trct_44

Chapter 44: Competitiveness

"You can paint fashionable beauties?" Song Youling raised his eyebrows slightly as he looked at him, asking bluntly, "Aren't you the one who runs the clothing shop?"

"I can paint fashionable clothing. As for beauties, that might not quite meet your expectations."

Ji Qingzhou admitted frankly, "But isn't the main purpose of the pictorial you're putting out to spread the latest fashionable clothing? As for the characters' backgrounds and the models' figures and faces, I'd imagine those don't need to be too finely detailed, do they?"

"What you say makes sense, Mr. Ji, but to be honest, the reason Boss Qiu specifically named Mr. Ye to commission the work was probably because of his skill at painting beauties."

Yuan Shaohuai first offered this reminder with a sincere expression, then changed his tone and said with a smile, "But Mr. Ye's price is too high. Boss Qiu is a businessman, for a new publication with an uncertain future, he certainly won't be willing to pay that high a price.

"Mr. Ji, why don't you send over a few draft sketches sometime? Once the rest of us and Boss Qiu have reviewed them, if they pass muster, we'll sign a contract with you at the same rate we originally offered Mr. Ye, eight yuan a piece. How about it, Brother Xin?"

Though Qiu Wenxin was mild-tempered by nature and rarely competed with others for anything—working diligently at his own family's newspaper almost like a lowly staff member, publishing only one or two pieces a week, each time taking up only a small food column, leaving the rest of the space to submissions he considered outstanding and interesting—

Still, whatever else, he was the chief editor of the "Shanghai Daily", and when his father wasn't around, he was the one calling the shots. Whenever anyone had an idea, they'd come to ask his opinion.

Qiu Wenxin didn't think that Ji Qingzhou—formerly in the opera trade, now the proprietor of a clothing shop—could produce fashion illustrations good enough to satisfy them and be fit for publication in a pictorial. But he didn't mind giving him the chance.

Especially since Ji Qingzhou's relationship with Jie Yu'an currently seemed to be on quite good terms. Though Jie Yu'an rarely spoke up, the two of them sitting together—one poking the other, the other pinching back—hadn't stopped their little gestures for a moment.

Qiu Wenxin, sharp-eyed as ever, had taken all of this in.

He considered himself fairly familiar with Jie Yu'an's temperament, and the way he interacted so easily with Ji Qingzhou suggested he most likely regarded him as one of his own.

So, if only for the sake of an old friend's face, he had to give Ji Qingzhou this chance.

He therefore nodded with an air of composed assurance, replying good-naturedly, "Sure, sure. If you're free these next few days, Brother Ji, send over a few fashion illustrations you've painted yourself, and we'll take a look and discuss them among ourselves. If everyone agrees it's workable, we'll commission you at that point."

Ji Qingzhou naturally understood their concerns. The "Shanghai Daily" was, after all, a major newspaper whose circulation could occasionally rival the Shen Bao and Xinwen Bao, so launching a new publication would certainly require careful review and deliberation. Hearing this, he agreed without hesitation: "Alright, I'll go home and put something together, and send it over to your office in a few days."

Once this topic was finished, with barely a pause, Reporter Song immediately launched into the latest business-world gossip he'd heard.

Eating the snacks and cooked food they'd bought while sipping tea, chatting idly about everything under the sun, an hour slipped by in the blink of an eye.

To keep Huang Youshu from having to wait too long in the car, Ji Qingzhou politely declined the others' invitation to go for dinner together at a restaurant, and once enough time had passed, pulled Jie Yu'an up and took his leave.

Leaving the newspaper office and reaching the ground floor, Ji Qingzhou still had the tempting aroma of those braised chicken feet on his mind. Recalling what Qiu Wenxin had said when instructing the tea attendant, he figured the Cantonese restaurant must be somewhere nearby.

He looked around at the small food shops in the area and, sure enough, found a cooked-food shop with a row of roast meats hanging in the window. He first got Jie Yu'an settled in the car to wait, then hurried over himself and bought a jin of braised chicken feet to take away.

