Chapter 52
Chapter 52
It is a virtue to prioritize business over personal relationships.
Fu Xiachuan knew he had no right to complain about Jiang Mingyue's complete lack of interest in marrying into a wealthy family, because that was exactly what he had previously looked down upon.
Fu Xiachuan quickly composed himself, making no mention of his disappointment, and sat down.
The key to seafood is freshness. As long as the ingredients are fresh, even the simplest cooking methods can produce extremely delicious dishes.
Jiang Mingyue only realized that Fu Xiachuan had not brought raw seafood when she sat down.
Crab meat was placed into a food box, and the large crab roe was dripping with golden oil. Several palm-sized dishes were filled with the tenderest parts of different fish, the meat of mantis shrimp was also taken out intact, and there were also prawns longer than the palm of a hand.
Each item is in small quantity, but the total amount is not small.
Her ability to distinguish ingredients is something her assistant doesn't possess.
She looked at Fu Xiachuan in surprise.
Fu Xiachuan had already taken his seat and said frankly, "It's best to leave professional matters to professionals. I've had a nutritionist assess it, and eating these things tonight won't affect your figure."
Jiang Mingyue isn't a female celebrity who doesn't exercise and just starves, so naturally she can eat some.
Having confirmed that the diet wouldn't burden her body, Jiang Mingyue patted her flat stomach, smiled, and picked up her chopsticks: "If I can avoid going hungry, I don't want to go hungry. But this line of work requires a certain appearance, so going hungry is a required course, and it's also a kind of professional ethic."
Mmm, so delicious!
As soon as the crab meat entered her mouth, Jiang Mingyue's eyes narrowed in happiness, and the corners of her mouth involuntarily turned up.
She ate a little faster, and Fu Xiachuan, sitting beside her, smiled more broadly.
He deliberately said, "Even though there's a nutritionist here, you'll still be hungry most of the time at night."
Jiang Mingyue glared at Fu Xiachuan and slowed down her eating.
Fu Xiachuan smiled and tilted his head towards the cabinet by the door: "Regarding the phone issue, I've brought the new one. I was originally planning to have you mix with other celebrities to get the next generation of phone commercials, but now I have to reschedule. Take it and play with it after dinner."
"Then how are you going to explain this?" Jiang Mingyue raised an eyebrow.
Fu Xiachuan: "No need to explain. This new model in the series is not a flagship phone. In fact, due to the slow development of chip technology, there has been no real iteration in recent years, and the phones produced now will not be flagship phones. If we want to stimulate sales, we can only focus on appearance and gimmicks."
Speaking of the predicament of the lack of technological progress, Fu Xiachuan frowned slightly before continuing, "Lan Xu will soon use this job-hopping publicity stunt that I gave him to completely seize public attention. Since you're also showing your face in this, I might as well let you get a few more benefits, so that people will think that the company deliberately arranged for you and Lan Xu to create a vague publicity stunt. The public will only think that the company arranged for you to film a mobile phone advertisement together as a gimmick."
Jiang Mingyue blinked: "No problem, I will post a lot of sensational and ambiguous things on Weibo."
After a pleasant meal, Fu Xiachuan left.
Jiang Mingyue took the opportunity to retrieve the phone that Fu Xiachuan had brought from the doorway. While retrieving her belongings, she was surprised to find that there was more than one phone in the handbag.
Two identical phones in different colors: one with a soft, light green casing like a newly sprouted branch, and the other a crisp silver phone. You can guess who they are for just by looking at the colors.
Jiang Mingyue opened the gift card and saw the message, "Wishing you good health year after year."
The characters are neat, spacious, and vigorous, yet written with great care, with almost no cursive strokes.
"...Fu Xiachuan really is a serious and somewhat old-fashioned person." Jiang Mingyue returned to her room and smiled as she put the greeting card into the display case.
The details reveal the heart.
Unlike other gifts, mobile phones don't come with handwritten greeting cards from merchants when you buy or receive them, so this was something Fu Xiachuan had to come up with himself. Therefore, its significance is greater than the phone itself.
Jiang Mingyue placed the handbag on the table. The kraft paper made a dull thud when it hit the wooden tabletop, but there was also a slight crisp sound.
Is there something else inside?
She turned the paper bag over, and a shimmering bracelet slid out from the bottom of the bag.
There is no brand logo, but the entire bracelet is about an inch wide and is set with diamonds of no less than one carat.
The old phone beeped with a text message notification at just the right moment.
Fu Xiachuan must have realized he'd left behind some valuables!
Jiang Mingyue quickly grabbed her phone, but the moment she saw the contents of the text message, she burst out laughing.
[Sterling silver set with synthetic diamonds; each diamond costs three yuan to produce. It's a new product from the factory we invested in; nothing expensive. Just keep it for fun.]
"Do you really think it's a decade or so after the diamond myth collapsed?" Jiang Mingyue covered her mouth, barely managing to suppress a laugh, and murmured to herself.
At this point, the secret that synthetic diamonds were indistinguishable from natural diamonds to the naked eye, and even had higher purity, had not yet been revealed to the public. However, the low cost of synthetic diamonds did not mean that the processes of cutting and setting them were effortless.
Using sterling silver to set diamonds, and then allowing the sterling silver to oxidize and turn black naturally, is a common jewelry-making technique used by European royalty.
