significantly.
Of course, during that time, because she privately converted her house into a homestay and listed it on the platform, Chen Li found out and scolded her. Li Chi'an was speechless. Before she could even hear a few words, she hung up on Chen Li's voice message on WeChat, and then added the extra step of blocking and deleting her.
As a result, when Chen Li tried to contact her later, he could only call his son Chen Zui's smartwatch.
However, because the homestay business is developing steadily, the two have not been talking as frequently in private recently as they used to when they had business dealings.
Li Chian was still a little stunned when he first saw the message from Yu Shi.
She didn't expect the other party to pay so much attention to her news. Upon seeing her trending topic, they immediately sent her a screenshot and a congratulatory message.
Keep in mind that her editor had only sent her the message a dozen minutes earlier, and she had just shared the good news with Gao Yinxi and her cousin in the group chat.
The pre-sales of the new book were better than anyone expected, and Li Chi'an was naturally overjoyed.
The publisher had originally planned to print 20,000 more copies than intended, but after today's trending topic emerged, the publisher decided to print another 100,000 copies and also spend more money to promote the pre-sale of the new book, hoping to keep the buzz going for longer.
"A Soft-Hearted God: Looking forward to your new book!"
Just as Li Chi'an was in a daze, Yu Shi sent a third message.
The text was brief, yet it made Li Chi'an smile involuntarily.
Li Chian was surprised to find that his first reaction was to share this joy with Yu Shi.
She replied with a "thank you" emoji and told him that she would send him a specially signed copy later.
She hadn't experienced this natural sense of closeness since her divorce.
In the following days, sales of the new book continued to climb, and the publisher arranged interviews with several media outlets.
Li Chi'an gets busy, but when she has a little free time, she thinks of Yu Shi.
On Friday night, she finally had time to browse her WeChat Moments and saw a skydiving video shared by Yu Shi.
In the footage, he is wearing parachute gear and jumps from the plane, with the azure sky and endless sea of clouds behind him. The last few shots are taken during the descent, with the earth approaching from afar, and the colorful parachutes standing out vividly in the sunlight.
Li Chi'an was stunned by the spectacular scene in the video and couldn't help but comment, "That's amazing! Where did you play this? Does it require a lot of physical fitness?"
Within minutes, Yu Shi sent a private message, "Want to try it? I can recommend a place and a coach for you."
"I'm a little tempted, but I guess I need to work out first?" Li Chi'an replied.
"The location is in Dubai, where the skydiving experience is world-class. The physical requirements are not actually that demanding. As long as you don't have underlying conditions such as heart disease or high blood pressure, you can try it after simple training."
Li Chi'an thought for a while and suddenly had a bold idea, "What if I invite Yinxi and Zhuwen to go together?"
Two years ago, the three of them made a pact to try skydiving together, but they never managed to do it. Now might be the perfect time.
Both she and Xu Zhuwen are single, and Gao Yinxi has been trying to conceive but has not yet succeeded.
“The group price is even more favorable,” Yu Shi added with a smiley face emoji. “If you need, I can help you get in touch.”
"Then it's settled! But I need to go to the gym to work on my stamina before I go."
"A wise choice."
After the conversation ended, Li Chian felt a long-lost excitement.
That renewed passion for life made her realize that she was slowly emerging from the shadow of her divorce.
...
The afternoon after talking with Yu Shi, Li Chi'an happened to have some free time, so he went to the gym near his neighborhood. After observing the gym's equipment, he didn't hesitate for long before getting a membership card, determined to make full preparations for his jumping journey.
However, years of writing at her desk had left her completely unfamiliar with fitness equipment, and even though she watched fitness videos online, she still couldn't do some of the exercises correctly.
Just as she was trying to adjust her squatting posture, a familiar voice came from behind her, "Move your knees out a little more, and put your weight on your heels."
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