By the time he got back into the car carrying the fragrant chicken feet, Jie Yu'an caught the smell and only then realized what he'd gone off to do, asking, "If you wanted it, why didn't you get it back there?"

"Have to mind my image, don't I? It was everyone's first time meeting, can't just start gnawing on chicken feet right off the bat, far too unrefined."

Ji Qingzhou said breezily, "But it's fine in front of you. I just like eating with you, no matter how disgraceful I look while eating, you can't see it anyway."

Jie Yu'an let out a light scoff: "Greedy cat."

Since the road here was narrow and there were a lot of people about, Huang Youshu drove very steadily and slowly, and it was only once the car had left Wangping Street and headed north onto Nanjing Road that he picked up speed.

"What was the point of that question you asked Qiu Wenxin?" After a quiet moment, Jie Yu'an, remembering the puzzling matter, spoke up to ask.

"Not telling you," Ji Qingzhou replied flatly.

"......" Jie Yu'an pressed his lips together, unable to help asking, "What exactly are you keeping from me?"

Bringing this up made Ji Qingzhou uneasy too. Though Qiu Wenxin's answer had given him some ideas, it was still too vague, and he truly had no idea how to avoid that calamity.

He sighed inwardly and said, "Let me ask you something. If your eyes were healed, would you still enlist?"

Jie Yu'an paused slightly, asking, "Are these two things connected?"

"Answer me first."

"If it's needed, then naturally I'd have to go."

Ji Qingzhou frowned, and after considering for a moment, earnestly tried to persuade him: "Why don't you just learn from your father and your brothers instead, and go into business?"

"Why?"

"You were injured so badly before, even if your eyes heal, there's bound to be some lingering aftereffects, isn't there?"

Ji Qingzhou racked his brains trying to persuade him, "Either way, you joined the army to serve the country, right? Going into business can serve the country too, and help the common people as well. A person with real ambition can accomplish the same regardless of the path, why not just take a different road instead?"

"Why are you saying this?" Jie Yu'an asked again, his voice calm: "Tell me the truth."

Ji Qingzhou closed his eyes briefly, took a deep breath, then abruptly abandoned his earlier sincere tone and rattled off a casual, made-up excuse instead:

"Fine, I just think that fellow Luo Mingxuan isn't all that reliable as a business partner. I need to plan ahead for my future—after all, I'm no good at business, and once my venture grows bigger, I'll need someone reliable to help manage things for me. I think you'd make a pretty good partner for that, at least you seem more trustworthy than Luo Mingxuan."

Jie Yu'an was silent for a moment, then pressed his lips together and said, "We'll deal with the future when it comes."

Wait, seriously? He wouldn't listen to sincere persuasion, but believed this made-up nonsense?

Ji Qingzhou raised an eyebrow.

"So, why did you ask Qiu Wenxin that question earlier?" Jie Yu'an brought the matter up again, with a kind of stubborn persistence that showed no sign of letting go.

"Hey! A' You, drive straight ahead, drop me off at the shop." Ji Qingzhou decisively chose to ignore the question.

"Not going home?" Jie Yu'an's attention was immediately diverted.

"It's only three o'clock. How can a proper working man clock off this early?" Ji Qingzhou glanced down at his watch and arranged, "Drop me off at the shop first, then take you home after."

"Such a hardworking, diligent man."

"Much appreciated."

As it turned out, once they reached the intersection at Love Lane, Ji Qingzhou got out of the car, and just as he turned to close the door, Jie Yu'an extended his arm toward him.

"You're getting out too?"

"Mm, I'll come have a look around."

"I don't have time to keep you company while you look around." Even as he said this, Ji Qingzhou still took hold of his arm to help him out of the car.

The moment they stepped into the narrow lane, filled with all sorts of smells and noise, Jie Yu'an quite naturally reached out to touch his arm, then slid his hand down to hold his.

