Chapter 69 The Sixty-Nine Days of Not Running Away The sixty-ninth day of not running away...
Two days before the trade fair opened, Zhao Dan and his wife sent a congratulatory gift: a small gold boat with a smooth sailing design. The boat was small, but quite heavy.
Liu's mother couldn't stop smiling as she looked at the gift.
Liu Yan felt the gift was too extravagant. With gold currently priced at 48 yuan per gram, a boat like this would probably cost at least three or four thousand yuan.
Wen Chan said to her, "Just take what Sister Zhao gave you. As long as our business does well and we can make money, then we won't have let down the couple's kindness."
"That's true." Liu Yan felt heavy-hearted. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, she picked up the kettle on her desk, poured Wen Chan a glass of water, and asked, "The sales conference is starting the day after tomorrow, and I'm feeling really anxious."
"What are you afraid of?" Wen Chan's lips curled up. After months of hard work and overcoming countless difficulties, she said, "Don't you know how good our clothes are?"
Liu Yan put down the kettle. "I know, but I'm really worried about how much money we've invested. What if the market doesn't accept it? The 400,000 yuan you and Sister Zhao invested will be gone."
Wen Chan knew what was wrong with Liu Yan; the girl was too nervous and anxious.
This is understandable; so far, the garment factory has already invested over 300,000 yuan.
If this batch of goods doesn't sell, the losses will be huge.
"Believe in me, and believe in yourself, we will definitely become a hit." Wen Chan said decisively, holding Liu Yan's hand.
Liu Yan looked at her, gritted her teeth, and nodded emphatically.
On the first day of the trade fair, before dawn, everyone in the courtyard got busy. Chen Bo and Fatty came over to lend a hand, and the girls from the model team also arrived early. Everyone took a 130 truck to get there.
Fifteen or sixteen people sat in the back of the truck, while another truck was responsible for transporting goods and clothes hangers, etc.
In mid-March, the spring chill lingered. The sky in Beijing was a grayish-blue in the early morning. As you walked along, your face was covered in dust. There were already a few bicycles and pedestrians on the road, and breakfast stalls were setting up, selling hot soy milk, fried dough sticks, and sesame cakes.
Although everyone had eaten before leaving, the aroma still made them salivate.
Liu Yan laughed and said, "Don't be greedy. Everyone, give it your all today. You can choose whatever you want to eat later. It's on me."
The fat man beamed with joy upon hearing this, "Really? Then let's go to Bianyifang for barbecue."
"Fatty, still eating meat? Look at yourself, all that fat on you." Lan Linglong said, pinching the fat man's arm.
The fat man chuckled, not annoyed at all. "This just proves that my meat wasn't eaten for nothing. Unlike you guys, you can eat all you want but don't gain weight. You're all skin and bones. People who don't know you would think you're African refugees."
When the fat man said this, he clearly didn't realize that today's troop was an all-female army.
There were about ten people in the carriage, but only the fat man and Chen Bozheng were men; the rest were all girls, and each of them was incredibly thin.
The fat man immediately incurred public wrath.
Jiang Zihan reached out to grab the fat man, "Fatty, who are you calling an African refugee? Who are you insulting?"
“That’s right, Fatty looks down on us and makes fun of us. Let’s not be polite to him,” Lan Linglong called out to the model team.
A group of girls slapped the fat man repeatedly on the head and arms.
The fat man was clumsy and awkward, managing to dodge to the left but not to the right, leaving him in a sorry state.
Passersby on the street saw this and couldn't help but laugh.
Some onlookers, eager for a good show, rode up on their bicycles and shouted at the fat man, "Hey buddy, what's up? Playing the role of a mother teaching her son so early in the morning? You're lucky!"
It's said that people from Tianjin are quick-witted, but Wen Chan discovered that people from Beijing are just as quick-witted.
Upon hearing this, she couldn't help but burst out laughing.
The fat man shouted at the man, "Go to hell! Do you want this good fortune?"
"Of course I want it, why wouldn't I?" the man said cheerfully.
The fat man rolled his eyes at him and looked at Liu Yan with pleading eyes.
Liu Yan suppressed a laugh and pulled the crowd apart. "Alright, be nicer to Fatty. He'll be helping us with a lot of the heavy work today, so don't bully him."
As the factory manager, her words carried weight, and the girls finally let the fat man go.
The fat man let out a long sigh, ruffled his hair, pulled a flashy pink mirror from his fanny pack, looked at himself in the mirror, and said, "You people are so heartless. You've ruined the hairstyle I got this morning."
The group chatted and laughed, and before they knew it, they had arrived at the trade fair.
It's only 7:30 now.
There were already many trucks parked at the entrance of the trade fair. Everyone stopped chatting and laughing. Liu Yan went to register with the staff, got an access pass, and then came over to call everyone to get out of the trucks and unload the goods.
The trade fair was very large and was held at the Workers' Stadium. As you walked in from the entrance, you could see that many stalls were already stocked with goods.
Upon seeing someone enter, the stall owners behind the stalls glanced at them, and some recognized Liu Yan and greeted her.
Liu Yan nodded to the man and led the group to the back.
They set up their stalls, displayed their goods, laid out the prepared red carpet on the ground, and took out the prepared broadcasting equipment. As everyone busied themselves, more and more people gathered in the stadium.
Wen Chan was not in good health, and everyone was understanding, so they let her go for a walk around the neighborhood. After she returned from her walk, she found several uninvited guests in front of her stall.
These uninvited guests were familiar faces; they were the Sun couple, whose stall was right next to Liu Yan's on Xiushui Street.
