Chapter 39: The Golden Years · Amber

“Last ten minutes!”

On the competition floor, the clock ticked away. Zhu Su’s voice pierced through the entire hall.

“For anyone who hasn’t wrapped up yet, this is your final chance to race against the clock—be careful with your bottles! Don’t spill anything right at the finish line!”

His jinx was immediately effective. The moment he spoke, the High Heel Granny let out an “Ah!” and clattered something to the floor. Simultaneously, other contestants also began fumbling and encountering various mishaps in their rush.

Zhu Su: “Anyone still needing to cool down? Anyone over-cooled in the fridge? You need to bring your creations back to room temperature before the competition ends. Be extremely careful!”

As he spoke, he began another long jog around the room, pursued by a swarm of cameras, livestreaming his final round of commentary and assessment on all the contestants’ works.

“Miss Fu Yao’s strategy is to challenge herself, experimenting with the risky high-difficulty task of ‘transforming a men’s fragrance into a women’s fragrance.’ The finished product looks pretty good—but how the final scent will turn out, we won’t know until later. It’ll either be a huge success or a massive disaster~ Let’s wait and see.”

“Yo, Changkong, the layered colors are very beautiful! If the scent is as wonderful as its appearance suggests, it should be a perfect creation.”

“Granny, today’s theme is ‘Alcohol,’ right? Your fragrance is so sweet, could it be rice wine? Ahaha, well, my word alone doesn’t count. Maybe the other judges will like this style?”

“Hey, Miss Chi has a lot of courage! Replicating my ‘Death Wine’? Aren’t you afraid of it being poisonous?”

…

Zhu Su’s comedic commentary drew the focus of the entire audience and all the cameras, leaving Yi Changqing’s area temporarily unwatched.

“I thought it might be some story worth mentioning.”

Yi Changqing was perfectly happy with the peace and quiet, finally able to say things he couldn’t say on camera. His voice wasn’t loud, but the contempt was heavy.

“Just a common, unimaginative, clichéd trope. And he still had the nerve to ramble on about it on the show for so long.”

Before Han Fu paid him any attention, he first stole a glance at Pei Zhen. Fortunately, Pei Zhen was huddled with Yu Wenzhe, whispering about something, both of them closely watching Zhu Su, paying no attention over here.

“It really is a pretty ordinary story.” Han Fu smiled and admitted.

“A simple meeting, dating, and then getting along well. It’s true, it’s not like some ‘stories’ that start off like the first episode of a teen drama. But, I happen to love ordinary days. And every ordinary day from now on, I’ll cherish him, take care of him, and find every way to be good to him. Absolutely unlike ‘someone’ here.”

Yi Changqing seemed to be pricked by something. The corner of his mouth twitched a bit neurotically, and a flash of malice crossed his eyes.

“About what happened in other people’s ‘stories,’ some things… he might not have told you.”

“Oh, sorry about that then.”

Han Fu was fearless. “My baby loves me to death. He already told me everything long ago.”

The look on Yi Changqing’s face, if they were alone right now, you couldn’t guarantee what might happen next.

But this was a public venue, so Han Fu continued to stay composed.

…In a mutual provocation, the first one to lose their temper is the loser. And Yi Changqing’s reaction once again confirmed Han Fu’s long-held assessment—that “cool aloofness” and “detached indifference” were indeed just a forcibly maintained persona and disguise.

Once the mask was torn off, tsk.

“Teacher Changqing~ Give the audience your prediction too! Who do you think has the best chance of winning this round?”

Zhu Su suddenly threw himself enthusiastically over, interrupting the undercurrent of tension in the air.

Yi Changqing was dragged into the frame for a joint shot, forced to twist his dark expression into one of nonchalance. Watching him struggle for those few seconds made even Han Fu cringe on his behalf.

“Her, probably.”

The cameras followed Yi Changqing’s gaze, capturing Fu Yao’s completed work on her table—the “men’s fragrance magically modified into a women’s fragrance.”

Zhu Su continued with starry eyes asking, “And what about you, Zhenyi? What do you think?”

Ye Zhenyi: “Ah? But I already have a personal bias this round. Han Fu made my absolute favorite ‘Liquor Chocolate.’ I can’t love anyone else now.”

Zhu Su: “Ohhhh? Old Xia (Ye Zhenyi’s husband) has a love rival?”

Ye Zhenyi: “No! I meant, of course…”

Two minutes left. One round of the competition was about to end. Aside from one or two contestants still scrambling nervously, most had already finished.

Han Fu quietly turned around and scanned the area around him. The works in the bottles of his rivals all looked quite good visually. Fatty, Yi Changkong, and a few others had even created enticing gradient colors.

Lowering his head, he nervously examined his own fragrance again.

Pei’s “Liquor Chocolate.” But what should have been a brilliant and beautiful gold, like ice wine.

Had turned out too pale and too transparent from his efforts. He had exhausted all his skill, yet only managed to replicate it by about seventy to eighty percent. Overall, it still fell far short of the original.

Even so, Ye Zhenyi still showed him special favor.

Then how highly must she evaluate Zhenzhen’s original work?

