TRCT_28

Chapter 28: Evening Gown — Really in Debt Up to the Ears

Fang Birong's qipao was not, in fact, as elegant and graceful as the one Shen Nanqi had worn. Its overall silhouette leaned more toward a straight cut, only slightly nipped in at the waist, which made it sit more snugly and delicately on the frame of a teenage girl.

Even so, to Lu Xueying, who had never seen a new-style qipao before, this pale yellow qipao was already novel enough.

It was not bulky and heavy like ordinary robes, which gave off an antique sense of solemnity and gravity, instead it was light, lively, refined, and gentle.

Its sleeves were narrow sleeves convenient for movement, and the hem was neither too long nor too short, falling exactly five centimeters above the ankle. The slit below the knee occasionally revealed the pale pink ruffled edge of the underskirt as she walked, conservative, yet still carrying a girlish cleverness.

The style held both the fashionable air of a Western-style dress and the refined elegance of traditional clothing, perfectly suited to the everyday wear of schoolgirls their age.

Lu Xueying was struck at first sight by this dress, which radiated the beauty and playfulness of a young girl in every detail.

Had she not just finished listing off all the flaws of the robe, and had the maker of this qipao not been rather sharp-tongued with her, she might not have been able to stop herself from rushing over to clap and praise this distinctively styled qipao the moment Fang Birong walked into the parlor.

Compared to Lu Xueying, who was gritting her teeth to hold herself back, Shi Xuanman had no such reservations. Seeing Fang Birong come out in her new dress, she immediately stood up and walked over, circling around her friend to look her over, saying cheerfully: "Birong, this color suits you so well! Even I, who don't like yellow, think it's beautiful."

Right after, her eyes brightened as she looked toward Ji Qingzhou: "Mr. Ji really does have skilled hands, this qipao is exactly like the one in your sketch. It makes me look forward to my own dress even more!"

Having received praise from a client, Ji Qingzhou felt pleased, and promptly asked Fang Birong: "Miss Fang, is there anywhere uncomfortable now that you have it on? Too tight, too loose, or chafing anywhere?"

Fang Birong shook her head, her face slightly flushed: "It's a really good fit, the fabric is soft and comfortable. Your craftsmanship is really excellent, I really like it."

She couldn't help but use "really" three times in a row to express how much she liked it, this qipao truly suited her taste perfectly.

In fact, earlier in her room, when she had untied the ribbon and unwrapped the bamboo-hemp paper, and saw the neatly folded garment with its collar facing upward, she had already been struck by the fresh, soft beauty of its color scheme.

Even though she had already seen the design rendering and touched the fabric swatch, the finished garment turned out even more exquisite and beautiful than she had imagined.

The fine ramie weave was light, smooth, and cool to the touch. The pale purple lilac print on the pale yellow fabric echoed the hyacinth-purple piping along the seams, and the lining was made of fine cotton gauze, light, soft, and sweat-absorbent against the skin.

Even the small label on the inside of the collar was full of thoughtful little touches.

When Fang Birong first saw the label embroidered with a clothes hanger and a pink half-skirt, she was a little puzzled, thinking it might be some kind of detachable coin pocket. It was only when she made out the characters "Century" embroidered on the beige label that she suddenly understood, it was the shop's emblem.

This delightful discovery made her smile to herself, thinking that Mr. Ji must truly love his craft, to put such lovely little ideas even into a corner no one would ever really notice.

"If it fits well, then no further alterations are needed?" Ji Qingzhou asked.

Fang Birong pressed her lips together and nodded: "Thank you for making the trip. Please wait a moment, I'll go get the silver dollars."

With that, she ran back to her room to fetch the money.

Ji Qingzhou settled back leisurely into the sofa and took a sip of warm green tea, when he heard Shi Xuanman say to Lu Xueying:

"That qipao Birong was just wearing was the new style, looked pretty good, didn't it?"

