Chapter 25
The designer's office must have been scented with fragrance, a fresh and slightly bitter scent like green citrus, which suited the designer's personality perfectly. He took the materials Zhou Yuan handed him and also took blank A4 paper and a pen from the table, presenting them to the two of them.
"I don't know if the guests who introduced you here have introduced me before. I am Gu XX, and this is my business card. You two came together. Do you have any ideas about the interior design of your new house? You can talk about them or write them down."
Designer Gu sat behind his desk, quickly flipping through the materials and noticing something amiss. This was…
"Um, we designed both apartments together, Designer Gu?" Li Ye gave an embarrassed smile.
"There's only one wall separating the two apartments. Do we have to knock down the wall between them?" Designer Gu continued to look at the survey data. The interior area of both apartments is about 100 square meters. The partition wall is not a load-bearing wall and can be demolished. The total area is 200 square meters. If the requirements are not too many, there is plenty of room for maneuver.
"Huh? My idea is that it's not completely clear." Li Ye tried to express her vague thoughts in words, which is not quite the same as writing.
"I mean, it can be used as one house when you live there yourself, and it can be used as two houses when you have guests, something like that."
After listening, Zhou Yuan took Li Ye's left little finger with his right hand. The extra warmth made Li Ye look at the person on her left who did not completely agree. She reiterated, "This is my personal opinion. In fact, we were a bit too excited, and some details have not been discussed yet."
Just as Li Ye was about to pull Zhou Yuan aside to discuss things, Designer Gu lightly tapped the survey drawing twice with his finger and interrupted the impending tug-of-war between the two, "The rooms on both sides of the wall are two master bedrooms and two secondary bedrooms. Are there any changes to the functions of the rooms?"
Li Ye picked up a pen and simply drew out the functional breakdown of her room on a blank sheet of paper: "The master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom is unchanged, the second bedroom will be converted into a study, the living room, balcony, and dining room will require a whole space, and there are no other needs."
Zhou Yuan took the pen and continued to draw the layout of his house on the A4 paper. "Next to the wall are the master bedroom and the music room. The two bedrooms should be connected, and the study and music room should also be connected. There are no other requirements."
"The requirements don't conflict. Adding a hidden door in the middle of the master bedroom would solve the problem. Could you explain how the study and music room should be connected?"
The designer was guiding Zhou Yuan's ideas, while Li Ye imagined what the completed structures would look like, unconsciously sketching the scene on a new blank sheet of paper.
"There's a glass wall in the middle, so we can see what the other is doing, and we can also go directly to the other side." Zhou Yuan felt that this might be the space where the two of them would spend the most time together besides the bedroom, and he wanted to be able to find and see each other at a glance when he was at home.
"A glass wall? Both sides need to be completely covered. If we install a glass door in the middle, can we replace the rest with a glass window? It would achieve the same effect, but the difficulty of concealing it would be greatly reduced."
Li Ye promptly presented Zhou Yuan with the incompletely accurate scene drawing the designer had described. She liked the revised idea, but felt that having all glass figures would be a bit too much for her, mainly because it would be too expensive. She suggested leaving the large glass areas for the balcony.
Fortunately, Li Ye still had the drawing skills he had honed over the years, and his sketch, completed in just a few minutes, looked quite decent. After Zhou Yuan nodded, the designer moved on to the next stage: what kind of interior design style did they want?
Li Ye hadn't really thought of this, and he wasn't even sure if Zhou Yuan had any ideas about it. Fortunately, the designer brought out a bunch of finished product photos and the universal method of elimination when he didn't know his specific ideas.
Li Ye's first thought was of the knitwear that filled his old home and the painful time he spent cleaning it every year during the spring cleaning. "First of all, the style should not be complicated, and then the lighting in both houses should be as good as possible."
After all, there isn't that much money, and even if you try to find a bargain, the options are limited. For the same area, Li Ye's apartment is more expensive, and it also has a kitchen that isn't entirely open. Zhou Yuan's apartment is cheaper for a reason, as the guest bedroom has no natural light, and the only bathroom is a windowless one.
"Then, I wanted a more free style for my home. Everything in the living room should be easy to move, and anything that is difficult to move should either be mounted on the wall or placed on the floor. Also, the other side of the study should be made into a glass window."
"I want it here..."
At first, Li Ye didn't have any specific ideas about the new home. After the designer's question opened a door, Li Ye quickly engaged in a very enthusiastic exchange and discussion with the designer. Meanwhile, Zhou Yuan, who really didn't have any specific ideas about the style, sat to the side watching Li Ye, holding the sketch of the scene that Li Ye had handed him earlier.
"I understand your general needs. I can produce a first draft of the design in about two days, and then we can discuss it in detail."
Hearing the closing remarks, Zhou Yuan snapped out of his reverie, folded the sketch, and prepared to take it away. Li Ye saw this but didn't say anything. He simply pulled the two hands together, which they hadn't let go of since they started holding hands. The tall young man was easily helped to his feet and silently followed behind the woman, blocking the designer's curious gaze.
After leaving the studio, Li Ye received her sketch and realized that she had never given Zhou Yuan her painting. No, she had never given it to anyone, and she wasn't a famous painter or artist. She didn't usually appear in public in this capacity, so she hadn't thought of it.
