52 First Impressions (2/2)
”Horse appraisal? There sure are plenty of horse races today, and here I thought… Wait a minute, is the horse appraisal you're talking about for the race at the Countryside Racecourse this afternoon?” Han Chu was surprised by the coincidence. Then his exasperation turned into intrigue. ”Not bad, truly not bad, so you're the horse appraiser representing San Lin City?”
Han Chu was fascinated. Based on the voice on the phone, Han Chu would have no problem believing it belonged to a prim and proper young lady from a Great House. But from what Fang Mo had told him and from what he had heard so far, this person was not a normal hidden talent; she even knew how to appraise horses. Looks like she does know plenty of things!
Han Chu's voice peaked with interest. ”Then, I shall see you at the racecourse! By the way, the rider for the Capital Team was personally hand-picked by yours truly, so if you win this competition, you can start by taking Level C cases from me directly in the future.”
Hoping to make this more interesting, mostly for himself, Han Chu offered this additional perk. Even the best talent would start with Level F cases to get themself familiar with the job. There would be a training partnership system where the rookie had to follow the more experienced Foxes on cases before they were allowed to take independent cases. To be able to take Level C cases on entry level, Han Chu was giving too much face to both Ye Shuang and Fang Mo.
Alas, his kindness did not affect Ye Shuang, who had no idea of the inner-workings of the job structure. Before this, she did not even know head-hunting cases were delineated according to difficulty; therefore, her focus was not on the same thing as Han Chu. Instead she gasped, ”Win the competition? But the problem is, I only appraise horses; I do not race them myself. No matter how good I am at my job, it will only contribute a slight advantage to the actual race. Don't you think your request is a bit fantastical?”
”Fan…” Han Chu almost choked. ”In any case, it's up to you whether you want to take the chance or not; I'm only interested in the outcome.”
The phone call soon concluded. At least it did not end up with both parties yelling at each other, but it was true that they did not see eye to eye on the supposed 'test'.
At the end of the day, Ye Shuang's horse appraisal was doing her friend a favor. She was not there as a professional horse appraiser, so no matter how good the group of socialites' first impression was of her, it was unrealistic to expect them to follow her every word.
So, the only thing she could do was find the best horse from the bunch to compete with the best horse flown over from England. That alone was hard task, but combined with the difference in the level of the riders themselves…
Ye Shuang saw Han Chu's request as unreasonable and absurd.
Equally, Han Chu saw Ye Shuang's multiple excuses as a sign of someone difficult to work with. In any case, both parties had a bad first impression of each other.
After a while, before Ye Shuang could come up with a solution to win the race, the call from Sister Yuan came.