Soon, the third phase of the challenge began.

“Good morning, everyone. A new round of challenges is about to start right away. Are you ready?” Linda asked with a smile.

“Always ready!” “I must win the champions.h.i.+p this time!” The contestants' fighting spirit was burning up!

“This time, you need to work in pairs.” Linda said.

Then, she said, “You need to work in pairs to conduct a compet.i.tion about unconventional material clothing design. Please follow me!”

Long Xi's heart jumped suddenly.

How could a challenge about unconventional materials be a two-person collaboration? Who will I be paired with?

During the previous compet.i.tions, the groups had been decided by drawing lots from the mentors. In many cases, the program intended to group two contestants with different personalities or design styles to get something attractive.

Long Xi prayed in her heart that they wouldn't separate her from Lincoln. Lincoln was a middle-aged French man who was a professional designer of a high level. However, during their past few days together, Long Xi had discovered that this man had a very irritable, headstrong temper.

It would be nice to be in a group with Jack, who was mild-tempered and good at design! In short, she wished she wasn't paired with Lincoln!

As they wondered and worried, the contestants were taken to a square.

On the square were seven quite stylish Rolls-Royce convertible sports cars: a blue one, a red one, an orange one, a green one, a silver one, a pink one and a purple one.

Linda held fourteen identical car keys with keyrings and smiled. “Now, according to the ranking of the last challenge, you will come up one by one and choose a key freely. The two people who pick the keys of the same car will be in the same group.”

Long Xi thought this way was novel and fair.

Jack had placed first in the previous phase, so he was the first to walk up, grab a key and press it.

The blue Rolls Royce convertible made a noise.

Long Xi also took a car key and pressed the b.u.t.ton on it. The purple Rolls Royce convertible made a noise.

Next was Lincoln, who had won third place in the previous challenge. He unexpectedly chose the purple Rolls-Royce convertible.

Long Xi felt very unfortunate being in the same group with Lincoln. She curled her lips, trying not to express her feelings.

Linda led them to a fancy candy store next to the square.

When she entered the candy store, an amazed expression formed on Long Xi's face.

She had read about this candy store in a magazine. It was famous for its expensive candy, all of which was imported from France and Italy.

She was surprised to see a windmill, a cabin, and the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. They were all made of candy.

“Designers!” Linda introduced a middle-aged woman with long curly blond hair who was wearing a striped suit skirt to the contestants. “This is Ms. Amel, the brand director of Dreamland Candy House. Let's welcome her with a warm applause.”

The designers smiled and applauded in unison. Lincoln, who was usually a little arrogant, gave her two warm cheers, so the camera zoomed in on him.

After Amel greeted everybody graciously, Linda laughed and uttered the propaganda she had prepared earlier. “Like clothing design, candy products are also works of art rich in connotation. Each piece of candy is designed to make customers happy…”

“As for you, designers, what you need is to impress the judges.” She then added, “Yes, as you might have guessed, this is an unconventional material challenge. Your material this time is this exquisite candy. You need to turn it into both aesthetic and wearable fas.h.i.+on. You have two days.”

Long Xi felt really fortunate in her misfortune. Candy was a very easy material to use compared to plastic, metal sheets, car tires, cans, cards and so on, which had been used in previous seasons.

Long Xi, who was glad that the group hadn't come up with any more deadly ideas to toss at them, smiled with satisfaction like a flower.

However, the time they had to buy candy was only fifteen minutes. Moreover, their budget was only 2,500 RMB.

Fortunately, Ms. Amer said she would give the contestants a 50% discount. This was a really great deal!

At Linda's order, almost all the contestants ran over to the shelves like runaway wild horses!

Long Xi determined the direction of the design roughly in her mind. She intended to make a skirt out of unconventional materials, mainly based on blue and white colors.

She thought it would be foolish to risk using contrasting colors on unconventional materials. Mixing too many colors was likely to lead to tragedy.

However, Lincoln suddenly started giving her orders. “Get as much red and black sugar as you can.”

Long Xi, who was not a pushover, said, “Let's split up and take what we want.”

Lincoln said unhappily, “We should cooperate.”

Time was so pressing that Long Xi was too lazy to argue with him. Thus, she said, “Since this is a cooperation, we are equals. You shouldn't order me around.” Meanwhile, she rushed over to the cargo rack.

Lincoln said “F*CK YOU” and rushed toward the sugar he wanted.

Fortunately, the candy store was large, so everyone's target shelves were not quite the same. Although there was inevitably some pus.h.i.+ng, the compet.i.ton was not fierce.

