Chapter 60: Qi Lian is Someone Who Has Witnessed Miracles
“Hello, Teacher Fan…”
At the entrance of the women’s restroom, a young event staff member brushed past Fan Xiaoxiao and hurriedly greeted her with trepidation. Before she could finish her greeting, Fan stormed into the restroom as if she were avenging a murdered father, not even sparing a glance at the girl.
The staff member stood dazed at the door, her brows furrowing high, along with the polite smile on her face, as she exclaimed angrily: “What did I do to deserve that?”
Just then, the female host, who was on break, happened to pass by and immediately walked over to pull the event staff girl along. “Let’s go.”
The young staff member, filled with youthful exuberance, protested in tiny steps, “Did I offend her? I was just saying hello out of courtesy; it’s not like I’m the one who upset her on stage! At her age, she should have a bit more tolerance…”
“Alright, let’s not say too much; that’s just how she is,” the host said quietly. “I’ve dealt with her before. When she’s in a good mood, she’s so nice it gives you goosebumps, more affectionate than your own mother. But when she’s not, you’re like a cockroach to her, and if you get in her way, even just for a second, she’ll brush you aside.”
They thought their voices were low, but the restroom was old and poorly maintained, and the door didn’t close tightly, so their words came through loud and clear.
Fan Xiaoxiao stood in front of the mirror with a grim expression.
No matter what, she was no longer young. No amount of concealer could hide the deepening creases on her face, and the wrinkles that had formed could never be smoothed out. Her eyes would gradually become clouded, and her cheeks would slowly sag.
What she couldn’t endure more than the physical decline was that she was starting to lose her authority and influence.
Even Jiang Bo—who she had raised like a pet dog—dared to run away from her.
What could she hold onto anymore?
Fan Xiaoxiao felt her life was like an old, poorly maintained car, with brakes becoming increasingly ineffective. In the past, she could navigate certain paths effortlessly with just a slight tap on the brake, but now, even when she pressed it all the way down with all her strength, she couldn’t stop the decline.
She couldn’t bear it—absolutely couldn’t bear it.
Suddenly, Fan Xiaoxaio frantically pulled out her makeup bag, her hands trembling as if she were suffering from withdrawal. Then she took out her powder compact and eagerly began to apply it to her face, her expression resembling that of a junkie high on drugs. In just a moment, her face was caked in a thick layer of white powder, and finally, she left the restroom like a satisfied mosquito that had gorged itself on blood, striding toward the backstage committee.
When the intermission ended and the second round of the competition began, Qi Lian saw from afar the strange smile on Fan Xiaoxiao’s unusually prominent face. He couldn’t help but frown and crouched down, sneaking out from behind his seat to find Jiang Bo, silently sitting beside him.
As the host took the stage to announce the start of the second round, Qi Lian lowered his voice and said, “I don’t know anyone in your styling profession, so I can’t speak on the competition, but if you want to deal with that woman, I can still help.”
Jiang Bo’s silhouette was completely shrouded in darkness, and he remained silent after hearing this.
After a long while, he slowly replied, “Thank you.”
Qi Lian took off his glasses and slowly cleaned them, then sighed, “No need to thank me. I can tell you don’t intend to do anything to her.”
Jiang Bo rested his elbows on his knees, fingers intertwined over his lips, resembling a praying gesture—both firm and fragile.
“If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” This time, Jiang Bo remained silent for a longer duration before finally speaking sparingly.
Without Fan Xiaoxiao, he might have grown up in a welfare institution until he turned eighteen, becoming a man who was neither outstanding nor lacking.
His grades might have been average, far from “genius,” and he probably wouldn’t be accepted into a good university. The not-so-good ones were too costly, and the most likely outcome for his life would be learning a trade… an electrician, a mechanic, or possibly a chef—just to make a living, and then he would fade into the crowd, living a solid life of marriage and children.
To some extent, Fan Xiaoxiao had both ruined and made him.
Jiang Bo couldn’t say which life he would have preferred because he had never had the power to choose.
