Zhan Xi knew that hanfu culture was still a niche interest in China, only developing in recent years. During holidays, you could often see young people wearing hanfu while visiting scenic spots or walking down streets.
The spending power of hanfu enthusiasts varied greatly. Some young girls saved every penny just to buy a dress costing one or two hundred yuan, while others could spend thousands without hesitation.
Hanfu brands were similarly varied. High-end brands used premium materials and had exquisite craftsmanship, naturally commanding high prices. Mid to low-end brands aimed for mass appeal, trying to make hanfu affordable and enjoyable for more enthusiasts.
And Luo Jingyu’s hanfu hot-pressed accessories were a niche within a niche.
To break it down further, his target consumers should be those who bought mid to high-end hanfu brands. After all, girls who bought two-hundred-yuan dresses would find it hard to justify spending three to five hundred yuan on a hairpin. Similarly, those who could afford thousand-yuan hanfu wouldn’t want to pair their elegant clothes with cheap hairpins costing just tens of yuan.
As such, with “Xiyu Hot-Press” just starting out and lacking sufficient consumer base, business after opening shop was predictably not ideal.
Twenty-four hours had passed, and their Taobao store only received about thirty orders. Zhan Xi and Luo Jingyu stood side by side looking at the computer screen, but weren’t too disappointed.
Every beginning is difficult. Zhan Xi squeezed Luo Jingyu’s hand, still full of confidence in him.
Overall, hanfu culture was trending upward, along with other traditional Chinese cultural elements returning to public attention in recent years. So as long as Luo Jingyu persevered, things would gradually improve. After all, his designed accessories had always maintained a good reputation in the hanfu community, and he had experience with items selling out within hours.
Though orders were few, at least they had started. Luo Jingyu remained calm, preparing to organize the styles and quantities to make them batch by batch. This time there was plenty of time, so he could make them more exquisitely without needing to work overnight, since the first batch of shipments wasn’t due until the end of August.
Miss Su from Shanshang Hanfu Studio maintained contact with Zhan Xi, and the two got along well.
Su told Zhan Xi that in previous years, Shanshang Hanfu had collaborated several times with Xiaoyuyu Hot-Press on co-branded items, and it had always been pleasant. The studio’s designers really liked the accessories designed by Xiaoyuyu’s teacher, but never had the chance to contact the teacher directly. They didn’t expect the teacher to go independent now, and only just learned that his surname was Luo.
[Su]: Miss Zhan, is that side profile silhouette on the official account Teacher Luo? [Egg Pudding]: Yes, that’s Teacher Luo himself [shy] [Su]: Oh my god! I never imagined Teacher Luo was a man! And such a handsome one! We must meet him sometime! Our designers really want to meet him! [Egg Pudding]: [grin] Sure, we’re in Qiantang. If you come to Qiantang, Teacher Luo and I will treat you to a meal~
Su sent over the contract for the co-branded design and production for Zhan Xi to review. Zhan Xi read it word by word and found no issues.
But since she wasn’t a law student, she still thick-skinedly asked Yuan Sichen for help, requesting her to have a former colleague from the legal department look at the contract. Only after getting feedback that there were no issues did her mind settle.
Zhan Xi repeatedly confirmed with Su that Shanshang had never signed any contracts with Xiaoyuyu Hot-Press before, nor received any designs from Fang Xu, which left Su puzzled.
[Su]: What’s wrong? Is there some unpleasantness between Teacher Luo and Mr. Fang? [Egg Pudding]: Not really, it’s just that Teacher Luo just started working independently, and this order was taken over from Mr. Fang. We’re worried about potential disputes. [Su]: Don’t worry, our designers specifically requested the original designer from Xiaoyuyu. Whether he’s at Xiaoyuyu or Xiyu, as long as it’s him personally, there’s no problem. [Egg Pudding]: It’s definitely his personal design. I watched Teacher Luo draw the initial drafts with my own eyes. [Su]: Okay okay, previously our contracts were all signed with Mr. Fang. This time please have Teacher Luo sign it, then courier it to me. I’ll stamp it and send it back to you.
