Hai Tiantian couldn't bear it anymore, turned around and ran away with red eyes.
Shui Yiyao sat down and waved goodbye to Ao Li.
She paused, her peripheral vision catching sight of something on the seat next to her. She glanced and asked, "What are these?" It was a few gift boxes, and she picked one up to examine it.
Ao Li: "Give these gifts to Elder Sun, Teacher Zhao, and Teacher Lu, one each."
Shui Yiyao raised her eyebrows: "What is it, hand cream?" They are all jade sculptors, hand cream is very practical, and Ao Li likes to give it as a gift.
Ao Li reached out and touched her head: "No, the hand cream is only for you."
Shui Yiyao saw the words on the gift box - shoulder and neck massager.
Massager?
Shui Yiyao's eyes lit up, and she turned around and gave Ao Li a thumbs-up: "Not bad, Ao Yuan."
Everyone has been working overtime lately, sitting in front of the jade carving machines all day without moving. This is a very good gift.
She actually didn't think about bringing gifts back for everyone.
Indeed, before she left, she'd excused herself by saying, "I had to go out to see Ao Li for some urgent personal matters." She should have brought everyone some gifts. It wouldn't have mattered if she hadn't, but it would have been nicer. She'd grown up alone, with few friends or family, so she wasn't very good at socializing. The lovely Ao Li had even considered this for her.
Shui Yiyao joked to him, "Fiancé, you are quite good at winning people's hearts."
Ao Li also smiled: "Thanks for the compliment."
Ao Li also told her not to go to Nanyang with her and to contact him if anything happened.
The two talked for a few more words before waving goodbye.
Shui Yiyao got on the plane at the airport and arrived in Nanyang at 2 pm. Without any delay, she went directly to Tieyu Pavilion at 2:30 pm.
She opened the car door and got out, already planning her work plan. The two-nation tournament wasn't long away, and thankfully, she had almost mastered the basics of iron jade. She just needed to practice, and spend more time on it.
After opening the car door, Shui Yiyao went straight to Tieyu Pavilion.
"Thank you, Mr. Yuan, for showing us around. Your jade carvings are truly exquisite. I am ashamed to say I cannot compare with you."
Before she even entered, Shui Yiyao heard someone talking and walking towards the door. The Chinese they spoke was quite standard, but still had a hint of Xiaoshan Country's accent.
She thought about it. She had heard Sister Lu say before that people from Xiaoshan Country would come to visit. Did they really come?
Shui Yiyao paused at the door, and then someone came out and met her face to face.
"Yuyu's back." Sister Lu was sharp-eyed and spotted Shui Yiyao at the door first. She came over with two big strides and took Shui Yiyao's hand. "Is everything done? Did everything go well?"
Shui Yiyao nodded, thanked him, and replied with a smile: "It's all done. It went smoothly."
Shui Yiyao looked ahead and saw dozens of people standing inside the shop, making it seem smaller. Someone was holding a camera.
"Guests from the Small Mountain Country?"
Lu Jiayu nodded: "Yes, Uehara Fengjian brought his players to visit. Now they have finished looking at the workshop and are going back."
Shui Yiyao nodded to show that she understood.
"Is this Mr. Shui from Chengdao Jade Carving?" Everyone inside was looking at Shui Yiyao. One of them walked out of the shop and walked straight towards Shui Yiyao with a smile.
He extended his hand towards Shui Yiyao: "Teacher Shui, I've long admired you."
The man was of medium build, wearing a neat black suit and smiling warmly. He should be one of the craftsmen from the visiting delegation from Xiaoshan Country.
Sure enough, Lu Jiayu introduced: "This is the jade carving master of Xiaoshan Kingdom, Qian Jingtu."
Shui Yiyao shook the hand he extended: "Hello, Mr. Asai."
Qian Jingtu held Shui Yiyao's hand tightly: "Hello, hello."
He wore his signature polite smile, appearing warm and affectionate: "I thought I wouldn't be able to see you today, Teacher Shui. I'm so sorry. It seems we are destined to meet again."
Shui Yiyao: "That's not true. We'll be competing together soon, so we'll see each other sooner or later."
