Seeing Ye Linnan and Ye Linbei shake their heads, Gu Jingran was somewhat surprised and asked, "Do you have any plans for later?"
Ye Linbei nodded: "The college entrance exam is coming soon, we need to hurry back to study, we still have several papers to write."
Ye Linbei's eyes darted around, and he said to Gu Jingran with a grin, "Brother-in-law, there's no rush for dinner. There's less than a month until the college entrance exam. If we do well on the exam, brother-in-law will treat us to a big meal to celebrate, how about that?"
"That's right! We're going to make you pay! Don't be stingy." Ye Linnan said bluntly from the side.
They had their own ideas and sense of propriety, and Gu Jingran didn't force them, nodding with a smile.
"Okay, it's a deal. I wish you all the best in your first attempt."
"Thank you, brother-in-law," Ye Linnan and Ye Linbei replied in unison.
Once the two decided to go back, they didn't waste any time. They quickly packed their things, said goodbye to Ye Linchen and Gu Jingran, and left like a gust of wind.
After seeing off his two younger brothers, the room became quiet again.
Ye Linchen poured Gu Jingran a glass of water, sat down beside him, and asked, "How was the business trip? Did it go smoothly?"
"It went quite smoothly." Gu Jingran took a sip of water, then, as if remembering something, changed the subject, "By the way, my assistant in Hong Kong gave me some new information about Meng Zihan."
Ye Linchen raised an eyebrow and asked, "What new news?"
"She has been discharged from the hospital and rented a fairly large shop in the most bustling area of the port city to open her own clothing company. My assistant was curious, so he went to take a look around."
"How about it?"
“Not very good.” Gu Jingran shook his head. “According to my assistant, the store is decorated quite luxuriously, but the clothes they sell are very strange. The two main items this season are jeans with two big holes deliberately cut at the knees, and a top that is different from ordinary tops; it’s so short that it just reaches the stomach, exposing the waist. The other clothes are not strange, but there’s nothing outstanding about them either. Anyway, he’s been browsing for half a day, and there are almost no customers who come into the store to buy anything.”
A hole cut in your pants?
cropped top?
Upon hearing this, Ye Linchen immediately understood what was going on.
Ripped jeans, crop tops...
Meng Zihan is still the same as ever, always trying to take shortcuts and bringing all the popular styles from later generations to this era ahead of time.
She thought she had grasped the secrets to future trends and could easily make money without lifting a finger.
But they forgot that any fashion trend needs the fertile ground of the times to grow.
In the mid-1990s, when even bell-bottoms were considered avant-garde, her "outlandish outfits" were seen by others as either bizarre or indecent.
She still didn't understand that doing business is like being a person; you have to be down-to-earth and take things one step at a time.
Trying to take shortcuts by relying on a bit of foresight will only lead to a more painful fall in the end.
Meanwhile, in a port city thousands of miles away...
Meng Zihan stood irritably in the clothing store she had built from scratch.
Under the magnificent crystal chandelier, the clothes she designed herself, which she believed would surely set a trend, hung forlornly on the hangers, untouched by anyone.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the crowds of people in Central flow endlessly, but that prosperity has nothing to do with her whatsoever.
She was so worried about the ever-increasing losses in the ledger that she almost lost all her hair.
Why?
She couldn't understand why these clothes would become a global sensation in later generations, becoming sought-after items by countless celebrities and trendsetters!
Why did it become such a neglected piece of trash after arriving here?
Why are all these people from the port city so short-sighted?
Linda also came to the store with Meng Zihan today.
She stood by the gleaming floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the respectable people hurrying by on the streets of Central outside, then looking back at the empty and desolate scene inside the shop, her heart felt heavy, as if it were stuffed with a wad of wet cotton.
When the designer took out the clothing samples based on the drawings Meng Zihan made, Linda had a premonition of today's situation.
Those two pieces of clothing were really strange.
A top, so short it barely reached the navel, clung tightly to the plastic mannequin.
The other item was a pair of jeans. The material was good, but unfortunately, there were two holes, each bigger than a fist, cut at the knees of both legs. The frayed edges were sticking out like two gaping mouths.
Linda is not a country bumpkin who has never seen the world. She has been working in the clothing industry for almost ten years. What kind of avant-garde designs hasn't she seen?
But Meng Zihan's two items are not avant-garde, they're outrageous.
In today's port city, ladies from well-to-do families still consider wearing well-tailored skirt suits to be beautiful.
Fashionable girls might wear bell-bottoms at most, but clothes that expose the belly and knees so clearly would definitely get them criticized by elders for being "improper."
But Meng Zihan cherished her "masterpiece" so much that she wouldn't listen to any advice.
With a wave of her hand, she insisted on pairing the two clothes together and putting them on the two most expensive mannequins imported from abroad in the store, displaying them in the most prominent position at the store entrance as the store's signature piece.
Well, what we've attracted isn't guests, but a spectacle.
Eight out of ten passersby will stop and point at the mannequins in the shop window.
His eyes held curiosity and incomprehension, but more than anything, they held disdain and mockery.
It felt like watching a circus farce.
As a result, let alone entering the store to make a purchase, many potential customers are so frightened by this "shocking" outfit at the door that they take three steps back and have no desire to even come in to browse other clothes.
It's been almost a month since the store opened, and the other two designers in the store, who are also formally trained, have been complaining for a long time.
While their designs weren't groundbreaking, they were at least normal clothes that could be sold on the market.
But because of these two "gods" at the entrance, the whole store's style became incongruous, like a weirdo's club selling strange clothes, and their hard work went unnoticed.
Seeing Meng Zihan's face grow increasingly grim, her eyebrows furrowed into a knot, Linda knew she could no longer remain silent.
She cleared her throat, carefully choosing her words, and stepped forward.
"Ms. Meng, please don't be upset." She tried to make her voice sound gentle and professional. "It's normal for the market to need time to accept a new brand when it's first launched. How about... we change the main style? Try a different outfit from the store and see how the customers react?"
Meng Zihan was already annoyed by the huge red deficit in the ledger, but when she heard her words, she finally found an outlet for her anger.
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