Professor Li was shocked by Qin Guan's performance. She was one of the first group of models after 1949 to be assigned by the organization.
She had been a model class tutor for the Capital Institute of Fashion Technology for many years, but she had never met a student like Qin Guan before.
He had been born a model. Professor Li was trembling in excitement. She pulled Qin Guan aside and told him, “Don’t study for college any longer. Accounting is not the job for you. That’s such a humble profession. You have been born to be a model. I can help you with college in some informal way, if you wish.”
Xue Wanyi really didn’t want to break the news to her, but she knew that Qin Guan was too stubborn to persuade.
She was right. Qin Guan kept shaking his head. Despite Professor Li’s over-excitement, he was adamant about the courses, “Professor Li, shall we continue?”
Professor Li could do nothing but go on with her lesson. In less than 10 minutes, she had taught him the basic gestures.
Qin Guan was practicing the movements while Xue Wanyi went outside to have a cigarette. I spent quite a few days on learning the basic gestures back in the day. They were non-standard back then. How can damn Qin Guan learn them so fast?
After Qin Guan had performed all eight gestures from beginning to end once, Professor Li asked him to perform them once more in random order. He did all the movements perfectly.
It seems that the second course will have to be taught sooner than I thought. Professor Li walked onto the stage and said, “A good hand gesture can have an unexpected effect to your performance. Your hands should be neither soft nor stiff, but balance your body comfortably. You have basically learned the hand gestures.”
The word “basically” is too reserved for him, Xue Wanyi said to herself.
Professor Li put her feet in position. “There are four kinds of foot positions- regular, separated, T-type and inverted V. I’ll show them to you one by one. Follow me...”
Qin Guan did well on all the positions.
They began the third lesson in advance as well. When their lessons for the day were finished, Professor Li, who was far from young, looked unbearably tired.
Qin Guan had begun practising his walk. The ordinary walk was a piece of cake for him. His skill could allow him to perform on shows in China, where stages were always straight and narrow.
Sister Xue considered herself lucky on their way back to Qin Guan's university. It may have been a good choice for me to quit modeling early. Qin Guan's performance really shocked me.
You haven’t seen the half of it, Sister... Wait and see.
Spring blossomed in April while the J brand shirts appeared in the shopping malls of the capital. Taking advantage of Qin Guan's poster, the boss had made a big fortune and invested all the profits into building physical stores.
His stores entered hyper markets located in urban-rural development areas, including the Urban-Rural Storage shopping center, the new Merry Mart by the 4th Ring Road and the BHG market.
The rent of these markets was relatively low among the hyper markets of the Capital. There was a regular flow of customers, so the boss had bet all his chips on this endeavour.
The Urban-Rural Storage was the nearest venue to Qin Guan's college, which was located outside the 3rd Northwest Ring Road, and was the best location among all the J shirts stores.
It was surrounded by a lot of universities, like the Capital Foreign Language University, the Capital Institute of Technology and others. The customers were mostly college students.
Early on the morning of the grand opening, the staff pasted a giant poster with Qin Guan's image on the glass window of the store. There were also mini pictures of him on the shelves.
The boss was sitting in one of the chairs meant for supermarket customers of the Urban-Rural Storage, secretly observing the arrangement of the new store. He kept pouring mineral water into his mouth nervously.
The supermarket opened at nine a.m. Customers entered the shopping center in twos or threes. Some of them walked out of the supermarket and were attracted by Qin Guan's giant poster from afar, consequently finding the shirt store in the corner.
The first customer entered, then the second. Later, a group of idling female students went by and studied the poster on the glass wall.
The boss hid nearby and listened to what they were saying, his ears standing straight.
“Oh, that boy is so handsome.”
“Yes, he has such a good figure.”
“There’s a dandelion on that green shirt. It’s really on the shirt, it’s not photoshop.”
“It looks so good. I’ll buy one for my boyfriend.”
“Let's go in and have a look.”
After discussing it, they all entered the store. After going around for a while, they exited the store again. The boss fixed his eyes on their bags. A huge bag with a “J” printed on it was carried out.
Sold! The boss was a little excited. More customers went in and out...
The boss observed the store for more than two hours. He forgot to drink water. His kept his body still, his eyeballs the only part of his body moving.
The flow of customers slowed down gradually around noon, which was when he remembered to have a drink. His hands shook from excitement and he poured water onto his pants by accident. The front of his pants was wet, which made a woman passing by burst into laughter.
The boss was in a muddle when the manager took advantage of the few customers to run out for a report. “We’ve had a good sale, boss!”
Ignoring his wet pants, the boss asked hurriedly, “How many shirts have we sold?”
“147 pieces! 97 pieces of 80 yuan and 50 pieces of 100 yuan.”
The boss jumped high upon hearing the figure. The leftover water in the bottle was added to the front of his pants.
The manager went on, “Many customers took our latest posters with. We have only ten of them left.”
The boss cared about nothing. He told the manager, “Find something that I can hide behind. I’ll go to my office and tell them to bring more posters.”
The manager nodded and returned to the store to fetch a giant poster of Qin Guan, “Boss, try this.”
“Whatever!” The boss put the poster, which pictured Qin Guan hugging something with closed eyes, in front of his pants and left quickly.
He missed the hushed discussion among a couple of passing students.
“Look at that creep!”
“Where? Oh my god! He is so disgusting. He covered his crotch with the poster of that handsome boy. These days it’s not so strange to star in porn films, but what does he do with that poster?”
If the boss had heard their discussion, he would surely have spit out blood and died on the spot.
As for Qin Guan, the meritorious model was lying in his bed. There had been no courses that morning, so it had been a good chance for him to sleep in.
People always called the four seasons sleepy spring, tired autumn, heavy-head summer and drowsy winter. The whole year was good for sleeping. Qin Guan curled up under his covers, not moving.
Around noon, Wang Lei couldn’t bear to see him lying any longer. He pulled Qin Guan up from the bed.
Qin Guan was confused. “Hey, Wang! It's hard to get a free day these days. Why I can't sleep some more?”
Wang Lei kicked Qin Guan with his foot. “Get up! No one can enjoy leisure time today. Our eldest brother is running for vice-director for the Public Relations Department. All of us have to be there to cheer him up. In the evening, we have to accompany our other brother to his friend-making party.”
“Friend-making party? Where?” Qin Guan got up in a roll.
Wang Lei touched his glasses, “It’s not far from campus. Some students from the Minzu Capital University are hosting it.”
“Really? Can I invite my girlfriend?”
“You have a girlfriend?” Wang Lei was surprised by the news.
“Yes, I forgot to tell you. Ah! Why are you hitting me?” Qin Guan covered his head as he ran off.