"After seeing Mr. Shui's work today, I feel ashamed of myself. Your thin jade carvings are truly exquisite. It would take at least ten years of experience to reach this level of skill."
They had once considered this young woman a breakthrough for the Chinese team. Of the three jade carvers on the Chinese team, Lu Jiayu and Zhao Mingjue were both older masters, both recipients of the Tiangong Gold Award. Shui Yiyao was the youngest. While she might be highly talented, the most crucial skill in craftsmanship was years of practice. Without diligent effort, even the greatest talent was useless.
Being young is a flaw.
However, their leader, Uehara Fumi, warned them not to underestimate this young woman, fearing she might have acquired the skills since childhood. After all, Chinese artisans have long valued the practice of jade carving since childhood. They were a little skeptical. They all worked in the same craft, and jade carvers with this skill had long appeared at major competitions. They were all familiar faces and highly sought after, but Shui Yiyao was someone they had never seen before. They were more convinced that her rise to prominence in jade carving was simply natural talent.
So the leader brought them to visit.
This sight really overturned their previous short-sightedness. The thin-bodied jade carvings displayed on the work counter were simply exquisite. Although they were only semi-finished products, they were still so exquisite that they made people want to destroy them.
Asai Tu couldn't help but praise him again: "Your craftsmanship is truly exquisite. No one among us can compare to you."
Shui Yiyao was stunned for a moment, then smiled politely: "Thank you for the compliment."
Off camera, her response seemed friendly, but she felt a bit strange about this person. Xiaoshan Country seemed polite, but their mainstream argument had always been that "authentic Chinese culture lies not in China but in our country," and they had always believed that their own Xiaoshan Country's craftsmanship was superior. Now they were praising her with flattering words, which sounded awkward.
Asai Tu: "Especially thin jade, which is not available in our country."
Shui Yiyao immediately replied: "This is a jade carving technique unique to our country. It takes a particularly high amount of time, is difficult to learn and practice, and is not easy to preserve." It's normal that others don't know how to do it.
Asai Tu just nodded and said nothing more.
Shui Yiyao greeted the other contestants from Xiaoshan Country.
There are three official players in the team, led by the legendary serious Uehara Fumi. He didn't say much, just a simple greeting.
Everyone from Xiaoshan Kingdom had already finished their visit. After saying hello to Shui Yiyao, they left Nanyang Tieyu Pavilion as planned.
Sitting on the return flight, Asai Tu couldn't help but sigh, "The thin jade technique is ancient but eye-catching, while the iron jade technique is new and ingenious. If Chengyu carves the iron jade trench on thin jade, I'm afraid we won't win the competition."
He shook his head: "The Chinese are formidable."
Their leader, Uehara Kazami, said calmly, "Our country's spider silk jade and gold-wrapped jade are not far behind. We still have time. With more practice and more ideas, we may not be unable to win."
Another female teacher in their team frowned and said, "But have you noticed that Shui Yiyao doesn't look very Chinese? Her facial features are particularly three-dimensional and deep, more Western. Could she be non-Chinese, or perhaps... mixed-race?"
After hearing this, Asai Tu's eyes suddenly lit up and he became a little excited: "If she doesn't have Chinese household registration, then does that mean she can't represent the Chinese team in the competition?"
As he spoke, his eyes rolled around. He didn't want to compete with Shui Yiyao. He wasn't familiar with her work at all, so how could he defeat her? With only a month, there wasn't enough time. But they were on a mission, and they had to win. Hua Guofang could replace Shui Yiyao with a veteran; he knew any of them well.
·
Shui Yiyao gave the gifts to the master chefs of Tieyu Pavilion and received unanimous thanks from them, who all said that the gifts were delivered at the right time.
After giving the gift, Shui Yiyao returned to her workstation and sat down, ready to start a new round of work.
As soon as she sat down, her nose twitched.
"What's that smell?" She frowned, a little surprised. She smelled a faint smell of gasoline.
"What's that smell?" Lu Jiayu asked while applying the shoulder and neck massager to herself. She also moved her nose, but seemed not to smell the strange smell.
Shui Yiyao was not surprised. After all, mermaids' sense of smell was slightly more sensitive than humans'. The smell was very faint. The workshop had both the water from the jade carving machines and the fire from the iron jade furnace, so the smell was stronger and would mask the smell of gasoline.
