Chapter One Hundred and Eleven: New Year’s Worries
After the Lunar New Year celebration, students went back to school and adults went back to work, to resume their usual busy life.
For the design industry, the grandest thing after the Lunar New Year was no doubt the annual Star Designers Cup competition.
Design competitions happened throughout the year. The large-scale ones were like the Autumn Release Conference, whereas the smaller-scale ones were like the Year-End Designers’ Party. However, most of those competitions was not as meaningful as the Star Designers Cup. In this era where most of the official competitions would be related to some companies behind the scene, the Star Designers Cup was one that focused on individual competitions with no award categories for team designs.
So long as the designer had been in the industry for more than a year, even a nameless nobody or famous designer could sign up for the competition. The Star Designers Cup was recognized for having world-class standards. A designer who received an award from this competition had high chances of becoming the target to fight for within the industry. There were many designers who became well-known through this competition.
According to the original plan, Xiao Yu should be using his identity as the mystery designer to give the audience a surprise. However, this time, the situation was a little different.
The main reason was the fear that Xiao Yu felt as his memory started to worsen.
When a person was facing death, they would never waste any attention on money or fame.
In simpler terms, Xiao Yu had been worrying everyday if he was going to die. He simply had no energy to care about the Star Designers Cup.
During the start of the Lunar New Year, Nannan had messaged him to look at his drawings. But Xiao Yu had rejected him by saying that he had to be busy with the Star Designers Cup and asked him to look for him after the event.
Naturally, Nannan did not make things difficult for Xiao Yu and even wished him the best of luck.
In a certain way, Xiao Yu was not lying, because human Xiao Yu was indeed busy with the Star Designers Cup during this period.
And that was the second reason – in his previous life, he had won the grand award at the competition.
It was him, Xiao Yu, FISH, and not that mystery designer.
During his previous life, the mystery designer did not participate in the competition and that left everyone puzzled.
Back then, Xiao Yu felt curious as well. However, compared to his curiosity, the feeling of a new lease of life was greater.
Xiao Yu had no fears about having fair competitions, but the strategy that the mystery designer had made him speechless and helpless. It was as disgusting as swallowing a mosquito.
After being oppressed by the mystery designer for more than half a year, he finally felt like he could breath better. The joyous emotion overrode his thought on why the mystery designer had not participated in the Star Designers Cup as his mind was focused to hold onto this rare opportunity to hold his head high again.
Very fortunately, he succeeded.
After being in a slump for more than half a year, Xiao Yu sudden achievement was like a slap to many people.
At this point, Xiao Yu was no longer as naïve as he was previously. He obviously did not feel that without the mystery designer stealing his drafts, it would lead him to win the awards smoothly.
Of course, the mystery designer was one of the reasons. However, the biggest problem was still on Lin Zhou.
The reason why Lin Zhou had not interfered on this event was worth investigating.
It was impossible that he had found his conscience again. The most logical reason was Lin Zhou had realized that all his efforts were wasted and simply decided that he need not waste his time.
During this time, Xiao Yu had observed and felt that Lin Zhou’s motive of job-hopping to YL, may be because he wanted to put pressure on Xiao Yu. But Xiao Yu couldn’t figure out why. He felt that he had never done anything sorry to Lin Zhou. If he still had a chance, he would surely look for his senior for an answer.
In his previous life, Xiao Yu definitely consulted Lin Zhou about how his work had been stolen after the Heart Lock incident. Regardless whether the latter had believed in him, at least Xiao Yu knew that it was impossible to win in this “argument” over his stolen work.
Under those circumstances, if Lin Zhou’s main motives were to join YL, then he should have given up on his plan to continue stealing Xiao Yu’s work for other alternatives, since he knew for sure that he could not have outdone the mystery designer. However, if Lin Zhou’s motives were simply to hold him down, then he would surely give up on that idea as without even doing anything, it could make Xiao Yu hard to turn his circumstances around.
If it was really what Xiao Yu had thought it was, then with the mystery designer not participating the Star Designers Cup, it would end up as the best way to refute Lin Zhou’s idea.
The submission date had begun before the Lunar New Year. The fact that the mystery designer would not be entering the competition was not announced officially either. People would have to wait till the submission date was over before someone would point it out. By then, even if Lin Zhou had figured out something was amiss, it would had been too late.
Lin Zhou could probably never imagine that a design competition without the mystery designer, would be the grand stage for Xiao Yu.
……
Yan Jin had been noticing Xiao Yu’s recent listless appearance for a long time.
During the start of the new year, Yan Jin realized that although Xiao Yu had been claiming that he was playing his game, but his mind was not completely on it. It was obvious just by seeing those tragic victory scores.
Lately, Yan Jin had been considering the possibilities of objective causes, such as how animals would hibernate when it was winter. However, he later discovered that if the hamster was a house pet, they would not hibernate in normal circumstances. Only when the surrounding temperature gets too low then it may cause Pseudo-hibernation.
To prevent that, Chairman Yan purposely bought an electric blanket into his villa that was like spring all year round because of the constantly operated central heating system. That electric blanket was placed underneath Xiao Yu’s cage.
Then, during that night, the little fellow woke up in the middle of the night due to the heat. Yan Jin had been reprimanded with a finger pointing in his face, he also spent the later half of the night to apologize constantly and did not sleep a wink.
