"Sister Xiaojin is so great!" The little sister kept clapping for Xiaojin.

"Hu Xing is great too." Qin Xiaoyu was quite satisfied to see that Hu Xing was poised and confident in front of these people.

After completing two laps, there was progress, but it still wasn't quite there yet.

"Let's do it again!" Qin Xiaoyu clapped her hands, and Wang Lei went over and rewound the videotape, and the music started.

Before Xiao Jin could even walk up, the cake appeared out of nowhere and walked over slowly and seriously.

"Look, a catwalk!" Xiaoli exclaimed first, and everyone burst into laughter. Cake was familiar with everyone and didn't seem like a stranger, so she walked back and forth confidently.

"This is quite beautiful. I thought it was called a fashion show," Zhou Xing's mother said with a smile.

"I once saw a segment on TV where foreigners were walking around with a few pieces of cloth hanging from their bodies. I thought that was how it was supposed to be. That would be so embarrassing!" the wife said, covering her mouth with a laugh.

"That's the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which showcases lingerie. There will be more of those in the future," Qin Xiaoyu explained to them.

"Goodness, going out in your underwear? How embarrassing! Xiao Jin, you shouldn't do this kind of work, your mother will be furious." The wife was still conservative.

"This is a fashion trend, and it will become popular in a few years. We're just a little ahead of time. Besides, when you go to the beach, don't you see people wearing swimsuits and bikinis looking perfectly natural? Decades ago, swimsuits covered the whole body."

Zhou Xing's mother and Commander Wang could understand what Qin Xiaoyu was saying, but the wife was completely clueless and kept asking what a bikini was. Qin Xiaoyu only blamed herself for being too talkative.

She has a short temper. The modeling team couldn't recruit anyone and was wasting time, so she got a little anxious and decided to solve the problem internally.

Currently, female workers are the most numerous in garment factories, followed by students from clothing schools and hairdressing schools.

If you can't even select a dozen people out of hundreds, what's the point of playing? Qin Xiaoyu's fearless spirit resurfaced.

A notice was posted on the wall of the garment factory, leaving the female workers dumbfounded.

What kind of job is this? You walk back and forth on stage and you only get five yuan?

Now everyone's complaining that their parents made them too short.

Qin Xiaoyu personally selected fifteen people and appointed Hu Xing as the captain, thus officially establishing the model team.

There are no tutorials available. The first model team in China appeared in 1979. Although they have developed in various places now, they are still far behind international runways in terms of fashion styles and model quality. They are mostly just imitating others.

Qin Xiaoyu's temperament is such that if she's going to do something, she'll do it to the best of her ability. During this time, she repeatedly watched foreign runway videos and gained some insights, even compiling her own teaching materials.

She discovered that while a model's catwalk is one aspect, the most important thing is the beauty of their physique. Without that foundation, no matter how they walk, it will be stiff.

Although Tang Fengqin hadn't worked in the performing arts troupe for long, she had a solid foundation in basic skills and hadn't missed a single physical education class. Since she wasn't allowed to work at the advertising studio right now, and was bored, they called her over to be their instructor—it was just a matter of keeping quiet, not tiring at all.

"Weren't we supposed to be practicing walking? How come everyone's standing still with a book on their head?"

"Are you not going to put it in the shop window as a mannequin?"

"How much does it cost to work as a mannequin for an hour?"

The female workers would often come to the model team's training room and peek through the windows when they had nothing to do. Qin Xiaoyu didn't like this, so she had some curtains cut to block the view, making the model team even more mysterious.

During the initial training, Qin Xiaoyu was worried that the girls would feel self-conscious, so she didn't ask them to change their clothes. She just wanted them to dress neatly and not bulkily.

After half a month, it was already taking shape, and Qin Xiaoyu had someone bring down the sample garment from upstairs.

The girls were immediately excited. This was something they had always dreamed of; even touching it was a luxury, something that would cost them several months' wages.

Qin Xiaoyu sat in the training room waiting. After a while, two girls came out. The clothes didn't fit them very well, which puzzled her, since they were all distributed according to each person's size.

After a while, a girl couldn't stand it anymore and ran out of the dressing room, saying aggrievedly, "The skirt is too tight, I can't wear it at all."

"Impossible! When you registered, I had someone take your measurements. How could they not fit?" Qin Xiaoyu's first thought was about the size.

But when she suddenly looked up, she saw a girl wearing a tank top and shorts. Her figure flashed by, and she suddenly realized who it was.

In just half a month, all these models gained weight.

That's right. The workload was lighter, the food was better, and everyone was young and had big appetites. In just half a month, the heaviest girl actually gained five pounds.

Qin Xiaoyu never dreamed that her modeling team would be defeated by fat.

Hiring more people wasn't feasible, so she made a tough decision and started grueling training.

The canteen provided separate meals for the model team, which piqued the curiosity of the female workers. These dozen or so people spent their days holed up in their individual rooms; they wondered what they ate all by themselves. One curious woman peeked through the curtain, stuck out her tongue, and retreated.

"The cornbread and pickled vegetables, and the egg drop soup tasted like vegetable washing water..."

Why bother?

The female workers felt better then; five yuan a round wasn't easy to earn.

To motivate the models to lose weight, Qin Xiaoyu ate lunch with them every day at noon.

Every day, the models were starving and crying out, and even Qin Xiaoyu couldn't take it anymore. After several days of hard work, some members of the modeling team had met the standards, but two chubby girls, probably due to genetics, couldn't lose weight no matter what they did, and since they weren't willing to endure hardship, they ended up going back to work as factory workers.

For their first fashion show, Qin Xiaoyu arranged it to be held in the courtyard of the garment factory. This was also an encouragement to the female workers, allowing them to see what the clothes they made with their own hands would look like on the runway.

The catwalk was simple, made from several frames borrowed from the construction site, which were extended to be ten meters long. The backdrop was a large curtain made by Wang Lei, depicting a rising moon.

The fashion show was scheduled for the evening for two reasons: firstly, fewer people work overtime at night, so it wouldn't affect production; secondly, the dim lighting at night would make the models feel safer and help them overcome the awkwardness of suddenly appearing in front of the audience.

The lights were installed by Xiaopang, and they weren't very bright, making the whole scene hazy.

Considering the aesthetic preferences of the target audience, Qin Xiaoyu didn't use foreign runway music, as those are too upbeat and might not be suitable for everyone. Furthermore, since the fashion showcased today leans towards a Chinese style, she used several ancient melodies instead.

To establish a commanding presence, Qin Xiaoyu deliberately had Tang Fengqin appear first.

Because of her pregnancy, Tang Fengqin's figure became fuller, which wouldn't normally be suitable for walking the runway. However, she had experience facing an audience, and her composure reassured the models who followed her.

Xu Xiaoqing specially found her a loose-fitting Xiangyun gauze robe, without a waistline, and in a rather dark color, which contrasted with her fair and radiant skin and antique-style hair, making her look like a figure from a painting. She walked out gracefully, holding an oil-paper umbrella, like a fairy descending to earth, leaving everyone stunned.