Forced Me to Regress, Huh?

Since her last modeling session, Yezi had been eagerly anticipating the opportunity to shoot new products for a long time.

Now, the time had finally come for her to ‘shine’ once again!

During this time, Yezi had been doing some body-toning exercises whenever she had free time.

At the same time, she was diligently using face masks and caring for her skin.

She knew that Cheng Zhu was skilled at photo editing, but she still strived to maintain her top model figure.

In addition, she had been actively helping Cheng Zhu’s store by getting customer review photos.

Using her own channels, she had invited many girls to take photos.

Cheng Zhu was even thinking about bringing her onto the team.

To be honest, Yezi was pretty pleased with herself. The store was doing well with her as the model, and her vanity had been satisfied in an unconventional way.

She often checked the sales and rankings of Keep Coming.

Seeing its steady rise, she felt a sense of pride and accomplishment.

The two of them chatted a little more on WeChat and confirmed the shoot time for 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.

At night, Yezi even made a special trip to a beauty salon for a hydrating treatment.

* * *

The next day, Cheng Zhu and Yezi met in the lobby of the hotel he had booked and took the elevator up with the room card.

Cheng Zhu noticed she was carrying a large bag again, just like last time.

This time, however, it looked ever heavier, with more things inside.

“Are you planning to bring a small suitcase next time?” Cheng Zhu asked.

“Maybe.” Yezi nodded.

Once they entered the room, Cheng Zhu immediately said, “Go change. I’ll take a few test shots of empty scenes to check the effect. Today, we have more designs to shoot than last time, so it’s going to be a busy day.”

“Okay,” Yezi agreed, then entered the bathroom.

The efficiency of this shoot was noticeably higher than the first one.

Yezi already knew how to work with Cheng Zhu.

“Hmm, very good. Keep that pose. Just shift your thigh a little to the right,” he said. “Yes, great. Now, tilt your head back a bit. Hey! Don’t stick out your tongue. No need for that!”

At the end, he complimented, “Not bad, not bad. It’s only your second shoot, and you’re already looking like a pro lingerie model.”

It felt like he had hired a professional for the price of an amateur.

Yezi rolled her eyes at him and said flirtatiously, “I don’t want to be a pro lingerie model. I won’t accept work from others.”

After shooting two product sets, they took a short break.

Cheng Zhu looked through the photos on his camera while Yezi casually draped a bathrobe over herself and crossed her legs, with her toes dangling her slipper in the air. She stared at him intently.

“I’ve seen a lot of people on Taobao copying our designs lately,” she suddenly said.

“That’s normal,” Cheng Zhu replied indifferently.

“They basically just copied them and changed a few small details. Even the names are the same,” Yezi continued.

“Also, I saw a store where the model’s poses copied mine. Hmph! Her figure isn’t as good as mine!

“What’s even more annoying is that they’re engaging in a price war and setting their prices lower than ours!”

Her frustration seemed heavy, as though she were the eunuch who was anxious while the emperor was not.

Cheng Zhu looked up at her with a smile. “It doesn’t matter. I expected this.”

“So amazing?” She leaned forward slightly, resting half her body on her crossed legs, and tilted her head to look at Cheng Zhu’s side profile.

Tsk, where did this little licking dog come from?!

Cheng Zhu had gone through all the photos in his camera and was thoroughly satisfied with the results of the two sets.

In a good mood, he didn’t mind chatting a bit more with Yezi. “Since you’re so concerned about my store, I’ll share some news with you.”

“What news?” she asked, curious.

“After we release this batch of new designs, keep an eye on the product photos. I’m going to try something new this time.” Cheng Zhu kept her in suspense.

“Are you using my photos for the new idea?” Yezi’s eyes lit up as she felt a sense of involvement.

“Yes.”

“What’s the new idea?”

“Business secret.” Cheng Zhu grinned, refusing to elaborate further.

* * *

The photo shoot ended at five o’clock.

The two of them had become quite in sync, and their efficiency was much higher than last time.

In fact, Yezi’s experience as a model this time was better than last time.

As mentioned before, being a lingerie model was exhausting because many of the poses were a bit unnatural.

The final shots came out great, but maintaining some of the poses for a few minutes left her with sore spots and strained muscles.

When Yezi’s work attitude wasn’t up to par, Cheng Zhu would go over and give her a light slap as a reward.

Needless to say, it seemed to recharge her, and she immediately got back into form.

Later on, Cheng Zhu noticed her skin had turned slightly red from the slaps, but the photos turned out pretty well.

He was someone who appreciated the beauty of symmetry, so the other side of Yezi’s butt received the same treatment.

Of course, he really didn’t enjoy this and wasn’t a fan of hitting people, but Yezi completely misunderstood him.

He considered himself above such lowbrow interests.

After the shoot, Yezi changed into her bartender uniform.

Recently, the Hidden bar had been running some promotions, and business had picked up a little.

According to Yezi, although Shen Minglang wasn’t short on money, he still wanted to improve the bar. It was a matter of face.

However, she was now in Cao’s camp, but her heart was with Han. When it came to the bar, it was ‘his bar’, but when it came to Keep Coming, she always used ‘our store’.

Despite feeling exhausted from the shoot, she felt very satisfied.

At night, Shen Minglang arrived at the bar.

He was a little puzzled. Yezi seems to be in a good mood today. She’s all smiles.

Sure enough, the bar’s business has improved, so she must be happy as part of the bar.

Meanwhile, after Cheng Zhu returned home, he selected a product photo to use as the cover for each item.

Then he quickly edited them.

These pictures would be very useful to him later.

Afterwards, he opened Taobao and searched for his competitors.

Some small stores aren’t much of a threat, but these big ones are a bit tricky to deal with, Cheng Zhu thought.

Some stores had been around for years, with a solid fanbase and plenty of money behind them.

They were competing for the top spots in the same category.

Take the stepmother dress keyword for example—it was already quite popular online. With the influence of influencers, netizens were spreading it by word of mouth.

As mentioned earlier, the price of the stepmother dress keyword in ZTC had been steadily rising.

They were fighting tooth and nail for it!

Big stores: The term you created is great, but now it’s mine!

Big stores: Your designs are pretty good. I’ll copy them out of respect.

Cheng Zhu silently noted down the names of these stores. Then let’s have some fun!

When his store suddenly rose, it was equivalent to him sitting down at a card table.

On the other side of the table were piles of chips.

Money, foundation, fanbase—these were all chips.

Cheng Zhu didn’t have many chips in front of him now. He’d have to win one hand at a time, slowly building up his stack.

But he wasn’t worried at all.

He could become rich in his past life. Now that he had regressed, why should he be afraid?

My hands are full of winning cards!

Since you guys love learning from others so much, I’ll let you know there’s a lot more for you to learn.

Cheng Zhu opened Weibo and began to contact some bloggers.

He had carefully chosen these people earlier.

It was 2014, so the world of comics was still dominated by Japanese manga.

However, as time passed, there was one country’s comics that had risen abruptly in a special category!

Perhaps you’ve heard of Korean manhwa.