In 1991, Lin Wantang jolted awake on the hard bed in her rented room.
She remembered her previous life: her husband, Lin Mingtao, had stolen all her design sketches, tricked her into handing over her core technology, and cast her aside. In the end, she died alone in that rented room. But now, her husband was secretly flipping through her design notebook, her mother-in-law was smiling benevolently as she brought over a “nourishing soup,” and her best friend was quietly keeping track of everything she did.
It turned out her whole family had been putting on an act.
Back at twenty-three, Lin Wantang would no longer be the foolish, sweet girl who swallowed every insult. With thirty years of fashion-industry trends in her memory, she secretly backed up evidence, lined up resources, and built connections. The scumbag wanted to steal her sketches? She registered the copyrights in advance. Her mother-in-law wanted to drug her and keep her trapped? She calmly downed a strong cup of tea and stayed sharp. Her best friend wanted to dig up “dirt” on her? She set a trap with fake documents and watched her take the bait.
From a state-owned knitting mill on the brink of bankruptcy to making a name for herself at Guangzhou Fashion Week; from being falsely accused of profiteering to taking her brand to overseas ready-to-wear shows, she stepped over everyone who had looked down on her and built her own fashion empire, one step at a time.
And Jiang Cheng, the taciturn architect with the icy demeanor, went from quietly helping her draw up plans to renovate the factory to calling her from the banks of the Thames in London to say, “You design Chinese fashion, and I'll build its foundations. What do you say?”
In this life, she would not only take back everything she'd lost, but show everyone that
A woman's greatest strength has never been marrying the right man. It's becoming her own support.
