Chapter 53: A Beauty’s Favor Is the Hardest to Accept

Chapter 53: Chapter 53: A Beauty’s Favor Is the Hardest to Accept

Gao Yuan quietly watched Li Mengqing finish her meal. She ate everything, not picking at her food.

After he put the lunchbox away, he didn’t make a move to leave, and Li Mengqing didn’t ask him to go. She just lowered her head, absentmindedly wringing her hands.

The two of them remained silent, and the atmosphere in the office grew a little awkward.

Finally, Gao Yuan was the one to break the silence.

He’d been watching her hands for a while and noticed she was constantly wringing them. ’It’s not even cold in this office.’

Gao Yuan hesitated slightly. "What’s wrong with your hands?"

"It’s nothing. I’ve had to do a lot of styling these past few days, so they’re just a little sore."

The moment the words left her mouth, Li Mengqing regretted it.

’Why couldn’t I stop myself from telling him?’

A vexed expression appeared on her face; her usually cool, aloof features were now marred by a tight frown.

Li Mengqing instantly stopped wringing her hands. "You should go. I’m going to take a nap."

Gao Yuan was instantly reminded of the system’s mission. He wasn’t sure how Li Mengqing planned to help him,

but since she was a styling director, it was highly probable her help would be related to her profession.

A guess formed in his mind, and an indescribable pang of heartache welled up inside him. He reached for Li Mengqing’s hands.

But to his surprise,

Li Mengqing snatched her hands back under the desk like a startled rabbit, glaring at him coldly. "Are you planning to watch me nap?"

Gao Yuan’s hand closed on empty air. Seeing her cold glare, his brow furrowed in frustration.

A surge of machismo washed over him. He snatched the lunch container from the desk, stood up, and stormed out the door.

Once downstairs, he had a smoke, and a lot of his anger subsided.

The thought that she was doing all this for him brought that pang of heartache rushing back.

Gao Yuan wanted to go back upstairs, but then he remembered Li Mengqing had said she needed to rest.

He looked up toward her office for a moment, sighed, then pulled out his phone and sent a text: "Take it easy, and trust me."

「In Li Mengqing’s office.」

Ever since Gao Yuan left, she had been seething, too.

She was angry with herself.

’I can’t believe I said that,’ she thought, blaming herself.

Watching Gao Yuan smoking downstairs, Li Mengqing clutched her phone. After a long moment, she finally resolved to apologize.

She was still typing out her apology in the chat when his message came through.

Li Mengqing looked at the message, then glanced through the window to see Gao Yuan getting into a taxi and driving away. A glimmer appeared in her eyes, and a sweet smile graced her lips.

In that moment, it seemed her hands didn’t ache so much anymore.

’It was all worth it.’

...

Back home, Gao Yuan found Lin Wanyu asleep on the sofa.

He quietly draped a blanket over her, then sat back down at his computer to organize his files.

There was still a lot of work to do if he wanted to make the online skincare business a success.

Everything up to now had just been brainstorming. Whether any of it was actually feasible would require adjustments on the fly.

The one thing he could prepare now was the design templates. He planned to directly copy the templates of major brands.

The designers hired by those big-name skincare brands were surely the real deal. There was no need for him to waste brain cells trying to be innovative.

There’s a rule in e-commerce: trust the skills of the competitors on the "Top" lists.

They’ve spent big money on every single image and line of ad copy.

All you have to do is copy them. Never blindly trust your own ability to innovate.

You might think your own creation looks great, but if the consumers don’t agree, it’s all just a pointless exercise.

Your competitors’ work has, for the most part, been tested by big data. You probably can’t go wrong by imitating them.

It was just like with Gao Yuan himself.

He always thought of himself as a respectable man, but TikTok always managed to see right through him and recommend videos he’d actually like.

People like Gao Yuan were the worst—parading under the banner of respectability while acting like a total lech, giving actual decent people a bad name.

Around four in the afternoon, Lin Wanyu was woken by the ringing of her phone.

She answered; it was her younger brother. They spoke for a little over a minute.

Then, her big, charming eyes sparkling, she ran excitedly over to Gao Yuan.

