Chapter 55: The Third Time's Warning!
In the end, Zhou Shilin continued preparing lunch in the kitchen.
Shen Ci suddenly felt a deep respect for him.
Zhou Shilin noticed that she kept staring at him, and without looking up, asked, "What are you looking at now?"
"No, no." Chen Ci quickly looked away, cutting the cake base in her hand. "I was just thinking, don't you need to go to the bathroom to take care of yourself?"
Zhou Shilin finally looked up at her: "What, you want to help me?"
Chen Ci: "..."
"I didn't say that, cough."
"Since you didn't intend to help, just ignore it. It'll be fine in a bit."
This touched on a blind spot in Chen Ci's knowledge: "Really? But it's not written like that in the novel."
Zhou Shilin: "..."
"Excuse me, what kind of novel are you reading that includes this kind of plot?"
Chen Ci: "..."
Is there even a need to ask that?
We're all adults, let's save face for each other. :)
"Well, on another note, the lobsters you bought today are all pretty big."
"Yes, I specifically chose the big one."
“Speaking of big…” Chen Ci’s gaze involuntarily focused on Zhou Shilin’s lower body again.
Zhou Shilin: "..."
Chen Ci: "..."
She was desperate too! But right now, all she could think about was size!!!
Someone please save her!
"Aaaaaah, I feel like I need to get some fresh air!" Chen Ci threw down the knife in her hand and quickly fled the kitchen.
Zhou Shilin: "..."
Is that correct?
Is she the one who needs some fresh air? :)
Chen Ci rushed into the living room, hugged the big rabbit she had won with a punch, and sat down on the sofa.
Why did things turn out this way? In her mind, she had been lusting after Zhou Shilin for a long time, and she should have taken advantage of him as soon as she got the chance!
But when that thing came right up to her, she did flinch!
She really is just a giant in thought, but a dwarf in action!
Actually, this wasn't the first time she'd sensed Zhou Shilin's... well, but his reactions hadn't been as obvious before, so she could pretend not to notice. But just now... it was impossible to ignore!
Is this what male aggression is all about?
She sat alone in the living room, her face even redder than when she'd been in the kitchen. She raised her hand to fan herself, trying to calm herself down artificially. It wasn't entirely her fault for backing out, was it? After all, she'd never been in a relationship before, nor had she ever experienced anything like that before; it was normal to be startled, especially since Zhou Shilin was quite large…
How did we end up back where we started?
...She knew it; she really was that kind of person. :)
When she returned to the kitchen, half an hour had passed, and Zhou Shilin had already prepared most of the lunch. Noticing her enter, Zhou Shilin looked up at her and asked, "Finished slacking off?"
"..." She clearly went out to calm down, how did that become slacking off!
Thinking of this, she subconsciously looked at Zhou Shilin's lower body again.
It actually went away.
Novels are indeed all lies.
Afraid that glancing at it any longer might trigger a chain reaction, she quickly looked away and prepared to continue making her super simple little cakes: "Wait, where's my whipped cream?"
Zhou Shilin said, "I put it in the refrigerator for you."
"Oh." Chen Ci turned and walked to the refrigerator, where she indeed saw the cream she had just whipped. After taking the cream out of the refrigerator, Chen Ci returned to the work surface and continued making her cake.
For lunch today, Zhou Shilin contributed baked lobster with cheese, mashed potatoes with black pepper, scallops with garlic and vermicelli, and a bamboo fungus and sea coconut pork rib soup. Chen Ci contributed a super simple little cake.
"Excellent! Our culinary skills are indeed superb!"
"..." Zhou Shilin looked at her and smiled, "Not only lobster, but your face is also quite big."
Chen Ci warned him seriously, "You'd better not mention the word 'big' to me."
"..." Zhou Shilin pulled out a chair and sat down at the dining table. "Let's eat."
“Okay.” Chen Ci picked up her chopsticks and sat down as well. Looking at the white rice in front of her, she asked Zhou Shilin, “Don’t you think these dishes don’t really go well with the rice?”
Zhou Shilin mimicked her previous praise of the rabbit, replying, "Impossible, rice goes with everything."
"..." Okay, that makes sense. "But did I say not to use the word 'big'?"
Zhou Shilin chuckled softly as he held the bowl of rice in his hand.
