Gu Zhengqing hadn’t taken the wrong medicine – this wasn’t like him at all.
Even if Xia Xiaolan married Zhou Cheng, Gu Zhengqing wouldn’t let Gu Siyan accept expensive gifts… Though sometimes his stubbornness was annoying, Aunt Zhou particularly admired this trait in her husband. Because Gu Zhengqing had the integrity not to take advantage of the Zhou family, regardless of his official rank, Aunt Zhou could always speak confidently at her maiden home!
Gu Zhengqing’s unusual behavior must be related to what Xia Xiaolan had said. Aunt Zhou was completely puzzled but could only let it be.
Gu Siyan had very nervously managed to keep her new watch.
At home, her father rarely expressed opinions, but when he did, her mother would listen!
Just as Gu Siyan was feeling happy, Aunt Zhou twisted her ear again:
“Who taught you and your sister this bad habit of eavesdropping on adults? Getting so scared and skipping school over such a small matter – can’t you show some backbone!”
Gu Siyan cried out in pain, “Mom, it wasn’t a small matter, Sister Zhou Yi—”
Aunt Zhou’s face was cold, “What does she matter to you? She has no regard for her parents, only thinking about her happiness – just a selfish creature!”
“Oh, Sister Xiaolan also told me not to interfere, said it wasn’t our business. Mom, I definitely won’t upset you and Dad like Sister Zhou Yi…”
Gu Siyan’s voice grew increasingly quiet – this topic was getting dangerous.
“Please calm down, I have no interest in dating. Those boys are so immature!”
The Gu household was in chaos.
Gu Zhengqing took out the scholar’s four treasures that Xia Xiaolan had given him to examine.
When he said Xia Xiaolan was the master of money, he saw that she truly didn’t mind spending money on things – buying a watch for Gu Siyan and these scholar’s tools for him wasn’t about the value but the thought behind it.
“This matter is too big if I were to lead it alone…”
Gu Zhengqing muttered to himself, knowing his influence wasn’t enough.
The Planning and Development Department couldn’t lead this independently; they’d need cooperation from the Higher Education Department at minimum.
The child’s idea was pure and positive – he needed to work actively on it.
Gu Zhengqing usually didn’t deliberately stay too close to his wife’s family, but because of what Xia Xiaolan had said, he was already thinking about discussing it with his father-in-law, Old Master Zhou – well, he could pass along this set of scholar’s tools as a gift to the old master.
These old masters were strange – they carried guns when young, but in their old age, they all wanted to practice calligraphy.
Gu Zhengqing got a headache just thinking about having to insincerely praise his father-in-law’s calligraphy.
That skill level was truly wasting good brushes, ink, and paper!
…
Wangfujing, Elegance Headquarters.
After Elegance transformed from a custom workshop to a clothing brand, this became Elegance’s corporate headquarters.
On December 15th, Elegance opened six specialty stores in Beijing.
The sales data wasn’t too bad, but it hadn’t met expectations either.
Designing clothes and operating a clothing brand were two different things – the latter was more difficult than Ji Ya had imagined.
She felt she had worked incredibly hard, but didn’t consider how others started their businesses from scratch, truly earning money penny by penny through hard work. Ji Ya’s venture, from workshop to clothing brand transformation, had cost George over a million yuan – to call it incredibly hard work when starting from such a high point would invite criticism if said aloud.
But Ji Ya truly felt exhausted.
The mental pressure was too great, constantly comparing her business with Xia Xiaolan’s – how could she not be tired?
Just like now, after Elegance’s launch on the 15th, as a new brand, the revenue from several stores wasn’t too bad, but compared to Luna and Blue Phoenix, it fell far short of Ji Ya’s expectations.
“Many people look, but not enough buy.”
Ji Ya wanted to compete with Luna, painfully lowering Elegance’s prices.
Elegance’s materials and workmanship were no worse than Luna’s clothes, only better, but the pricing closely matched Luna’s – customers wouldn’t balk at clothes costing just a few yuan more.
But why did they all go to Luna to buy?
Should she copy Xia Xiaolan and do some “donate one yuan per sale” gimmick?
This was different from advertising in fashion magazines and newspapers – the entire global fashion industry did that, so Elegance wouldn’t be completely copying Luna’s original promotional strategy!
But “donate one yuan per sale” was too obvious – if Elegance imitated this, it would mean Ji Ya was copying Xia Xiaolan’s ideas.
Most people wouldn’t care about copying if they could make money.
But Ji Ya’s main purpose in founding Elegance wasn’t to make money but to hurt Xia Xiaolan’s business… If she copied Xia Xiaolan’s business methods, wouldn’t that be admitting she was inferior to Xia Xiaolan, that she had lost to her?
If she admitted defeat, she might as well kneel on Chang’an Street and apologize to Xia Xiaolan!
Elegance’s business was doing fine.
But considering Ji Ya’s investment, without following Luna’s rapid expansion, Elegance wouldn’t recover costs for who knows how long.
Luna had established itself for a year, developed slowly, and then invested heavily in advertising. Only when Xia Xiaolan and Chen Xiliang were very confident about profitability did they spend hundreds of thousands on advertising.
Elegance did everything backward – with no foundation, they spent heavily on promotion first, then hoped for quick returns.
The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.
Investors’ money wasn’t so easily manipulated either. Luna had previous impressive sales data as backing, central TV advertising, and their donation initiative sparked social discussion. Franchisees believed the brand had strength and that joining Luna could be profitable, so they pursued Chen Xiliang with money in hand.
Elegance’s recognition was far below Luna’s.
Its reputation in China’s fashion circles was decent – the fashion show had truly sparked domestic fashion development.
But China’s fashion circle was tiny. In the 80s, talking about fashion… Even after 30 years, this circle was just beginning to align with international fashion. For a long time, China’s fashion circle played by itself, as the big brothers weren’t willing to play with this bumpkin little brother. Under these circumstances, for Elegance to take the high-end route to capture the low-end market would require years of foundation-laying and patience, waiting for future takeoff.
Luna never focused on high fashion, always following a mass-market approach.
All cooperation with fashion magazines had a simple purpose: promotion and profit!
Between these two different paths, neither was right or wrong – it depended on who was implementing them.
Ji Ya wasn’t completely without skill; she was just too impatient!
The fire in her heart had been burning since meeting Xia Xiaolan – the smoother Xia Xiaolan’s path, the fiercer Ji Ya’s inner fire burned.
Originally, her entanglement with Xia Xiaolan wasn’t so deep, but now that Xia Xiaolan’s mother Liu Fen, and Tang Hongen were together, the fire nearly consumed Ji Ya!
She repeatedly obsessed over two points:
Why?
How dare she?
While Elegance had no hope of short-term returns, bad news came from Pengcheng: Xia Xiaolan’s Jinsha Pool project was hugely successful. George estimated Xia Xiaolan could profit nearly ten million yuan from this project alone… Heavens, hadn’t capital always been Xia Xiaolan’s constraint?
With the success of Xia Xiaolan’s first real estate project, her capital became substantial, leaving Ji Ya momentarily at a loss.
How could she surpass Xia Xiaolan?
According to official exchange rates, Xia Xiaolan had just earned at least 200,000 US dollars!
George had said directly: “A young person capable of earning 200,000 US dollars is rare even in America.”
How could Ji Ya, who treated money so casually, not understand what 200,000 US dollars meant?
Even raising Ji Jiangyuan to upper-middle-class standards hadn’t cost 100,000 US dollars!