Music that could get in the Tik Tok background music leaderboard were all cyber songs that were viral in the status quo or cyber songs that had potentials to become viral. Coco’s songs, such as “The Untrammeled Traveler” and “Thinking About You”, had been ranked top ten in the leaderboard for a long time before. However, Coco was now on the path of becoming a mainstream singer. Her new songs had already been made into albums, so she hadn’t been posting her songs first on the internet.
And “Jasmine” was obviously not a cyber song. It was too formal, and it was more fitting to play it in large dinner parties at TV stations or in international friendship symphony concerts. Therefore, when the song squeezed onto the leaderboard and even won first place, some youngsters that did not know the truth and didn’t like listening to these old-fashioned songs thought there were bots spamming “Jasmine”.
However, the song name that was ranked first place still intrigued these youngsters, causing them to subconsciously click in. They wanted to see how magical this “Jasmine” was. If it was suspicious in any ways for being spammed, they would report it at any time!
And this glance made their hands couldn’t resist but uncontrollably clicked on the heart on the top right part of their screen.
How could this video be filmed so awesomely!
They felt embarrassed for their previous suspecting thoughts.
The quality of the video was HD, and it was very original. They did not use any filters, and the camera was set to one spot, aiming in one direction the entire time.
In the camera, the girl wearing a white dress sat on the piano stool while the girl wearing a peach-colored hanfu sat on the carpet. The styles were completely different, but it didn’t look contradictory at all.
“Hey, look, these two girls’ fingers can dance.”
“This is the first time I hear the Guqin version of ‘Jasmine’ and my first time hearing a duet version of ‘Jasmine’, with the Guqin and the piano playing together. It’s very refreshing.”
“Hahaha, same. I’ve always thought this is a godly Chinese song. When I went to school, it’s the music that gets played in exercise times between classes. When I started working, it became the music that gets played whenever work time’s over. When I go out on vacation, it’s the music that gets played when we board airplanes… My ears are growing cocoons from hearing this; however, now that I’ve listened to it again on Tik Tok, it sounds completely new to me.”
“I love listening to these old songs but remade creatively. It sounds very cool.”
“Never knew that you can play ‘Jasmine’ on loop for one day…”
…
Excluding the music itself, a four-minutes-long video was enough to let the viewers discover many details. For example, everyone could see that the background of the video was very luxurious. They were obviously in a mansion. People who knew pianos realized the white grand piano Li Xiaoru was playing was a very expensive Steinway limited edition.
“This white piano is worth 1,500,000 USD!”
“Wtf. Are you joking?”
“I’m very certain it is. I specially went on the Steinway official website to compare it with the images. It’s definitely a real one.”
“These sisters spent so much to film their video.”
“Didn’t you guys look at the list of producing staff at the end of the video? The videographer’s name is ‘Tao Zhiyao’. Someone on the internet has found that she’s a Bai Fu Mei. It’s possible that the piano and the mansion are pertinent to her. Oh, yes. Her Wei Bo username is ‘Peach is a fairy’. If you guys are interested in a rich miss, you can follow her.”
“Eh, making a rich miss become their videographer… Surely, they are a group of unique sisters…”
There were also audiences paying attention to that set of hanfu Liu Man was wearing. The peach color was too outstanding and shiny that people could not ignore it. Experienced hanfu fans who had been in the hanfu circle for a long time naturally recognized that the dress was Coral in the “Fenghua” series. Until now, Liu Man had worn all the hanfus in this series publicly.
To help the viewers who didn’t know hanfus well understand better, some hanfu fans posted on Wei Bo, carefully diagnosing the five sets of hanfu in the “Fenghua” series. The photos attached for each set were all Liu Man wearing them. After all, the prices for these five sets of hanfu were not quite affordable for everyone, and the seller only accepted private customizing. Normal people couldn’t buy them, and they couldn’t afford to buy them… There weren’t many pictures online featuring them, and most of them were s, There were some buyers who uploaded pictures of them wearing the hanfus, but only Tao Zhiyao had managed to get all five sets, and Liu Man wore them in front of the camera.
To be fair, the public was very curious about all kinds of luxurious items. Bags, clothings, makeup, and skincare products were chased upon by women in all their lives. Or else, there wouldn’t have been so many chains of posts digging deep about those famous brands.
Therefore, this post from a hanfu fan gossiping about the hanfu instantly got followed by many people, and there were tens of thousands of people commenting.
“Every set of hanfu is very good-looking. I love Coral’s color the best.”
“I think Yuehua, with a plainer color, fits me the most.”
“They are too expensive… Even the cheapest one costs 58,000 RMB. I can’t afford any of them. =.= ”
“You can buy counterfeits.”
“I’ve searched through the entire Taobao, but I still haven’t seen a shop selling counterfeits of these.”
“Hehe. Zhong Jiangnan’s hanfus are not those shoddy hanfus on Taobao that only cost 99 RMB and do not require any transportation fee. When you wear those shoddy products, it seems as if you’re in a full-scale drama. The fabric materials are hard enough to defeat ninety-nine percent of the fabric factories, not to mention the designs and the working process. It’s not possible to counterfeit it. They sell it at an expensive price for a reason.”
“‘Fenghua’ is only for customers who want advanced customization. You can always buy Zhong Jiangnan’s other series that are already done. Yesterday, I went to their boutique and bought a set. It costs about five thousand, but it looks super good, too.”
“I can accept it if the price is five thousand, but I live in a third-tiered city. There are no boutiques that sell such unpopular clothes in the malls.”
“Zhong Jiangnan has an official website. You can directly order already-made sets online.”
And so, the top-tiered personal and official website of folk costume designer, Zhong Jiangnan, which was usually only visited by a small group of people, welcomed a huge wave of customers for the first time ever. The staff responsible for the website’s backstage management, surprised, watched the traffic increase on an exponential scale.
With the traffic growing, it also meant that the orders would be increasing.
On the day the hanfu Wei Bo post appeared, the official website had five times the number of usual orders.
Even Zhong Jiangnan himself was stunned.
Zhong Jiangnan was a man in his 50s. He spent most of his life overwhelming himself in the designing of folk costumes. When he was young, he designed 56 sets of dresses based on 56 folk costume unique characteristics. He was praised a lot by his superior ranks, and his dresses were used in all kinds of official international occasions and state visits. Thus, he was also well-known internationally and was specially invited as a designer to many luxurious brands.
Zhong Jiangnan had only started studying hanfu in the past two years. He was a very earnest and discreet man. He had read through much ancient literature as well as checking cave wall drawings in Gudu and Xibei. He recorded hanfu details, and just these details could fill three whole notebooks!
Most importantly, Zhong Jiangnan had an open mindset and was not restrained to the tradition. He did not just try to recreate hanfu, but he designed new versions of hanfu according to the modern trend and habits.
Even if one walked on the streets in his new hanfu, they would only astonish the others and would not appear to be eccentric. This was a master’s level.
Zhong Jiangnan himself had already been very accomplished and won lots of titles, so he did not care much about his benefits. Him designing a hanfu was like a scholar, finding a topic to do research on. Therefore, he never cared about whether his clothes had lots of sales.
The costume company that was named with his name had been operated by his wife, Hu Jie. Hu Jie was a standard businesswoman that always put her benefits in the first place.
On the second day after the sales of hanfus on their official website had an exploding increase, Hu Jie called over all the management staff in her company for a meeting.
Translated by: Sydney
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