Jiang Mingyue didn't know which skilled craftsman Fu Xiachuan had commissioned to make the bracelet. Perhaps the cost was indeed not expensive, but precisely because it was "not expensive," Jiang Mingyue accepted the gift with peace of mind.
When attending events, this kind of dazzling yet understated jewelry is much more practical than diamond earrings, necklaces, and tiaras, and is the most suitable for repeated wear.
Thank you, I like jewelry that's both inexpensive and pretty.
However, the bracelet didn't come in a box, so how to store it became a problem.
Jiang Mingyue walked around the room for a while, and finally chose a thin T-shirt, folded it into a small piece, tied it with a hair tie, and then used a pin to fasten the bracelet.
After standing in the room for an hour to digest her food, she lay back down on the bed and returned to the "three-bedroom, one-living-room" apartment to continue watching the next episode of "Children Are Cared For".
*
Jiang Mingyue has never been picky about her sleeping environment, but the comfortable mattress and the humiliation made her first morning after moving particularly pleasant.
She opened her eyes, looked at the large window that was completely covered, and smiled quietly.
After a full set of exercises in the morning, Jiang Mingyue ate the breakfast prepared by her assistant.
The boiled eggs, beef, vegetables, and purple sweet potatoes on the plate were all very fresh, but Jiang Mingyue knew that she missed the less healthy but more flavorful home-cooked meals even more.
Taking a deep breath, Jiang Mingyue swallowed all the food.
The timing was perfect; Gu Yifan notified Jiang Mingyue to come downstairs.
Li Ruojun immediately took out a baseball cap and a lens hood from her backpack and put them on Jiang Mingyue's face. The group then went downstairs and got into the van.
As soon as she entered the carriage, Jiang Mingyue immediately took off her sunglasses and hat. Her long hair rolled down from the top of her head, and the fluffy curls were spread over her shoulders. The milk tea-colored tight sweater outlined Jiang Mingyue's excellent figure, and a section of her collarbone was exposed under the soft round neck.
Gu Yifan looked at Jiang Mingyue's outfit with some surprise and noticed that she was wearing a very fitted pencil skirt. Although she was wearing flat shoes, the pointed toes made her look more feminine than the round-toed shoes she usually wore.
She even wore brown eyeshadow and mascara, and lipstick!
Gu Yifan gestured towards Jiang Mingyue's cinnamon-colored lips: "You've prepared quite thoroughly."
Jiang Mingyue sat with her legs crossed, pressing down her long, curly hair with her hand and tilting her head with a smile: "Gu Jingji is too kind. It's only right to prepare for the audition. I'm a little younger than the character, so I can only use my appearance to make up for my lingering childishness."
Jiang Mingyue's voice is usually crisp and clear, but today she spoke a little slower than usual, and her words were more distant and polite, just like a working professional...
Yes, it's that warm, polite but insincere feeling from the front desk.
Gu Yifan immediately said, "Since you know how to do makeup, we don't need to worry about hiring a makeup artist for now. I see you haven't done any foundation, are you missing some products? When you're waiting in line for the interview, Xiao Li, go to the mall and buy a set to bring back."
He stared at Jiang Mingyue for a few seconds, then suddenly noticed something and his brows furrowed: "The clothes and skirt you're wearing look like they're from decades ago."
Jiang Mingyue pulled up her sweater, revealing the waistband of her skirt that had been rolled up three times: "Brother Gu, you have a really good eye. I'm wearing my mom's old clothes. I originally wanted to just wear it like that, but a straight skirt that reaches the calves doesn't look business-like enough, so I rolled it up and shortened the skirt to my knees."
The round-neck cardigan and tight-fitting sweater she was wearing were actually clothes for elderly people.
It was only because it was a basic style, and Jiang Mingyue's figure and face were so outstanding, that no clues were revealed.
Gu Yifan pinched the bridge of his nose, assuming that Jiang Mingyue was too busy to go out and buy new clothes, and kindly suggested: "Why don't you go to the mall first? You can squeeze out twenty minutes."
Jiang Mingyue smiled and shook her head, declining his offer: "No need. Qiao Xin's family is poor. Her father was paralyzed due to amputation caused by diabetes, and her mother raised her two children by doing odd jobs. After her sister-in-law passed away in childbirth, her brother raised her niece, who has a heart condition, alone. The child needs medication every month, and they need to save money for surgery. Qiao Xin's university tuition is covered by student loans, and she has to work to pay for her living expenses. She will have to start repaying the loans immediately after graduation, so she simply doesn't have any money."
She patted the folded waistband of her skirt. "So, if she's going to work, instead of buying a new outfit, Qiao Xin is more likely to dig out old clothes from her parents' closet, alter them, or simply buy a second-hand set."
In selecting resources and negotiating business, Gu Yifan felt he was no less capable than any other agent, but Jiang Mingyue was a professional when it came to acting. Gu Yifan immediately accepted her analysis, "Okay, I'll do it your way."
But when they actually arrived at the interview location, it was Jiang Mingyue who was stunned.
Last time, Fu Xiachuan used his connections to make things easy for her, so Jiang Mingyue only had to compete with a small number of people for the substitute third female lead position in "Seven Stars in a Row". But this time, even though it should have been an open recruitment for the second female lead, the only people sitting in the room waiting for the interview were her and Miao Ziyu, the actress from her previous life.
Miao Ziyu cast a questioning glance at her, but her doubts were quickly dispelled by Jiang Mingyue's overly delicate face.
That look turned into disdain.
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