40 Chapter Thirty-Nine (Two Updates Combined)
◎Wow, we're famous! ◎
As Li Yingqiao left, she deliberately gave his abs a hard squeeze through the fabric as revenge, saying, "Do you like that?"
After saying that, she decisively pushed open the door and got out of the car without pausing for a second. Yu Jinyang was stunned by her sudden touching. Looking at the arrogant figure in the rearview mirror, which was walking further and further away, he slowly pressed his cheek against the steering wheel and finally couldn't help but chuckle.
He flipped it over and chuckled helplessly.
well.
...
In the following days, Li Yingqiao was even busier than usual. The videos for the Ape Man Conference were released as scheduled, and the official accounts of Xiaohuacheng on various platforms gained a wave of fans who were in great spirits. Many people also sent private messages in the background to sign up to play the ape man.
Do they bite?
"No, honey, they are all our staff."
Wu Juan was responsible for replying to private messages from various back-end systems. At first, she was quite patient, racking her brains to reply to almost every message. Li Yingqiao said that it was important to build goodwill by being a real person at the beginning, and that she had to be gentle and patient. That's why she assigned this task to the beautiful and kind Wu Juan.
However, the art style gradually started to go astray.
"Can I bite them?"
Wu Juan: "...Baby, I don't recommend it. They are all engineers who would normally dial 110."
"Can I touch your abs?"
Wu Juan: "...Hahaha, if they had them."
"Can we rip their crotches? Surely we have that."
"..."
Wu Juan had always been a well-behaved child, with a delicate and pretty appearance. After graduating from university, she followed her family's arrangements and found a low-paying, low-stress job close to home. She had hardly ever traveled far from home on her own, a veritable hothouse flower raised under her parents' protection. However, her online activities were anything but innocent; she would occasionally use a VPN to read erotic comics. As a seemingly real person behind an official account, seeing the increasingly outrageous private messages, she initially considered just replying with a "hahahahaha" and letting it go.
As a result, her hand slipped, and the word "half-father" popped out from a string of "h". She replied: "Hahahaha, okay."
She didn't even notice anything unusual until she came back after pouring the water and saw that the other side's screen was already flooded with messages.
"Damn, you guys are really going all out! Sign up, sign up!"
"My sisters and I signed up together!"
The screenshot of this message then spread like wildfire on WeChat Moments.
Whether it's true or not, the registration hotline and private messages have been flooded with requests.
Even Li Yingqiao, who was working on a proposal for Zhang Chong, received a call from Ms. Li Shuli, who told her to relax, not to worry about what others thought, and that as long as it wasn't illegal, her mother would support her in whatever she did, except for touching someone's crotch. Only then did Li Yingqiao realize what had happened. She immediately pushed open the office door and went out, only to see Wu Juan sitting at her workstation with a mournful face, her face flushed red, stammering as she called out, "Sister Yingqiao."
Li Yingqiao glanced at Pan Xiaoliang, who was gloating beside her, and said to Wu Juan, "Bring your phone in." Then she pointed at Pan Xiaoliang and said, "You, check your email. People from T factory are coming next week to do a digital upgrade for the scenic area. Read the materials I sent you carefully, so you don't end up knowing nothing when they ask you questions. And have you asked HR? When are the new employees coming? You haven't done a single thing, and you're still laughing. People who don't know better would think that graduates from Tanzhong are just there to be laughed at."
Pan Xiaoliang shrank back and remained silent. Anyway, people from Tanzhong are always easy targets for jealousy, haha.
Even now, he still doesn't know where this Li Yingqiao came from.
***
"Dad, look at me." The ice cream cone was tugging at Yu Renjie's head, showing him the makeup she had done on herself with colored pencils.
Yu Renjie suppressed a laugh and rubbed the marks on her face, but couldn't get them off: "Beautiful, beautiful, the ice cream cone is the prettiest! But can this be washed off?"
The ice cream cone chuckled confidently, "Brother, I can wash it."
