She said, somewhat embarrassedly, "In the past few years, I’ve been living a life of confusion, not managing the shops and estates left by my parents properly, basically teetering between profit and loss. This time, after leaving the Jie Family, although Lord Jie gave me quite a bit of silver, I’ve almost used it all up in reopening Manxiu Building. If I were to expand the business further, I’m afraid I’d have to sell the shops and even the estate, which would require some time."
Gu Youyou said, "You can sell some of the estate, but you can’t sell the shops. The future chain of ready-made garment stores will rely on your family’s shops! Some well-located shops can’t just be bought with money."
Miss Du said with difficulty, "That may be true, but the estates aren’t worth much, only a few well-located shops left by my parents are worth some silver."
Gu Youyou laughed and said, "You don’t have to worry about the silver, we agreed on a fifty-fifty split. I can’t just contribute designs and not care about anything else, right? Don’t worry, you just need to lead the embroiderers in their work, I’ll take care of the garments."
"You’ll take care of them?" Miss Du asked in surprise.
"Right!" Gu Youyou smiled and nodded, saying, "There’s a rather large courtyard behind Jisheng Hall’s pharmacy in Jinxiu City; I had it converted into a factory, originally intended for packaging medicines. Now that we’re going to partner up and open a ready-made garment store, I’ll repurpose that factory to be a garment manufacturing facility. Miss Du, you’re familiar with Jinxiu City, won’t it be no problem for you to find some skilled female garment workers?"
Miss Du was stunned and nodded, taking some time to grasp the strange new terms brought up by Gu Youyou.
A garment manufacturing facility, female garment workers – she must be talking about setting aside a courtyard to hire women who can tailor clothes. Then, sending the finished garments to Manxiu Building for embroidery decoration before selling them through Manxiu Building.
"I’ve arranged everything; it’s just that your embroidery... when we start getting orders, you alone won’t be able to keep up. To produce more and not overburden you, why don’t you bring out a few apprentices?" Gu Youyou looked on eagerly, unaware of what the unbreakable rules of the Manxiu craft passed down in Miss Du’s family meant to her.
For Gu Youyou, as long as it was profitable, these things didn’t matter; however, Miss Du didn’t feel the same way.
Miss Du’s face suddenly changed, torn and resistant. Yet, facing the sincerely earnest Gu Youyou, she didn’t know what to do.
"Manxiu is a heritage craft of the Yu Family, following the tradition that only the legitimate heirs and daughters-in-law, not the concubines or daughters, may be taught. There were no more men in the Yu Family in my mother’s generation. To continue the legacy, we had no choice but to break the tradition of not passing it to daughters. Now that this craft has been passed down to me, how can I pass it on to outsiders?"
Their stubbornly conservative mindset wouldn’t be easily shifted, Gu Youyou knew well.
She could only patiently persuade, "But right now, you have no son or daughter, and since you’ve divorced Second Son Jie, to remarry and bear children who would grow up to inherit your craft, that would take so many years. You can wait, but Manxiu Building can’t. By the time you’ve spent all the property left by your parents, by the time everyone has forgotten the once exquisite Manxiu craft, reviving it will be difficult."
Hearing these words from Gu Youyou, Miss Du struggled intensely within.
Not to mention the future, even now... though she has managed to reopen Manxiu Building, and there are some patrons who still cherish Manxiu embroidery, when compared to the heyday of the Manxiu Building, the difference is like heaven and earth – not even remotely comparable.