Gu Jinhuai had just finished watching a clip of a conversation between Chu Yu and her brother on the show and nodded.
"Worth considering."
Gu Jinhuai quickly put away his phone and returned his full attention to the meeting, while also making a mental note of the information about the siblings' livestream variety show.
Meanwhile, the Wen siblings, who had been preparing dinner in the kitchen, returned to the main room.
One delicious dish after another was set on the dining table, some still sending up warm wisps of steam. They certainly looked appetizing.
"Sorry for the wait, everyone. My brother and I weren't very familiar with the kitchen tools here, so it took us a little longer."
Tiny beads of sweat dotted Wen Zhixin's forehead, but even after cooking, her elegant air remained entirely unaffected.
The instant she appeared on camera, countless fans in the livestream began praising her.
[Our darling Zhixin is such wife material! Pretty, kind, and she can cook. What a treasure on earth!]
[I have to say, after seeing the dinner the Wen siblings prepared, my stomach started growling.]
[I thought I was watching a sibling reality show, but it turns out I'm watching a
food
variety show.]
"Wow! So much good food!"
Already hungry, An Yu ran over with a delighted expression, staring at the dining table and swallowing repeatedly.
An Ya actually wasn't very good at cooking, so she was indeed a little surprised to see that the Wen siblings had prepared such a huge spread.
"Zhixin, I had no idea you were such a good cook. Now I'm embarrassed to show my poor skills tomorrow."
The three older sisters had previously agreed to take turns preparing meals, and tomorrow happened to be An Ya's turn.
Wen Zhixin smiled understandingly. "It's fine. My brother and I aren't picky eaters. We'll eat whatever you make."
At that, Wen Zhixin suddenly seemed to remember something and glanced toward Chu Yu with slight hesitation. "But Xiao Yu enjoys a very high standard of living, so she might be a little more demanding about the taste..."
These words were entirely a deliberate attempt to stir up conflict and drive a wedge between them, implying that Chu Yu was pampered and had a finicky palate.
[I can't with this. Why is Chu Yu involved again? If she's so picky, can't she just get lost?]
[Speechless. You could tell from the gift-giving earlier that the Chu Family siblings are pampered types. I bet they can't even cook.]
[Chu Yu is so annoying. She can't even cook, yet she's that picky. What's the point of inviting her onto this show?]
[Okay, but don't the haters in the comments think this bashing is getting embarrassingly forced...?]
Everyone instinctively assumed that, having grown up with silver spoons in their mouths, the Chu Family siblings certainly couldn't cook.
But the truth was completely different from what the comments guessed.
From childhood, the Chu Family siblings had received the strictest elite aristocratic education. Their daily studies included not only knowledge from books, but all kinds of life skills as well.
While their skills couldn't quite rival those of Michelin master chefs, making a few Western, Italian, and Chinese dishes posed no real problem.
At that moment, Chu Yu had already risen and looked at the ill-intentioned Wen Zhixin opposite her. "You're right. I do have fairly high standards when it comes to the taste of food. Then let An Ya and me swap turns for tomorrow's meal. I'll prepare it first."
Wen Zhixin's expression briefly froze. She hadn't expected Chu Yu to volunteer to cook.
She quickly smiled. "That works too. Sorry for the trouble, Xiao Yu."
Where no one noticed, a dark gleam flashed through Wen Zhixin's eyes as she thought, Chu Yu is a pampered young heiress. She's surely never even stepped into a kitchen, let alone cooked.
She's probably only suddenly volunteering to cook tomorrow because she refuses to take this lying down and wants to save a little face.
An Ya, who had remained silent beside them, finally noticed the undercurrents between the two.
She gave Wen Zhixin a couple more looks, a measure of wariness rising in her heart, before smiling and speaking to ease the atmosphere. "All right, everyone must be hungry. Let's eat first."
Chu Chen had disliked Wen Zhixin for a long time. Now, seeing her nauseating green tea act without even bothering to hide it, he looked even more impatient.
"I'm not eating. I'm on a diet."
With that, Chu Chen turned and headed for his room without looking back, clearly having no interest whatsoever in the food the Wen siblings had made.
Little did he know that this scene directly triggered another barrage of abuse from haters in the livestream.
They began slapping every label from difficult to petty onto Chu Chen, seemingly wishing they could fill the entire livestream screen.
Chu Yu pressed her lips together, her gaze inadvertently sweeping over the camera that was filming.
She remembered that, in her dream, this very action had led to Chu Chen being viciously berated by countless haters.
Chu Yu, too, had been unable to stomach Wen Zhixin's white lotus rhetoric and had lost her temper and started arguing on the spot.
From then on, the siblings had been branded ill-mannered, leading to their later miserable ends.
Chu Yu gave a cold snort, swept back the long hair by her ear, and raised her head with a faint smile. "It's fine. Don't mind him. He'll behave after missing a few meals."
She rose and walked toward the dining table, then turned back to Wen Zhixin and said tactfully, "By the way, I really do have fairly high standards for taste, so I might offer a few suggestions about your dishes. You don't mind, do you?"
Wen Zhixin quickly smiled and shook her head. "Of course not. If anything isn't good, just say so. That'll help me improve."
In her heart, she was eager for Chu Yu to be as picky as possible. That way, without her having to do anything, the Chu Family siblings would be branded difficult.
An Ya called her brother over to sit at the dining table and served him some rice. "Go on, eat."
Chu Yu sat down opposite them, picked up a leaf of greens with her chopsticks, and put it in her mouth.
Only after chewing for a long while did she swallow. Her brows creased slightly as she instinctively commented, "The heat was too high when you stir-fried these greens. They're a little tough."
Wen Zhixin, who had been waiting for praise and compliments, stiffened on the spot.
But before she could recover, Chu Yu's next comment followed right on its heels.