News from Taiwan

Chapter 12 Enzymatic Reactions
Shen Huaizhou was carefully wiping away the tiny bits of instant noodle soup that had fallen onto the tea table with a tissue. Jiang Guier secretly rejoiced. Before eating the instant noodles, she had deliberately taken out several extra tissues and neatly placed them under the bowl to prevent this from happening. Sure enough, Shen Huaizhou was just as she had analyzed.

After finishing the cleaning, Shen Huaizhou looked coldly at Jiang Guier, who was slowly and methodically eating her noodles with her head down. He wanted to tell her to leave, but the words stuck in his throat again.

Judging by how fast she eats, he'll probably be able to finish his next task by the time she's done.

After he left, Jiang Guier's tense body finally relaxed. She wiped her mouth, took out her phone and sighed. She scrolled through her phone, but there were no new messages.

Jiang Guier followed Shen Huaizhou's example and cleaned up the leftover instant noodles.

She moved gently, afraid that making a sound would attract Shen Huaizhou's attention, but also wanting to know how he was doing at work, so she secretly moved her feet forward a little.

Shen Huaizhou returned to his repair table and resumed his work. The stack of stuck-together letters, with the edges of the top layer still stubbornly glued to the bottom, were giving him a headache.

His knuckles, white from gripping the tweezers, cast a long, narrow shadow on his nose from the cold light of the desk lamp. "The glue here contains animal glue, which is difficult to remove. When it gets wet, it soaks out the original glue from the paper."

His voice was a little hoarse than before, "We need to soak it in a constant temperature solution to try and classify it."

Jiang Guier listened intently, but this time she didn't dare to go any further.

She looked at Shen Huaizhou and used a micromanipulator to observe the fibers of the letter paper.

Shen Huaizhou stared intently at the crisscrossing cracks on the screen, which resembled a frozen river in the dim blue light. "We have to use the enzymatic separation method."

He muttered to himself as he added 0.1 ml of cellulase to the petri dish, the needle tip hovering three millimeters above the liquid surface, his hand trembling slightly.

Jiang Guier noticed that his Adam's apple bobbed twice, and his eyebrows, which had been relaxed while eating instant noodles, furrowed into small hills again.

There shouldn't be any problems, right?

Just as she was getting nervous, her phone suddenly vibrated in her palm.

Jiang Guier stepped back to the tea table, answered the phone, and whispered, "What's wrong, Qian Xin?"

Qian Xin's anxious voice came from the other end of the phone: "Sister Gui'er, something bad has happened! The client suddenly requested additional materials, what should we do?"

"What? Adding material at the last minute? Dream on." As soon as she said it, she realized she was too loud, so she hurriedly covered her mouth and glanced guiltily at Shen Huaizhou.

At this moment, Shen Huaizhou was focused on applying absorbent paper to the glued area. His profile looked particularly hard in the sunlight, as if he hadn't heard Jiang Guier's voice.

She lowered her voice and said, "Reject them. I don't have time for that."

"No, Sister Gui'er, I refused before, but they produced a contract and said that if I didn't add the materials, I would be in breach of contract..." Qian Xin's face was more bitter than a bitter gourd at this moment. She never expected that this cunning client would actually have a trick in the contract.

After hearing Qian Xin's explanation, Jiang Guier gritted her teeth and said, "That's really insidious and cunning. Okay, I understand."

After saying that, she hung up the phone, but she couldn't suppress the anger in her heart. What kind of mess was this!
What a terrible brand! I'm going to blacklist this customer from now on.

She turned around and suddenly realized that Shen Huaizhou had stopped moving at some point.

Oh no! "Ms. Shen, did I disturb you?" she said cautiously.

Shen Huaizhou's gaze was cold and his face expressionless. "No, we're waiting for the medicine to react." In reality, he was planning how to tell Jiang Guier that he hoped she would leave as soon as possible.

"oh oh."

Jiang Guier lowered her eyes and saw her own shadow shrinking into a timid ball on the wall. She bit her lower lip and said, "Um... I have a favor to ask. Could I borrow your studio to take a few photos?"

Shen Huaizhou's eyelashes trembled. "My studio is simple and I'm afraid it's not worthy of Miss Jiang." His tone was as calm as if he were describing the weather, but Jiang Guier could hear the chill in his voice that kept him at arm's length.

A roundabout way of refusing means there's still a chance!
Undeterred, Jiang Guier took half a step forward. "It'll be fine in a little while, don't worry, it definitely won't make any more noise." Her voice grew softer and softer, the last few words almost swallowed up by the hum of the dehumidifier.

Shen Huaizhou's palm trembled slightly, like the pounding of an uneasy heart. "How long will it take?"

Jiang Guier's heart skipped a beat, as if the wrinkles on a repaired letter had suddenly smoothed out.

He actually agreed?

"Soon, at most half an hour."

"Ok."

Upon hearing Shen Huaizhou's agreement, Jiang Guier immediately took action. She didn't choose any other place, but instead chose the rattan chair next to Shen Huaizhou's tea table.

She set up her phone, carefully adjusted the angle to ensure the shot would perfectly capture the effect she wanted, and then gently turned the rattan chair so that it aligned with the pear wood screen. After completing these preparations, Jiang Guier took out the snacks sent by the brand from her bag, held them in her hand, sat down with satisfaction, adjusted the timer function on her phone, took a deep breath, and prepared to start taking photos.

Shen Huaizhou, who should have continued to monitor the reaction of the medicine, kept glancing over to see Jiang Guier fiddling around. He thought this was a normal reaction for someone in the studio.

I watched her go back and forth several times, constantly adjusting the shooting angle and movements, but she still couldn't seem to achieve the desired effect.

Shen Huaizhou frowned, thinking: Is this difficult?
He glanced down at the letter in the glass dish, and after confirming that there was nothing wrong, he stood up. "Let me help you," he said in a deep and gentle voice.

Seeing Shen Huaizhou offer his help, Jiang Guier almost couldn't hide the surprise in her eyes. She hadn't expected Shen Huaizhou to offer his help and was a little at a loss. So, she squatted down for a few seconds before getting up, saying, "Thank you."

"Tell me what to do."

Jiang Guier explained the desired photo effect in detail. Shen Huaizhou listened quietly. He squatted down and pointed the camera at Jiang Guier, his serious and focused demeanor exactly the same as his previous work attitude.

"Click." After taking a photo, Shen Huaizhou stood up and showed his phone to Jiang Guier.

Jiang Guier wasn't entirely satisfied with some details of the photo and made some requests regarding the shooting angle and lighting. After adjusting it several times, the two became increasingly in sync.

Under Shen Huaizhou's lens, Jiang Guier's beauty was magnified. Every smile and glance of hers was captured perfectly. The natural, relaxed beauty made him stare at the screen for a few extra seconds several times.

Meanwhile, in the glass dish on the repair table, the enzymatic reaction was still ongoing, and the tangled pages were quietly separating.

(End of this chapter)