Lovely Allergen

Chapter 82: The Eve of the Competition

Time disappeared quickly. The [Little Swallow Dressed in Flowery Clothes] team members were so busy they almost had no time to sleep, working through the nights to finish their accessories and final adjustments to their outfits. The opening of their show was very important — it was their first chance at catching everyone's attention.

The first design that would come out was a collaboration between Xiao Qi and Zhou Yi. In order to sufficiently reflect their main theme, they created the 'green straw rain cape' from an ancient poem; a lay underneath, with both the headdress and accessories all reminiscent of the dynasty. Nan Jia was going to personally model this outfit.

But in the end, under the lights of the dress rehearsal, the effect of the outfit wasn't enough with its straw rain cape. After watching the video replay, Nan Jia thought the green straw rain cape was overly plain and was more suited for the later outfits inspired by martial artists Chen Pi had designed. The effect of it wasn't enough to immediately catch people's eyes.

Everyone was at a loss, thinking there wasn't enough time to rectify it, and even Xiao Qi could only suggest using fresh flowers as a decoration for the cape.

Nan Jia ended up raising her eyebrows at Yue Zhishi, who'd been silent the entire time. "What do you think? Your brain has a bunch of random ideas, quickly think of how we should decorate the cape."

Yue Zhishi was reclining on the table, twirling a pen. "We should give it up."

"Ah?" Nan Jia couldn't believe it. "Even you would give up?"

"I mean give up using the straw rain cape in the opening." Yue Zhishi sat up straight and very earnestly said, "I actually have an idea, but I don't know if we have enough time. I read through many history books earlier when I was researching, and the said that 'met rain while hunting, slipping into oilskins'. This '' is actually what rich people used to wear as raincoats back in the ancient days."

"It's not a bad idea to pull off the straw cape after reaching the end of the T stage, but the model's outfit inside is actually too splendid — the status of someone wearing an outfit like that wouldn't be wearing a green straw rain cape."

Zhou Yi frowned. "But... how would we make an oilskin? Wouldn't it be too sticky?"

Yue Zhishi spun his pen. "It's actually not hard, I read in a book that we need to soak silk in . After that, we'll need to spread a mixture of soil and water over it before drying it out in a well-ventilated and shaded area. The oilskin won't be sticky that way. We can even spray water over it, it won't get drenched from the water on the stage. We can try." He lowered his head to look at his watch. "We still have time."

"It's not a bad idea," Nan Jia agreed. "We still have a lot of silk, and if it ends up looking good, it'll look more magnificent than a straw cape."

Since the team had Yue Zhishi, Nan Jia and Qu Zhi, who were all filled with energy and productivity, they started working on the opening's plan b after confirming there were no other issues with the other rounds. With only twenty hours left until the competition, they dipped their leftover gold silk fabrics into the golden tung oil to produce an oilskin.

The process was much harder than they'd thought. Xiao Qi used a sewing machine to tailor the oilskin cape by hand, and then she felt like it didn't match with the bamboo hats. After Yue Zhishi modified the design, they decided to attach a pale golden veil over the very first bamboo hat in order to tie it in with the gold cape.

Once they'd applied three layers of the tung oil, Chen Pi and Zhou Yi brought back some mud taken from the mountains behind campus and mixed it together with water. They then spread it over the cape on a fixed board, drying it with a hair dryer and large electric fan. They waited for a good few hours, and the mud crust had only just dried by the time Nan Jia finished reconfirming their entire show's background music and timings.