Shanshang Hanfu Studio focused on mid to high-end products, with their headquarters in Guangzhou. Zhan Xi had looked them up online and checked their store – every outfit was expensive.
Summer clothes generally cost three to four hundred yuan, spring and autumn items five to six hundred, winter clothes ranged from eight or nine hundred to one or two thousand, while some bridal series and collaborations with famous online games were even more jaw-droppingly expensive.
This collaboration with Luo Jingyu was for two women’s outfits from their autumn collection’s “Tang Dynasty Splendor” theme, each set coming with a hairpin, a crown, and a hand flower.
Their requested accessory theme was — Fish Playing with Lotus.
Tang Dynasty women paid great attention to hairstyles and accessories, often wearing elaborate and complex ornaments. Although modern hanfu products have been modified to suit contemporary aesthetics, accessories still needed to match the historical dynasty’s style. So when designing, Luo Jingyu followed the requirements of their designers, making the lotus flowers delicate and beautiful while maintaining his signature elegant style.
The requested quantity wasn’t large – Su said these accessories were limited edition, available only to early pre-order customers, with just thirty sets total. The contract price was over thirty thousand yuan.
After printing the contract, Zhan Xi gave it to Luo Jingyu to sign. He signed his name immediately without even looking at it.
Zhan Xi sat across from him and signed helplessly: [You’re not even going to look at it?]
Luo Jingyu looked at her with confusion and signed: [Look at what?]
Zhan Xi tapped her finger on the papers on the table.
Luo Jingyu smiled and shook his head, signing: [I trust you. If you’ve looked at it, that’s enough. I wouldn’t understand it anyway.]
Zhan Xi thought he was really hopeless: “Little Fish, it’s a miracle you haven’t been sold out by Fang Xu all these years!”
Luo Jingyu didn’t mind Zhan Xi’s complaint at all, still smiling carefreely, and signed back: [I never signed anything before, he wouldn’t let me look.]
Zhan Xi almost coughed up blood, rushing over to squeeze Luo Jingyu’s cheeks: “You’re such a silly fish! How can you be so silly?”
Luo Jingyu read her lips with wide eyes, looking like he’d been struck. He raised his hands hesitantly to ask: [Do you think I’m very silly?]
Ah ah ah! Zhan Xi was about to die of frustration. She squeezed his cheeks hard making his lips pucker, then “nom” bit his lips, fuming: “Silly!”
Then she ran off with his signed contract.
Luo Jingyu touched his face, then touched his sore lips, feeling very wronged.
A week later, the contract stamped by Shanshang arrived in Zhan Xi’s hands. After communicating with their designers and making several revisions, the co-branded accessories were finally finalized, and Luo Jingyu began buying materials to start production.
Besides metal components, the hairpins and crowns all had some pearl and jade decorations, but the most important elements were the fish and lotus flowers.
The lotus flowers were naturally made with hot-pressing. What Zhan Xi was most curious about was how Luo Jingyu would make the fish.
Instead of answering, Luo Jingyu directly took out several finished koi from the cabinet to show her.
These were his previous experimental pieces, made with heat-shrink film. Each koi had a different pose, crystal clear with a light orange-red body and transparent tail. The fins and scales were distinct, and even the eyes looked lively.
Zhan Xi held one tiny koi in her palm to look at it – it was smaller than a coin. She was amazed and felt like she’d seen this fish somewhere before but couldn’t remember where.
Luo Jingyu stood beside her smiling, asking: [Is it pretty?]
Zhan Xi thought he looked dashing even when signing. She nodded repeatedly: “Beautiful, so cute! So tiny! You’re amazing!”
Luo Jingyu raised his eyebrows proudly. For him, nothing involving handwork could stump him. He was happy making these little koi – little fish, one after another!
He wanted to try making goldfish in the future. Goldfish had more colors and patterns, with more graceful poses. Combined with hot-pressed flowers, they should look beautiful too.
Zhan Xi was still playing with the little koi, imagining how the crown would look – one or several elegant lotus flowers, with two koi swimming around them, plus shiny metal and some small jade pearls. Wow! It would be absolutely stunning!
