# "Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack" Chapter 3
The first rays of July sunlight slanted through L'etoile's floor-to-ceiling windows, turning the studio into a greenhouse of light. Su Yao stood in front of the staff locker room mirror, pinching the cuffs of her borrowed white shirt. The fabric had frayed at the edges, so she'd stayed up until 2 a.m. practicing the French seam technique Lise had taught her—stitching tiny, invisible loops that hid the ragged threads beneath a smooth finish. A faint red line marked her thumb where the needle had slipped, but she barely felt it.
"First day jitters?" Lise popped her head around the door, her camera slung over one shoulder. The French girl's linen blazer smelled of lavender, a stark contrast to Su Yao's own scent—detergent from the laundromat down the street, mixed with the iron tang of recycled metal fibers from yesterday's samples. "Don't worry about Sophie. She's still salty about losing the assistant spot to a 'newcomer.'"
Su Yao's throat tightened. She'd spotted Sophie earlier, lingering near Alain's office in a scarlet dress that matched her lipstick, speaking rapid French into her phone. When their eyes met, Sophie had mouthed something that looked like "amateur" before walking away, her Louboutin heels clicking like a metronome.
The studio floor was a symphony of controlled chaos. Twenty designers hunched over drafting tables, their scissors snicking through fabric. A tailor steamed a silk blouse until it hung like liquid, while a pattern-maker traced curves onto paper with a silver stylus. At the center of it all stood Alain, his silver hair unruly as always, gesturing wildly with a tape measure. "The metal must *breathe*," he boomed in his thick Provençal accent. "Like the lavender fields after rain—sturdy, but alive!"
Su Yao hovered near the supply closet, clutching her sketchbook to her chest. She'd spent hours studying L'etoile's archives last night, noting how Alain wove nature into even his most avant-garde pieces: a coat that mimicked pine needles, a gown printed with fossil patterns. Her own sketches—sanitation workers' jackets with moss-green linings, reflective strips shaped like fireflies—felt childish by comparison.
"Mademoiselle Su!" Alain's voice cut through the hum. He waved her over, his eyes crinkling with curiosity. "Let us see your magic."
Her knees threatened to buckle. The system's interface flickered to life at the corner of her vision: "Critical task detected. Fiber enhancement protocol uploaded to neural cache." She took a breath, stepping forward to where a swatch of recycled metal fabric lay on the worktable. It was stiff, almost brittle—the same material that had stumped Marco's team for months.
"Alain says the metal needs to breathe," she said, her French suddenly fluid thanks to the system's translation module. She picked up a spray bottle labeled "Seaweed Extract—Experimental" and misted the fabric. "But what if we let it *move* instead?"
She held the swatch over a steaming kettle (borrowed from the break room), and the room fell silent. The fibers, which normally stayed rigid as wire, began to ripple—expanding slightly as the moisture hit them, then contracting when she set them down on a cool marble slab. "The seaweed fibers react to humidity," she explained, her voice steadier now. "They act like tiny lungs. When it's hot and sweaty, they expand to let air in. When it's cold, they tighten to trap warmth."
Alain snatched the swatch, holding it up to the light. "Magnifique!" he shouted, spinning around to grab a pair of calipers from a nearby shelf. "Elasticity up by… by 37%! This is not just fabric, Su Yao. This is *biology*."
By noon, the sample had been carted off to the lab for official testing, and Su Yao found herself with an hour to spare. She wandered to the break room, where Lise was nursing a latte and staring glumly at her camera screen. "Editor says my street style photos lack 'authenticity,'" the French girl groaned, swiping through images of models in eco-friendly parkas posed against Shanghai skyscrapers. "Like wearing $500 'sustainable' jeans while leaning against a homeless shelter is somehow 'real.'"
Su Yao leaned in, studying the photos. The models looked stiff, their clothes pristine—nothing like the way real people wore their garments: scuffed hems, pockets stuffed with receipts, jackets slung over shoulders like second skins. "What if we take the clothes back to where they belong?" she said,想起 (remembering) the wet market near her old apartment, where vendors shouted over piles of fresh ginger and live fish, their aprons stained with soy sauce and rain. "Not the runway. The alleyways. The food stalls. Let people *live* in them."