It seemed only this kind of unimpeded physical contact could give him a sense of security in such a clamorous environment.

Ji Qingzhou had by now grown used to this habit of his wanting to hold hands whenever they were out, and turned his head without a second thought to say to Huang Youshu, "A' You, back the car up a bit, don't block the road."

Once Huang Youshu had finished parking, he then led Jie Yu'an into the shop.

Zhu Renqing had rarely gotten to see Ji Qingzhou at the shop these days, so whenever he saw his boss come by, an endless joy would well up in his heart, and he'd want to report even the smallest, most trivial matters to him, just to keep his boss's attention on him a little longer.

But today, upon seeing his boss arrive, alongside his happiness, he couldn't help feeling a bit down as well.

Boss had brought his blind cousin along again.

He did sympathize with this young man who suffered from an eye ailment, of course, but whenever the man sat in the shop, he inevitably drew his boss's attention away, and this left Zhu Renqing somewhat vexed.

Ji Qingzhou set the bag of braised chicken feet down on the counter table, greeted Zhu Renqing, and told him to help himself if he wanted some.

He then carried over the bamboo lounge chair, set it beside the shop door, and settled Jie Yu'an into it.

Though there was no sun today, it wasn't the least bit cool either—thick clouds hung low, making the air stuffy and close instead. Only right here by the shop door could one still feel a bit of breeze drifting in from the mouth of the lane.

Jie Yu'an was wearing a long-sleeved robe, so he wasn't worried about mosquito bites, but Ji Qingzhou, worried he'd get too hot, brought him a fan anyway, sighing, "Wouldn't it have been better to just sit at home in front of the electric fan? You insisted on tagging along, really just asking for trouble."

"You don't have one of those?"

"How could I afford an electric fan? That's a high-end appliance."

"Oh." Jie Yu'an gave this response, though it wasn't clear what exactly he was "oh"-ing about.

He then leaned back in the chair and fell silent, fanning himself idly, on and off, with the fan.

Once Ji Qingzhou had gotten Jie Yu'an settled, he walked over to the cutting table, spread out some plain cloth, and as he was getting ready to work, Zhu Renqing came over to his side to report on the past two days' business.

"Nothing much else to report, I finished up the small odd jobs for you. Just yesterday evening a customer came in wanting a custom suit made, but after hearing the price and turnaround time, he left again, saying ten yuan for a custom-made suit was too expensive."

"Ten yuan is expensive?" Ji Qingzhou was startled at first, then thought—could this possibly be business referred by He Lu?

If she'd been advertising his shop to her friends with a pitch like 'cheap, fast, well-fitted and comfortable,' then Ji Qingzhou could just imagine the customer's speechless dismay upon arriving and discovering the price had tripled.

Otherwise, he genuinely couldn't understand how, in a foreign concession where custom suit-making fees generally ran fifteen to twenty yuan, anyone could think ten yuan for a made-to-measure suit was too expensive.

Still, it wasn't much of a loss not to take the job—either way, he had no spare time to take on more work right now. Lu Xueying's birthday was the twenty-sixth of this month, and it was already the tenth.

To leave enough time afterward for fittings and alterations, he'd have to finish making that Iris Dress within ten days no matter what.

At the same time, he still had to finish the straw hat decoration for Shen Nanqi, as well as the submission for the newspaper office...

Thinking about it this way, he really did have a talent for piling work onto himself.

He was already busy enough as it was—if he really had to draw illustrations for the newspaper office too, then his rest time before bed from now on would probably all get swallowed up by work.

But this was a good opportunity. Aside from the payment for the illustrations, what mattered more to him was the boost to his own reputation.

As long as the "Shanghai Daily" was willing to use his illustrations, they'd surely credit him by name. Even if they wouldn't let him add a "Shiji Clothing Shop" prefix before his name, it would still let his name, "Ji Qingzhou," spread throughout Shanghai's fashion circles.

