trct_52

Chapter 52: Preparations

"Mr. Ji, haven't seen you in a while. Here to buy fabric today, or just browsing?"

The moment Ji Qingzhou stepped over the threshold of the "Wang Shanxing" silk shop, Boss Wang, dressed in a silk robe, greeted him warmly.

"I've come to have some fabric cut." Ji Qingzhou said this, taking out a small swatch of plain printed soft satin with a coin-link pattern from his bag, holding it out for Boss Wang to see, and said, "This one, twelve chi of it. Last time I recall it was two jiao five fen per chi, shouldn't have gone up in price, has it?"

Boss Wang took one look at the fabric swatch in his hand and knew exactly which material he wanted. "A common pattern like this wouldn't go up much even if it did, and besides, how long's it even been since you were last here... Hold on, let me go find it for you."

Having been in the fabric trade for decades, he knew exactly where everything in his own shop was kept. After a few purposeful flips through the fabric racks, Boss Wang quickly found the roll Ji Qingzhou wanted.

"Take a look, is this the one?" He set the bolt of fabric down on the counter and unrolled the satin for Ji Qingzhou to see.

"This is it."

"Good, that settles it. Twelve chi, right? Give me a moment, I'll have the assistant cut it for you."

With that, Boss Wang handed the bolt over to the assistant in charge of measuring and cutting fabric, then turned to Ji Qingzhou with a cheerful smile. "We just got a new shipment in these past couple days. Want to take a look, cut a swatch to take home?"

Cutting small fabric swatches was something tailors occasionally requested, but it was generally limited to cheap materials—for expensive silks, Boss Wang was never willing to cut free samples for people.

The reason he'd agreed to Ji Qingzhou's request in the first place was that, on first meeting such a fine-looking, handsome young man, Boss Wang hadn't had the heart to refuse.

Learning afterward that he ran a clothing shop nearby, and with an eye toward securing a steady long-term customer, he'd softened for a moment and agreed to it.

Later, when the man had come looking for him wanting to order a bolt of printed silk gauze at a cheap price, Boss Wang had thought at the time that this young man was simply too green, utterly unfamiliar with Shanghai's fabric market, probably with no experienced master guiding him either, and bound to get badly taken advantage of sooner or later. Meaning it as well-intentioned advice, he'd deliberately quoted an outrageously high price to make him give up on such an unrealistic idea.

Who would have thought that a month later, when he ran into him again and asked, the man had actually managed to order a bolt of Suzhou silk gauze at the cheap price of twenty silver dollars—only when asked where he'd had it done, the man had just smiled and said nothing.

This had made Boss Wang reconsider the young man somewhat, privately thinking to himself that this young shop owner might really have some connections or means behind him.

Still, that had little bearing on him for now—either way, once Ji Qingzhou cut his swatches and took them back, there was always a chance some customer would take a liking to one and come back later to buy the fabric.

That was a good thing for him.

Nowadays the silk trade was getting harder and harder to do, so whatever could be sold, he'd sell. Which was why, seeing Ji Qingzhou come by now, Boss Wang would always take the initiative to pitch the new stock.

"Sure, let me see what new patterns you've got."

Boss Wang then brought out several bolts of silk, laying them out in a colorful row.

Ji Qingzhou picked out a few from among them, cut a small swatch of each, and asked their prices, jotting them down in his notebook.

A little while later, the coin-pattern fabric he'd ordered was cut and rolled up and handed to him. After paying, Ji Qingzhou headed out and turned right, going to a nearby foreign goods shop called "1899."

This was a foreign goods shop he often dropped into when passing by; its stock was varied and miscellaneous, mainly ornamental items.

It carried garment trimmings and notions like lace ribbons, buttons, and edging, as well as some imported gold and silver jewelry, gemstones, enamel pieces, and secondhand accessory components and the like, with prices ranging from expensive to cheap.

He'd come today mainly to pick out and buy beads for the beaded buttons on the Chinese-style dress he was making for Shi Xuanman, and while he was at it, to see if there were any gemstones suitable for decorating the hat that went with Chen Yanzhu's dress ensemble.

Shi Xuanman's new Chinese-style dress had a double-layer fabric—the inner layer was bamboo-green jacquard poplin, the outer layer a pale jade-green semi-sheer chiffon. The overall style could be summed up as fresh and elegant, cool and flowing, so the beaded buttons he had in mind ideally needed to be as translucent and bright as jade—warm, clear, and lustrous.

Of course, wanting jade decoration on a garment worth only a dozen-odd yuan was out of the question, so he had to settle for the next best thing, choosing some other kind of bead with a similar feel.

Upon hearing his requirements, the shop owner—a lanky man with choppy bangs—took out several wooden boxes from the cabinet for him.

He opened the lids and lined them up in a row; inside were beads uniformly emerald green, all for him to pick through.

There were pricier ones like chalcedony and turquoise, as well as cheaper amazonite and green fluorite.

Weighing color, quality, and price together, Ji Qingzhou ultimately picked out six small, dainty, smooth and rounded mint-green fluorite beads.

