When I went home for Chinese New Year, I spent a million times more money on my foreign wife.

Three days after the acquisition, Chen Yang held his first internal senior management meeting at Langfeng Greater China headquarters on the Bund in Shanghai.

There were fourteen people sitting in the conference room, all of whom were the core design team leaders from Langfeng Group, who had been transferred from Paris, Milan, and London.

Chen Yue stood next to the projection screen, holding a document in her hand.

"Next quarter, all the major shows will have only one theme—Oriental Classicism."

No one spoke in the meeting room.

Chen Yue turned a page: "Specifically, the fabric craftsmanship is based on traditional Chinese embroidery, kesi (silk tapestry), and yunjin (brocade), while the silhouettes reference classic styles from various dynasties. The jewelry line will simultaneously launch an Oriental aesthetics series. All design drafts must be reviewed by our hired intangible cultural heritage consultant team before finalization."

A gray-haired man sitting at the middle of the long table raised his hand. Pierre Moret, Chief Creative Officer of the Langfeng Group.

"Ms. Chen, I've worked in this industry for 32 years. Langfeng's DNA is Western classical aesthetics. Are you now going to change the entire brand's DNA?"

"It's not replacing it, it's upgrading it."

Pierre shook his head: "Excuse my bluntness, but this is an amateur directing professionals. Eastern elements have always been an embellishment in the fashion world, never a mainstream element. Forcing their adoption will only lower the brand's value."

The three design directors next to him nodded in unison.

Chen Yue ignored them and looked at Chen Yang, who was sitting at the end of the conference table.

Chen Yang flipped through the list in his hand without even looking up.

"If you disagree, you can leave today. We'll pay double the penalty as stipulated in the contract; we won't treat you unfairly."

Pierre stood up: "Mr. Chen, you've bought shares in this company, but you can't buy 120 years of accumulated aesthetic experience. My team and I—"

"Your team's 'Eastern Inspiration' series last fall/winter used flying apsara patterns from Dunhuang murals, and the design description said it was 'inspired by Central Asian nomadic styles.'" Chen Yue interrupted him, "You stole something and didn't even dare to cite its source. Is this what you call aesthetic accumulation?"

Pierre's face turned red.

Chen Yang closed the list and threw it on the table.

"Chen Yue, give them half an hour to tidy up the office."

Pierre and his seven men stormed out.

The remaining six people in the conference room were all local designers from the Asia-Pacific region, and none of them dared to utter a sound.

Chen Yue turned off the projector: "Next, let's talk about the alternative plan."

She pulled up a file containing twelve names.

"These twelve are all national-level intangible cultural heritage inheritors in China. Suzhou embroidery, Sichuan embroidery, kesi (silk tapestry), Nanjing brocade, filigree inlay, cloisonné enamel—each of these techniques has been passed down for a longer period than the brand history of Langfeng."

Chen Yang glanced at the list: "Have they arrived?"

"Everyone arrived in Shanghai yesterday and is staying at the Peninsula Hotel on the Bund. Among them, the leader, Ms. Zhou Jinhua, is 73 years old and a master of Suzhou embroidery. Her embroidery of 'A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains' has been permanently collected by the National Museum of China."

"Let them into the studio tomorrow. All the design drafts left by those people are scrapped; we'll start from scratch."

Chen Yue nodded, turned around and went out to make the arrangements.

-

Six weeks later.

The grand show venue at the Paris headquarters of the Langfeng Group, next to the Grand Palais on the Champs-Élysées.

This is the first global show since Langfeng changed hands.

The day the news was released, the entire fashion industry was divided into two factions.

A barrage of sarcasm and ridicule, waiting to see them make fools of themselves;

Another group frantically bought tickets because the news that "Chen Yang's woman will personally close the show" had somehow spread.

More than two thousand buyers, media, and celebrities eventually showed up, blocking three streets outside the venue.

The lights dimmed.