Chen Ci coughed affectedly and picked up her bowl to start eating.
Actually, they planned to have pasta as their main dish this morning, but because Zhou Shilin was lazy, they changed it to rice instead.
As for why Zhou Shilin was slacking off, Chen Ci felt that she also bore some responsibility, so she generously did not pursue the matter.
"Putting everything else aside, Mr. Zhou's cooking skills are truly excellent." After taking a bite of the dish, Chen Ci praised Zhou Shilin, "Especially this cheese-baked lobster, it's as if he has truly mastered Uncle Li's skills, it's even better than what we eat in the restaurant."
Zhou Shilin looked at Chen Ci sitting opposite him: "Do you know you haven't been of much help, so you're giving me a lot of emotional value?"
"No, I'm telling the truth. Mr. Zhou's cooking is really delicious!" Mr. Zhou himself must be even more delicious.
"Then eat more."
"Hmm, I think my super simple little cake is pretty good..." Chen Ci wanted to praise her little cake, but suddenly received a message from Yang Shuang saying that their Cheese Lin canvas bag had been copied by an unscrupulous merchant.
Zhou Shilin noticed her looking at her phone and frowned, asking, "What's wrong?"
Chen Ci turned her phone around and handed it to Zhou Shilin: "Yang Shuang just said that some merchants have used our pictures to make imitations of Cheese Lin's canvas bags. I took a look, and it's true. Moreover, their sales have reached tens of thousands!"
It seems their Cheese Rin is really popular!
"Because we only have a sample of this bag right now, and all the other merchants are selling it through pre-orders, and they've already sold so much through pre-orders!" Chen Ci got angrier and angrier, and even the lobster meat in her mouth didn't taste good anymore.
Zhou Shilin held Chen Ci's phone, looking at the merchants who were counterfeiting their designs. The design sketches weren't leaked from the factory; someone had posted his previous photos on social media, which the merchants then screenshotted.
Perhaps knowing he was the president of the Shijie Group, they deliberately only captured the style of the bag and then used the photo to recreate it.
“It’s okay, I’ve already had my legal team register the trademarks and copyrights.” Zhou Shilin handed the phone back to Chen Ci. “You guys compile a list of all the involved merchants and their store links, and I’ll send it to my legal team. They will take action to protect their rights.”
Chen Ci remembered that Zhou Shilin had indeed said he would register the copyright and had asked her for the design drawings. She didn't expect them to come in handy so soon: "Okay, I'll have them get it sorted out right away."
Chen Ci sent a few messages on her phone, then put it down and continued eating.
Zhou Shilin, who was opposite him, suddenly chuckled.
Chen Ci looked up, somewhat puzzled: "What are you laughing at?"
Zhou Shilin raised an eyebrow and looked at her, saying, "You've definitely changed since becoming Director Shen. I remember you used to be embarrassed to ask people to work overtime, but now it's so easy for you."
"...Ahem, one thing at a time, they shouldn't be confused."
"Hmm, that tone sounds just like a leader's."
Chen Ci: "..."
That's probably because he's been around President Zhou for so long and has been influenced by him.
Before they had even finished lunch, Yang Shuang sent her the compiled list. Chen Ci forwarded it to Zhou Shilin, took a sip of soup, and said, "Next up is Shijie's legal team!"
"..." Zhou Shilin silently sent the document to the legal department and asked them to handle it. "We should have a result soon."
Hearing him say that, Chen Ci felt relieved: "Fortunately, President Zhou had the foresight to plan ahead."
"You should be more careful in the future."
"Uh, I didn't expect that even this would be pirated."
"You drew it very well, and since you used my image, it's normal for there to be pirated copies."
"..." She couldn't tell whether President Zhou was praising her or herself. "Anyway, thank you for your appreciation, President Zhou! What do you think of the emojis I made?"
"...If it were someone else doing it, that would be fine too."
After dinner, the two cleaned up the kitchen together, and Chen Ci finally took out the super simple little cakes she had made from the refrigerator.
Zhou Shilin looked at the fruit cake on the table and asked her, "Can you still eat?"
"...I really can't eat much." But she had worked so hard to make this cake, and she couldn't let it go to waste. "How about we watch a movie? We can eat while we watch it."