"You like this? I'll draw the whole scene for you when the design draft comes out in a few days, how about that?" Li Ye planned to take this as the beginning of a new phase.
"There needs to be someone inside." Aside from the painting being a gift from Li Ye, Zhou Yuan's main purpose was to use the painting to recreate future life scenarios, and they still had at least six months to wait.
It will take at least another six months, and there may be various changes in between. Li Ye guessed that this was to delay the torment of the long wait, a sweet torment of knowing that a wonderful life was about to come, which was also her feeling.
"I understand. We can frame it and keep it as a souvenir. It's just that there's nowhere to display it. I'm sure there will be many more items that are more suitable as decorations by then."
"We don't even have a finished product yet, what are you thinking about?" Li Ye touched the braid that was swinging in front of him a few times. "What's the next task?"
Zhou Yuan raised his wrist, revealing a smartwatch that showed 11:30. "Let's have lunch together."
Li Ye took a half step back and switched places with Zhou Yuan. This time, he took Zhou Yuan's left hand, which was wearing a watch, and curiously observed the new equipment that had appeared today: "Why did you think of buying this? You used to wear nothing on your hands, just like me."
Zhou Yuan recalled the reasons for the purchase with a blank expression, and picked out the one that could convince Li Ye the most: "It was a giveaway for forwarding. My senior said to follow the company's accounts, and after following, I casually forwarded a few messages, one of which was a giveaway event."
"You're really lucky, it's a good omen." Li Ye remembered the incident that almost got him distracted, which was quite important. "Did you pay that deed tax for me? I'll pay you back however much it is. I need to see the receipt later, so don't try to fool me."
"Oh." Zhou Yuan opened his phone and showed him that day's bill. Li Ye looked at it with a face full of question marks. For a moment, Zhou Yuan imagined his father making his mother angry. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Are tens of thousands of yuan nothing? I'll pay at noon today, so don't be shy." Li Ye slapped Zhou Yuan hard on the back of his backpack, using all his strength, successfully making Zhou Yuan stumble.
After choosing a place to eat, Li Ye finally had time to take out his phone, intending to transfer the money to Zhou Yuan first. However, when he opened the app, he was bombarded with various chat messages, and the app became a bit unresponsive. It took him a long time to scroll down and find Zhou Yuan's name.
The transfer went smoothly, and Zhou Yuan received the money. Li Ye wanted to exit the app and wait until he got back to see what was going on, but when he looked up, he was met with a pair of resentful eyes. "What is it now?"
"I didn't pin it, but I saw you were looking for me." Zhou Yuan's tone was tinged with grievance.
Hearing this made Li Ye's scalp tingle, and she switched back to the chat interface. "Look, it's pinned. It's just that there are quite a few people who have pinned it." For example, her two family members and the group chat, her three best friends and their group chat, plus Zhou Yuan.
"I received a lot of messages today, mostly from relatives and friends. If they buried you, don't blame me."
In an attempt to argue his point, Li Ye demanded to see Zhou Yuan's chat interface. Upon opening it, he found the same message bombardment area, along with the recently pinned transfer notification.
This is very puzzling. Several large groups I joined earlier were all set to "Do Not Disturb," and the messages this time were all from acquaintances in my WeChat Moments. Thinking back on the posts I made on WeChat Moments today, Li Ye couldn't figure out what was wrong.
"Hey, Zhou Yuan, when did you like my post? Also, that watch of yours, did you know all along that a lot of people were looking for you? I just saw it."
The moment Li Ye clicked into the Moments, he already knew what kind of huge blunder it was. The photo of the property certificate was indeed a bit blurry at first glance, especially since there were two obviously different hands in the picture, one of Li Ye and the other of Zhou Yuan.
The first thing to explode was indeed the family group chat. After Ms. Li spammed the chat, she was probably calmed down by Teacher Li. Then, she noticed something amiss and started spamming the chat with various celebratory emojis, trying to cover up her previous lapse in composure.
Then there were a few good friends. Thinking back, there were four people in the group, and now three of them were living together. When Li Ye went back at night, he would inevitably be questioned by the other two. The thoughtful Zeng Yuan, on the other hand, sent his blessings for successfully buying a house from the very beginning.
Further down were her former classmates. She was fortunate enough to see that a large number of messages had been withdrawn, which made Li Ye laugh out loud. She quickly asked Zhou Yuan to take out his phone again so she could see what was interesting here.
The rather uninteresting thing is that the only overlapping friends the two have in Li Ye's circle of friends are their parents, so Zhou Yuan was bombarded with messages because he forwarded that photo.
"You want to watch the show?" Li Ye's first reaction was skewed by today's situation. "Why don't you take the picture yourself and repost mine?"
Zhou Yuan bluntly pointed out the truth: "Sending them together would be more like sending wedding photos."
Yes, those people in my WeChat Moments with poor eyesight initially mistook the property certificate for a marriage certificate. What's so surprising about that? Does she seem like someone who would get married on a whim?
Li Ye angrily pulled Zhou Yuan down to take a quick photo together and sent it, completely disregarding the uproar that might ensue outside.
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