Chapter 27: Construction Period

As Su Shiyi said, the video with her name on it went viral. Not only did it trend on the platform, but it also caused a huge wave on Weibo. What? You can actually run into a rich lady in the capital?

Such random drops of huge wealth—how come it didn’t happen to them! Netizens in the capital were lamenting with clenched fists, while those in other provinces were eagerly waiting, all dreaming of the possibility of meeting a rich lady around the corner.

Ah, if someone has to be spoiled by a rich lady, why couldn’t it be her?

As for the content of the video, it was clear just from the screen how hard Shen Yuwei worked. At the beginning of the video, she went all out, declaring that she would empty the store. However, skirts have weight, and her stamina has limits.

In the first few minutes, driven by her genuine desire and Su Shiyi’s advice of “only pick the expensive ones for the best effect,” Shen Yuwei nearly cleared an entire row of elegant and glamorous skirts. When the pain in her arms became so intense that even her excitement couldn’t overshadow it, she switched to picking more casual pieces and hanfu.

By the last minute, she was so exhausted that she just stood in front of the JK uniform section, mechanically reaching for clothes, until her arms were piled with dozens of skirts, unable to carry any more. Only then did she carry them back to the packing area. With just a few seconds left on the countdown, Shen Yuwei even grabbed a bunch of small items from the wall.

Of course, not all of the displayed skirts were her size. Anything that didn’t fit was exchanged by the staff for her correct size. Shen Yuwei was panting in front of the mountain of clothes, and only when Lucy had paid and handed her the receipt did she have that surreal feeling of “this is all real.”

Su Shiyi added her on WeChat, and after paying for her items, she waved goodbye, leaving with her friends and bodyguards, not a single cloud following her.

Wait, the rich lady just came into the store to look around?

Shen Yuwei filled in her address because she and her friend couldn’t carry all the clothes back. Thankfully, she was a local, otherwise, her dorm room at school couldn’t fit everything.

Curious as she saw the staff still busy cleaning up, she asked, “What are you doing?”

“All the clothes in our store are being delivered to Miss Su’s house,” the store manager replied with a beaming smile. “I also need to find a few models to wear them and show Miss Su how they look. By the way, do you know any girls you could recommend?”

Shen Yuwei: …

It seemed like her vision was too narrow. With how valuable the rich lady’s time is, of course, she wouldn’t pick clothes one by one. She probably just wanted to buy them to look at the show at home.

Rich lady, look at me! Let me be your personal model!

—

Watching a fashion show is really a joyful experience, and if the clothes are beautiful and the models are stunning, this joy doubles.

When it’s like Su Shiyi, comfortably half-lying on a soft sofa with a sweet candy-like figure lying on her waist, and various beautiful girls in different styles are on a mini runway, all sending her heart-shaped gestures and winks, that joy transcends into pure happiness.

As someone who just wants to lie down like a salted fish, she didn’t need to worry about matching clothes. Sitting next to her was her personal stylist, who would observe her expressions as she looked at each dress and judge how much she liked it, deciding which ones could make it into the “first-tier recommended” list, and which ones would be relegated to the wardrobe to wait until they went out of style.

Whenever Su Shiyi showed interest in a dress, the stylist would quickly plan its usage scenario on a tablet, decide what hair color would suit it, which accessories would work best, and make sure that even if Su Shiyi suddenly wanted to wear it, the best plan would be ready for her in a heartbeat.

Once the show was over, Su Shiyi invited the girls to stay for a buffet dinner. No need to go to a five-star hotel—at her house, they could enjoy an endless supply of seafood sashimi and wagyu BBQ. There was no cheap food to deceive their eyes and fill their stomachs, everything in sight was expensive ingredients they couldn’t normally afford.

And here, the Haagen-Dazs could be scooped as much as they wanted! No need to suffer the two hundred per person limit at the star-rated restaurants outside where you could only scoop one spoonful per person.

Su Shiyi’s cat, Milk Candy, became the girls’ favorite pet, occupying half of their phone albums, with the other half filled with shots from the fashion show and the dinner hosted by the rich lady.

As a sensible cat from a wealthy family, Milk Candy’s heart was always devoted to her good owner. Even though the other young ladies were kind to her, she still preferred to cling to Su Shiyi, purring and asking her to personally feed her.