"Hmm." Zhou Shilin picked up the cake from the table and walked to the living room with Shen Ci. After placing the cake on the coffee table, Zhou Shilin turned on the rarely used TV and asked Shen Ci, "What do you want to watch?"
Chen Ci thought for a moment. She and Zhou Shilin were at a stage where things could easily escalate, so they absolutely couldn't watch anything too stimulating: "How about... we find a horror movie?"
“…Okay.” Zhou Shilin searched through the video library. “To create the right atmosphere, should we draw the curtains and turn off the lights?”
"Wait!" Chen Ci noticed the problem in time and quickly called for a stop. "I suddenly don't want to watch a horror movie anymore. Let's watch a comedy instead, which is more suitable for our current atmosphere."
Zhou Shilin glanced back at her and looked up at a newly released comedy: "Have you seen this one?"
"No, I was busy when it was released before. How about this one?"
"Mm." Zhou Shilin pressed play and sat down on the sofa. The movie started playing its opening credits, and Chen Ci cut a piece of cake, put it on a plate, and handed it to Zhou Shilin: "This piece is for you, it has the most fruit!"
"..." He saw it when Chen Ci was making the cake; there wasn't a single spot where there wasn't enough fruit.
"Thank you." He took the cake and took a bite. "The fruit is nice, and the cake is fairly soft, but the cream doesn't feel as sweet as before."
As he spoke, he turned his head slightly to look at Chen Ci beside him: "It seems that we still need to find a different way to eat cream."
"..." Shen Ci picked up the cake she had just cut for herself and said, pretending to be calm, "I advise you to eat it like this, so you won't feel uncomfortable later."
Zhou Shilin gave a barely perceptible smile: "No, I've said it before, things shouldn't happen more than three times."
"..." So that's how it is, no more than three times!
"Just kidding." Zhou Shilin looked away, picked up another piece of cake and ate it. "The cake is pretty good."
"Thank you for your recognition, Mr. Zhou." Although she felt that what Mr. Zhou really wanted to eat wasn't cake.
The audio-visual equipment at Zhou Shilin's house had excellent sound quality; Chen Ci even felt it was comparable to a movie theater—perhaps that was just her bias towards Mr. Zhou. She glanced at Zhou Shilin sitting beside her and said, "Is this the first time we've watched a movie together?"
"Yes, it's the first time we've cooked together, and the first time I've come to your house."
"Wow, so many firsts, this is really memorable. Shall we take a group photo?"
Zhou Shilin then looked at her and asked, "And then you set it as your computer desktop background and projected it during meetings?"
"...No one falls in the same place twice!" Chen Ci denied seriously. "Next time, you should set our photo as your computer desktop background and project it during meetings!"
"..." He found the porcelain sculpture funnier than the movie.
However, Chen Ci did not tell Zhou Shilin that she had secretly taken photos of him while he was cooking in the kitchen that morning.
I'll set it as my wallpaper when I get back.
"Come closer." Shen Ci ignored what was playing on TV, turned on her phone's front camera, and took a selfie with Zhou Shilin. Zhou Shilin did as she was told, moving closer to Shen Ci, shoulder to shoulder.
Chen Ci deliberately found an angle that would also include the pink bunny next to them in the frame. After adjusting the angle, she began to count down: "Three, two, one..."
The moment the shutter clicked, Chen Ci gave Zhou Shilin a quick kiss on the cheek.
Zhou Shilin was slightly taken aback. Chen Ci had already distanced herself from him and started looking at the photos she had just taken.
"As expected, candid shots are the most natural." The fleeting surprise in Zhou Shilin's eyes was captured by her lens.
Zhou Shilin glanced at the phone Chen Ci handed him, then his gaze returned to Chen Ci: "I told you, three strikes and you're out..."
"Seriously? This counts? I only kissed you."
"That's all?"
"Uh, and on the cheek!" How could President Zhou be so unable to resist temptation? Is it because she only breathes that President Zhou has to give her a warning three times?
Zhou Shilin turned slightly to the side, about to say something, when Chen Ci pressed the shutter again.
After finishing her meal, she made a point of reapplying her lipstick, as her earlier peck had left a clear lip print on Zhou Shilin's cheek.
If you don't film this, are you even human?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