Sure enough, as soon as Yu Jinyang got home from get off work, he silently took the ice cream cone to the bathroom. After washing it clean, he carried it out on one shoulder and put it back in Yu Renjie's arms, then turned around to clean up the living room that the ice cream cone had messed up.
The father and daughter exchanged a glance, noticing that the older brother hadn't been in a good mood these past few days. Yu Renjie stroked the ice cream cone's head and whispered in her ear, "What's wrong with your brother?"
The ice cream cone blinked, then shook its head blankly: "I don't know."
"Isn't it good that you two aren't playing?"
"I don't know." Ice Cream Cone replied with the same answer.
"Then what are you going to build?"
"Big Brain Tiger. My brother is Big Brain Tiger."
Yu Renjie laughed: "Your brother isn't like that. Something's wrong at the studio, isn't it? Go over and comfort your brother."
The ice cream cone shrugged: "I can't coax them."
Yu Renjie pinched her little nose, trying to solidify their sibling bond: "How could that be? You can't even soothe her properly. Your brother loves you the most. Have you forgotten? When you were sick with a fever, your brother stayed up all night watching over you, taking your temperature every half hour, and even using cotton swabs to moisten your lips. You love strawberries, so your brother even planted a strawberry patch for you at your great-grandmother's place."
For some reason, Ice Cream Cone reached out to the man in the living room who was tidying up her messy toys, and said, "Brother, hug me."
“Wait a minute,” Yu Jinyang said, holding her locomotive and having just finished connecting each section, turning back to look at her and saying, “Where’s the tail section?”
"I don't know." The ice cream cone shook its head. "Daddy, I'll eat it."
“…Look around the room, I’m not that hungry,” Yu Renjie said.
The ice cream cone stubbornly reached out its hand: "Brother, hug me."
Yu Jinyang had no choice but to pick him up. Yu Renjie was about to take out his phone to call Tang Xiang when his son saw through his act immediately. These past few days, Tang Xiang had been dragged off on a trip by some friends, and Yu Renjie would call her four or five times a day, which annoyed Tang Xiang, who complained that he never had anything important to say. Yu Jinyang, holding an ice cream cone on one shoulder, bent down and tossed the toy train into the toy box, saying, "Stop calling. Mom finally gets to go out for a couple of days to relax; she might not even want to answer your calls."
"Hey." Yu Renjie detected a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "What do you mean? Am I that unpopular?"
"I didn't say that." She then ignored him. Yu Jinyang sat on the ground, put the ice cream cone in his lap, and examined her eyes. The ice cream cone resisted, "Why are you hiding? Are these bumps on your eyelids newly formed? Let me see, do you want me to disinfect them? Are they itchy?"
"It doesn't itch. A kiss from brother will make it better."
Yu Jinyang discovered that Tian Tong really liked to kiss people, mostly because she learned it from Yu Renjie. Sometimes Yu Renjie would kiss Tang Xiang in front of them. When he was a child, it wasn't so bad, but Yu Renjie was too busy with work and wasn't home much, so he rarely witnessed such scenes. When Tian Tong arrived, it was during their most free time. By the time Yu Renjie and Tang Xiang realized the problem, Tian Tong had already started sending kisses to everyone indiscriminately. If she met someone around her age who was decent-looking, regardless of gender, she would just hug them and kiss them.
Yu Jinyang sat cross-legged on the ground, glancing at his father silently.
Yu Renjie had no say in this matter anymore. He had personally demonstrated to Tiantong that kissing was an expression of love, and several times he had righteously lectured her on not kissing so indiscriminately, but Tiantong would always directly shut him down, saying, "That's exactly what you do!" Fortunately, Yu Jinyang had always been very upright in this regard, and Tiantong was willing to listen to him for a bit. At these times, Yu Renjie would automatically roll away in his wheelchair.
Yu Jinyang asked seriously, "How old are you?"
"Four years old."
"Have I ever told you that neither I nor your father can kiss you anymore?"
"have."