Su Shiyi: hugs.gif

Milk Candy: hugs.gif

The girls: Damn it, I don’t know who to envy right now! TAT

Through chatting with the model girls, Su Shiyi gradually went from knowing nothing except finding things pretty to gaining a little knowledge about the Lolita fashion scene. Thanks to their enthusiastic recommendations, she even got interested in a dress from a tea party collection that was still in the deposit stage.

Hmm, white, pink, and red all look great, and the OP and JSK styles are also nice—it’s so hard to choose. Well, let’s go all in. Even though she already had many white shirts, the seller’s set of photos looked good overall, so she decided to buy it all together.

As for the accessories that matched well? Of course, she’d buy those too.

After the dinner ended, while lying on her bed like a salted fish, Su Shiyi remembered it. Milk Candy was pressing against her left chest, gently licking her neck—so ticklish.

“You’re really clingy,” Su Shiyi muttered, taking a few big inhales as she held Milk Candy, letting her do what she wanted. “Mommy wants to see when this dress will be shipped…”

“What? The production will take three months?!”

Su Shiyi stared at the reply from the seller on ^[1]Taobao (淘宝) is a major Chinese online shopping platform owned by Alibaba. It’s similar to Amazon or eBay and is known for selling a wide variety of products, including clothes, accessories, … Continue readingTaobao, stunned. She actually liked the dress, but not that much—it wasn’t even guaranteed she would wear it immediately after receiving it. But her Mark50 took only a few days from customization to wearing. Why did it take so long for a Lolita dress?

She suspected the store’s efficiency, but the seller said that this was actually quite fast. Su Shiyi searched online and found that they weren’t lying. A three-month production time wasn’t unusual in this circle, many stores had lead times of six months to a year, and sometimes delays came unexpectedly even after the scheduled time…

Su Shiyi felt speechless, and decided to use her money: “I’ll pay more.”

The seller remained unmoved: “Our dresses are made in batches, so please be patient.”

“Ten times more.”

Seller: “…Sorry, it’s not that we’re intentionally delaying, but it really does take this long.”

Although offering more money was tempting, there were actually no shortage of rich ladies in the circle. What good was paying more if they couldn’t even produce the dress? Stores selling other types of clothes on Taobao could easily sell over 10,000 pieces, but Lolita dresses usually only sold a few hundred or a thousand.

In this kind of comparison, orders like hers would be delayed, and it was hard to skip the queue at a garment factory. They had to wait their turn, and the production of Lolita dresses was definitely more complicated than regular clothes.

As for why they couldn’t make the dress earlier, many stores preferred working with custom orders. The circle was small, and they didn’t dare to stockpile. Many shops also lacked the capital and needed to recover part of the production cost first.

Su Shiyi wasn’t unreasonable. After the store explained the situation to her, she chose to be understanding and patient.

—But Kevin obviously didn’t want her to wait. In his words, having his boss wait three months for a dress was a failure on his part as her secretary.

What a joke! Even haute couture doesn’t take that long to make. Even if they had to embed the biggest diamond or dig it up from the ground, he would find a way to get it done in the shortest time possible.

As for how much it would cost or whether it was worth it—that wasn’t a problem. The happiness of Su Shiyi was priceless.

Tonight, the shop where Su Shiyi had paid the deposit received a private message from Kevin.

【Hello, I am Miss Su Shiyi’s secretary. I heard your shop is struggling with scheduling issues at your dress manufacturer. I have purchased a local garment factory that can meet your production needs. New equipment and workers will be available starting tomorrow. Would you be interested in transferring the order? The cost will be 20% less than the original contract, and any breach penalties can be covered by us.】

【Besides the scheduling, are there any other issues that might delay the dress production? Please let me know, and I will fully cooperate to solve them.】

Shop Owner: ???

Whose secretary? Su Shiyi’s?

Damn, that rich lady… she’s not just any rich lady, she’s Su Shiyi!

Oh my god, Su Shiyi is buying our clothes, we’ve made it!

Half an hour later, the shop owner posted an announcement on Weibo and in their fan group, announcing that the production time for the dress had been shortened to one week, and those who had already placed deposits were now in production. The fashion circle was buzzing, and anyone with a bit of inside knowledge was talking about how this shop had suddenly become rich and well-connected.

Shop Owner: That’s right, we now have a sugar mommy! (Proudly standing tall)

Su Shiyi, the “Sugar Mommy,” smiled contentedly at the chat window filled with “We’ll deliver it in three days” and an abundance of “Mommy” and heart emojis.

