“Is that so?” Winnie was indeed confident.
In fact, she was even more confident when she said that.
From Yolanda’s point of view, however, she felt like Winnie was taunting her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Then do you know overconfidence is actually just arrogance? “
Winnie was still smiling nonchalantly. “Arrogance doesn’t exist in my dictionary.”
That pissed Yolanda off so much that she laughed in disbelief. “You’re so full of yourself!”
“Am I?” Winnie cocked an eyebrow. “Isn’t it more appropriate to say I’m full of myself if I challenge you in the field in which you excel at?”
“Preposterous! You wouldn’t dare challenge me like that.” An expression of pride was visible on Yolanda’s face. “If this news gets out, people will say I’m bullying you!”
Winnie’s tone remained calm. “Since you want to have a competition with me in an open manner, I don’t think you’ll bully me. So, tell me what it’s going to be. I’m good with anything.”
Yolanda furrowed her eyebrows. This woman sure is arrogant!
“To make things fair, we’ll let a third party decide what we should compete on!” she suggested.
“Sure! I can agree with that.” Winnie promptly turned to Sebastian. “How about we let Old Mr. Xander decide that?”
The old man glanced at his own granddaughter and then at Winnie.
In reality, he didn’t really want to use that method to decide if he should take Winnie in as a disciple. However, he understood that youngsters were fiercely competitive, and since things had turned out that way, he decided to go along with it.
“I know Yolanda pretty well, so I think I’ll be subconsciously biased if I do that. How about this? I’ll let my monkey randomly decide what the competition will be about to prevent any perceived unfairness.”
“Sounds good to me.” Winnie nodded. This sounds interesting and challenging.
Yolanda nodded in agreement, too.
“Very well.” Sebastian explained, “I’ll let the monkey pick three random items from the building. Then, we’ll come up with topics based on those items. The competition will conclude when someone achieves three wins. If a topic is unfamiliar to either of you, I’ll give you two some time to prepare. You’ll learn and compete on the spot. Any disagreements?”
“No!” the women exclaimed in unison.
Hearing that, Sebastian nodded, turned around, and called for the monkey.
Monkeys were intelligent animals with developed brains. After the years of training the Xander family gave the monkey, it was able to understand human speech, more or less.
Sebastian only needed to tell the monkey what to do a single time before it went into the house and grabbed something.
Soon, it revealed the first item, which was two chess pieces.
The pieces were respectively the white and black king pieces. Before the competition even started, the rivalry between the women was already quite intense.
Sebastian took the pieces and turned to the women. “So, the first round will be chess. Do you two have any objections to that?”
“Nope!” Yolanda spoke first as she gazed at Winnie. “If you’re afraid of embarrassing yourself, there’s still time for you to quit.”
The old man frowned. In the end, it wasn’t a truly fair competition because anything the monkey took out of the house would be something he was interested in.
And if he liked something, he would teach his descendants at least a little bit of it. He knew Yolanda’s chess skills were pretty good, but he wasn’t sure if Winnie knew how to play.
There wasn’t a hint of fear in Winnie’s voice when she answered, “I’m fine with it, too! It’s rare for me to lose.”
“Hah!” Yolanda couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Your head is so far up your butt that it went all the back to its original position!”
On the other hand, Winnie smiled silently.
Without delay, Sebastian asked the monkey to grab a second item, which was a traditional painting.
He announced, “For the second round, you two will compete in a traditional drawing contest. Are you two okay with that?”
Winnie didn’t even blink when she responded, “Yes.”
However, Yolanda paused for a second before asking, “What’s the theme?”
“We’ll decide later on.” That question prompted Sebastian to think about it. “Maybe the competition will test your improv skills.”
“Sure, I’m good with that. What will the third round be about?”
Soon, the monkey decided on the topic for the third round of competition.
It was holding a bow and even performed a shooting motion while aiming in Josiah’s direction.
He glared at the monkey. “When are you going to return my briefcase, huh?”
Ignoring the human, the monkey shot an arrow toward him.
Thankfully, the arrow didn’t have an arrowhead. Otherwise, Josiah’s other leg would’ve been rendered useless.
Sebastian didn’t expect the monkey to treat his guests that rudely. Thus, after he reprimanded it, he chased it away.
Since Winnie didn’t want to waste too much time, she directly asked Yolanda, “When do you plan to start the competition?”
After studying her, Yolanda uttered coldly, “I’ll give you three days at most.”
“Three days?” Winnie frowned.
“What, you think the time is too short? You need more to prepare?” Yolanda smiled.
The edges of Winnie’s lips curved upward. “I think you’re underestimating your opponent, Ms. Xander. How about we just do it today? Although, you’ll have to wait until after my husband’s acupuncture session is over. I don’t want our competition to affect his treatment. I hope you’ll understand.”
“Are you sure?” Yolanda’s eyebrows furrowed. It had been a long time since she drew a traditional painting, so she needed some time to practice.
“I’m very sure. Is that a problem for you, Ms. Xander?”
That came off as an insult to Yolanda, so she subconsciously tightened her fists and gritted her teeth. “Not at all.”
After that, Sebastian started teaching Winnie how to prepare the medicine.
To avoid humiliating herself, Yolanda sneaked back to her room to prepare.
During that period, not only did the old man teach Winnie how to prepare medicine, but he also taught her many foundational lessons about the field.
She was able to understand everything thoroughly. Not only that, she only needed him to tell her everything once. In addition, she inferred even more things as a result of her newfound knowledge.
Sebastian didn’t hesitate to shower her with praise.
Even Yolanda couldn’t help but admit Winnie was an excellent learner.
As she stared at Winnie, a complicated feeling surfaced in her heart. Why couldn’t she show up earlier? If she did, she would’ve become Grandpa’s favorite student. My brother and I wouldn’t have ended up the way we are today.
A few minutes passed, and Xavier’s acupuncture session finally came to an end.
Winnie followed Sebastian inside and saw Xavier lying on the bed, unmoving.
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