Ink.
Pei Zhen couldn’t speak for a moment. He simply reached out and slowly wrapped his arms around Han Fu’s neck.
“…” Han Fu hastily braced himself with a hand, but ultimately couldn’t steady himself. His full weight collapsed onto Pei Zhen, sending them both tumbling onto the soft bed together.
Feeling the solid weight on him, Pei Zhen gently tousled the fine hairs at the nape of the Little Wolfdog’s neck.
“You did very well.”
Han Fu laughed smugly in his ear—a hehehe sound. But the upturned face he lifted was heavy with deep exhaustion. Pei Zhen’s nose stung a little, and his throat felt hoarse.
He continued patting, stroking him. Truly, he did very well.
So good, so remarkable.
“Mmm~~~” Han Fu buried his head in the crook of Pei Zhen’s neck. There was a moment of absolute stillness, as if he had fallen completely unconscious for those few seconds.
A moment later, though, he rubbed his eyes and woke up again. “Ugh… but, there’s still a tiny difference.”
“I tried swapping out every single ingredient, but the final scent always has this subtle difference from Ink. I kept searching until morning, but I just couldn’t find where the difference lies.”
“Zhenzhen, I can’t find it no matter what. Can you help me find it?”
Pei Zhen took his hand and got out of bed. Returning to the Perfumer’s Workstation, he one by one tested and sniffed the plant materials and essential oils Han Fu had used the previous night.
In an instant, he understood exactly what was going on. Looking at the exhausted Little Wolfdog who had been up all night, his heart ached again, while simultaneously finding it a little bit funny.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s fundamentally impossible to make it exactly the same. Because our solvent isn’t as good as Les étoiles’.”
Han Fu didn’t understand.
Pei Zhen: “Fragrance and perfume oils mostly don’t dissolve in water. So the solvent for perfumes is often dealdehyded and deodorized anhydrous alcohol. But actually, this anhydrous alcohol can be categorized into many sub-types. The best grade should be the one made from a good year’s white grapes from a famous estate.”
“For example, the alcohol used in Les étoiles’ Ink is made from Canadian Icewine Grapes directly supplied by Lanrui.”
“But the alcohol on our station here is all produced from factory-grade grain alcohol. Specifically, it’s processed corn alcohol. While they might seem odorless at first smell, when mixed with large amounts of solvent and essential oils, there is still a slight discrepancy. And that discrepancy is the difference you were searching for all night.”
“So that’s how it is.” Han Fu exhaled in relief, suddenly feeling unburdened.
He was no longer aggrieved, but Pei Zhen became aggrieved on his behalf.
What kind of Sugar Daddy was he, claiming to nurture a Rising Star of Tomorrow, yet unable to provide him with the highest-quality raw materials and the best-grade competition tools?!
……
Actually, in every Perfumer Awards Competition, the organizers provided vast amounts of uniformly standard, high-quality spices and essential oils, plus all the glassware and tools needed for fragrance blending, for the contestants to use.
But at the same time, contestants were also allowed to bring their own ingredients and tools.
Many contestants with good financial means chose to bring some of their own tools and essential oils.
Like Lister, when he first participated in the PA, he’d brought his own ridiculously expensive, limited-edition custom small suitcase. Inside was a full set of expensive star-glass beakers and test tubes, custom-made for him by the Venetian Murano headquarters.
In terms of essential oils, he even carried a small case of basic ones himself—Cranberry’s selectively chosen Lanrui-direct Damascus Rose Essential Oil. A tiny 12ml bottle, yet the price for that single bottle exceeded ten thousand.
Of course, the quality of ingredients and tools didn’t play a decisive role in the fragrance blending process.
But taking cooking as an analogy—comparing top-grade Matsusaka fatty beef to ordinary beef, or a sharp, specialized ceramic knife to a regular one—it did offer some supplemental benefit for a top chef in terms of efficiency, dish flavor, and other aspects.
At the very least, trying to perfectly replicate “Ink” using corn alcohol produced by a small manufacturer as the base was unreasonably demanding.
“How about… I try asking Lanrui.”
Pei Zhen picked up his phone, with the air of someone marching heroically towards his doom.
After all, the expected outcome was, predictably, being directly rebuffed. Lanrui was a major, high-and-mighty supplier. Their customer service had always been arrogantly aloof. Even when his own brand, Pei, had been considered a well-known domestic rising star, the process of begging for supply had been fraught with difficulty and repeated rejections.
How could a company like that easily agree to provide specialized, small-batch supply just because some contestant was participating in the PA?
But, no matter what, if he wanted to give Han Fu the best, he had to try his luck.
Han Fu: “Zhenzhen, it’s fine, I’m not picky about these things!”
“Lots of fragrance books say not to be superstitious about ingredients—a skilled chef can recreate the taste of freshly picked, express-delivered produce from a can; a terrible chef, given the finest foie gras and truffles, can still whip up a monstrosity. Perfumery is the same principle!”