Xiao Yu who almost got cooked alive by the electric blanket ended up biting Yan Jin to vent his anger.
He bit on his lips.
When Chairman Yan arrived at his office the next day with a mask, he had received countless concerned greetings. They had all asked him to take care of his health and not overwork, that if it was necessary, he could take more days off just like last year.
In the afternoon, Yan Jin had taken off the mask and was accidentally seen by Secretary Fang. The mature and earnest secretary who Yan Jin thought to always handled all matters appropriately, shrieked on the spot as she ran out of the office with his seven-inch heels.
That day, the entire YL had been surrounded in an eerie atmosphere.
From a certain perspective, if it wasn’t for the lack of “concrete evidence” till date, scandals about Yan Jin would had been spreading like wildfire within the industry and his ascetic character image would had been ruined long time ago.
However, it was exactly because of the lack of evidence, literally close to none. Just words alone made things hard to believe. If there were no videos, surely there would be a photo or two? But not even photos of him entering a motel, even a snapshot of Yan Jin opening a door for an actress or even a handshake was an impossible task for those paparazzi. Gossips that involved Yan Jin was without a doubt, priceless in their circle because of how difficult and impossible it was to attain them.
In conclusion, the man, Yan Jin, who paid the heaviest price, had at least confirmed that Xiao Yu’s behavior was not because of the weather.
As for what was the real reason, Yan Jin could not grasp the idea at all. It was a question that had been bothering him since the start of the new year.
Putting aside the fact that Yan Jin had been more sensitive than an average person when it comes to picking up emotions of others, Xiao Yu’s behavior had been too abnormal that anyone could have noticed it.
For example, when he had woken up Xiao Yu in the morning, the hamster would usually cover his mouth with his paw as he yawned and then greet him for the morning. However, the current Xiao Yu would straight away say his good morning. Or another example was how Xiao Yu would wave his paw three times to welcome the chairman home from work, but now he would only wave twice. Adding on to that example, was how Xiao Yu would usually get MVP in at least seven out of ten matches when he played Toxic. But now, he could only achieve at best, three matches. No matter how Yan Jin saw it, there was something amiss.
Chu Ge who had listened to the whole development, felt that he may be a confession tree, but he shall be a fighter among all confession trees.
Chu Ge: “I think that cannot be reason why you need to abduct me for coffee.”
“Aren’t you self-proclaimed to be an expert in psychology?” Yan Jin answered with a question.
“I’d learnt fake psychology. I’m a fake person. I can’t see anything wrong with it.”
Chu Ge held his cup for and sip on his coffee. The pathetic feeling he had was indescribable.
Why did his waste his precious time to listen to an idiot talking – had been a question he pondered about for the past twenty years.
However, if he could not understand why for the past twenty years, he probably would never figure it out for life.
On the same topic, although the doctor did have his license as a psychologist, but compared to those experts out in the field, Chu Ge felt that none of those overseas big shots could be on par with Yan Jin.
After all, that man was on the level of a superpower. Compared to normal human beings who does psychology as a livelihood, it was on a completely different scale.
“I think there’s a problem.” Yan Jin stirred his cup of coffee as if he had transformed into Sherlock Holmes: “There’s also problems on many other details. Fishy has something on his mind.”
“Hm.” Chu Ge answered coldly.
“Why don’t you help me analyze what Fishy may have on his mind?”
“Dafug, I’m not some deity. If he has something on his mind, then ask him directly. He’s not even a real hamster.”
Yan Jin paused.
“Sometimes I wonder if he was a human.” Yan Jin fiddled the fountain pen in his hand: “You do believe in the theory of hamster demon?”
Chu Ge: “I think you’re really sick. You are already so busy so why are you still thinking about all these thoughts?”
“You mean these?” Yan Jin lowered his head and glance at the pile of documents on his table. He shrugged: “The office is kind of noisy. I did plan on bringing them out to settle them.”
“Noisy?”
“Hm. Didn’t I just told you?” Yan Jin pointed at his own lips.
Chu Ge paused for three seconds before he laughed till he hugged his stomach and went under the table.
“Oh my, I haven’t seen you in such a state before. Haven’t you had pets like dog or cat in the past?” after a short while, the doctor finally relaxed and teased: “Or perhaps only Fishy was an exception?”
Yan Jin pondered for a moment and agreed with the doctor.
“Wow, if Fishy really turned into a human, how wonderful would it be. Just perfect to compliment a demon like yourself.”
“Seriously though, don’t you think Fishy’s behavior is very much akin to a human being?”
“What are you talking about. Do you seriously want to know what kind of behavior is akin to how a demon should behave?” Chu Ge rolled his eyes: “This is nonscientific to begin with, why must you look for a scientific explanation? Does that even make sense?”
Yan Jin resentfully ended that topic that went astray and returned to his original topic: “Fishy is too depressed lately. He has been in low spirits and is even starting to lose his fur.”
Chu Ge rubbed his chin. Although he still couldn’t understand the whole point of Yan Jin’s worries, but as a professional, he was still able to give some sound advice.
For example –
“It’s normal to be in bad moods for staying at a place for too long. Bring him on a trip then.”
A trip…
Chairman Yan felt like he took a critical hit.