“I’m a coward,” he softly told Qi Lian, “I’m sorry, and thank you.”
The stage lights brightened, and the remaining eight contestants entered one by one, and the applause from the audience erupted once again, drowning out Jiang Bo’s “thank you,” making it almost inaudible.
The host began announcing the rules for the second round, and both of them instinctively fell silent.
“Now, let’s have our models take the stage.”
With the exception of Jiang Xiaoyuan, all the contestants on this stage had their own backgrounds and connections, and naturally, they had various channels to obtain information in advance. Only she was left in the dark. Curiously, she tilted her head to look and nearly collapsed in disbelief—she saw that the models were indeed peculiar in their own right.
She had no idea where the committee had found this motley crew. There were people of all ages and sizes, including a little girl who was under 1.5 meters tall, as well as middle-aged women whose faces bore the aesthetic marks of the last century, and a burly young man over 1.85 meters tall who somehow ended up in this mix.
The host: “There are eight topics here.”
The big screen displayed eight obscure prompts, which included poetic lines like “The boy rides a bamboo horse, circling the bed to play with green plums” and “In the north, there’s a beautiful woman, isolated from the world.”
“Each of these eight themes corresponds to a model,” the host continued. “Now, let’s start; the eight contestants will line up according to their scores from the first round. The ones with higher scores have priority in choosing the topics for the second round.”
Fan Xiaoxiao smiled in the audience.
The second round was initially supposed to involve random drawing for topics, but she temporarily changed it to allow those with higher scores to choose first—although the latter was not unfair, the problem was that, except for Jiang Xiaoyuan, everyone else had received prior information about the topics through other channels. For Jiang Xiaoyuan, who ranked last, using ranking to choose topics essentially erased her last chance at fair competition.
Jiang Xiaoyuan had no thoughts; she had no options, whatever was left for her was what she would have to take.
What was left for her was the topic “In the north, there’s a beautiful woman, isolated from the world,” which sounded exceedingly awkward. At that moment, her dormant feminine instincts, which had been asleep for over twenty years, quivered with newfound awareness.
When the models were revealed, she was shocked to find her premonition had come true: her model was the burly man.
Laughter erupted from the audience, and the hulking model bashfully scratched his head, exuding an adorably clumsy charm.
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “…”
She thought that instead of portraying a “beautiful woman,” it would be far easier to turn him into a panda.
Qi Lian frowned. After a moment of thought, he realized the situation—such a predetermined contest could not possibly withhold the topics from being leaked in advance. Since everyone tacitly understood what each topic was about, how could they allow this selection process based on score to occur?
He quickly bent down and sent a text message asking someone to help him inquire backstage who had changed the competition rules at the last minute.
However, Jiang Bo frowned: “Men’s styling is her weak point.”
After all, Jiang Xiaoyuan was not professionally trained. Although she had audited classes at school for quite some time, most of her experience came from interning with Jiang Bo. The clients Jiang Bo usually had were predominantly female; when there were male clients, they either wanted stage styling or needed a stylist for important occasions, the former not being particularly useful for reference, while the latter usually required Jiang Bo to handle it personally.
The only male styling Jiang Jiang Xiaoyuan had genuinely managed was likely those promotional wedding packages that offered “buy one get one free” for grooms… if that kind of casual work could even be considered “styling.”
Moreover, this topic was so bizarre.
The only commonality between this burly man and the “beautiful woman” was that they both belonged to the human species.
On stage, the host asked Jiang Xiaoyuan: “Lucky contestant number twelve, how do you feel right now?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan felt very bitter inside, but under Fan Xiaoxiao’s gaze, she could only pretend to be magnanimous and replied nonchalantly: “I think after today’s competition, I can buy a lottery ticket at the entrance; if I win big, I’ll directly fire my boss and never have to work again!”
When it comes to pretending to be a giant onion or a big clove of garlic, few have more authority than Jiang Xiaoyuan. Once she applies her expertise, both acquaintances and strangers are taken in together, causing another round of laughter from the audience, while the two bosses in the back row simultaneously get hit.
