Chapter 61.2

Because there were quite a few leftovers from the barbecue feast last night, and since it was close to her house, Quartermaster Luo had moved all the remaining dishes to Wen Nuan’s home.

Since there was food at home, at noon, Wen Nuan prepared some tiger skin peppers and chive omelets to take to Gu Qinglan.

Gu Qinglan had been very busy lately and hadn’t been to their house for many days. The only time she had visited recently was during the talent show when she went to the auditorium to watch Gu Qinglan perform.

Lele would occasionally call out “Auntie” during mealtimes, likely because she missed her.

Thus, Wen Nuan took Lele along with lunch to visit Qinglan.

—o—o—o—

When they arrived at the hospital, Gu Qinglan was in the middle of administering an IV to a patient.

Seeing Wen Nuan and Lele, she smiled and said, “Sister-in-law, Lele, you’re here!”

When Lele saw Gu Qinglan, she excitedly shouted: “Auntie!”

Wen Nuan raised the lunchbox in her hand and smiled, “I brought you lunch.”

Gu Qinglan was so happy that she almost jumped up and said, “Wait for me for a moment. I’ll be off in five minutes.”

Lele wanted to rush over to Gu Qinglan, but Wen Nuan pulled her back and said: “Wait a minute, Auntie is still busy.”

Lele watched Gu Qinglan’s busy figure, pouting her lips and starting to look unhappy again.

Wen Nuan led Lele toward the nurses’ lounge, but as they passed by the emergency room, she heard a woman’s voice asking, “Manqing, didn’t you say that General Lu is your god-grandfather? Why didn’t you have him come see you yesterday? You’re in such bad shape.”

Then another weak voice replied gloomily, “My god-grandfather is very busy. I just have a common cold; I definitely can’t trouble him.”

Wen Nuan immediately caught the mention of General Lu and looked over, spotting two familiar faces sitting in the IV drip area.

She recognized them as members of the art troupe. During the talent show, she had enjoyed their performance, so their faces were quite fresh in her memory.

He Manqing and her companion, Zhou Yun, quickly noticed Wen Nuan and the little doll beside her.

For some reason, He Manqing suddenly furrowed her brow, and her gaze toward Wen Nuan turned somewhat cold.

Wen Nuan met He Manqing’s eyes and felt a bit puzzled about what she meant by her gaze—but being looked at so rudely made her uncomfortable, so she directly pulled Lele away and walked off.

Zhou Yun watched Wen Nuan’s figure fade away and whispered to He Manqing, “Our arts troupe’s performance was so good; how did we end up losing to the Kitchen Team?”

He Manqing huffed and replied, “Don’t forget that her husband is also one of the judges.”

Zhou Yun’s eyes widened in realization. “No wonder! We lost to the Kitchen Team by just one point. It must be because her husband gave us high scores.”

She thought for a moment and added, “We should have definitely secured first place. Our scores were almost perfect!”

He Manqing sighed, feeling regretful about losing the top spot and also indignant.

If they had lost to the women from the public relations department, she could understand that, but losing to the Kitchen Team was simply incomprehensible.

None of them stood out; she just couldn’t figure out the reason why their department won.

Moreover, because of this performance, Leader Liao had already expressed significant dissatisfaction with her. He hadn’t allowed her to return to the troupe for practice in the past few days.

He Manqing felt she was reaching her limit, which was why she had come to the hospital to check things out.

Zhou Yun sighed, “Manqing if you had known, you should have gone to speak with General Lu. Who knows, the first place might have been ours.”

He Manqing lowered her gaze slightly. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to; it was just that General Lu didn’t have the time to meet her at all.

However, she couldn’t say that the reason the arts troupe members were friendly with her, a girl from the countryside, was entirely because of General Lu.

But they didn’t know that she hadn’t been in contact with General Lu for two years. The last time they spoke was when she expressed her desire to be an arts soldier, which was how she ended up being assigned to Northern City.

In reality, she hadn’t wanted to come to Northern City; she had wanted to go to Beijing. But General Lu stopped answering her calls.

When he came to the military district in Northern City to offer condolences, she sent someone to notify him. However, the assistant on her god-grandfather’s side, Xiao Zhang, refused to let her see the General.

He said he had matters to attend to and was worried that her illness might be contagious to General Lu.

But He Manqing had heard that General Lu had Xiao Zhang fetch some useless model from the auditorium in the middle of the night for the Kitchen Team, so he wasn’t actually too busy; he just probably didn’t want to see her.

Later, she wrote a letter, but even after her god-grandfather returned to Beijing, she didn’t receive a single word in response.

Thinking about this made He Manqing feel a bit dejected.

However, she couldn’t let the members of the art troupe know; otherwise, she would be even more out of place after this incident.

He Manqing smiled and said, “Winning first place this way isn’t very honorable.”

For the sake of that first place, Leader Liao and several comrades from the arts troupe had criticized her, saying it was her fault for getting on stage while sick, which had caused them to lose the top spot.

Zhou Yun opened her mouth and said, “Well, it’s still because of General Lu’s god-granddaughter. Manqing, your awareness is quite impressive.”

Hearing Zhou Yun’s words, He Manqing felt pleased and smiled, saying, “Not at all! Our arts troupe has always been open and aboveboard. Everyone knows we have the talent; this time’s mistake was just an accident.”

However, while they thought no one had overheard their conversation, they didn’t realize that a fierce gaze had been watching them for a while.