No wonder Little Fish said the initial draft could only have minor modifications. Fish playing with lotus flowers – how else could it be changed? Couldn’t change the flowers or the fish, any changes would still be the same theme.
—
“Xiyu Hot-Press” store gradually received customer orders, and Zhan Xi insisted on updating social media content daily.
Q platform focused on short videos, while the official account was for articles. Zhan Xi would discuss the hanfu festival custom accessories one by one, with beautiful pictures and some traditional cultural interpretations. The articles weren’t long, just maintaining a daily presence.
Weibo was less formal. Besides hot-pressing related content, Zhan Xi occasionally shared photos of their cat, and Luo Jingyu’s flowers and cooking.
This was no longer purely a work account, but had become a platform showcasing Teacher Luo’s life. Of course, except for the side profile silhouette in the official account article, to protect privacy, neither Zhan Xi nor Luo Jingyu ever showed their faces.
Followers on various platforms were slowly increasing, but store orders showed little improvement.
Zhan Xi checked Fang Xu’s store and saw sales were still considerable. Fang Xu took this hanfu festival seriously, hiring hanfu models for photos and offering discount promotions.
Luo Jingyu only gave Fang Xu five samples, but the models wore more than five samples, with flowers in different colors.
Zhan Xi showed her phone to Luo Jingyu, asking him to identify which ones he made and which ones he didn’t. He could recognize them at a glance.
Just from the photos, Guan Rujie’s work looked decent, but the actual quality remained unknown.
Zhan Xi thought they should know both themselves and their competition, so she asked Luo Xinran to help order two hairpins from Fang Xu’s store, wanting to see how skillful Miss Guan really was.
She discussed with Luo Jingyu that based on current situation, Xiyu’s business might not be good this year. But that’s okay – after they ship their products, everyone will know Teacher Luo’s quality, and word of mouth will help.
Additionally, when Shanshang releases their new products on the Qixi Festival, Xiyu Hot-Press can promote together, which should bring more orders.
Luo Jingyu wasn’t too busy, so he picked a day to visit his parents with his sister and brother-in-law, having dinner at their parents’ home.
Luo Xiaomei was almost sixteen weeks pregnant, with a visible belly. In another week or so, she would go for genetic testing.
She had gained quite a bit of weight. Seeing Luo Jingyu at their parents’ home, she smiled and patted her brother’s arm, signing: [What’s going on with you? Now that you have a girlfriend you don’t come home? I haven’t seen you for almost two months.]
Luo Jingyu told her he was very busy with the exhibition last month and only recently had free time.
Luo Xiaomei knew about this. At the time, she wanted to visit the Makers’ Festival with their parents, but Luo Jingyu talked her out of it. Partly because Zhan Xi would be there and he worried about her feeling uncomfortable meeting family, and partly because the exhibition hall was hot and crowded with poor air quality, unsuitable for pregnant women.
Luo Jingyu chatted with his sister and brother-in-law for a while, telling them he had parted ways with Fang Xu. Luo Xiaomei was surprised and asked what he would do next. Luo Jingyu told her he was working with his girlfriend, who helped him with many things, telling his sister not to worry.
When signing, he thought of Huanhuan and his face grew warm: [My girlfriend is a university student, very smart, writes articles really well. Now I rely a lot on her help, otherwise I would indeed struggle alone. Although business is still slow, she always encourages me, saying not to worry.]
Seeing her brother’s lovestruck foolish expression, Luo Xiaomei worriedly asked: [Does your girlfriend’s family still not know about you two?]
At this, Luo Jingyu’s eyes lit up. He immediately straightened his back, signing excitedly: [No! Her father and brother already know, know that I’m deaf. Her brother has even visited my home and eaten here several times. He likes me! They’ve approved of us being together.]
Gao Yuan burst out laughing, and Luo Xiaomei covered her mouth laughing too. Luo Jingyu felt he might have been too smug, and weakly signed in explanation: [My girlfriend and I really have a good relationship. I want to marry her.]
