December 12, U.S. time, is a Tuesday day. Local people in the United States don't know that on the other side of the ocean, there will be a shopping festival called "Double Twelve". In this land, there are still more than ten days of Christmas, which is the festival they care about the most.

Much like the Chinese New Year, Christmas is also a time of year for family reunions in Western countries. However, if you want to talk about the color of the Spring Festival, it is probably red, and the atmosphere is also lively and jubilant, with firecrackers ringing in unison. In contrast, Christmas is much quieter, probably because of the dark green and tall Christmas trees.

1/

"Thank you for visiting my house today." It was Miss Stella Chin who spoke. Since the last Thanksgiving appearance, she seems to have been in the mansion lately, and she is no longer elusive. Today she called Yang Yiming and Yu Xiaochun, and together with the housekeeper Penelope, she was entertaining a beverage merchant from Taiwan in fluent English in the main building of her mansion.

"Thank you, Miss Stella, for your hospitality." The answer was Ms. Huang, the marketing director of the beverage company, a Taiwanese woman in her 40s, who is also quite fluent in English, wears gold-rimmed eyes, has decent makeup, and is much better than women of the same age.

"Your house is so beautiful, I've never seen a house this big." Echoing the admiration is Miss Lin, who is in charge of product research and development, is obviously the youngest of the three, and she can't help but look left and right since she entered the house.

"Thank you, Miss Lin. You may be seated, everyone. Stella's mansion is an L-shaped shape from the air, with an old brick and stone mansion on one vertical and a modern building with transparent glass on the other, and they are now in this horizontal living room, occupying the entire southwest corner of the first floor of the glass building. Although the exterior of the building is made of mirrors to create an angular structure, it is difficult to see the inside of the living room from the outside, but the people inside can enjoy the view from the outside. Sunlight pours in through the glass, illuminating the room golden. Sofa armchairs of various colors and styles are arranged in a staggered manner in the room, which does not look obtrusive at all. After the master had spoken, everyone took a seat and sat down.

"It's really embarrassing to let the two of you go so far for this endorsement contract." After taking his seat, Yang Yiming spoke first. Indeed, as he said, the players are usually busy training in the middle of the season, and the preliminary communication with the endorsement company is completed through email and telephone, if it weren't for Stella to form the game, it is estimated that he and Ms. Huang and Miss Lin would not meet until the final shooting of the commercial.

"Mr. Yang, you're polite. In fact, we are also very interested in the idea of co-developing beverages. Although the R&D and production of beverages is a matter that requires high professional technology, and the general cycle is relatively long, but... We'd love to hear from you, because you're our voice if we can get it done. "Ms. Huang is really old, and she speaks without leakage.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Yang's schedule is relatively tight, and we understand it very well. In addition, Miss Stella has the recommendation of Chairman Chen, and we should visit in person. "Miss Lin is still young, and she exposed Stella's relationship at once - it turned out that it was the chairman's order and she had to go on this trip.

However, Stella didn't seem to hear it, and said casually: "Since everyone is familiar with it, let's get straight to the point." ”

"Let's talk about a drink." Yu Xiaochun interjected.

"Okay, let's talk about drinks." Ms. Huang hit it off.

2/

"This is my dietitian." Yang Yiming introduced Penelope to Ms. Huang and Ms. Lin.

Penelope changed out of the cool skirt she usually wears today and put on a gray overalls, originally to match the low-key appearance of the identity of "nutritionist", but I didn't expect that because of Penelope's angry figure, people couldn't help but look sideways a little. On the upper body, under the gray tunic women's suit jacket, the white low-cut base layer is almost ready to come out. The short skirt on the lower half of the body tightly wrapped Penelope's hips, and the black stockings and nude high heels under the skirt lined her legs very slender. At this time, she held the tray in her hand, pushed open the door of the meeting room, and twisted her waist to walk towards them.

The tray is lined with glasses of gray, blue and orange, with two types of plastic cups and glasses, each with six cups.

"Please taste it." Penelope changed her usual cold tone, put the tray of drinks in front of Ms. Huang and Miss Lin with a smile on her face, bent over and said, "I remade my version according to the sample you provided. The gray was originally grapefruit, the blue was blueberry, and the orange was sweet orange, but I discussed with Mr. Yang and felt that the original drink was too close to the positioning of Gatorade, and the taste was not fresh enough, so the sweetness of the additives dominated, so I made some minor adjustments. The plastic cup is your original sample, and the glass is my adjusted version, you can compare. ”

"Plastic cups and glasses, this kind of small means can't impress us." Ms. Huang picked up the gray glass and put it to her mouth, but she still didn't forget to suppress it.

"I'll just have a drink with Ms. Huang, and there's another cup, any of you can taste it." Miss Lin humbly gave the drink on her plate to Stella and Yang Yiming, but both of them waved their hands and shook their heads, indicating that they would not drink it. She then motioned to Yu Xiaochun, who was sitting at the farthest end, and the latter saw that it was difficult to resist, so he took all the three glasses of gray, blue and orange in one go, and tasted them.

If the previous drink samples still have some strong industrial tastes, then the three cups fine-tuned by Penelope's hands really made Yu Xiaochun's "tip of the tongue" light up. Not only is the ingredients fresh, just by squeezing the juice of grapefruit, blueberries and oranges with ice water, it feels cool and refreshing, slightly sweet and quenches your thirst; And if you smack it carefully, you can taste a slightly different taste in the drink, as if it suddenly hit a person's electric current, provoke the needle tip of the heartstrings, and break through the rising sun of the skyline...

"It's really delicious." Miss Lin over there first let out a compliment, "This flavor you added to it..."

"Thank you." Penelope smiled and nodded to her, then turned to Ms. Huang, who was still savoring each cup, and explained, "My idea is that we focus on 'fresh', 'healthy' and 'original', and make a distinction between the positioning and the additive-based functional drinks on the market. In terms of taste, each one is added with a unique 'spice', a small but very unique taste, to attract the younger generation who like to be different. ”

"Hmm." Ms. Huang, who put down the drink in her hand, snorted without moving.

"For example, I added a few milligrams of jalapeño powder to the gray grapefruit juice, and the sweetness of the grapefruit juice does not make the spiciness come out, but it gives the drink a unique flavor. In the same way, I added mint leaves to the blueberries to make it even cooler. And in the last glass of orange juice, I put a little cinnamon powder, which just happened to set off the festive atmosphere of Christmas, and it will feel very warm to drink. ”

It turns out that the unique flavor in each cup is jalapeño, mint leaves, and cinnamon powder. Yu Xiaochun was nodded by Penelope's words, and then he suddenly realized.

"So Ms. Huang, what do you think?"

"You've got a good idea." Ms. Huang lifted the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose and looked at Penelope again from top to bottom, "But give me a few minutes, and Miss Lin and I will discuss it individually." ”

"Okay, next door is my private office, please use it as you like." Stella helped them push open the door to the living room, and a huge Christmas tree suddenly came into view. Standing in the horizontal and vertical hugging area of L, this Christmas tree is more than ten meters high, and it is full of colorful balls and lamp beads, like the kind of decoration that can only be found in shopping malls and parks, but the lights are not turned on, and a beam of daylight just passes through the top of the green tree and casts it on Stella's side face. She looked at the Christmas tree outside the glass, and pretended not to inadvertently say to herself:

"It's still a long time before Christmas. I wish I could hear the good news in a while..."