Long Xi saw some water-blue rock candy and inspiration flooded her immediately.

She picked up a pile of rock candy. She was about to put it in the delicate bamboo basket specifically provided by the candy store for shopping, when she was. .h.i.t heavily by Qiu Zi from Fu Sang, a female contestant from another group, consciously or unconsciously.

The rock candy was spilled all over the floor.

Qiu Zi didn't even say sorry. She just kept walking away.

When Long Xi had first met Qiu Zi, she had thought that she looked a lot like Cheng Yimei, who had been executed. Apart from their hairstyles, they looked exactly the same! Did Cheng Yimei have a twin sister?

However, their personalities were quite different. Cheng Yimei was introverted and calm, so it was hard to read her mind. Meanwhile, Qiu Zi was more arrogant.

It was rumored that Qiu Zi had quite the unusual background. She was the fiancee of Yamamoto Longyi, the boss of Fu Sang's Toxic Flood Dragon Society. It was no wonder that she was such an aggressive bully!

Long Xi resolutely gave up on the rock sugar on the ground, as she didn't want to waste time picking it up.

She directly picked up another pile of lake-blue rock sugar, seblue rock sugar, sky-blue dolphin fudge, sky-blue rock sugar, turquoise-blue rock sugar, white ice sugar, and beige ice sugar from the rock sugar shelf.

She put it all in the bamboo basket.

Soon, she got some white chocolate beans.

Meanwhile, Lincoln bought a lot of red and black candy, which was totally different from her idea.

Soon, Linda began to count down the last few seconds. “Designers, only ten seconds are left! Ten, nine, eight…”

When she counted down to one, everyone paid in a hurry and returned to their team.

No one was late, because everyone knew that anyone who did not obey the rules would be eliminated.

Long Xi and Lincoln had overspent a little on the candy. Therefore, Lincoln gave up some of the sky-blue chocolate beans he had taken without even asking Long Xi.

Long Xi was a little unhappy. This man treated women with disrespect!

By now, the entire candy store was a mess.

The candy that had been accidentally knocked over or thrown away by the contestants had fallen to the ground, and the shelves looked as bare and littered as if they had been visited by rats.

Ms. Amer said nothing. She kept smiling gracefully, looking very elegant.

Of course, the cost of this candy was high, but compared to the popularity that the store could earn after the program aired, what was this loss even worth?

After thanking her, the designers returned to the studio by following Linda's instructions.

Everyone took their candy out of their woven bags, spread it out on the table, and arranged it according to their personal habits.

Long Xi arranged them by color, going from deep to light.

She soon drew up the design draft based on her own inspiration.

Lincoln also drew a design draft. Both of them insisted on using their own draft. Each of them had their own ideas, and neither would compromise.

Finally, Long Xi suggested that they let the mentors evaluate and select the best ones.

As a result, the mentors decided that Long Xi's design was superior.

Lincoln had no choice but to agree to use Long Xi's design. However, he may have been disaffected and negative about this, so Long Xi did most of the work alone.

She designed a mid-sleeved jacket and a ta.s.seled hip skirt.

The V-neckline of the jacket was made of seblue dolphin fudge in an inverted three shape, while the rest of it was made out of lake-blue sugar, which was used as a background color.

The seblue dolphin fudge looked like a group of elves swimming in the sea.

The skirt was an asymmetrical hem-wrapped hip skirt made of sky-blue and tile-blue sugar. Asymmetrical ta.s.sels made of white round sugar served as the highlight of the decoration.

Jack and f.a.n.n.y were in the same team, but they worked very well together.

Jack was a handsome man with a good sense of humor. How could f.a.n.n.y resist such a handsome man?

f.a.n.n.y was a large girl who was studying at a university in France and majoring in fas.h.i.+on design.

She came from a small town in the south of France. She seemed to have a very careless personality. In an interview, she had said that her boyfriend had cheated on her because of her obesity. She belonged to a vulnerable group the audience could sympathize easily with.

According to the unwritten rules of French Stormy Dress in the past, this type of contestants, unless they were really poor strength-wise, would generally make it to the last four.

What's more, f.a.n.n.y was not bad strength-wise. Her work was targetred at the almost blank plus-size clothing design market, which had very bright business prospects.

She and Jack designed a tube top and a skirt. The beautiful geometric lines were outlined by the juice and dissolved with a liquorice stick in the position of the tube top.

Long Xi appreciated their talent and personality. Their workbench was also next to hers, so she couldn't help talking with them.