Luo Xiaomei rubbed Luo Jingyu’s head: [Work hard, treat her well, don’t mind too much that you can’t hear. You’re a good boy, you deserve a good girl.]
Luo Jingyu looked at his sister, then moved his gaze to her swollen belly, unable to resist reaching out to touch it. He thought a pregnant belly would be soft, but it felt hard when he touched it.
After touching for a while, he withdrew his hand and asked: [Can the baby move?]
Luo Xiaomei smiled and answered: [Not yet, it will take a few more weeks to feel movement.]
Luo Jingyu thought for a moment and asked: [Are you nervous? About the check-up.]
Luo Xiaomei gently shook her head.
Luo Jingyu looked at Gao Yuan, who also smiled and shook his head, answering: “Not nervous, neither Xiaomei nor I are nervous, we’ll let nature take its course.”
Luo Jingyu couldn’t understand why his sister and brother-in-law could be so calm. This was their first child. If it were him, he would be worried sick, wondering every day if the child would inherit deafness, and what to do if it did.
He thought, his sister and brother-in-law were such good people who had endured so much hardship. Studying wasn’t easy, finding work wasn’t easy, getting together was even harder. Heaven had already played such a big joke on them, shouldn’t it give them something good in return now?
God, please give them a healthy child! Luo Jingyu prayed silently. A healthy child would also give him more hope for a lifetime with Huanhuan.
As they were talking, Yan Yajuan came out from the kitchen and signed to the three young people: [Dinner’s ready. Xiaomei, you sit still, Little Fish go get the bowls and chopsticks.]
Luo Jingyu obediently got up to go to the kitchen. Yan Yajuan followed him in, patted his arm and asked: [When will you bring your girlfriend home for dinner? You’ve been dating for half a year now, right? Won’t you let us meet her?]
Luo Jingyu became shy again, pursing his lips without answering, grabbing the bowls and chopsticks and slipping away.
—
The hot August passed quickly, and Luo Jingyu sent the samples to Su early.
After several rounds of previews, Shanshang Hanfu Studio held their new product launch event in Guangzhou on August 25th, the Qixi Festival.
Zhan Xi watched videos and photos of the launch event on Weibo, where male and female models walked the runway in beautiful Tang-style clothing. She waited a long time before finally seeing the two women’s outfits with accessories designed by Luo Jingyu.
Zhan Xi ran to Luo Jingyu’s side to watch together. Of the two dresses, one was dark and one light, both featuring fish playing with lotus flowers in their patterns.
The models wore exaggerated Tang Dynasty makeup and what appeared to be fake hair buns. The hairpins and hand flowers were small and not very noticeable in the video, but the crown was eye-catching. The lotus flowers were large, exquisite and lifelike, with two orange-red koi faintly visible swimming around the edges.
The launch event was very successful. Soon after, Shanshang Hanfu’s Weibo posted professionally edited photos of each new item. The two posts about the “Fish Playing with Lotus” style tagged Xiyu Hot-Press, explaining that the accessories were co-branded items.
Zhan Xi immediately reposted, lavishly praising both Shanshang Hanfu and Teacher Luo.
She quickly updated their official account. Shanshang Hanfu’s Weibo had over 300,000 followers. Zhan Xi eagerly waited for their Taobao store orders to surge again, but the aftermath wasn’t as smooth as she imagined.
Not only was it not smooth, things seemed to be developing in a frightening direction.
The morning after Shanshang Hanfu’s new product launch, Zhan Xi woke up to find over ten missed voice calls from Su on WeChat, all from late last night.
She hurriedly called back, apologizing immediately: “I’m so sorry, Su, I had my phone on silent while sleeping. What’s wrong?”
Su’s tone carried panic and anger: “Xiao Zhan, quickly check Weibo! Someone tagged you and us, see what’s going on! I’m about to lose my mind!”
Zhan Xi was confused: “Ah? Okay okay, I’ll look right now and call you back.”
After hanging up, she opened Weibo and saw many notifications. Ignoring the comments for now, Zhan Xi went to look at the mentions.