Gu Qinglan stood with her hands on her hips, angrily pointing at He Manqing and Zhou Yun. “You two, who are you saying is not worthy of first place? Did you forget to bring your eyes when you went to watch the performance, or did you leave your brains at home?”

“Everyone witnessed the kitchen team’s performance that night. They had creativity! Did you miss the creative ending? Nine out of ten people said they liked it and thought the paper airplanes and models were cool! How dare you say that the Kitchen Team’s first place isn’t honorable?”

He Manqing and Zhou Yun hadn’t anticipated that their conversation would be overheard. They had only begun discussing this matter after seeing Wen Nuan walk away with the child.

Seeing Gu Qinglan in her nurse’s uniform, He Manqing didn’t want to argue with her, so she steeled herself and said, “Comrade, you don’t need to be so worked up. We weren’t saying anything about you…”

Gu Qinglan raised her voice and shouted, “Oh, so you’re saying I shouldn’t maliciously slander others? You think you’re so great just because you can dance, huh? You think you can’t possibly lose to the Kitchen Team?”

As soon as He Manqing heard this, she immediately became angry and stood up. “What nonsense are you talking about? What’s wrong with us thinking we’re great just because we can dance? Can you dance? Do you even know how to dance?”

Gu Qinglan burst out laughing. “You’re just embarrassed that you lost to the Kitchen Team, right?”

Wen Nuan, who was holding Lele, walked over. She had already overheard their conversation and looked at He Manqing and Zhou Yun: “It’s more embarrassing to not be able to accept losing.”

Upon seeing Wen Nuan come over with Lele, Gu Qinglan initially wanted to tell her that she could handle the argument, but Wen Nuan handed Lele to her instead.

Gu Qinglan smiled as she took Lele.

Lele immediately wrapped her arms around her neck and called out, “Auntie!”

Gu Qinglan kissed the little doll in her arms and said, “Auntie misses you too!”

Then, Wen Nuan stepped forward a couple of paces toward He Manqing and Zhou Yun and slowly said, “Our Kitchen Team has also put in sweat and time for this performance. Instead of reflecting on yourselves, all you can think of is that we don’t deserve the first place. That’s what you call low-class.”

In Gu Qinglan’s arms, Lele echoed Wen Nuan’s words and shouted: “Low-class!”

Gu Qinglan couldn’t help but burst into laughter and whispered in Lele’s ear: “Well said!”

As soon as she spoke, He Manqing and Zhou Yun’s faces turned pale, their expressions resembling a spilled palette of colors.

The crowd of onlookers grew larger. Many people, seeing Gu Qinglan arguing with the two women, initially thought a medical dispute had occurred.

However, when they heard it was about dancing and the Kitchen Team, they curiously gathered around, likely thinking it was related to the gala from the past two nights.

“Isn’t this about scoring? Whoever gets the highest score is in first place, right? Why argue about it?”

“Aren’t those the women from the Art Troupe? Did they lose to the Kitchen Team and are now unwilling to accept it?”

“I think so. Just think about it; the Art Troupe and public relations department has almost always been first place every year. However, this year, they were suddenly being overshadowed by the Kitchen Team. They must be unhappy.”

“But the Kitchen Team’s performance this year was genuinely creative; they put a lot of thought into it. Didn’t that model of a fighter jet even get taken back to the capital by General Lu? They really liked it!”

“Exactly! If you can’t accept losing, then don’t participate. It’s not like only those who can dance should take first place. Personally, I think the Kitchen Team’s performance was really innovative, and they even had a bunch of kids on stage. That’s a first time!”

He Manqing clenched her teeth tightly, listening to the crowd’s comments, wishing she could just dig a hole and bury herself in it.

Beside her, Zhou Yun felt even more embarrassed. In the past, who didn’t like their Art Troupe? Everyone looked forward to their performances, but now…

This was the first time Zhou Yun had experienced being pointed at and talked about by others. The feeling was worse than losing first place.

Wen Nuan glanced at them, no longer wanting to argue with those people. She then signaled to Gu Qinglan with her eyes to head over there and eat.

“Let’s go; if we don’t eat soon, the food will get cold.”

Upon hearing this, Gu Qinglan exclaimed, “Food! Finally, we can eat!”

She walked over to the lounge with Lele in her arms, continuing to tease Lele along the way.

Lele was delighted, laughing heartily, and reached out to touch Gu Qinglan’s face and said: “Auntie is fat.”

Gu Qinglan exclaimed, “???”

She pinched Lele’s nose and questioned, “Wait, did you just say Auntie is fat? You’re wronging me!”

Lately, she had been so busy that her feet hardly touched the ground. Li Daxiang had even said yesterday that she had lost weight—where was this idea of being fat coming from?

Wen Nuan turned back to look at Gu Qinglan and chuckled. “Don’t listen to her nonsense. It’s your big brother who said she was fat, and now she’s just repeating it.”

Lele burst into laughter again and said: “Mommy is fat!”

After saying this, she buried her face in Gu Qinglan’s shoulder, sneakily checking to see if Wen Nuan was coming over to scold her.

Wen Nuan simply gave Lele’s face a gentle pinch and laughed, “Just look at your own face; it’s as round as the moon!”

Lele realized that Wen Nuan wasn’t angry and beamed as she cupped her own cheeks, exclaiming, “Round!”

Gu Qinglan kissed her on the cheek, saying, “Yes, round and adorable!”

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cute lele~

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