“Gu Yan arranged a design task for me. It is an extremely important one.”

When Gu Manman mentioned her current work, she couldn’t help showing off to Qi Changfeng. After all, this could be regarded as the biggest design task she had received in a long time.

Qi Changfeng did not speak, because he knew that there was more she wanted to say. If what Gu Manman mentioned was nothing but great, she would not be like this upset now. He just took a sip of wine silently, and then looked at her, as if indicating that she could continue with her words.

By what she told him, he knew that Gu Yan must have fulfilled her promise with him by testing Gu Manman’s strength now. Qi Changfeng knew very well that Gu Manman was capable of designing, and this was a good thing. So why did she look for him and talk about this?

“But I can’t make any designs right now.”

Gu Manman sounded really frustrated when she said this, and Qi Changfeng could hear it.

“Can’t make any designs? What does that mean?” Qi Changfeng thought and didn’t quite understand. “Isn’t it important to be talented when it comes to making designs? Gu Manman is talented, and I’m very clear about that. So what does she mean by saying that she can’t make any designs?”

“I think I’m at a bottleneck stage now.”

After saying this, Gu Manman swallowed a mouthful of wine, but felt as if the wine was not pure, but bitter and astringent. Gu Manman felt that her tears were about to rush out from her eyes even if she didn’t want to cry in front of him.

“Bottleneck stage?” Qi Changfeng thought and was shocked to hear that. “How could that be? I’ve never heard her mention it before. Could it be that Gu Yan was putting too much pressure on her?” But Qi Changfeng denied his guess right away. “No, Gu Yan is not that kind of person. Even if she wanted to test Gu Manman, she would only do it in a gentle way.”

Gu Yan would never use extreme means to agitate Gu Manman, and Qi Changfeng was very sure of this. If it was not Gu Yan that made Gu Manman look this upset, could it be Jiang Jingcheng?

“What did Jiang Jingcheng say?” Qi Changfeng asked without thinking.

“Did Jiang Jingcheng say something that provoked Gu Manman?” He wondered.

“He doesn’t believe that I can finish this design task well.”

Although Gu Manman had agreed to Gu Yan’s arrangement because of her challenge from Jiang Jingcheng, the fact that she could not make any designs had nothing to do with him. It was her own reason that she could not make a satisfying design.

When Qi Changfeng heard Gu Manman’s words, he knew that he was right about Jiang Jingcheng being ungrateful. His cousin liked him because she thought highly of him. How could he be so ungrateful? He did not have to like Gu Manman, but Qi Changfeng would never allow something like Jiang Jingcheng belittling his cousin on this matter.

But Gu Manman just went on talking and didn’t know that Qi Changfeng had misunderstood what she meant. At this point, she couldn’t help thinking that the reason that she took up this job was that she couldn’t accept Jiang Jingcheng’s contempt for her, and she just wanted to make some achievements for him to see.

But she had never expected that she couldn’t design anything by now…

“Don’t mind what Jiang Jingcheng said. Just focus on your own design. Does it matter what the others say?”

Qi Changfeng thought that Gu Manman was sad only because of other people’s sarcasm. He didn’t think about the bottleneck stage that she had mentioned before at all.

“It has nothing to do with others. It’s just me and my own reason. Changfeng, I can’t design anything.”

It was true that Jiang Jingcheng’s contempt and distrust made Gu Manman feel a bit upset. However, what really made her sad was the obstacle that she was facing, which was the bottleneck stage in her career as a designer. She knew in theory that in the life of a designer, she would definitely encounter situations where she felt stuck at designing.

But now when she found herself actually being in that stage, she realized that this kind of thing was not so simple to deal with. It was not something that she could go through easily as she wanted to.

Right now, Gu Manman had a lot of pioneering and wonderful ideas in her mind, but she was very clear that these inspirations had nothing to do with the actual work. What she needed was a systematic overall design proposal, not these scattered and unorganized fragments.

This feeling made her feel very uncomfortable. It was like an excellent painter suddenly becoming blind, who couldn’t distinguish colors anymore and couldn’t use them or make them into a beautiful painting. This feeling was absolutely impossible to understand unless one had experienced it personally.

Qi Changfeng paused for a moment. In the beginning, he had thought that Gu Manman just had quarreled with Jiang Jingcheng again and had not thought about her bottleneck stage at all. However, even though he knew little about designs, he knew how she was feeling right now.

Only now did he know how much pressure Gu Manman was under. Although in order to make her become serious about her career, he asked Gu Yan to test her, it had imperceptibly put so much pressure on her. It made his heart ache and he blamed himself. This was not his original intention at all.

However, he knew that even if Gu Manman was now in trouble, he could not encourage her to give up so easily. This was not something that he would do. He would only ask Gu Manman to face it head-on. Although the process might be very difficult, it was much better than admitting defeat without trying.

Although he did not know how to fix her problems exactly, he thought that Gu Yan could help her on this matter. So he noted down what Gu Manman said in his heart. It seemed that he would owe Gu Yan another favor this time.

Previously, he had solemnly promised Gu Yan that Gu Manman was a very talented person on designing. But now, he was about to ask her to help teach Gu Manman. He smiled bitterly in his heart. Now, Gu Yan must think that he had said those complimentary words about Gu Manman just to trick her into allowing Gu Manman to stay in the studio.

But even if Gu Yan misunderstood him, didn’t he still have to help Gu Manman solve her problem? He couldn’t bear to see Gu Manman sad because of what happened to her. Moreover, in his eyes, her bottleneck stage was not a very difficult thing to deal with. Now, Gu Manman felt trapped within this stage, and that was why her bad feelings had been magnified infinitely and she felt utterly frustrated.

However, Qi Changfeng did not think so. He regarded that Gu Manman’s current difficulties in her career could be solved. If Gu Yan was willing to give her some advice, not only could Gu Manman overcome her current predicament, but Gu Yan could also get to know Gu Manman better and understand her better.

Thinking of this, Qi Changfeng felt that he could not delay handling this matter any longer. He could not let Gu Manman suffer like this.