Moonlight Like Water (Three)

Chapter Seventeen: Moonlight Like Water (Three)

Miss Windsor suddenly woke from a beautiful dream. Remembering the state of her family, she looked close to tears. "We're almost out of money..."

Seeing that those beautiful eyes were about to spill over again, Lorist hurried to comfort her. "Don't cry. Doesn't your family still have a property and two shops in Molent City? That's the capital for the Windsor Family to rise again! As long as they're managed properly, money will pour in. Once you've made enough, Miss, you can carry out those five steps. We believe that under your leadership, the Windsor Family will definitely reclaim its territory and restore its family's honor."

Fatty Shi chimed in from the side. "Exactly. Forget the house for now. Just those two shops your family owns on Triumphal Avenue are worth a fortune. That's the commercial center of Molent City, where every inch of land is worth its weight in gold. Owning two shops there means your foundation for doing business is already firmer than anyone else's. Just look at the Golden Horn Merchant Guild. Didn't it start out in a little tavern, running errands for others? But after five or six years of operation, it's now a major guild earning millions of gold coins a year. Miss, as long as you can find a good business venture, making more than a thousand gold coins a year will actually be very easy."

The girl lifted her pretty, tear-streaked face and asked with misty eyes a question that was both simple and profound: "Then do you know what kind of business can make more than a thousand gold coins a year?"

"Ah!" Fatty Shi seemed to have suddenly thought of something and immediately slipped away. "Oh dear, I forgot to inspect the academy. The weather's been dry lately, and the students are all hot-tempered. They get into fights and cause trouble easily, and our Enforcement Department has been so busy during the day that we don't even have time to catch our breath. Now even the nights are no longer peaceful. Someone even ran off to bathe in Moon Lake. You two take your time talking. I'm leaving first."

The girl's face flushed.

As Fatty Shi passed by the girl, he rather gracefully gave her a half-bow. Then, with a slight curl of his lips, he quickly whispered, "He has a way," before disappearing outside.

Lorist was terribly frustrated, because Miss Windsor seemed determined to cling to him. Wherever he went, she followed him, never leaving his side. She even stood guard outside whenever he went to relieve himself. The situation had already attracted quite a few students' attention and gossip. If this continued, they would soon have a crowd watching.

"You've beaten me, Miss. What exactly do you want?" Lorist asked helplessly, looking at the stubborn girl.

"You're the one who saved me. Now you have to take responsibility for me."

"Good grief, was it wrong of me to save someone? How am I supposed to take responsibility?"

"I want you to help me..."

"No. Your matter is too complicated and exhausting. I can't be bothered."

"If you're responsible for me, then you have to help me. You even have a way to reclaim our family's territory, so you must have a way to do business and make money..." The girl stamped her foot like a lover acting coy.

Lorist's heart softened. "I won't do it without something in return..."

The girl smiled, bright and gentle as a flower. "Then how about I become your girlfriend...?"

Lorist lost himself in the girl's smile...

Lorist's advice to his new girlfriend, Miss Windsor, was to stop using the two shops on Triumphal Avenue to sell Kingdom of Qiloda specialties and miscellaneous goods, redecorate them, and turn them into stores specializing in women's high-end clothing.

The girl stared at him with wide, bewildered eyes. She truly couldn't understand what women's high-end clothing meant. In her impression, the clothes worn by noble ladies and young misses were either custom-made or sewn personally by themselves or their maids. No one would buy clothes from a ready-made clothing store. After all, the clothes sold there were simple, ordinary styles, and the main customers were mercenaries, laborers, minor civil servants, housewives, peddlers, and other commoners. Not a single noble would patronize such a shop. It would be far too degrading, and if word got out, they would become a laughingstock among the nobility and be looked down upon.

Lorist patiently explained, "We won't be doing the same business as those ready-made clothing stores. We'll specialize in custom-made formal dresses, gowns, and other high-end clothing for noble ladies and young misses. We can earn at least a dozen gold coins from a single outfit."

"Is that possible? Will anyone buy them?" The girl looked doubtfully at her new boyfriend.

"Of course it's possible. As long as the designs are good and we start a fashion trend, those nobles' habit of buying only what's expensive rather than what's suitable, combined with their love of comparison, will make it impossible for us not to get rich."

"Then who will design them?" the girl asked.

"Obviously, I will." Lorist pointed at himself, his face full of confidence.

Lorist was naturally confident. In fact, opening a boutique specializing in women's high-end clothing had been one of his money-making ideas for a long time. He was only bringing it out now to help his girlfriend. As for fashion design, he had obtained a designer's certification in his previous life. He was especially something of an expert when it came to princess dresses and women's formal gowns.

Back in his previous life, when Lorist was the director of a small handicraft factory, he had received an order. A wealthy man wanted to celebrate his seven-year-old daughter's birthday, so he sent a letter to Mattel, the world's largest toy distributor, requesting 108 Barbie dolls the same size as his daughter, at a price of 100,000 yuan each. But he had one special requirement: the princess dresses and women's formal gowns worn and changed by the 108 Barbie dolls had to all be different. His daughter loved wearing princess dresses, so the 108 sets of princess dresses and women's formal gowns amounted to 216 sets of high-end girls' clothing that could be changed at will.