Sigh, she didn’t actually want to use special privileges, but her secretary was just too efficient.

There had always been many people paying attention to the Gu family’s movements. Someone noticed that Kevin had urgently purchased a garment factory in a second-tier city, and combined with the online posts about Su Shiyi being spotted at a Lolita store and the sudden shortening of the production time, those with a little insight could easily connect the dots and figure out what had happened.

Buying a gift for Su Shiyi was a difficult task. After all, with Gu Lang’s level of pampering her, she didn’t lack anything, no matter how expensive. She could buy whatever she wanted herself. The gift had to be something she truly liked, something that would touch her heart, like that Batmobile.

They had missed one opportunity and couldn’t miss a second!

So the next day, Su Shiyi received many sold-out adorable popular items. Some people, unable to purchase the limited-edition items, decided to take another route and bought the rights to many illustrations instead…

Hmm, Su Shiyi never had an interest in being a Lolita girl, but after receiving so many dresses, she began to develop one.

So, should she consider opening her own Lolita shop as a hobby?

—

Several peaceful and happy days passed, and Su Shiyi was still acting as the “left-behind girl” at Taihe.

Gu Lang and her biological mother, Li Shuman, were flying all over the world. She kept in daily video contact with her mother, usually within a 15-minute call, but she rarely called Gu Lang because he was always busy. He maintained an average of three flights per day, so Su Shiyi didn’t want to disturb him.

Gu Chen was also busy, and even more so than Gu Lang. Whenever he had a bit of personal time, even if it meant staying awake, he would use all of it to spend time with Gu Pan. Su Shiyi admired this very much and couldn’t help but feel that although the domineering CEOs in early romance novels had many flaws, they truly pampered the female lead with all their hearts.

As for the male and female leads, even though they were not in the capital, the capital still eagerly followed their gossip.

After Su Shiyi had spoken with Meng Yiyao that day, a huge scandal spread throughout the high-society circle. Meng Yiyao publicly stated that she wanted to apologize to Gu Pan for her past actions, and even called Gu Chen a scumbag, saying that anyone who liked him must be a little crazy.

Su Shiyi didn’t know what the male and female leads thought as they continued flying around the world, but she was thoroughly enjoying the gossip. As for Meng Yiyao’s self-slapping actions, others might not understand, but Su Shiyi had seen it plenty of times.

Wasn’t it just like fans who unfollow and attack their idols harder than haters after their idols’ scandals? How fresh.

One time, Su Shiyi accidentally turned on the system’s voice, and immediately, a flood of abusive language from ^[2]“祖安” (Zu’an) is internet slang in Chinese, often referring to aggressive and toxic online behavior, particularly in gaming communities. It comes from the League of Legends … Continue readingZu’an filled her ears. Oh, the incompetent, enraged system probably used every swear word it had learned from all the worlds just on her.

So what? The broken system couldn’t send her back to her original world, nor could it do anything to her. Heh, heh.

She was still quite pleased, and genuinely happy for Meng Yiyao. Because according to the development of Mary Sue novels, the female antagonist who constantly pursued the male lead and opposed the female lead usually didn’t end up well.

Now that Meng Yiyao had broken free from the original plot’s constraints, she should be able to have a much better life than before, right?

Even though the Gu family members weren’t around, Su Shiyi had instructed not to accept any guests. She had neither the ability nor the inclination to entertain anyone else, and the Taihe mansion was still lively.

Because she had welcomed another wave of cats and dogs… Originally, she had planned to reject them, but these gift-givers were too clever. The little kittens were lying at her feet, stretching out their paws and pleading pitifully for her to take them in. Could she really chase them away? Boo-hoo-hoo.

These were all fluffy little lives, and Su Shiyi couldn’t bring herself to say anything cruel, so she kept the little golden gradient. And once she took in one, there was another, and then a third, and the number of cats and dogs in the mansion soon crossed into double digits.

Now, including Milk Candy, Su Shiyi was the proud owner of six cats and nine dogs.

The increase in numbers brought Su Shiyi some fleeting happiness, but the “harem” fire was a long-lasting annoyance. Milk Candy was not happy, not pleased at all. Those dogs were one thing, stupid dogs didn’t even deserve to be compared to her. But why were there so many other cats?!