Fluorite wasn't worth much, so it wouldn't be a loss if it cracked when used as a button, and its glassy, translucent look suited the light, semi-sheer texture of the real silk chiffon outer layer of the qipao dress even better.

Though he'd settled on that material, after asking the price of the seven or eight amazonite beads in the box, he chose to buy up the whole lot as well.

These amazonite beads had likely originally been part of a single strand, all uniform in size.

Their color was a blue-green close to peacock blue, with faint white veining inside, no two pieces alike, the hue clear and vivid as lake water, with a very glossy shine. Since the price wasn't high anyway—only eight fen a piece—he figured he might as well buy them to have on hand; no telling when they might come in useful.

After buying the beads, Ji Qingzhou also looked over the gemstones displayed in the glass counter, getting a head start on purchasing for Chen Yanzhu's dress order.

But after going all the way around, he simply couldn't find a single dark red gemstone he wanted.

The shop owner was a sharp, observant sort. Seeing that he'd only been looking at dark-colored gems and hadn't picked out anything he liked, he immediately took out a flat wooden box from the cabinet without a word, saying, "Have a look at this, see if there's anything you want."

The moment the box opened, the translucent gems caught the light overhead, mysterious and elegant, glittering and alluring. One glance down and Ji Qingzhou knew he'd found what he was after.

Inside were all deep red gemstones, varying in size but consistent overall in tone—all cut and polished finished stones in a red so deep it verged on purple.

Some were loose individual pieces, others were still set in blackened metal fittings, as if they'd been taken off pendants from the same necklace.

"What kind is this?" Ji Qingzhou asked.

"Red tourmaline," the shop owner said, the corner of his mouth curling up slightly. "Just got this high-end batch in yesterday, haven't even finished taking it all apart yet. There's twelve small ones in here and three big ones. If you take the whole lot in one go, I'll give you a fair price, sixty yuan."

Ji Qingzhou raised an eyebrow slightly at that.

Sixty yuan really wasn't expensive at all... it was red tourmaline after all, with decent color and clarity too. In a later era, a piece that size—about half a thumb—worked and set properly, would probably sell for several thousand.

Chen Yanzhu's budget for the hat was eighty yuan; if he could keep the gemstone cost under sixty, he'd still come out ten-odd yuan ahead.

Even so, Ji Qingzhou kept his expression carefully neutral, putting on a show of reluctance as he haggled: "Sixty's a bit much. Fifty, and I'll take the whole lot."

The shop owner's face immediately took on a pained look. "Aiyo, have a heart and help me out here, I've got to make something off this. Fifty and I'm losing money on it... fifty-eight, then. You take the whole lot, and I'll finish taking apart the rest of the stones for you too, how about it?"

"Let's split the difference then. One flat price, fifty-four." Ji Qingzhou nudged the number up a little, using his usual "future promise" bargaining tactic: "To be honest, I do custom dress orders, and your shop's got everything, so I really do like coming here to browse. Give me a fair price today, and going forward, whenever I need these odds and ends—pearls, gemstones, notions—your shop will definitely be my first choice."

Even though the shop owner knew he was dangling a "big promise" in front of him, he was still won over by that second half.

Earning a bit less was still earning, and it was no match for gaining the goodwill of a long-term customer.

"Fine, let's just call it making a friend today. Fifty-four it is, I'll give it to you at cost."

Ji Qingzhou kept his expression under control and smiled faintly. "Then I'll pay a deposit first, you finish taking apart all the stones, and I'll come by tomorrow to pick them up and settle the rest then."

·

In the afternoon, Love Lane was quiet and peaceful, the wind blowing over the cobblestone road, carrying with it a damp mist.

Carrying the newly bought fabric back to the shop, Ji Qingzhou stepped through the door, and was just about to greet Zhu Renqing when his gaze shifted and he suddenly noticed a small electrical appliance sitting on the cutting table.

"An electric fan? Where'd this come from?" Ji Qingzhou set the fabric down on the sewing machine table without much thought and walked over to take a closer look at the brass-and-tinplate fan, which had a rather antique look to it.

"Boss, you're back." Zhu Renqing greeted him first, then explained, "A clerk from some trading firm, dressed in a Western suit, delivered it just now. He said Mr. Jie ordered it this morning, and had the address filled in as our shop."

"Oh..." Ji Qingzhou nodded, roughly piecing together what must have happened.

A few days ago, after signing the lease with Jie Yu'an, he'd meant to find time soon to go pick out furniture and appliances, but since Miss Shi had just pressed him about her order at the last banquet, Ji Qingzhou hadn't had the heart to put it off any longer, and had spent the past couple of days busy at the shop the whole time. He'd only mentioned it to Jie Yu'an in passing, asking him, whenever he had time, to send someone to install the ceiling fan at the Western house first.

Ceiling fans of this era all looked more or less the same, nothing to speak of in terms of looks, so Ji Qingzhou had simply left it to the landlord to go buy one.

But he hadn't expected this particular landlord to be so conscientious that, while having the ceiling fan installed, he'd also sent over a small electric fan for his little shop.