In the future, if anyone brought up his name, it might not ring a bell right away, but once they mentioned he was a contributing artist for the "Shanghai Daily" pictorial, they'd likely have at least some impression of him.

This way, if things went well, he'd no longer be an obscure nobody in either the literary world or the fashion world going forward, and many things would become much more convenient.

Thinking of this, Ji Qingzhou felt increasingly motivated, telling himself he'd have to pick his illustrations carefully once he got back, and make sure to secure this job opportunity.

Of course, for now, his main focus still had to be on making the Iris Dress.

Following his plan, he cut the plain cloth, laid it over the dress form to trace the pattern pieces, and in the midst of his work, he happened to glance back and see Jie Yu'an sitting in that low bamboo lounge chair, his long legs with nowhere comfortable to settle. For some reason, he suddenly felt like laughing.

He did in fact give a faint smile, then turned back around to continue his work.

Beside him, Zhu Renqing, who occasionally handed him a tool or helped with some small task, noticed the expression on his boss's face—unable to suppress his smile whenever he looked over at his cousin—and frowned ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly.

Perhaps he was just being oversensitive, but he couldn't help feeling that their relationship didn't seem as simple as an ordinary pair of cousins.

He hoped he was just overthinking it...

.

At night, while Jie Yu'an was taking his bath, Ji Qingzhou sat on the bedroom sofa, flipping through his sketchbook, selecting fashion illustrations suitable to send to the newspaper office.

After much deliberation, he finally settled on three sketches, each representative in its own way.

One depicted the new-style qipao currently drawing attention; another, a lady's short suit ensemble that was quite avant-garde and fashionable by the standards of the current era.

For the third, he'd originally intended to choose a V-neck, A-line little floral afternoon dress, but considering this was essentially an audition, he felt he needed to bring out something that could genuinely dazzle the eye. After much hesitation, he settled instead on a gold, full-skirted evening gown, both its coloring and design rather extravagant and showy.

The lady in each illustration had, compared to his other sketches, more finely rendered facial features and expressions, as well as hairstyles and accessories, and all had been colored in watercolor.

As design renderings went, there was no doubt these sketches were already refined enough. But to satisfy Qiu Wenxin and the others, he felt they still weren't quite enough.

These three sketches, at most, would let the newspaper office know he possessed the ability to design clothing—but not that he'd reached a level making him irreplaceable compared to other illustrators.

Those illustrators might lack his innovative sense for fashion and his vast store of forward-thinking knowledge, but they were, after all, proper trained artists. In the delicacy of composition and brushwork, in the dynamic expressiveness of a model's every gesture, in the use of color, in the rendering of life and spirit in the eyes—they could easily outmatch him.

No, not enough. He needed to add more to the table...

What else could give him an edge?

Ji Qingzhou held his pen, absently tapping it against his chin, staring into empty space as he thought, momentarily out of ideas.

Just then, Jie Yu'an came out from his bath, still wearing that black silk pajama set as usual, his still-damp hair combed back off his forehead, revealing his smooth forehead and sharply defined face.

Ji Qingzhou found himself staring blankly for a moment at Jie Yu'an as he walked over with his cane, and all at once, a vague idea began to take shape.

——At a time like this, surely very few illustrators would be studying menswear?

But who said fashion illustration had to focus on women only, wasn't menswear worth a small section too?

The 'Shanghai Daily's readership had perhaps been mostly male until now, which was probably why Boss Qiu had specifically sought out a master skilled at painting beauties.

But now that they were putting out a fashion pictorial, this kind of clothing-related content would surely appeal more to women's tastes—did women not enjoy looking at male models?

Or, even setting aside the readership, adding one more menswear sketch would at least demonstrate the breadth of his range in clothing design, wouldn't it?

With this thought, Ji Qingzhou made up his mind, sat up straight, and said to Jie Yu'an in a solemn tone, "Jie Yuanyuan, I have an important job to entrust to you, a job that carries both honor and hardship. At present, you're the only one suited for it. Are you willing to accept the challenge?"

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