"Then why do you still do this? Are there any other male elders in your family who would kiss you like this?"
"No, but Brother Gao Dian will."
"I'll beat him to death later, bro." Yu Jinyang thought for a moment and said, "Ice cone, do you know that diseases can enter through the mouth? You need to protect your mouth. You know how uncomfortable it is to be sick. Your brother and dad don't kiss your face casually, and no one else can, okay?"
The ice cream cone nodded emphatically.
Yu Jinyang rubbed her head and was about to call Gao Dian when Gao Dian called in: "Damn, meow, we're famous now."
Yu Jinyang casually picked up a 3x3 Rubik's Cube from the coffee table and let Ice Cream Cone play with it, saying, "Who's famous now?"
“Me,” Gao Dian said, “I’m famous now.”
Yu Jinyang then checked Xiaohuacheng's official Weibo account. The Ape Man Conference videos had only been released three or four times, so they weren't particularly popular, with each video only getting a few dozen likes and comments. Having only recently returned to China, he wasn't familiar with the operation of the domestic influencer economy. Seeing how busy Li Yingqiao was, he figured it was probably having some effect. He'd only watched one video and hadn't followed it since, until he just opened this one and the comments and followers skyrocketed. The number of comments had already exceeded a thousand, with over a thousand shares and over ten thousand likes.
One particular ape-man received especially high praise, and without a doubt, it was Gao Dian, the gibbon who didn't seem like he was acting. Videos featuring him consistently garnered a lot of likes, because he could practically walk hanging from the trees in Xiaohuacheng. Almost every comment on Xiaohuacheng was filled with shouts: "We want to see gibbons! We want to see gibbons! We want to see gibbons picking lice! It's that HR ape, he's the most handsome, why did he only appear in one episode! Can't we afford him? Let's crowdfund to get the handsome guy back for another episode!"
Gao Dian was both amused and exasperated on the other end of the phone, saying, "Wu Juan's blunder is all over my WeChat Moments now. Everyone's asking where to sign up, saying our Little Painting City is really going all out, where did they find so many model boys! My parents even called from Shenzhen to ask if I've lost my mind, and told me to get back to Shenzhen right away. Have your parents seen this?"
“My mom definitely didn’t, and Brother Siyi doesn’t know.” As soon as he finished speaking, Yu Jinyang saw Yu Renjie rolling out in his wheelchair, holding up his phone to show him, with an expression that said, “Excuse me. Can you explain to me what stupid things you’ve been doing outside?”
"I saw it, but I'm done." Yu Jinyang looked at his father, sighed, and said to Gao Dian, "By the way, don't kiss my sister anymore. Have some boundaries, little pastry."
...
"Son, are you under a lot of pressure in Fengtan?" As soon as he hung up the phone, Yu Renjie rolled over in his wheelchair to ask.
Yu Jinyang forced a smile: "It's alright."
"Does she have some strange or unusual fetish?" Yu Renjie thought for a moment. If she did have some unusual fetish, he would still have to respect it and perhaps try to find a way to enlighten Tang Xiang first.
He leaned back on the sofa, slipped his phone into his pocket, and chuckled, "Dad."
“You said I can take it,” Yu Renjie lifted his leg and patted it, “I’ve gotten through this, there’s nothing I can’t accept.”
Yu Jinyang stared intently at his father. In fact, for the past two days, he had been wanting to loudly question him about why he had said those things to Li Yingqiao at the bank. After Li Yingqiao confessed to him, Yu Jinyang knew all too well that she hadn't wronged Yu Renjie; his father's words had a hidden meaning.
That night, after coming down from Fengtan Mountain, he didn't message Li Yingqiao demanding an explanation. There was another reason: he and his father had been arguing all night. His father had always wanted to send him abroad to study. In Fengtan, there was an unwritten rule: parents with the means would sell their possessions to send their children abroad for a prestigious education; some even sold their houses to send their children abroad for two years. Yu Renjie was no exception. He himself dreamed of studying abroad, and having built his business overseas, he always wanted to send his son to see the world.