"Have you tried it out yet?" Ji Qingzhou asked, while finding the fan's plug and plugging it into the socket that was normally reserved for the electric iron.

"Tried it. It blows out cool air." Zhu Renqing had never seen this kind of appliance before; today was his first time experiencing a machine that could produce a breeze on its own without needing to be fanned by hand, and he found it quite novel.

Ji Qingzhou pushed the switch on the fan's base. For now the fan had rather few functions—it couldn't tilt up and down or oscillate—but at least the fan speed could be adjusted.

Pushing the small lever up once was setting one, pushing it further was setting two, and flicking it down turned it off.

"Pretty good, only there's not enough outlets. If I want to use the iron, I can't run the fan at the same time."

Ji Qingzhou switched off the fan and plugged in the iron instead, saying, "Well, the weather's cool these days anyway, so we'll just make do with this for now. Once the plum rains are over, I'll find someone to install another outlet."

Of course, that would need to be run past their landlady, Aunt Liu, beforehand—only once she agreed could he go ahead and install one.

Setting the fan aside for the moment, Ji Qingzhou handed the fabric he'd just bought to Zhu Renqing, telling him to pre-shrink it, and then sat down at the sewing machine to start work.

Shi Xuanman's qipao dress, after the past several days of rushed work, was largely finished in terms of construction—all that remained was to bind the edges of the inner skirt hem and sleeves, and finally sew on the beaded buttons.

As for the outer layer of the skirt, Ji Qingzhou had also considered edging it with a fine silk ribbon, but after sketching out how it would look, he found that although it would add a touch more refinement, it would lose some of the original cool, flowing quality—so he decided to just fold and roll the hem directly, hand-stitching the edge instead.

After spending nearly an hour binding the inner layer of the skirt, Ji Qingzhou carried over his bamboo lounging chair along with his hand-sewing tool basket, sat down where the light was bright by the doorway, took out a hand needle, threaded it with silk thread, and began sewing on the buttons.

"Oh right, it's the first of the month now, so I owe you last month's wages." Sewing on the buttons, Ji Qingzhou remembered this and mentioned it to Zhu Renqing. "If I forget when it's time to close up, remind me, alright?"

In his time working at the shop, Zhu Renqing had come to know a great many things and learned plenty of knowledge he'd never had access to before. What's more, his boss treated him so well that he'd have been glad to help out even without pay.

But he genuinely did need the money, so hearing this, he answered with a low, slightly abashed "Alright."

"How's your mother's illness? Any improvement?" Ji Qingzhou asked next.

"She's been taking her medicine the whole time, and she's improved some already. Her appetite's been a lot better lately too, they say she might be able to get out of bed and walk by next month."

"That's good to hear. I was thinking just the other day, if there was no improvement at all, I'd take a day to bring your mother to see a doctor at the hospital..."

Just as Ji Qingzhou was saying this, he suddenly noticed a dark green car he'd never seen before, parked rather conspicuously at the mouth of the alley. A moment later, the back door opened, and a man of about thirty, dressed in a dark blue checked suit and impeccably groomed, stepped out of the car.

The man swept his gaze over the shops lining both sides of the lane, and as his eyes moved, they landed on the flag-shaped shop sign hanging outside his door, then met Ji Qingzhou's gaze where he sat by the entrance.

A vague intuition struck Ji Qingzhou at once—business was about to walk through the door, and probably not a small order either.

Sure enough, the man walked straight over toward him.

Reaching the shop entrance, he first glanced over the interior, took in Zhu Renqing busy at work, then, having confirmed his target, turned to Ji Qingzhou at the door with a polite smile and asked, "Would you be Mr. Ji? The Mr. Ji who designed Miss Lu's coming-of-age banquet gown?"

"That's me." Ji Qingzhou stuck his needle into the pincushion and got up, still holding the dress, to shake his hand. Seeing that the man didn't seem to be here to order clothes for himself, he asked, "And you are?"

"My surname is Du. Du Suijing." The man introduced himself first, and once Ji Qingzhou had taken his card, he went on, "My boss would like to invite you to make several outfits for him."

"And your boss is...?" Ji Qingzhou asked out of reflex, though he'd already more or less guessed the man's boss's identity from the title printed on the card.

"Mr. Ramos," the man answered. "You must have heard of the Victoria, the Olympic, and other cinema theaters, those are all Mr. Ramos's ventures."

"Oh, I have heard of them..." Ji Qingzhou nodded thoughtfully.

Even if he hadn't known of the man originally, after coming to the Republic era, it would've been hard not to hear the name of this film-industry magnate through the various news items printed in the big and small papers alike.

"So who are the clothes being designed for?" he asked next.

"For the female lead of a film," Du Suijing said briefly. "Are you free right now? If you have the time, would you be willing to come out with me and meet my boss? He's currently working over at the Olympic Theatre up ahead."

Making clothes for a film's female lead... so, film costume design?

Well now, that really was a big order!

Not being eager to make money would be a sign something was wrong with him.

With barely a moment's hesitation, Ji Qingzhou set aside the work in his hands for now, took off his apron, and tucked the card away, saying, "Sure, I'll go with you now."

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