"Oh dear, Liu Yan, I haven't seen you for months. I thought something had happened to you," Sister Sun said, looking quite alarmed.
Liu Yan glanced at her and said, "Oh, it's Sister Sun. If your mouth is fine, how could anything happen to me?"
She spoke while organizing the goods in her hands.
The pants are separated according to size and color. Liu Yan loves neatness, so she folds each pair neatly and arranges them on the display rack. Only when she sees them does she feel at ease.
Sister Sun's face darkened, her eyes sweeping over the goods at Liu Yan's stall, a mocking smile appearing on her face: "How did you end up like this? Not only did you set up such a lowly stall, but even your goods aren't the most fashionable. Bell-bottoms are all the rage right now!"
Liu Yan laughed and said, "We also have bell-bottoms, but if you ask me, bell-bottoms won't be fashionable for long."
Liu Yan didn't waste the first batch of jeans the garment factory had just made; she brought them all over, not to sell them, but to use them for comparison.
As the saying goes, even the most beautiful flower needs green leaves to complement it. Without a contrasting element, how can the fashion and style of their jeans be highlighted?
"Heh, little brat, you've got quite the nerve. You'd better watch out for your money later." Sister Sun was about to say a few more words when someone called out that someone was coming. She glanced at her watch and realized it was already 8:50. Forgetting about arguing with Liu Yan any longer, she hurriedly led her people back to the stall.
Starting at nine o'clock, more and more people came to the clothing fair.
The stalls near the entrance have already sold quite a few items. Spring clothes, such as sweaters, knitwear, light jackets, and leather jackets, are all perfect for this season.
The bosses were all busy and happy, their wallets bulging with money.
"Bai Xue, what do you think of this dress?"
Today is Saturday, a holiday for college students. A few freshmen girls from Capital Normal University couldn't resist going out for a stroll. Beijing is the capital, and there are many students from well-off families in the university. Seeing that everyone else was dressed smartly and looking good, these girls couldn't help but want to dress up nicely themselves.
Zhou Baixue and several other girls shared a dormitory. There were four roommates, and their family backgrounds were all similar—not bad, but not good either. However, being from a teacher's college gave them an advantage. They tutored others and could earn a considerable amount of money each month. This money either went into their food or was spent on clothes, jewelry, and cosmetics.
Zhou Baixue glanced at the black wool sweater in Lin Min's hand on the lower bunk, went up and touched it. The material was extremely rough. She looked at the proprietress who was attending to other customers and said to Lin Min, "Take it back quickly. This style of clothing is outdated, and the material is also poor. They still have the nerve to sell it for 150 yuan. It's like robbery."
Lin Min trusted Zhou Baixue's judgment and readily put down the sweater.
The four of them walked for a while, but still couldn't find anything good to look at.
Lin Min, wearing sheepskin boots, stamped her foot and said, "Isn't it said that there will be a lot of fashionable clothes at the clothing fair? I've walked all the way here and haven't seen any."
“Most of these people used to have stalls in Xiushui Street, and they sell goods from Guangzhou. No matter how fashionable they are, they can’t be that fashionable,” Zhou Baixue said. “If I had known this would happen, I would have bought clothes from my hometown and brought them here.”
Zhou Baixue's family is in Guangzhou, and she also has relatives in Hong Kong. She can buy clothes from Hong Kong, so she naturally doesn't think much of the clothes at the trade fair.
In her opinion, many of the styles here were popular in Guangzhou a few years ago, and these bosses and their wives actually have the nerve to call them the latest styles. It's simply shameless.
What she found even more incomprehensible was that many of the styles she thought were outdated actually had quite a few buyers.
In response, Zhou Baixue could only say that it's still too easy to make money from Beijingers.
"Toot-toot-toot—" A lively melody drifted from afar.
Lin Min and the others looked in the direction of the sound and saw that a large crowd had gathered around the place where the singing was coming from.
"What's going on over there? Why are there so many people?" Lin Min asked curiously, peeking over the wall.
Zhou Baixue said, "Let's go, let's go take a look."
When they got there, they squeezed in with great effort and saw seven or eight tall girls wearing jeans, walking the red carpet at specific times.
"Hey, isn't that the girl who beat up the hooligans in the newspaper before?" Roommate Chen Cai, who has a good memory, pointed at Liu Shiyu in surprise.
Zhou Baixue had forgotten about the newspaper; her eyes were fixed on the clothes and appearance of Liu Shiyu and the others.
Liu Shiyu's hair was long, black, and thick. Wen Chan took the initiative to have the stylist cut her bangs, straighten her hair, and let it fall smoothly down her back. She wore a crisp dark gray trench coat, a high-necked fine wool sweater on top, navy blue straight-leg jeans on the bottom, and a pair of leather boots on her feet. Her eyes were sharp and her face was tense.
The onlookers stared in disbelief, their voices rising in a cacophony of whispers and screams.
Wen Chan patted Liu Yan and asked, "How are you? Not bad, right?"
Liu Yan's eyes lit up, suppressing her joy: "How did you manage to get Shiyu to leave so well?"
Just before going on stage, Liu Shiyu chickened out. She had never encountered such a big scene in her life. She felt like she couldn't breathe when she had to walk the runway in front of so many strangers.
Liu Yan was completely stunned, never expecting Liu Shiyu to be in this situation.
Wen Chan said, "I told her that if she walks well, she might become an actress."
"An actor?" Liu Yan looked at Wen Chan with a puzzled expression.
Does this fashion show have anything to do with actors?
Besides, they were just messing around.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com