The moment the first group of models stepped onto the runway, the sound of camera shutters in the entire audience paused for a second.

It was a dark-colored long dress, the kesi (silk tapestry) pattern on the skirt revealing layers of mountains under the spotlight, and the cloud pattern woven with gold thread extending from the waist to the hem.

With each step the model took, the light and shadow shifted, and the blank spaces between the mountains rose and fell with her breath.

An old editor who had been sitting in the front row for forty years at fashion shows dropped his pen but didn't pick it up.

The second and third groups followed in succession. Filigree inlaid earrings, cloisonné waistbands, and Shu embroidery phoenix-patterned capes—each piece compressed thousands of years of craftsmanship into modern haute couture tailoring, without the slightest incongruity.

People in the audience started clapping, and the applause spread from the third row to the last row.

Chen Yue stood at the backstage entrance, receiving real-time feedback from the front through her earpiece.

"The number of viewers watching the live stream globally has exceeded 40 million."

"Some people in the buyer group have already inquired about pre-sales. I'll send the queue list to your email."

Chen Yue didn't reply because it was time for the last group to go on stage.

The curtain at the end of the runway was drawn back.

Katyusha stood in the light.

The dress she was wearing was made by teacher Zhou Jinhua and four embroiderers in thirty-eight days—the main body was a classic Chinese high-necked long dress, with an slender A-line silhouette cut from ice-blue silk satin.

The skirt is covered with Suzhou embroidery of snow lotus and ice crystal patterns from the bust line down, and every stitch is a genuine handmade piece.

The design of the shoulders and cuffs incorporates traditional Slavic geometric embroidery, with silver and ice-blue silk threads interwoven, and the needlework techniques of the two civilizations converging at the collarbone to form a complete vine.

The crown she wore was not the pink diamond crown, but a silver hair ornament specially crafted by a filigree master, with openwork plum blossom vines entwined with tiny sapphires.

Katyusha stepped onto the catwalk, and all two thousand-plus people in the audience stood up.

The applause was deafening.

She walked the entire way, paused for three seconds at the end of the runway, and then turned around and walked back.

The flashes of light illuminated the entire Grand Palace as if it were daytime.

Chen Yue received a phone call backstage from the sales director of Langfeng's Paris headquarters; his voice was trembling.

"Mr. Chen, the official website is down."

"What?"

"The pre-sale channel opened for 90 seconds and all products sold out. The waiting list is already booked until the third quarter of next year and is still being pushed back. The current estimated value of intended orders—I'm not sure if the figures are accurate, but the system shows it's 500 times that of a regular quarter."

Chen Yue hung up the phone and walked to the side of the catwalk.

Chen Yang stood there, watching Katyusha walk down the catwalk.

Katyusha walked up to him and reached out to touch the embroidery on her shoulder.

"Teacher Zhou's needlework is far superior to that of the machine embroidery used by Langfeng before."

Chen Yang helped her straighten a crooked plum blossom branch on her hair ornament.

Chen Yue squeezed in from the side and waved her phone screen.

"Bro, five hundred times. Those Western media outlets that were saying they were waiting to see us fail are now all asking in the comments how to get a spot in the next batch. Seventeen agents of European socialites have even called, asking if they can pay extra to jump the queue."

"No," Katyusha replied for Chen Yang. "You have to wait in line. At least a year."

Chen Yue smiled and forwarded the message to the sales director.

Kachusala led Chen Yang toward the lounge, and after taking a couple of steps, turned back and said something to Chen Yue.

"Tell Teacher Zhou and the others that I'm treating all the embroiderers to dinner tomorrow, and they can choose the place."

Chen Yue nodded and looked down to write it down on her phone.

At the end of the corridor, staff were turning off the spotlights on the catwalk one by one.

The Suzhou-embroidered snow lotus on Katyusha's dress shone briefly in the last ray of light before disappearing into darkness.