Two hours later, they were crouching behind a dumpling cart on Fumin Road, Su Yao in her prototype windbreaker (now reinforced with the seaweed-metal blend), Lise lying on the pavement to get the perfect angle. A grandmother selling chrysanthemum tea stopped to adjust Su Yao's collar, clucking in Shanghainese about "city girls who don't dress warm enough." A stray dog trotted over, sniffing the windbreaker's hem before letting Su Yao scratch its ears.
"This is it," Lise muttered, her camera clicking疯狂地 (frantically). "This is the soul my editor wants."
The lab results arrived just as they returned to the studio: Alain's team confirmed the fabric's elasticity had increased, and its breathability now outperformed traditional luxury textiles. "You've solved our Paris problem," Alain told Su Yao, handing her a folder stamped "Confidential." Inside were sketches for his upcoming collection—a series of armor-like dresses inspired by Joan of Arc, but "too heavy to move in," as he put it. "With your fabric, they'll float like smoke."
Su Yao's fingers trembled as she flipped through the pages. Then she froze. On the last sheet, someone had scrawled in red ink: "Not original. See attached." A photocopied patent application fell out—filed by Pierre Dubois six months ago, for a "humidity-reactive metal fiber" that looked eerily similar to her design.
Sophie appeared in the doorway, her lips curled in a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Alain wants to see you. He's… confused."
The conference room felt like a freezer. Alain sat at the head of the table, the patent papers spread before him. Pierre stood beside him, his silver tie clip glinting as he tapped the document. "I told you hiring amateurs was risky," he said, his English sharp with disdain. "This is blatant theft, Alain. My lawyers will—"
"Wait." Su Yao pulled her phone from her pocket, her hands shaking so hard she nearly dropped it. She opened a cloud folder labeled "Research Log—March 12," scrolling to a video of her and Marco in his Milan lab, testing seaweed extracts on metal fibers. The timestamp read: April 3rd—two months before Pierre's patent date. "I've been working on this since spring. Ask Marco. Ask the lab technician who stayed until 4 a.m. helping me measure elasticity."
Pierre's jaw tightened. "This proves nothing. Anyone can fake a video."
But Alain was already reaching for his phone, dialing Marco's number. As he spoke rapid French, his eyes never left Su Yao's face—softening, narrowing, then crinkling again with that familiar twinkle. He hung up and stood, tossing the patent papers aside. "Marco says you two stayed up three nights straight, eating nothing but espresso and *arancini*." He clapped Su Yao on the back, hard enough to make her stagger. "Pierre, your patent is for *zinc-coated* fibers. Su Yao's uses *titanium*—a completely different composition. Nice try, though."
Pierre stormed out, slamming the door. Sophie slipped away too, her head bowed. Alain handed Su Yao a small velvet box. Inside was a silver brooch shaped like an iris, its petals inlaid with tiny blue stones. "My mother's," he said. "She designed it in Shanghai, 1947. When she had nothing but a sewing kit and a dream."
That evening, Su Yao walked home through the old neighborhood, the brooch pinned to her windbreaker. The stray cat from her alley rubbed against her ankles, and she paused to share half her sandwich—ham and cheese, from the studio's catering. As she watched the cat eat, she flipped open her sketchbook, drawing a new design: a jacket for street vendors, with insulated pockets for hot food, and a hood lined with the same soft fleece as luxury coats.
The system's chime sounded: "Side mission completed: Prove innovation through documentation. Reward: Access to L'etoile's vintage textile archive. New task: Refine the humidity-reactive fabric for mass production. Deadline: 72 hours."
Su Yao smiled, tucking the sketchbook under her arm. The streetlights flickered on, turning the puddles into pools of liquid gold. Somewhere in the distance, a tailor's sewing machine hummed, stitching the night together—one tiny, perfect loop at a time.