CHAPTER 179: CHAPTER 181: A VEIL, AN INSTANT, YETANHUA

Zhuang Heng also smiled slightly, "Xingyu, it takes a few years of experience to take good animal photos."

The implication was clear; she was almost directly saying that Su Xingyu was just copying her ideas while pretending to be strong.

Usually, no matter how they bullied Su Xingyu, she didn’t always take it to heart, but there was one thing she couldn’t tolerate: photography. No one could insult her dignity as a photographer.

"The post-processing was done by me, without a cent’s worth of advice from Zhuang Heng," her voice echoed in the office, clear with a hint of coldness, "Zhuang Heng, I don’t understand why you keep hanging around me. Please stay away from me in the future so you don’t claim my work as your own."

"How can you say that?"

"You’re being too harsh on Miss Zhuang!"

"Exactly, Miss Zhuang meant well, yet you’re biting the hand that feeds you!"

Accusations came pouring towards Su Xingyu.

Su Xingyu laughed angrily, turning her head to ask Fang Luohua, "Does anyone here have a subscription to ’Cloud’ magazine?"

Though Fang Luohua didn’t agree with Su Xingyu’s attitude, he was still on her side, saying, "Yes, I’ll go get it for you." With the separation between Fengren and Cloud being just a street apart, it was common for people at this photography center to subscribe to fashion magazines.

Soon, Fang Luohua returned with the latest issue of "Cloud."

Su Xingyu took the magazine, flipped through a few pages, and pulled out a folded double-spread and laid it flat.

The image on the spread immediately grabbed everyone’s attention—a vast depth of black, with a faint blue mist swirling in the darkness, crisscrossed by the sparse and lonely lights after a runway show. A little black cat was quietly descending the runway steps, looking mysterious and elegant in the backlight, its blue-gleaming eyes and slightly upturned tail appearing as proud as a high-fashion model.

A veil slowly draped down behind it.

One veil, one moment.

Yetanhua.

The last two brief phrases were marked with carefully designed typography on the side of the image, indicating this was the latest season advertisement for Yetanhua.

"It’s so beautiful..." someone in the office sighed in admiration.

"This photo of the cat is amazing! When did Yetanhua become so creative?"

"It’s not easy to arrange such a composition, cats are known for being unruly, getting them to cooperate is very difficult."

"Exactly, exactly."

The voices of admiration and discussion grew louder, the group immersed in the beautiful photos, completely forgetting about the earlier attack on Su Xingyu. Someone suddenly realized something, surprisingly pointing at the words on the image, "Yetanhua is a second-tier brand, similar in class to Qin Bag, how did it make it to ’Cloud’?"

It must be known that "Cloud," as the country’s top fashion magazine, usually features high-end luxury brands like Dior or Chanel, making it nearly impossible for second-tier luxury brands like Yetanhua to appear! Once a second-tier brand appears, it lowers the magazine’s overall tone, affecting the consumers’ perception and, more alarmingly, risks offending those high-end luxury sponsors—who would want to be placed in the same magazine with a second-tier brand?

Therefore, fashion magazines are always meticulously discerning in this regard.

Which brand makes it to which tier of magazine is a very particular issue.

"Really," soon, more people realized the problem, "how did Yetanhua make it on there?"

Su Xingyu knew a bit of the inside story. She lightly scanned the crowd and sneered, "What’s so difficult about that? Brand positioning is never static. What looks like a luxury brand today might become street merchandise tomorrow, isn’t unheard of. Likewise, what’s just a second-tier light luxury product today could become first-tier high-end tomorrow, not impossible at all. Many brands are trying everything to climb up, and although this threshold is high, more or less some can achieve it."

Her words made quite a few people nod.

Zhuang Heng was somewhat displeased beside her; how could she simply watch Su Xingyu win everyone’s approval?

She smiled gently, "It’s not that easy for brands to climb up. It took our Zhuang Family’s cosmetics two or three decades to become international first-tier. As for Yetanhua... well, it’s somewhat unexpected that it appeared in ’Cloud’ this time, but there’s surely an intricate backstory behind it, surely spent a lot of effort. Xingyu, don’t think of such things as too easy."

These words made even more people nod. As a staunch supporter of Zhuang Heng, Xia Ranran couldn’t help but mock Su Xingyu, "If you don’t understand, don’t speak nonsense. Hah, not difficult, huh? If it’s not hard, why don’t you try? Show off your skills."

As soon as the words fell, surprisingly, Su Xingyu responded calmly, "I did it."

Wha... what?!

Everyone’s gaze immediately focused on her, even Zhuang Heng couldn’t hide her surprise.

Su Xingyu extended her slender, fair finger, kindly indicating the inconspicuous signature below the ad photo, on a dark night-like backdrop was a small line of words: Photographer / Su Xingyu

Su Xingyu...!

Instantly, the room exploded, "Su Xingyu, you took this photo?!"

"Yes," Su Xingyu replied casually, "I snapped it. The piece of sheer fabric behind the kitten is Yetanhua’s latest outerwear, they liked the photo and bought it for the ad. ’Cloud’ also made an exception to feature them in a first-tier magazine because of this photo. Does anyone still doubt my ability to shoot animal photos now?"

Silence...

A strange silence...

With this photo released, who would dare question her ability to shoot animal photos again? Wouldn’t that be slapping oneself in the face?

Everyone present was a photographer, and even if this photo hadn’t made it to ’Cloud,’ their expertise could still discern that it was an excellent photo. Even though many of them didn’t like Su Xingyu, disliking her was one thing, but acknowledging that her photo was good was a completely different matter! Everyone shut their mouths...

Only the candid Fang Luohua chuckled, "Xingyu, you did a fantastic job, the photo’s color processing is just like the techniques you used on the one you made on the computer today, now I believe you didn’t use Miss Zhuang’s guidance."

After these words, many felt awkward—

Just a moment ago, they were all scrambling to accuse Su Xingyu of stealing Zhuang Heng’s experience! Accusing her of being ungrateful, of burning bridges after crossing them!

But seeing her skill level now, it was clearly not below Zhuang Heng’s, wasn’t it? What’s this nonsense about burning bridges after crossing them?

Turns out Zhuang Heng and those people were overly self-satisfied and too self-involved!

"Ah, look," someone suddenly made a small exclamation, "turn to this half-page landscape photo, it’s taken by Miss Zhuang, isn’t it?"