Han Fu clearly remembered something Pei Zhen had told him just the night before last. During the PA Competition, they should humbly accept the judges’ feedback, but couldn’t take everything as gospel.

At the very least, don’t listen to Yi Changqing’s opinions.

And Zhu Su, by nature, had an aesthetic that slightly deviated from the norm. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be jokingly nicknamed “Perfume Poison.” But who cares? He was handsome, his “Brother Poison Grass” persona was endearing, his fan economy was immensely powerful, his perfumes sold like hotcakes, and his status in the industry rose accordingly.

Among the three, the only one universally recognized for superior skill was the “Perfume Queen,” Ye Zhenyi.

Pei Zhen had said that Ye Zhenyi’s opinions should align relatively well with the industry’s authoritative, fair assessments—works she praised, if not popular immediately, would become so later. And works she disliked, for the most part, wouldn’t stand the test of time.

…

Competition time ended. All contestants left their workstations as instructed, forbidden to touch their creations any further.

Next, ten senior industry judges would anonymously score all the contestants’ perfume creations. For each round, ten judges, each with a 10-point scale. The results would be displayed live on the large screen behind the broadcast hall’s back door.

With “Alcohol” as the theme, all contestants had displayed their unique abilities.

The submitted works received their share of praise and recognition, while others faced a barrage of denial and doubt. Some even sparked controversy. But whether scoring high or low, every work received many pertinent comments and identified shortcomings.

“The concept is very bold.” “The color is too heavy and will stain clothing.” “Not soft enough.” “The fragrance is unbalanced.” “Distillation time was too long.” “Failed to highlight the ‘Alcohol’ theme well.”…

Han Fu carefully observed from the sidelines for every single fragrance.

He also listened with the utmost seriousness to the judges’ feedback, taking it all as a warning for himself.

Probably starting a few years ago, he had already perfected the skill of “absorbing valuable lessons from others’ mistakes.”

This was a “survival skill” he was determined he had to master. After all, he was still very young, still at an age “prone to making mistakes.”

But, he couldn’t afford to make them.

Here, with Pei Zhen, if he didn’t do well enough, he could easily be out on his ear. And he wanted more than anything to be able to stay by his side.

Besides.

In a lifetime, making one unforgivable mistake was already one too many.

…

Han Fu’s fragrance was evaluated relatively late in the queue.

He was nervous, barely daring to breathe. But watching the judges’ expressions shift from blank, to slight surprise, then to exchanging nods and smiling as they discussed, it actually gave him considerable confidence.

“Overall, it’s a very moving scent.”

“Sweet yet with a hint of bitterness. The top, middle, and base notes are distinctly layered, patiently telling a complete story step by step. It fits the ‘Liquor Chocolate’ theme perfectly.”

“Of course, if some of the raw ingredients were extracted using the creator’s own method, it might possess a more personalized ‘charm.’ But achieving this finished product using simple ingredients shows highly mature skill.”

“I can’t call it ‘perfect,’ but the fragrance’s rhythm and balance have reached a remarkably high level.”

“The only blemish is that, if it could, like some other contestants’ works, pay more attention to visual appearance and color control…”

Han Fu lowered his head, not looking up at Pei Zhen.

Logically, receiving praise meant he’d done alright, and Zhenzhen should be satisfied with his performance.

He should be happy, proudly winking at him, not feeling this sense of loss and melancholy.

But his heart truly felt terrible. The judges said this work couldn’t be considered “perfect,” but Pei Zhen’s original was perfect. The judges said the color control wasn’t good enough, but the original “Liquor Chocolate” was so brilliantly beautiful.

They were praising the shoddy replica concocted by a novice perfumer.

Yet they had no chance to truly appreciate that creation and see just how good it really was. They wouldn’t know how much talent its true owner possessed.

The scores came out one after another.

On the large screen: 9, 9.1, 9.3… Five or six scores had already been revealed, all uniformly above 9.

No other contestant before this had received such high scores. In fact, across the entire field, Han Fu was the only one achieving more than half his scores above 9-plus.

The live audience couldn’t smell the works at this moment.

But that didn’t stop them from gauging the contestant’s strength directly through the screen full of high scores from the judges. They followed the sixth 9-plus, the seventh 9-plus, becoming heated, excited, and expectant.

Eighth… 9-plus. Ninth still 9-plus. The entire audience began to stir.

Tenth, the tenth…

The final score finally popped up: a glaring, jarring, vivid “3.”

Following a string of 9-pluses, this score suddenly appeared. The whole venue froze in shock, then erupted in an uproar.

Scoring was anonymous. No one knew who had given that “3.”

The head director nearly went insane, shouting at the assistant nearby to immediately confirm if it was a mistake. After a few dozen seconds of chaos, the assistant ran back out, shaking his head. His body language indicated that a judge had indeed given a “3.”

The director still didn’t believe it. They restarted the scoring, blanked the screen, and ran it again. The last score was still a “3.” No change.

…

Pei Zhen felt there was no need to guess who that particular spectacle of a person was.