Zhao Mingjue on the other side replied, "Is it the strong smell of gasoline?"
Shui Yiyao nodded repeatedly: "Yes, Teacher Zhao also smelled it?"
Zhao Mingjue smiled and said, "The previous Qian Jing Tu, the smell of perfume on him."
Shui Yiyao: “Perfume?” Such a strange smell.
Lu Jiayu suddenly joined in: "Oh, now I remember that, this is what happened."
Shui Yiyao didn't pursue the matter further, assuming it was just some new equipment in the workshop. She thought about it, then recalled Qian Jingtu's praise for her thin-bodied jade carvings today. No matter how she thought about it, she felt uncomfortable. Could this person be targeting her thin-bodied jade carvings? They were so fragile, they could shatter to pieces with just the slightest touch.
The more she thought about it, the more worried she felt. She should have been more vigilant. She started looking for anti-theft lockers online and soon called a dealer.
"Hello, can you customize the safe?"
"I just placed an urgent online order for a burglar-proof safe from your store. The kind you can display with diamonds worth tens of millions of dollars. Bulletproof. I need it today. Um, sorry for the inconvenience."
"Thank you. The address is exactly what I filled in online. Yeah, the sooner the better."
Shui Yiyao felt a little relieved after she hung up the phone.
After finishing all this, she officially started to work. She hadn't done any live streaming during this period, so she turned it on, said a few words of greeting, and then started to carve.
I didn't start to rest until 11 o'clock in the evening when I felt pain in my neck.
She has been working with iron jade and has mastered the basic techniques, and now her success rate is getting higher and higher.
She put down the small jade carving hammer she was using to strike the iron jade, rubbed her neck, took a sip of tea, and glanced at the comments. After she started the livestream, apart from the first two opening remarks of greeting, she didn't say anything else during the entire process.
-Is it finally over?
-Are you not going to do it anymore? Watching the slow pace of making iron jade always feels very healing.
-I like to listen to sounds, the sound of knocking jade, the sound of knocking iron, both are very pleasant.
-Yes, I like to listen to it too.
-From ancient times to the present, we Chinese people like to listen to the sound of jade.
-□□ is too vulgar.
-However, why did I seem to see someone say today that... Yu Yu is not from our Chinese ethnic group?
-? ? ?
-What?
-That's impossible.
-No, I read the report quite seriously. Judging from her appearance, Yuyu does not look like us.
-I saw it too. Everyone says Yu Yu is a Westerner, not Chinese.
Shui Yiyao paused sipping her tea upon hearing this. She frowned at the phrase "not Chinese." What kind of rumor was this? When did it start? Did this mean she was stripped of her citizenship?
She immediately couldn't help but speak up: "Who said I'm not Chinese?"
"I, Shui Yiyao, am a true Chinese. My Mandarin level is only Class 1B."
They're also using her looks as an issue. The mermaid princess's features are a bit deep, but many ethnic minority brothers and sisters have the same look as her, so they're not too Western. Who is talking nonsense?
She took the handbag next to her and took out her ID card.
After taking it out, she manually covered her ID number and held it in front of the camera: "Huaguo ID card, Shui Yiyao. See clearly!"
As soon as Shui Yiyao replied, those who didn't believe she was from the West became more confident.
-I knew that Yu Yu is a Chinese no matter how you look at her.
-Why do marketing accounts nowadays make up all sorts of nonsense?
-You start talking nonsense and disgusting people without any evidence.
But the other side's remarks were even more extreme.
-Don't admit it?
-The appearance is very clear. Where can you find a Chinese person who looks like this?
-The skin is too white and the facial features are too sharp.
-So what if he has an ID? He's probably mixed race. Don't deny it, his appearance is the best proof!
-Just now, the Communist Youth League released a video to refute the rumors.
-? ? ?
- [Video link - I'm a Chinese border guard, guarding the border for 15 years! I'm Caucasian, but I'm not a foreigner! (Produced by the Communist Youth League)] - This is a statement, really. Our country is a multi-ethnic country, and everyone has their own unique looks, but we are all Chinese.
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