Boss Qi: “…”
Boss Jiang let out a cold snort: “Not amusing.”
While she was dismissive on the outside, Jiang Xiaoyuan was feeling bitter inside as she led her bear-like model off stage.
Each contestant had only fifty minutes, and Jiang Xiaoyuan was not lacking in cleverness. With a quick glance, she noticed that others had prepared their plans in advance and understood what was going on.
She found it strange that the judging committee had been so kind to give her high scores in the first round, when they were actually waiting for her—after all, there had been so much fuss online before. If her carefully prepared first-round plan was eliminated, who knew what kind of trouble would arise? It was better to let her pass first and then make her truly convinced in the second round.
The other contestants were busy with great enthusiasm, while Jiang Xiaoyuan stared blankly at her model.
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “Brother, are you a professional?”
The guy replied: “Hehe, I’m in charge of equipment maintenance at our theater. I came to fill in temporarily, three hundred a day.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan forced a smile.
The guy added, “But hey, don’t make me look too bad; otherwise, I’ll have to ask the committee for more money—mental distress fees.”
Might as well turn him into a polar bear.
About forty minutes later, the audience members who had gone out to relax gradually returned, waiting for the continuation of the competition. However, Jiang Bo, who had been sitting in the same place without moving, suddenly stood up to leave.
Qi Lian looked at him curiously: “Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving” Jiang Bo said. “There’s still a lot to do over there; I booked an evening flight. It’s pointless to waste time here, so I’ll head to the airport early.”
Qi Lian: “Aren’t you going to watch the results?”
Jiang Bo: “Watching is the same. Designing a model like this takes a minute on stage but ten years of effort behind the scenes. You saw how long she worked on the previous plan. It’s unrealistic to improvise and compete with others, especially with a topic like this.”
“Wait a minute.” Qi Lian reached out and pulled him back. Teacher Jiang was a frail man, as if even his cell membranes were thinner than others’, and he was yanked back into his chair with a thud.
Jiang Bo: “…”
If Qi Lian weren’t the major shareholder of the current Nirvana Studio, he would have made Jiang Bo regret having claws right now.
“Let’s wait and see; maybe there will be a miracle.” Qi Lian said nonchalantly.
Jiang Bo was a rational pessimist, and so was Qi Lian in the past. Many people were; after coming and going through storms and sunshine so many times, they were well aware of all the tricks. Many things didn’t need to be personally experienced; just a hint was enough to know the outcome.
They were all too smart, too rational.
However, Qi Lian differed from Jiang Bo in one regard: he was someone who had witnessed miracles firsthand.
The audience members who had gone out to rest had almost all returned. The host went off to retouch her makeup and hurried back to warm up the stage.
“Everyone might be getting impatient,” the host exclaimed flamboyantly, bouncing around. “But there’s still a little time. Let’s take a sneak peek backstage; it should just be the finishing touches left. Who do you want to see most?”
The audience, loving the excitement, shouted in unison: “Number Twelve!”
The host: “Alright, let’s see how ‘the beauty’ from number twelve is preparing.”
The instruction was quickly sent backstage, and a shaky camera appeared on the big screen. Jiang Xiaoyuan, with her hand covered in all sorts of colors, faced the camera and gestured: “No peeking at my front face! No peeking! Otherwise, there won’t be any surprises later.”
The camera wobbled, and not far away, the model was almost bare, sitting on a chair with something on her. Before anyone could get a good look, Jiang Xiaoyuan pulled the curtain shut. She had some sort of paint smeared on her face, vibrant and colorful, and she made a silly face at the camera, looking incredibly professional in doing so.
Jiang Bo raised an eyebrow, his previously distracted gaze suddenly sharpening: “Is she doing body painting?”
The atmosphere at the venue became lively. The host cut off the connection to backstage, and the countdown clock appeared on the big screen. Amid the judges’ whispers, the lights dimmed for the second round of the models runway.
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