Mattel was utterly exasperated when it received the order. Was this guy buying dolls or clothes? If he were paying 100,000 US dollars per doll, they could find a professional fashion design company to design and make the princess dresses and women's formal gowns. But at 100,000 yuan each, they didn't even know whether that would cover the design and tailoring fees. After thinking it over, they decided that this was a matter for Chinese millionaires, so they might as well let a Chinese manufacturer worry about it. The order was sent to a Chinese factory at 50,000 yuan per doll, with the same requirements.

Of course, the wealthy man wanted genuine Barbie dolls produced by Mattel. But he had forgotten that China was the world's factory at the time, and genuine Barbie dolls were also made in China; Mattel merely handled the labeling. Once the order reached the Chinese factory, the factory was troubled as well. The Barbie dolls were easy enough; they only needed to alter the molds. Although the quantity was small, the profit was high. But what about the clothes? Who would a clothing company be interested in making two hundred or so sets? And they all had to be different styles, which meant different fabrics and production requirements. The design alone was a headache, especially the gold, silver, and gemstone decorations needed for the princess dresses and women's formal gowns, along with special materials like whale bones and animal fur. Those were headaches within headaches. In the end, one of the factory managers thought of Lorist's small handicraft factory, run by an old comrade. As the factory director, Lorist made the decision: accept it. He took on the design and production of more than two hundred sets of high-end girls' clothing.

Those three months were incredibly painful for Lorist. From the film Princess Cindy to Napoleon the Great, from online fashion forums to all kinds of entertainment magazines, and from studies of famous paintings to the latest photographs of female celebrities walking the red carpet, he gathered mountains of reference pictures and information on women's clothing styles. At the time, the people in the office joked that they could publish a complete collection of high-end women's clothing from ancient and modern times, both Chinese and foreign.

Lorist and several designers worked day and night, forgetting food and sleep as they discussed, borrowed from, and debated ideas. In the end, they produced more than five hundred designs for princess dresses and women's formal gowns. They sent them to the Chinese factory, which forwarded them to Mattel. Mattel then sent them to the Chinese millionaire, who selected 216 designs. The designs were forwarded all the way back to the small handicraft factory, and production began. The order earned the small factory more than 500,000 yuan. At the time, Lorist, as the factory director, even began considering whether they should convert the factory into a children's clothing factory.

Lorist had been in Galintea for six years, and he had gained a deep understanding of this unfamiliar world. As Galintea's largest commercial city, Molent City had always been famous across the continent for its openness and freedom, and it had always led Galintea's fashion trends. But in Lorist's eyes, these so-called fashion trends were nothing but a joke. They were no more than things like a certain magical beast's fur being softer and best suited for shawls; a poet writing another wonderful poem that was moving and romantic to read; or a rapier newly launched by the Moorish weapons shop that was sharp, tough, and difficult to break, with lavish decorations that added a heroic air when worn at one's side and attracted the eyes of beautiful women. What did any of that have to do with fashion?

Nobles generally had the habit of having clothes custom-made for themselves and their families. But Lorist discovered that the styles worn by nobles were still hardly different from those of several centuries ago. The only changes were that the clothing materials were getting better, or that the clothes had gained a few minor additions, such as golden thread and lace. As Miss Windsor had imagined, noblewomen, ladies, and young misses either had their clothes custom-made or made them personally with the help of their maids. Even custom-made clothes followed old styles and focused mostly on the materials. Those they made themselves merely changed the pattern structure a little. Then, at gatherings, they would sit together chattering about whose clothing had the most exquisite patterns and whose embroidery skills were the best.

Thus, Lorist firmly believed that when the princess dresses and women's formal gowns he designed appeared before these noblewomen, ladies, and young misses, they would drive them crazy. Every woman loved beauty. The women of Galintea simply had yet to experience the charm of fashionable clothing. They were unlike the women of his previous life, where fashion designers had pushed their imaginations to the point of wracking their brains for things no one could imagine, leaving many of them bald.

However, Miss Windsor continued to doubt whether her new boyfriend was reliable. Lorist could no longer stand being watched by those beautiful, wide eyes, so he decided to show off a little and let the young miss see what real ability was.

The girl brought her new boyfriend back to her home in the eastern city. Her two personal maids, Rina and Susie, were very curious. Their young miss had always been extremely high-minded, so why had she brought home such an ordinary-looking man? His clothes didn't look like much, either. And he even wore a black iron badge on his chest. It was hideous.

Lorist naturally had no idea that his girlfriend's two maids were judging him. He casually found an empty room on the third floor with plenty of light, asked for paper and a pen, and began drawing princess dress designs with the girl as his model. At first, the girl kept interrupting him, complaining that there was too little fabric, accusing him of being a lecher for exposing so much, and saying that such tight-fitting clothes would make anyone feel embarrassed. But as one design after another was completed, the girl fell silent. When Lorist turned around, he was startled. The girl was staring intently at the designs with dreamy eyes, completely lost in her own imagination.

Lorist clapped his hands a few times beside the girl's ear before finally pulling her out of her fantasy. Her face flushed as she grabbed the princess dress designs without hesitation. "I want to have them made right away..."

With that, she ran out of the room to find her maids. Lorist shouted after her, "What about me?"

"You stay put in the room and honestly draw a few more designs. I'll have someone bring you dinner," the girl replied.