"It's passable, I suppose," Lu Xueying's tone was still stubborn.

After a moment's thought, she added: "Clearly there's only so much you can do dressing up a qipao with fancy touches. The tailors in Shanghai with real skill are all famous for making Western-style clothes."

At home, Ji Qingzhou often traded sharp words back and forth with Jie Yu'an, so a jab like this from Lu Xueying barely registered with him.

He set down his teacup, composed as ever, and was about to respond when Shi Xuanman beat him to it: "Mr. Ji has excellent taste in Western dresses too. I actually ordered one from him a few days ago, planning to wear it to your birthday banquet."

"Is that so," Lu Xueying's round eyes, slightly upturned, looked toward Ji Qingzhou as she tilted her head: "Now I'm a little curious. If Mr. Ji is also skilled at making Western dresses, why not make me an evening gown for the banquet?"

Ji Qingzhou was taken aback to hear this, he hadn't expected her to be so quick to bend.

"Are you sure? My rates aren't cheap."

"As long as I like what I see, money isn't an issue," Lu Xueying said this in a tone as if money meant nothing to her at all.

This girl, though somewhat inclined to flatter the strong and slight the weak, and not particularly polite, was after all still a minor. Ji Qingzhou wasn't about to turn away a paying customer over the small friction they'd just had.

What's more, what she wanted was an evening gown, which made it even harder for him to refuse.

Having spent most of the last half month making Western suits and qipao, he genuinely wanted a change of pace, a chance to try something new.

So when the girl across from him made this proposal with a faintly provocative attitude, Ji Qingzhou let his leisurely expression fall away, took out a fountain pen and a sketchbook from his bag, flipped open to a random page, and asked: "When do you plan to wear it, and for what kind of occasion? Morning, midday, or evening?"

In truth, Lu Xueying wanted a charming new-style qipao like the one Fang Birong wore even more, but she was too embarrassed to say so outright. Instead, she deliberately adopted a "let's see what you've got" attitude, trying to provoke him into making her a Western-style dress.

If Ji Qingzhou were unwilling, she could simply pretend she'd never said it. If he were willing, then afterward, whether the result turned out well or poorly, she'd have an excuse to come back and ask him to make her a new-style qipao as well.

However, the way Ji Qingzhou responded to this caught her somewhat off guard. His businesslike, matter-of-fact attitude instead made her feel as though she'd been making a fuss over nothing.

Perhaps if she had simply asked outright for a new-style qipao, he wouldn't have taken her earlier remarks to heart at all.

But the words were already out, so after a few seconds of thought, she could only answer: "The twenty-sixth of next month is my birthday. I want to wear it to my coming-of-age banquet."

"A Chinese-style or Western-style evening banquet?"

"Western-style, of course," Lu Xueying's voice was crisp and firm.

"Will there be dancing?"

"Of course."

Ji Qingzhou jotted a note in his sketchbook, then asked: "As for the evening gown, how much exposure can you accept, for example, showing part of the shoulders, arms, or calves?"

He asked this in a perfectly serious, businesslike manner, in a way that wouldn't make the girl feel offended or uncomfortable.

Lu Xueying, however, couldn't help but freeze for a moment upon hearing it.

In truth, up until now, every gown she'd worn to a banquet had been chosen by her mother and made to order by the family tailor or an outside Western dress shop, she herself had never had much say in the matter.

The gowns her family arranged for her tended to lean conservative. Take the dress for next month's birthday banquet, for instance, her mother had already had a tailor working on it.

Lu Xueying had seen the sketches they'd drawn up; it was a rather mediocre dress. She didn't much like it, but she hadn't been able to come up with a better style either.

The reason she'd answered just now that she needed a gown for her birthday banquet had originally just been an excuse, picked at random, she hadn't expected him to ask such detailed questions.

This made her, attempting for the first time to take charge of her own choice of gown, grow unexpectedly serious, a quiet flicker of anticipation rising in her chest. She said: "I can accept a slightly larger neckline, showing part of my arms and calves."