"The sample’s ready! It’s officially entering the testing phase."

Gao Yuan was stunned to hear this.

’But when I saw Lin Hongnian yesterday, he said it would take a week to make the sample. It’s only been a day, and it’s already going into testing?’

"I was confused too, but my brother said that for the secret formula you provided, all they had to do was adjust the proportions of some herbal essences in a base similar to SK-II’s."

"Is that reliable?"

At his words, Lin Wanyu shot him an exasperated glare and laughed. "Are you looking down on our family’s lab? We have several PhDs working in there!"

"Relax. No one would dare to cut corners on this, especially when it’s a project for me."

’That’s true,’ Gao Yuan thought.

After he got back yesterday, he’d looked up the Lin Group. It turned out to be one of the top five skincare manufacturers in the country.

Its annual revenue wasn’t the 500 million yuan Lin Wanyu had mentioned, but 1.5 billion.

And what he found online was just last year’s data.

Many major brands had partnerships with the Lin Group. For them, some industry "secrets" weren’t secrets at all.

At the same time,

Gao Yuan was confident that as long as they followed the secret formula, the sample would pass quality control without any issues.

He just wondered how the efficacy of a mask produced without the system’s "labeling" would compare to the major brands.

"Wanyu, I’ll need you to keep a close eye on this part. I don’t know much about skincare production. I’ll focus on getting the marketing and the online store set up as quickly as possible."

Gao Yuan knew how to delegate. After all his time as an operations director, he knew a thing or two about managing people.

For anything product-related, it was far better for Lin Wanyu to be the one to step in.

They were blood relatives, after all. Gao Yuan was, at most, her boyfriend; they weren’t married. He couldn’t take Lin Hongnian’s cordiality for granted.

So, Gao Yuan’s role for Lin Wanyu was product director, plus brand ambassador.

Lin Wanyu’s aura was a perfect fit for the brand’s positioning. The mix of a cool, mature demeanor with a hint of sweetness made her the ideal spokesperson.

Most importantly, it would save them the cost of hiring a model.

That was ten or twenty thousand yuan! Every little bit helps.

’As for me, I should stick to what I’m good at,’ he thought.

In the internet age, the product itself wasn’t actually the most important thing. What mattered most was marketing and storytelling.

If he did that well, he’d have a foundation for success.

There were 77 days until the New Year. Right now, he was just renting. ’By then, maybe I’ll be able to buy this apartment outright.’

He worked for a while longer, until it was five o’clock.

Gao Yuan stopped what he was doing, and he and Lin Wanyu changed clothes to go out.

They weren’t going anywhere special—just a trip to the supermarket.

He wanted to cook a feast tonight to treat Li Mengqing.

Li Mengqing was very conscious of her figure, so he planned for beef to be the main dish, along with a pot of chicken soup and a couple of stir-fried vegetable dishes.

But what he really wanted to make was a dessert: a durian mille-crêpe cake.

He remembered Lin Wanyu mentioning once that Li Mengqing absolutely loved durian.

A durian mille-crêpe wasn’t hard for Gao Yuan to make; it was just a bit time-consuming.

After buying the ingredients and returning home, Gao Yuan checked the time. Li Mengqing should be getting off work soon.

He sent a message to their group chat asking when Li Mengqing would be off, but to his surprise, she said she still had a while to go.

She would head back after she finished the styling she was working on.

This immediately brought back the image from noon, of her wringing her sore hands.

"I’m starting dinner. We’ll eat when you get back."

Putting down his phone, Gao Yuan first prepped a stewing hen and set it on the stove to simmer.

Next, he started on the durian mille-crêpe. It was the most time-consuming part, and he wanted it ready so Li Mengqing and Lin Wanyu could have some as an appetizer when she arrived.

It was nearly seven when Li Mengqing finally dragged her exhausted body to Gao Yuan’s apartment.

She had created new styles for seven girls today, and her hands were trembling from the effort.

The moment she stepped inside, before she could even take off her coat, the rich aroma of durian wafted toward her. She couldn’t help but take a deep, appreciative sniff.