Of the ten judges, besides Zhu Su, Ye Zhenyi, and Yi Changqing, all were respected senior figures in their forties and fifties or older. And the only one whose “aesthetic could be warped,” Zhu Su, wouldn’t be warped to that degree.

The most direct evidence—he was sitting very close to the judges’ panel.

He clearly saw that while everyone else was baffled by the “3,” whispering and frowning, only Yi Changqing, after a fleeting flicker of surprise, was struggling to suppress but repeatedly failing to hide the curve of his lips twitching upward in delight.

After the commotion died down, the judges continued scoring the remaining contestants’ works.

Several judges consistently gave stricter scores, but that kind of glaring, abnormal score fluctuation never appeared again.

The final ranking came out. Fu Yao held first place for the moment with a total score of 89.5. Fatty was a mere 0.1 points behind in second. Han Fu was third, with a total score of 84.9.

If not for being dragged down by that bizarre 3-point score, he should have been firmly in first place this round.

“…” Han Fu himself thought it didn’t really matter.

A third-place finish wasn’t top-tier, but it was absolutely not bad. And according to the PA competition rule of “Top three from the first round are exempt from elimination,” no matter how his submission for the second round turned out, his safety was guaranteed for this elimination round. He wouldn’t be sent home.

Short-term plan: Safely survive the first elimination match.

Plan achieved √.

…

During the intermission, the audience rested, but the contestants were relentlessly pursued by the diligent cameramen.

Especially Han Fu. Cameras were practically shoved in his face. Gossip livestream hosts kept pressing him for an interview on his thoughts about that “3.”

Han Fu pleaded and begged to be let go, almost abandoning all pretense and shouting directly to the livestream audience, “I seriously have to piss, gotta go!”

He finally broke through the encirclement. Just as he frantically rushed to the back corridor, he was grabbed by Fatty, who was just returning from relieving himself.

“Hey hey, Old Han, perfect timing. Come over and strategize. What’s the plan for the next part?”

Han Fu: Strategize my ass!

No time to strategize with you! Just now, while he was trapped, Yi Changqing seemed to shoot Pei Zhen a look, and then Pei Zhen followed him out. Urgent!

Fatty: “No, Old Han, listen to me. Although we were second and third this round, meaning next round we’re safe from elimination, we still have to do a solid job! Ideally, we both get top three again, keep our points high. That way, if we stumble badly later, we’ll have a cushion to save us.”

As Fatty spoke, he shook the 1ml glass vial in his hand.

Han Fu had also just been given one. Inside was a perfume sample of the winner Fu Yao’s magically modified women’s fragrance from the previous round.

In thirty minutes, when the break ended, the second round, “Refinement,” would begin.

In the refinement round, all contestants had to uniformly replicate the previous round winner’s perfume, and then independently refine and improve upon the original foundation. The requirement was to preserve the original fragrance’s characteristics while striving to make it more harmonious and alluring than the original.

Fatty: “No wonder in the first round, Fu Yao could have easily replicated the original and cruised through, but chose to do that incredibly difficult magic modification instead! She planned it all along. She was aiming for first place, and then wanted to screw us all over in the second round!”

“Calling it ‘men’s fragrance transformed into women’s fragrance,’ but frankly, she just improvised a fragrance of ‘her own.'”

“With an unfamiliar new fragrance like this, not knowing exactly what ingredients she used, even replicating it is hard, let alone improving it! When the time comes, she’ll be the only one doing well, and the rest of our scores will be crushed super low.”

“Han Fu! Han Fu, are you even listening to me? Wake up! Don’t let a temporary victory go to your head. This is the PA! We all worked so hard to get here. We carry the hopes of Old Yu and your President Pei on our shoulders!”

Han Fu: “…”

Yes, Fatty was right. He needed to straighten up.

His attitude towards the competition had been a bit too “primitive.” When the first round announced the theme “Alcohol,” his only thought was, what would Zhenzhen like? I want to make something Zhenzhen would enjoy.

But other contestants, like Fu Yao, had opted for meticulous strategic planning—thinking one move ahead, watching three steps ahead. If Fatty hadn’t kindly pointed it out, he wouldn’t have realized it at all!

He hastily thanked Fatty.

But right now, his top priority was definitely finding Pei Zhen first!

Han Fu had gone abroad at eighteen, never attending university in his home country. But many high school classmates had studied domestically, complaining about Marxist philosophy in their freshman statuses. What was that “things have two sides, opposing yet unified”? He couldn’t get it.

Han Fu didn’t understand either, until today.

He had always thought Pei Zhen’s bad leg was simply a “bad thing.” He hadn’t expected things truly did have two sides. There was actually a benefit to walking slowly!

He actually managed to catch up to him halfway.

The deep corridor was conveniently deserted. Without hesitation, he intercepted him, pulling him into an embrace and pressing him against the corner wall.

Pei Zhen: “You…”

Han Fu: “Zhenzhen, don’t go find him. Don’t fall for his tricks! Ignore him, don’t talk to him!”

I don’t want you to go see that jerky 3-point overlord.

Even if it’s just to confront him, to argue with him—still no!