The customer went on and on about her grandmother's deeds, saying that she made this piece of jewelry mainly to commemorate her deceased grandmother, and asked Yan Shenyu to make sure to convey her feelings.
“Wearing this jewelry feels like my grandmother is still with me,” the woman smiled. “When I get old, I want to pass this jewelry on to my daughter and granddaughter.”
Yan Shenyu nodded in agreement; he himself also appreciated the humanistic care that jewelry brought.
"Your designs are now extremely rare. I need to make a few more pieces before anyone else discovers them," the customer couldn't help but praise him as he left.
"Not at all," Yan Shenyu said with a smile and shook her head. "I'm still a novice in jewelry design, but my designs just happen to suit your taste. Your liking is the best compliment for me."
"Don't be so modest," the female customer laughed, covering her mouth. "Back then, so many people coveted your 'Heart of the Universe.' I remember Xu Yi visited you three times, but you didn't sell it to him, did you?"
Huh? Yan Shenyu looked at Xu Yi not far away with some confusion. Could it be that Xu Yi disliked him because of this?
Surely not? You're getting angry and upset with him over something like that?
Before Yan Shenyu could figure out what was going on, Xu Yi had already dawdled over with a plate of vegetable salad.
He pretended that he had only bumped into Yan Shenyu by chance, and casually asked, "I heard you became a designer at the Hoya Design Studio?"
Yan Shenyu: "Yes."
Xu Yi snorted and said coolly, "I didn't expect you to go to such a third-rate design studio. Don't think I'll ask you to customize jewelry."
“Unfortunately, our third-rate design studio is already fully booked for this year,” Yan Shenyu said with a faint smile. “Even if you want to do it, you’ll have to wait until next year.”
Xu Yi suddenly raised her voice, incredulously asking, "You didn't even save a spot for me?"
Yan Shenyu blinked blankly, "Should I leave some for you?"
"Of course I want it! How long have we known each other?" Xu Yi's eyes widened, almost exasperated. "Back then, you were competing with me for a sapphire at the auction, and then you turned it into the 'Heart of the Universe.' I asked you if you weren't selling it, and you said it was for your wedding. Fine, I can understand that. But then later, when I contacted you to do custom orders, you said you weren't doing jewelry design anymore. And then, after I really gave up, you turned around and signed with Hoya Studio, starting to take other people's orders."
At the end, Xu Yi almost screamed: "Yan Shenyu, are you deliberately going against me?"
Yan Shenyu: "..."
He never expected that things would turn out so dramatically.
When Xu Yi came to ask the original owner for a design job, it was during the time when the original owner was most love-struck. At that time, "Yan Shenyu" was completely focused on love and wouldn't accept any design jobs.
After getting rid of Xiao Zhenliang, he resumed jewelry design at the urging of his senior. He had already received quite a few orders, but he did not inform Xu Yi.
If he were Xu Yi, he would probably feel like someone was deliberately targeting him if he encountered this situation.
"Ahem..." Yan Shenyu cleared his throat, feeling inexplicably guilty. "Would you believe me if I said I forgot?"
"I don't believe you!" Xu Yi said angrily. "Don't even think about participating in the horse race this afternoon. I'm going to make you pay!"
Yan Shenyu: "I don't have a horse."
Xu Yi: "I can prepare it for you."
Yan Shenyu: "I just broke my back."
“Your back is twisted, not broken,” Xu Yi said coldly. “Besides, it’s been a week, it’s long healed. If you’re a man, give me a chance to settle things on the racetrack!”
“We can have a competition,” Yan Shenyu said suddenly after a pause, “but none of yours are very interesting. Let’s have a bigger one.”
Xu Yi: "What's big?"
Yan Shenyu: "This is a stallion exhibition. To put it bluntly, it's a gathering to showcase the breeding capabilities of stallions."
“Of course I know.” Xu Yi frowned.
"Do you know how stallions mate?"
"It's just like that, the mare stands there, and then the stallion..." Xu Yi suddenly looked up, her face flushed, "Yan Shenyu, are you flirting with me?"
"What are you thinking?" Yan Shenyu looked at him in shock. "I was just discussing the breeding process of ponies with you. The kind you're talking about is natural breeding, so the price is naturally higher. But there's another kind that simply sells semen, and one milliliter can sell for 10,000 RMB."
"Ah..." Xu Yi nodded absentmindedly, "It seems like there is such a thing."
Yan Shenyu: "Then do you know how stallions extract... semen?"
Xu Yi: "How would I know about this?"
"Then let's have a contest: whoever finds out the process of extracting sperm from a stallion first wins, how about it?"
Xu Yi thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. He had many friends who were into equestrian sports, and several of them owned show-quality stallions, so he wasn't worried about falling behind Yan Shenyu.
While Xu Yi stormed off, Yan Shenyu continued to eat his lobster at a leisurely pace.
Yan Sheng asked curiously, "Why aren't you going?"
"Why should I go?" Yan Shenyu casually handed him a piece of lobster claw meat and said calmly, "Hasn't Xu Yi already gone?"
Yan Sheng: "Aren't you guys in a competition?"
"Ah, you mean this?" Yan Shenyu shook his head. "I didn't want to compete with him. I'm just curious about the process of extracting semen from a stallion. If he can help me find out, then I won't have to make the trip."
Yan Sheng: "..."
Half an hour later, Xu Yi walked over excitedly: "Yan Shenyu! I know how stallions extract... semen now!!"
"So fast?" Yan Shenyu was shocked. "I haven't even found anyone to ask yet."