Greedy two-legged beasts, they already had a ragdoll cat and still wanted more cats? It was outrageous!

Milk Candy was not welcoming the new companions and refused to let them stay in the cat room. Relying on being the first, she put on a display at the door, claws out, making things very awkward for the pet nannies.

With the increase in cats and dogs, the nutritionist had to hire three more staff members, and the number of nannies was also increased, with each person now taking care of two animals. Only Milk Candy was an exception—she still enjoyed the privilege of having three nannies rotating to take care of just her.

But this small privilege wasn’t enough to quell her anger. Even though Andrew quickly arranged group dormitories for the other cats and dogs, allowing Milk Candy to have a luxury suite all to herself, she was still seething with jealousy, feeling deeply wronged.

Now, every second, she had to cling to Su Shiyi, and any species that came near had to be chased away with a paw to prove her exclusive claim to the two-legged beast. At first, it was just the cats and dogs, but eventually, even Kevin and Lucy had been clawed by her a few times.

Su Shiyi did want to punish her. She couldn’t just grab anyone like that, but every time she looked into Milk Candy’s inexplicably melancholic blue eyes, she felt like a world-class scumbag, guilty in her heart.

Of course, the punishment was forgotten, and since Kevin and Lucy had both received rabies shots after Milk Candy scratched them, and their skin hadn’t bled, there were no major issues. They certainly wouldn’t hold it against a little kitten.

Su Shiyi even tried reasoning with Milk Candy: “I’m not being fickle, I just want to give every cat and dog in the world a home.”

Milk Candy: I’m not listening, I’m not listening, and she started rolling around in Su Shiyi’s arms, throwing a tantrum.

“Don’t be like this.” Su Shiyi kept trying to persuade her. “You should be more magnanimous. I’m just playing with those cats and dogs, but I’m truly sincere with you. Don’t I always come back to you after playing with them?”

Milk Candy: I’m not listening, I’m not listening, and continued her paw attacks.

“Why are you still hitting me?” Su Shiyi sighed. “I’ve just made the mistake that all cat and dog lovers make.”

Milk Candy: …

Scumbag, stop talking!

She bit Su Shiyi’s collar, using a practical action to express her protest against her flirtatious behavior. If she truly loved cats, she should love only her!

Su Shiyi was still complaining in the roommate group, sighing about how many children she had at home and how hard it was to manage them. Didn’t anyone else have this kind of trouble?

Xu Wenwen sent a sixty-second voice message, angrily shouting. The core message was, “Of course, what do you think? Not everyone has this much money to afford fifteen hungry little cubs!”

Rich lady Shiyi felt a bit melancholic. Is this the heavy price one must pay for being wealthy? It’s really hard.

Regardless, Su Shiyi still couldn’t bear to send the other little cuties away. But in order to take care of Milk Candy’s feelings and emphasize her most important position in her heart, all the other cats and dogs were named according to Milk Candy’s seniority.

For example, the five cats were named Cheese, Ball, Cream, Jelly, and Tea, and the nine dogs were named Hard Candy, Soft Candy, Crispy Candy, Maple Candy, Toffee, Lollipop, Coconut Candy, Malt Candy, and Grape Candy. With all these cats and dogs in her house, the air was filled with a sweet, sugary scent.

Ragdoll cats aren’t usually very aggressive, and it’s fine in front of other cats and small dogs. After all, she had the advantage of being the first to come, but what Su Shiyi couldn’t understand was why she was still so arrogant in front of the Golden Retriever, Husky, and Sheepdog. And these dogs didn’t even teach her how to act like a cat?

All she could say was that these pets were all so clever, knowing who was the most favored one in the house. Sometimes, Su Shiyi wondered if they had a special way of communicating because she had witnessed Milk Candy directing the Sheepdog, Toffee, to do chores, like fetching a cat toy that was several meters away.

Milk Candy, a Ragdoll cat slowly turning into the family’s little tyrant. Su Shiyi didn’t even know how it happened, but Milk Candy had perfected the art of being gentle and considerate in front of her, while acting like a queen with other cats and dogs… a true green tea personality.

Even though all the cats were eating the same high-quality cat food, Milk Candy would secretly eat from the other cats’ bowls. Poor Cheese had been bullied several times by her.

As a mother, Su Shiyi couldn’t help but worry. Wasn’t there any other animal that could firmly keep Milk Candy in check?