During his senior year of high school, he had been urging Tang Xiang to prepare for the IELTS exam, but Liang Mei and Zhu Xiaoliang stopped him. He had been holding a grudge ever since, and even after the college entrance exam, he still didn't give up on making Tang Xiang pay attention to the exchange student program at the university. F University has many opportunities to go abroad for exchange every year, so he suggested that Tang Xiang start preparing for the IELTS and TOEFL from his freshman year, even if it was just for him to go abroad for two years on a government scholarship to broaden his horizons.
That night, he confessed his thoughts. He said he didn't want to go abroad; he wanted to find a job in Beijing after graduating from F University. Yu Renjie immediately sensed something was off and his face turned cold as he asked, "Are you thinking of going to find Li Yingqiao?"
He neither said yes nor no. He was clueless about relationships; he only knew he didn't want to be too far away from her. But to his father, silence was tantamount to yes. Yu Renjie flew into a rage over this, all his long-held resentment towards the Li family suddenly gushing over him like a flood bursting its banks.
"Yu Jinyang! Have I spoiled you too much all this time? From childhood to adulthood, have I ever mistreated you? In terms of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, if you wanted to learn dance, I let you learn. I even had to tear down the entire study and install soundproofing so you could practice dancing anytime, anywhere. If you wanted to open a stray cat shelter, I immediately contacted someone. If you wanted to help her with her studies, I didn't stop you, after all, she saved you. Even if it's a huge debt of gratitude, you've already repaid it, haven't you?"
"In what way have I wronged you? Did I give birth to you just to make me angry? I always think of you first and put you first in everything. No matter how busy I am, I still go to your parent-teacher conferences. From childhood to adulthood, we have all said that you are well-behaved, but you are not without your troubles. Have I ever laid a finger on you?"
"I wouldn't mind if you were just friends with her. But you know perfectly well what kind of relationship I have with Li Wusheng! You want me to become in-laws with him? If you had any respect for me, any respect for my feelings, you wouldn't be saying these things to me today. If you had any sense at all, you wouldn't have let things get to this point with her!"
Yu Jinyang was eighteen or nineteen years old that year, and having grown up spoiled by Yu Renjie and Tang Xiang, how could he possibly take the initiative to understand his parents' feelings? For children of that time, being able to study diligently, go to bed on time, and get into a prestigious university was already considered being an extremely sensible child in the eyes of their elders. Just doing these things was enough; there was nothing to criticize. So why would he take the initiative to consider his parents' dignity and difficulties?
Yu Renjie's words were like a bucket of ice water, instantly waking him up. At least for the eighteen or nineteen-year-old boy at that time, as he looked back on the past, he realized that he was actually a very bad son. He had repeatedly tested his father's bottom line because he firmly believed that his reasonable father would also indulge him this time, abandoning his own bottom line and dignity.
But was he a sensible son? He clearly wasn't. A sensible son wouldn't use tolerance as a bargaining chip for indulgence after his father's repeated warnings, and would offer his father's dignity to Li Wusheng to trample on. If someone like Li Wusheng had found out about him and Li Yingqiao back then, how much more demanding would he have become? His father would have been a laughingstock in Fengtan.
At eighteen, he couldn't resolve the conflict between Li Wusheng and the two families. He could only try to rely on his father's compromise, which is why he mustered the courage that night to tell his father that he wouldn't go abroad. In some ways, he certainly wasn't a good son.
Now, he's trying to blame his father for the lost friendship of their youth. He claims that if his father hadn't said those things, Li Yingqiao wouldn't have blocked him—but if they had truly gotten together innocently back then, would it necessarily have had a happy ending? The problems between them still exist, and how many more times can his father compromise for him? Perhaps in these ten years, the two of them have long since become unrecognizable, have long since developed disagreements, and have long since stopped speaking to each other altogether.
During his time in Chicago, he could easily imagine how much Li Yingqiao would argue with him if they were really together and never saw each other. They used to argue all the time during their senior year of high school.