“That’s right,” Xu Yi said, raising her chin with a smug look. “My friends and your friends are not in the same league.”
Yan Shenyu: "Then how is the semen extracted?"
"It's like taking the stallion to the mare, letting the mare stimulate it first, and then doing this, this... that, that..." Xu Yi explained using both hands and feet, "and then it's done!"
Yan Shenyu thought about it seriously, but shook his head: "I don't believe it. You must have made it up yourself."
"Why would I lie to you?" Xu Yi asked anxiously. "I found all of this out by asking professionals."
Do you have any evidence?
"Should I have them tell you?"
"Then I cannot guarantee the truthfulness of their statements."
"Okay, I know there's a stallion that needs its semen extracted this afternoon. I'll take you to see it."
Yan Shenyu frowned and hesitated, "But I still want to take a nap..."
"Why take a nap? Watching a stallion is more exciting than taking a nap!" Xu Yi pulled Yan Shenyu forward. "If you miss this kind of thing once, you won't get a second chance."
“Alright,” Yan Shenyu stood up, looking reluctant. “Since you’ve said so, I’ll go with you to take a look.”
Xu Yi was completely oblivious to what was amiss and kept urging, "Let's go, let's go!"
Yan Sheng, who witnessed the whole thing: "..."
What's going on? He even felt a little sorry for Xu Yi...
Yan Sheng didn't care how the stallion extracted its semen and stayed alone in the banquet hall.
Gradually, he suddenly felt someone was looking at him. Not with Fu Jingran's normal admiring gaze, but with an offensive and very uncomfortable look.
However, when he carefully searched the gaze, he found that everyone around him was well-dressed and there was nothing unusual about them.
Was she being too sensitive? Yan Sheng looked away, but remained vigilant.
Later, when he went to the restroom, a slightly overweight middle-aged man approached him and introduced himself as the chairman of a certain company, saying he wanted to get to know him.
Yan Sheng coldly refused, but the other person followed him and tried to touch him with physical gestures.
Yan Sheng, extremely sensitive to such things, immediately dodged the man's attack and coldly questioned, "What are you doing?"
"I'd like to invite you for a horse ride."
"I won't ride."
Seeing his wariness, the man awkwardly withdrew his hand and said instead, "I watched your show too. You cried so beautifully last time. Next time, don't cover it up. Cry in front of me, okay?"
The other man's words carried a blatant stare, making Yan Sheng feel nauseous. He slapped the man's fat hand away, his voice so cold it was almost icy: "Get lost."
“I knew you wouldn’t agree so easily, but if you agreed too easily, there would be no challenge,” the man withdrew his hand and changed his tone, “I have a friend who is an investor in your variety show. He told me that someone in the production team is plotting against you and Yan Shenyu. Don’t you want to know who that person is?”
Someone wants to harm Yan Shenyu? Yan Sheng's pupils constricted sharply: "Who?"
The man simply smiled and asked, "Now are you willing to ride horses with me?"
...
At the same time, Yan Shenyu finally witnessed the entire process of the stallion extracting semen and left the scene satisfied.
“So that’s how it is,” Yan Shenyu said with some emotion. “But this horse is also a bit pitiful. Not only does it have to run races for others, but it also has to sell its offspring and descendants in private.”
Xu Yi couldn't help but blush as she recalled what she had just witnessed in the stable.
That horse is really big...
Yan Shenyu: "Humans cannot, or at least should not."
"I wasn't thinking anything!" Xu Yi quickly retorted, but couldn't hide the blush on his face. Seeing the photographer still taking pictures of him, he angrily held up his hand to block the camera, "What are you taking pictures of? Stop taking pictures!"
After saying that, he actually went back to the stable where he was looking at the stallions.
“Uh…” Yan Shenyu wasn’t as perverted as Xu Yi. He didn’t go back, but instead wandered around the area.
As he walked to a nearby stable, he suddenly heard a conversation.
"I never expected to buy such a lazy bum, and they even claim it's the offspring of a world champion," a middle-aged man said indignantly, looking at the horse lying on the ground.
"What's wrong with it?" a friend asked him. "Its fur is smooth, it's full of energy, and it looks quite healthy."
"How can it not be healthy if all it does is eat all day?" The middle-aged man glared at the horse with exasperation. "Other horses this size could have won competitions by now, but all it does is eat and sleep, sleep and eat. Now I understand why the last buyer sold the horse to me so readily; there was a trap involved. They even talked about some kind of racing gene. Pshaw, that's all bullshit."
"How about we train first?" my friend suggested.
“It’s been a month of training and it’s not cooperating at all,” the man shook his head. “I really regret buying it. If I had spent a little more money to buy the one I had my eye on earlier, it wouldn’t be like this.”
"So, you sell it and then buy the one you had your eye on before?"
"I'd like to, but the whole club knows about this horse, so even if I lower the price, nobody wants it."
Yan Shenyu peeked out and saw a snow-white horse lying in a stable filled with hay. It had been well cared for and looked glossy and healthy.
Other horses sleep standing up, but this one lies down to rest when it's awake. When it sees him coming, it just glances at him lazily, showing none of the wariness a herbivore would have.
Yan Shenyu: Good heavens, even more lazy than him! Isn't this his dream horse?
“If all else fails, use it to breed foals and sell them!” my friend suggested. “If you choose a good stallion, you can get a decent price for it.”
"Sigh, but nobody's stupid. With the mother body like this, it won't fetch a good price."
The salted fish and white horse lay there lazily, seemingly oblivious to everything happening outside.