What Su wanted her to see was apparently an original Weibo post by a user called “rrmft0429”, with both images and text:
[rrmft0429]: Oh my god! Have I been plagiarized? @Shanshang Hanfu Studio, @Xiyu Hot-Press Art, please look at my Weibo post from July 21st, announcement! That was my original work! Please explain, you two big names! [crying]
Image 1 – Screenshot of [rrmft0429]’s July 21st Weibo post, time clearly shown Image 2 – Close-up of Fish Playing with Lotus hairpin from Shanshang Hanfu’s professional photos Image 3 – Close-up of Shanshang’s hand flower Image 4 – Close-up of [rrmft0429]’s hairpin Image 5 – Close-up of [rrmft0429]’s hand flower …
Zhan Xi’s head exploded. Her first reaction was that Fang Xu was behind this! She immediately went to look at [rrmft0429]’s original Weibo post from July 21st.
7-21 from XXX phone [rrmft0429]: Last week I went to the park with friends for inspiration, the lotus flowers were blooming and we saw lots of little fish. Pity we didn’t bring bread. Took some photos but still felt unsatisfied when I got back, so decided to make crafts! Finally finished after a week! Showing off now, I’m still new to hot-pressing, praise me! [cute]
Image 1 – Lotus flowers in a lake Image 2 – Koi fish near lotus flowers Image 3 – Close-up of [rrmft0429]’s hairpin Image 4 – Close-up of [rrmft0429]’s hand flower …
Zhan Xi enlarged each photo of this person’s handwork – they all had watermarks.
The lotus flowers were indeed made with hot-pressing, not as exquisite as Luo Jingyu’s work, quite crude and fitting for a beginner’s persona. The fish were made of some unknown material, not heat-shrink film, even cruder than the flowers. The problem was that the style and color… were just too similar to Luo Jingyu’s accessories!
Zhan Xi looked carefully. There were definitely differences in the details between both sides’ accessories, and the metal components were different too. But the visual impact of the lotus flowers and koi combined together was impossible to ignore.
This person hadn’t made a crown, perhaps because it was too difficult, but just the hairpin and hand flower were enough to give Zhan Xi a headache.
Anger blazed in her heart.
If she had only suspected before, now Zhan Xi was certain – this was Fang Xu’s doing!
Looking at the timeline, Luo Jingyu drew his initial drafts in early July, Zhan Xi had watched him draw them!
Which day were the photos taken by Fang Xu? She couldn’t remember immediately and would need to check her calendar.
This person posted their pictures on July 21st, saying they got inspiration a week before – clearly after Luo Jingyu drew his drafts.
Did Little Fish keep any electronic versions of his initial drafts that could prove the date?
Zhan Xi didn’t know and needed to ask him.
She racked her brain but couldn’t understand why Fang Xu would do this!
Was he trying to destroy them completely? What deep grudge did he hold?
She looked at [rrmft0429]’s profile again. It seemed like an alternate account with only about 60 followers, posting since late March, updating every ten days or two weeks, occasionally related to hot-pressing.
The tone suggested a female user. The posts had no comments or likes, just an unremarkable corner of Weibo.
Even this post tagging both studios and claiming plagiarism had no comments.
Zhan Xi decided to put Fang Xu’s motives aside for now.
A problem had emerged, and now wasn’t the time to figure out why, but to find a solution. This wasn’t just an issue between Luo Jingyu and Fang Xu anymore – it involved a big brand like Shanshang. If the product faced plagiarism scandal, Xiyu had signed a contract and would be legally responsible!
Clearly, the other party came prepared, watching for Shanshang’s new product launch.
Zhan Xi sat on her bed, gradually calming down. She knew any verbal explanation would be useless, and swearing oaths would be a joke. This kind of dispute needed evidence.
Su was still waiting for her explanation.
Zhan Xi jumped out of bed, not even bothering to wash up. She grabbed her phone and keys and rushed to the fifteenth floor.
Please, please, hope Little Fish has evidence that can prove he drew the initial drafts before this person!
As long as they could prove this point, all problems would be solved.
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