The French delegation from Maison de Lyon was scheduled to arrive at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday. By 6:00 AM, the Red Star Cannery was a blur of calculated chaos.
Lin Xia knew she couldn't hide the fact that the factory was a ruin. The roof was still patched with corrugated tin, and the walls were raw brick. If she tried to pretend she was a polished industrialist, she would look like a fraud. She had to lean into the "Industrial Romanticism" that she knew would captivate Western designers a decade later.
"Auntie Mei! Stop cleaning the grease off those old gears!" Lin Xia shouted.
Auntie Mei paused, a rag in her hand. "But Xia, the foreigners are coming! It looks like a scrap yard!"
"Exactly," Lin Xia said, her eyes bright with a feverish energy. "I want the contrast. I want them to see the ancient world meeting the future. Leave the rust on the outer pillars. But the looms—the looms must be so clean they shine like mirrors."
Lin Xia had spent the previous night arranging the factory floor not for efficiency, but for theater. She had draped bolts of her finest "Water-Ripple" indigo silk from the high, rusted rafters. The fabric fell in long, shimmering columns, catching the shafts of morning light that pierced through the holes in the roof.
She didn't set up a conference room. Instead, she placed a single, beautiful Ming-style rosewood table—rented with her last few hundred yuan—in the center of the factory floor, surrounded by the loud, rhythmic thunder of the machines.
When the two black limousines pulled up into the mud of the courtyard, the delegation stepped out, looking deeply skeptical. Lead by Lucille Dumont, a woman whose reputation for ruthlessness in the fashion world was legendary, the group looked at the marshy surroundings with visible disdain.
"Is this a joke?" Lucille asked in French, her voice sharp as a needle. Her interpreter began to translate, but Lin Xia stepped forward before he could speak.
"It isn't a joke, Madame Dumont," Lin Xia said in flawless, elegant French. "It is a birth. Welcome to the future of Maison de Lyon."
Lucille froze. Her eyes raked over Lin Xia—the girl was wearing a simple, high-collared black tunic made of her own silk, with no jewelry. She looked like a monk of industry.
"You speak French," Lucille remarked, her tone shifting from disdain to curiosity.
"I speak the language of my partners," Lin Xia replied. "Please, walk with me. I know you were expecting a state-run facility with a thousand workers in white coats. But those factories produce mountains of garbage. I produce excellence."
Lin Xia led them through the factory. She didn't shy away from the rough edges. She pointed out the village weavers, explaining the "soul" of the hand-dyeing process, and then immediately showed them the precision of the shuttleless looms she had refurbished.
"In Paris, you have the design," Lin Xia said, stopping by a loom where a deep crimson silk was being woven. "But you are struggling with the 'Hand.' Your European mills are too sterile. Your Asian competitors are too cheap. I am the bridge. I provide the artisan's touch with the industrialist's scale."
Lucille touched the crimson silk. She felt the weight, the "slub" of the natural fiber, and the incredible tension of the weave. Her professional mask began to crack.
"The cost of shipping from a marsh in Pudong..." Lucille began.
"Will be offset by the fact that I am the only factory in China with a direct export permit signed by the Ministry of Commerce," Lin Xia interrupted, thinking of Han Huojin's stamp. "And," she leaned in, her voice a low, confidential whisper, "because I know that Maison de Lyon is planning to move into the Japanese market next year. I have the shipping lanes to Osaka already mapped."
Lucille's eyebrows shot up. That information was a trade secret. How could this girl in a ruined cannery know their board-level strategy?
They reached the rosewood table. On it sat a single porcelain tea set and a folder.
"I have prepared a proposal," Lin Xia said. "But before you open it, I want to show you why you need me."
Lin Xia signaled to Auntie Mei. Suddenly, the factory lights—the few they had—were cut. The building plunged into shadows, save for the natural light hitting the draped silks.
Lin Xia picked up a heavy industrial flashlight and aimed it at a piece of white silk hanging from the ceiling.
"This is 'Ghost-Stitch' silk," Lin Xia said. "A technique thought lost during the Qing Dynasty. I spent six months recreating it with my weavers."
As the light hit the fabric, a hidden pattern appeared—a subtle, shimmering dragon that seemed to move within the threads. It was an optical illusion created by varying the twist of the silk yarn.
The delegation gasped. It was breathtaking. It was the kind of "impossible" detail that would make a five-thousand-dollar dress worth ten thousand.
"You can't get this in a state factory," Lin Xia said, the light reflecting in her dark eyes. "You can only get this from someone who understands that in the new China, the greatest luxury is our history."
Lucille Dumont sat at the rosewood table. She didn't look at the folder. She looked at Lin Xia.
"How much of this can you produce by September?"
"Five thousand meters," Lin Xia lied. She only had enough yarn for five hundred. But she knew that by September, she would own the yarn mill.
"If the quality matches this sample," Lucille said, reaching into her bag for a pen, "we will sign a three-year exclusivity agreement. But, Miss Lin... if you fail me, I will ensure that no Western house ever buys a single thread from you again."
"If I fail, Madame," Lin Xia said, pouring the tea with a steady hand, "I won't be around to care about the Western houses. I'll have already been eaten by the sharks in this river."
As the limousines drove away, the factory erupted in cheers. The weavers hugged each other, realizing that their jobs were now tied to a name as famous as Maison de Lyon.
Lin Xia stood at the gate, her heart hammering. She had done it. She had secured the prestige she needed to shield herself from the local vultures.
But as she turned back to the factory, she saw a man standing in the shadows of the granary across the road. He was leaning against a bicycle, watching her through binoculars.
It wasn't Zhang Wei. It was someone older, someone with the look of a professional.
The man tucked the binoculars away, tipped his cap to her, and pedaled away into the gloom of the Pudong marshes.
Lin Xia's smile faded. The business was growing, but so was the target on her back. She wasn't just a village girl anymore; she was a disruptor. And in 1989, disruptors often disappeared.