Sit Softly On Your Shoulder

Chapter 6: Opening Day

Wei Ying borrows two ladders and gets Lan Zhan to supervise while he and Wen Ning lift the banner up and attach it to the shop front, just under the name. Now it reads, "Blue's Fabrics" and underneath, "Open Now For A Limited Time".

Lan Zhan swallows heavily hoping the feeling goes away soon. To think Wei Ying went the extra mile to make this banner out of nothing, putting in time, effort and obviously a whole lot of caring, and it's doing funny things to his insides.

A small crowd has gathered, waiting to enter behind them, and Uncle Four has fastened a red ribbon across the door. Wen Ning brings a red cushion over and Wei Ying takes it from him to present it to Lan Zhan, because a gold and silver pair of scissors is resting upon it.

Lan Zhan smiles because this group of strangers have truly taken him under their wings and have come together to make a ceremony out of opening the shop. It's auspicious and he sincerely hopes his mother is watching this today, no matter where she is.

He takes the scissors and cuts the red ribbon, carefully putting the two pieces into his pocket for safe keeping. A cheer goes up from the people standing around and watching him, and then Lan Zhan unlocks the front door and they all enter.

It doesn't take long for people to select what they want and stand quietly in line, waiting for their turn.

But there's this one lady that keeps shouting out, asking the prices of everything she touches.

The first few times it happens, Lan Zhan and Wei Ying take turns to tell her the prices, but they're both busy cutting fabric and calculating how much to charge each customer, so the woman's voice begins to grate on Lan Zhan's nerves, especially because it's an unnecessary distraction, especially because she gets louder and louder.

They haven't managed to correctly price everything yet because Wei Ying had come up with a fantastic idea. They had found another online shop and conducted a price comparison between what they were going to sell and how much that online shop was already selling their similar fabric for, just to get an idea of how much they should be charging their customers. But while it was a genius idea, it took time to research, and so only one wall of shelving was correctly labelled up until today.

Lan Zhan planned on finishing it in between customers, or if they had a quiet spell. But in the meantime, they have to deal with her.

Again, the woman shouts out, "How much is this?"

Lan Zhan can see a few of the people standing in line throwing her irritated looks, but she's oblivious to them and how much of a disturbance she's creating.

"Madam, if you could please wait until one of us is free?" Lan Zhan tells her, framing it like a question so it doesn't sound rude. "We will help you as soon as we can."

She scowls at him, but waits quietly.

Lan Zhan attends to another three customers, and this time, when the woman interrupts again after running out of what little patience she already had, he's in the middle of trying to cut a piece of satin, and it's the worst possible timing. The scissors go awry, and the fabric is horribly cut at an angle.

Completely wonky.

Lan Zhan stares at it, feeling frustrated and embarrassed. Just a momentary loss of concentration, and now he's ruined someone's order.

His ears are flaming red and he can't speak. It's a horrible feeling. Even worse than that, he's mortified because he can feel the weight of at least twelve pairs of eyes watching him do that, and he can sense a storm of panic rising up his throat.

"That there is an artistic cut," Wei Ying comes to his side immediately and winks at Lan Zhan's customer. He quickly folds the material up and packs it away. "And because today is our first day, we're giving those out for free. But next time you want one of those, we're definitely charging extra!" He beams at the lady who blushes and takes the bag he's offering her with a little giggle as she leaves.