These details had originally been strictly controlled by her mother as well, but she thought to herself that she was nearly an adult now, and ought to have the right to decide for herself.

Ji Qingzhou jotted down a few brief notes, then asked: "Do you have a preferred style? Something noble and luxurious, simple and understated, elegant and mature, or youthful and vibrant?"

There were even this many categories... Lu Xueying held back the urge to frown and scratch her head, glancing over at Shi Xuanman, whose expression had gone rather stiff, and at Fang Birong, who had returned to the parlor at some point without anyone noticing, quietly waiting off to the side so as not to interrupt them.

After a moment's thought, Lu Xueying answered in a rather abstract way: "I want every guest at my coming-of-age ceremony to see me at a glance and remember me, but I don't like clothes that are too flashy or showy. I want something as understated as possible, yet striking enough, something that can show off my character and charm as a woman of the new era."

Ji Qingzhou had initially meant to write this down, but after a sentence or two, he stopped writing. Once she'd finished saying it all in one breath, he summarized it on the paper in a single line: "She wants a beauty that looks effortless yet breathtaking."

"That's enough for now. Miss Lu, remember to give me your home address or a way to reach you before you go. I'll have two gown designs ready for you within a week, you can pick one, and if you're not satisfied, we'll talk again then," Ji Qingzhou explained concisely.

Lu Xueying nodded, indifferent: "Fine."

Seeing their conversation had ended, Fang Birong finally paid the remaining balance of four yuan eight jiao for the qipao.

Ji Qingzhou took the money, got a contact number from Lu Xueying, and left the Fang family residence without lingering further.

Though he'd just wrapped up one custom order, the backlog of work hadn't shrunk at all, if anything, it had grown.

On the streetcar ride back to the shop, Ji Qingzhou mentally ran through his queue of orders.

As for the ready-made shop's customers, both Miss Shi's and Madam Wang's qipao had a one-month turnaround, meaning they needed to be finished by roughly the end of this month.

But he couldn't afford to drag it out that long, it would be best to finish within two weeks.

Luo Mingxuan's leather jacket was the most urgent matter at the moment, the kid was counting on wearing it to the wedding banquet on the fifth, to make a striking impression in front of his relatives and friends back home.

Since it was still early in the day, he might as well head back and get the jacket done first once he returned, three or four hours of work, and he could wrap it up tomorrow.

The least urgent, of course, was Miss Lu's evening gown.

Her birthday was the twenty-sixth of next month, and today was only the second, there was at least a month to design and prepare at a leisurely pace.

Then there were the knit cardigan and little dress he'd promised Shen Nanqi and Jie Linglong, which also needed to be finished within the month. Just because they weren't paying clients didn't mean he could let them slide and put them off.

Tallying it all up, he really was in debt up to his ears!

He'd also been meaning to find time to design clothes for his proper model Zhu Renqing and his potential muse Jie Yu'an, but it looked like there simply wasn't time for that now.

In truth, if he could hire a skilled tailor, his workload would lighten considerably. But he was still in the early stages of starting his business, hiring an assistant alone was costly enough, let alone affording a tailor...

After all, this was Shanghai. Hiring a tailor with real experience would cost at least thirty yuan a month in wages, wouldn't it?

And in the more than half a month he'd been running the shop, after deducting expenses for fabric and notions, his income had only been around forty-eight yuan, and half of that came from Young Master Luo's contribution...

It seemed, for now, he could only keep squeezing labor out of himself.

Just as Ji Qingzhou was musing over this in his mind, he spotted through the window a foreign goods shop up ahead that he'd browsed before.

He recalled they seemed to sell dyed cashmere yarn, so he grabbed his bag and squeezed his way to the door, calling out to the driver: "I need to get off here," Then, as the streetcar slowed slightly, he leapt down off it in one motion.

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