It took Xu Ye half an hour to drive Chen Qingqing and the others back to their school first.
Coming out of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, he said to Qin Zhiwei, “I’m worried my dorm will be locked by the time I get back. I’ll drop you at the subway and you make your own way?”
“Sure.” That was what Qin Zhiwei had been thinking anyway — it was getting late.
Xu Ye said, laughing, “You still haven’t held Shen Xinyi’s hand today, then?”
“No.”
Qin Zhiwei said, with a long face, “I’ve been looking for a chance the whole time, but every time I’m about to, it’s as though she knows in advance. When it comes to the moment she just won’t give me the opening.”
“Ha. Then the heat’s not high enough yet. Take your time with it.”
Qin Zhiwei let out a long sigh and said, deeply envious, “I wonder when things between me and Shen Xinyi will be like you and Chen Qingqing… you lucky dog, you really do have it good.”
“It’s all right, I suppose.”
“Stop showing off. You two were gone a long time back there — were you hiding in the car kissing?”
“No.”
“Bullshit. There’s a strawberry planted on your neck.”
Xu Ye stopped the car at a red light, clapped Qin Zhiwei on the shoulder and said earnestly, “You think two people together are necessarily happy? You think I’m as happy right now as you imagine I am? You’re wrong. You can’t begin to imagine how happy I am.”
“Xu Ye, you absolute bastard!”
“Hands off, I’m driving.”
“I’m going to rip that mouth of yours off.”
“Damn it, what are you pulling my clothes for? Anyone who didn’t know would think there was something going on between us.”
…
The sixteenth of the first month.
School formally started.
On the first day back after the New Year the class was noticeably keyed up, and before the lecturer came in they were all talking away happily.
Xu Ye hadn’t been in the classroom long when Guo Caixia, the class study representative, who sat in the front row, came over to him. “Class president, the counselor wants you to go to her office after class.”
“Right. Understood.”
Guo Caixia added, in passing, “How did your finals go last semester?”
In the exam hall Guo Caixia had been sitting directly in front of Xu Ye, and she had meant to let him copy her answers — but by the time she had finished writing, he had almost finished copying Li Tongwen’s.
Xu Ye laughed. “Passed everything. How about you?”
Guo Caixia pouted, not entirely satisfied. “Only came second. Li Tongwen from your dorm was first.”
“Li Tongwen reads in the dorm every single day. Of course he came first.”
As class study representative Guo Caixia naturally wanted to come first, but she knew perfectly well how hard Li Tongwen paid attention in lectures, so she only smiled at that and went back to her seat.
The courses for the second semester of first year weren’t very different from the first, and most of the lecturers hadn’t changed either. Once the bell went the room quieted down quickly, and the moment the lecturer began, Xu Ye started to feel sleepy.
Halfway through the first period he got a WeChat message from Pei Youwei. She had hired a Taobao operations lead, the shop she had registered was going through review, and she wanted to know what to do next.
It wasn’t convenient to reply by voice, so he could only type. “Get the designs done first.”
Pei Youwei: I’ve been working on that lately, but I have no idea where to start.
Xu Ye: Why wouldn’t you know where to start?
Pei Youwei: I’ve never looked into this line of business.
Xu Ye: Go and look at the shops in the trade and design something similar to theirs.
Pei Youwei: I’ve decided. I’m hiring only women at the company, otherwise it’s too mortifying.
Xu Ye: Making money is the only thing that matters.
Pei Youwei: I’ve found some reference pictures. Do you want a look first?
Xu Ye: Send them over.
Pei Youwei: [photo]
Pei Youwei: [photo]
Pei Youwei: [photo]
Xu Ye opened them and had a look, and replied at once. “None of these will do.”
Pei Youwei: Why not?
Pei Youwei: I spent ages looking before I picked those out.
Xu Ye: Nothing happened when I looked at them.
Pei Youwei: What do you mean, nothing happened?
Xu Ye: I mean I didn’t get hard.
Xu Ye: If we’re doing lingerie then it has to have some visual impact, doesn’t it? At the very least one look ought to get someone’s blood up and their heart going.
Pei Youwei: You are filthy.
Pei Youwei: Does Chen Qingqing know about this?
Xu Ye: Boss, be serious. I am discussing work with you!
Pei Youwei: Give me some suggestions, then.
Xu Ye: I’ll give you a few keywords for reference and you can go and search Baidu yourself.
Xu Ye: Maid, flight attendant, nurse, secretary…
Xu Ye: Camisole, lace, frills, crotchless…
Pei Youwei: ???
Pei Youwei: !!!
Pei Youwei: Xu Ye, Xu Ye. You really are something.
Xu Ye: Shh~
Pei Youwei talked with Xu Ye for about half an hour, then went back to her computer and started looking for inspiration.
Fashion design was what she had studied at university, and although a great deal of time had passed, the grounding was still there and she could still draw.
She began searching the keywords he had given her, and any number of relevant pages came straight up.
She clicked through a few at random. Some of them threw up odd little animated pop-ups, and one slip of her hand took her into the page one of them linked to. Looking at what had just appeared on the screen, Pei Youwei’s eyes slowly filled with disbelief…
And while Pei Youwei was absorbed in her search for inspiration, Zhang Xiaonuan came up behind her without her noticing. She had meant to fetch her to interview a graphic designer — and then she saw what was on the screen, and her whole face went scarlet.
“Boss, you… you… you…”
Pei Youwei, freshly through the door into a new world, closed the page immediately and scrambled to look composed as she explained, “I was looking for design inspiration and I accidentally clicked into these odd websites.”
Zhang Xiaonuan said, mortified, “Boss, are we really going to make… clothes like that?”
“Xu Ye says there’s money in it. Competition in the clothing trade has been fierce these last couple of years, and this really is a short cut.”
“But it’s so embarrassing.”
“It’s fine. I’ll hire women wherever I can. What did you come in for?”
“Oh. Someone’s here for an interview.”
Pei Youwei said quickly, “Take her to the meeting room to wait for me. I’ll be right there.”
Zhang Xiaonuan made a small noise of assent and left the office.
Once she was gone, Pei Youwei opened the browser again, saved the page to her bookmarks, and only then got up from her seat.
That evening she sent Xu Ye some more “reference pictures.”
He saw them and immediately sent back a few thumbs-up.
Pei Youwei: I’m aiming to have the designs done within the week, and then we can start on getting fabric in.
Xu Ye: Mm. We don’t need particularly good fabric.
Pei Youwei: Why not?
Xu Ye: Because some clothes are meant to be worn and some are meant to be torn. Some people might wear it twice and then sell it on. So to keep costs down, ordinary fabric will do. The return rate on this sort of thing is very low anyway.
Pei Youwei: They wear it and then sell it?
Xu Ye: Ah, you wouldn’t understand.
Pei Youwei: I don’t get it. Spell it out.
Xu Ye: No. Not suitable for minors. Send me the designs when they’re done and I’ll take a look.
Pei Youwei: Not suitable for minors???
Pei Youwei: Push me your mom’s WeChat right now. I want to ask her how she raised a talent like you.
Xu Ye: Heh~
(End of Chapter 207)