“But there’s still some difference.” Pei Zhen nodded, and still dialed the number.
The sales customer service at Lanrui, which monopolized the international high-end essential oil market, was, sure enough, both arrogant and unreasonable.
Pei Zhen very sincerely explained the purpose, even analyzing how a contestant using Lanrui essential oils could also serve as brand promotion and other benefits. Result? As expected, he received a torrent of mocking sarcasm from the other end.
“Please, I already told you, didn’t I? Our company never handles scattered orders under 2 million! We don’t need any competition promotion. The world’s most famous fragrance manufacturers are our clients. That’s the best promotion for us, Lanrui.”
“Fck!” Han Fu couldn’t stand hearing that fox-pretending-to-be-tiger, drippingly sarcastic tone the most. He directly snatched the phone.
“Who made that rule?”
The other party: “What?”
“I said, who made the rule that your company doesn’t handle orders under 2 million? Which president, or which vice-president? Bring me the company charter and read it to me! What’s your employee ID? Sitting in your position doing nothing, making arbitrary decisions, treating customers like nothing. With all this spare time for idle chatter, the products would’ve been packed and shipped ages ago!”
The other party was clearly no match for his arguments, cursed “lunatic,” and hung up directly.
“Damn! Dared to hang up on me, the nerve…”
“Don’t be angry, don’t be angry.” Pei Zhen was beside him, smoothing his fur. “Lanrui has always been like this. Their minimum order quantity is genuinely high, and they exclusively supply major international brands. They don’t have time for small, scattered business. Forget individual requests—even when I started my independent brand, during the first two struggling years, because my order volume wasn’t large enough, I had to go to the Yunnan headquarters twice and negotiate face-to-face with President Han himself before finally getting the goods…”
“…”
“It’s just… such a pity. Lanrui’s essential oils are, after all, the best. Forget it, I’ll think of another way.”
Han Fu: “What other way?! It’s precisely this kind of arrogant, presumptuous way of doing business, ignoring ordinary customers, that is wrong! They need to reform!”
Pei Zhen couldn’t help but chuckle dryly and shook his head. Young people, as expected, just burned with fiercer fire.
In the past, it was always Han Xiaohua soothing him. The occasional role reversal was rather amusing.
Even after his fur was smoothed, the Little Wolfdog was still fuming. In the end, he went off to the garden alone to cool down.
Pei Zhen sighed and turned to feed his fat orange cat.
……
Slowly finished feeding Little Orange, enjoyed a while of his master’s coquettish cuteness, cleaned the litter box—and then his phone rang again.
Pei Zhen had no idea what had transpired in that short interval.
When he answered, it was still the same customer service person from Lanrui, but her attitude had done a complete 180-degree turn.
“Sorry, sorry, terribly sorry! I didn’t check properly just now. Aren’t you our Lanrui veteran client, President Pei?”
Pei Zhen: “…”
He had, indeed, placed orders with Lanrui sporadically for two or three years, so in some sense, he really was a “veteran client”?
“If it’s our veteran client President Pei, samples or anything are absolutely no problem! Guaranteed to send them to you, guaranteed! Sending them right away, ShunX courier from Yunnan HQ, fully insured and free shipping for you.”
Pei Zhen was a rather honest person. “…I’m not asking for samples. I don’t plan to place a bulk order; I just want to buy individual items in small, repeated quantities.”
“Individual items? Individual items… ahem, that’s also no problem! President Pei, President Pei, from now on, I’ll be your dedicated service line. I’ll text you my private number shortly. Whatever essential oil you need, just message me anytime. I’ll have it swiftly shipped out that very day! Really, I personally and sincerely accept the criticism. I wouldn’t dare slack off at work again. And I must ask you… about the complaint, could you possibly help withdraw it?”
Pei Zhen: “I didn’t file a complaint against you.”
“Sob… then, then President Pei, if your relatives or friends know any big leaders in the company, could you please trouble them to put in a few good words for me? Also, please definitely do well in the competition! If it’s livestreamed, be sure to give our brand lots of product placement!”
Pei Zhen: “Uh…”
After hanging up, the Little Wolfdog also came back in from the backyard.
Pei Zhen: “Did you call Lanrui’s complaint hotline?”
Han Fu: “Uh… yeah!”
Pei Zhen: “…”
This time, Lanrui handled the issue surprisingly fast.
Pei Zhen vaguely remembered that one time years ago when he’d received the wrong shipment. That complaint call had been incredibly difficult to get through. They’d dragged it out lazily for over half a year, and in the end, it was never resolved.
Could it be that the company had reformed in the past two years?
“Zhenzhen, what are you thinking about?”
“Nothing. Just… didn’t expect Lanrui’s after-sales service to be this reliable now.” Although the whole thing was rather inexplicable, it counted as resolving a major issue, right?
Han Fu: “…” As long as you’re satisfied.