“Li Yingqiao is back.” Yu Jinyang stood up, put the increasingly complicated Rubik’s Cube back to the simplest beginner level, and let her continue solving it. “She’s the general manager of the marketing department at Xiaohuacheng Scenic Area. Gao Dian and I were just helping her out, don’t overthink it.”
***
The hotline at Xiaohua City was indeed overwhelmed with calls. After Li Yingqiao had Wu Juan post an explanation for the blunder in the back-end response, the number of calls dropped sharply, but many locals still wanted to come and cause trouble. Even more outrageous, the neighboring scenic area started recruiting ape-men. They hadn't even become famous yet, and someone was already trying to steal their jobs. Moreover, the neighboring scenic area even said that not only could they get up close and personal with the ape-men, but they could also give away related merchandise. Ape-men merchandise? Bananas, perhaps.
Sure enough, Zheng Miaojia went to scout out the enemy's situation and brought back two bunches of bananas, which she threw on Li Yingqiao's desk. "The apes aren't as handsome as us, but they know how to pull a fast one. I'm saying, why don't you guys actually go for a crotch rip? You can go for a crotch rip yourself."
Li Yingqiao immediately slammed the door shut. "Zheng Miaojia, if you can't control your mouth, don't show your face in my office."
Zheng Miaojia, dressed in a linen dress and wearing sunglasses, looked as if she were on vacation in Hainan. She leaned casually against the single sofa in her office, pushed her sunglasses down, and said indifferently, "Really? Director Li. Don't beg me to come back later."
Upon hearing that she had a plan, Li Yingqiao crossed her arms and leaned against the edge of the desk, saying, "Please enlighten me."
“Then listen up,” Zheng Miaojia pulled out her phone, swiped through a few screens, and threw it on the table. “My account has two million followers. I plan to combine the Ape Man Conference project with our own story in Xiaohua City and serialize it into a comic. Just making videos is useless. How many episodes can a gibbon swing around? Even if its arms break, it won’t help. I’ll make real merchandise for you.”
Li Yingqiao thought of a very practical problem: "Miaojia, this is not in our budget. Given your status, I can't apply for this production cost for you at the moment. I also don't want you to do this for me for free, so I'll think about it and get back to you later."
"Bridge!"
"ah?"
"I don't want a budget. To be honest, I don't plan to draw comics anymore. This is my last work, so I won't ask you for money. I just want to leave something behind. I want to leave something for my beloved Little City of Painting. So, do you mind if I include Teacher Liang Mei in the drawing? I think she changed the trajectory of all of our lives."
***
That evening, after taking a shower, Li Yingqiao sent Li Lianfeng a briefing on her work for the week. Miao Jia's words kept her tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep.
Li Yingqiao suspected that Miaojia had encountered some trouble outside, perhaps being cyberbullied? She rarely paid attention to such things online, and when she occasionally saw Miaojia's information, she would quickly scroll past it without lingering. Miaojia had once said that she didn't like her real-life friends seeing those kinds of information online. She had never been an internet celebrity, but in her early years working in the brand PR department at Convey, she had come into contact with many top KOLs, and they all seemed to have a certain level of well-being. After searching for a long time, she couldn't find any clues.
Miao Jia's comics are indeed quite exciting, and the more Li Yingqiao looks at them, the more clear-headed she becomes.
There is actually another reason that can be disregarded—
My abs felt really good the other day. I wonder if the owner of those abs was asleep.
Just as Li Yingqiao was lifting the covers for the eighth time, staring blankly at the ceiling, preparing to get up and take a sleeping pill, her phone vibrated.
A text message popped up—
+136748xxxxx: Joe, you blocked me, add me back. OK? (Zong Xie)
[Author's Note]
There will likely be a second male lead in this book. His role is uncertain, but there will be a major conflict later on.
Hehe. Another quiet second update. See you the day after tomorrow, 200 red envelopes! And please don't rush me, after this bittersweet period, it gets really sweet~
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