Rebirth: Outstanding

Chapter 83: Good wine and good tea

Angie Peris frowned and said to Song Tianyao: "Your last words are really...vulgar, they are the Deputy Director of the Office of Industry and Commerce and his wife."

"Then can you tell me, am I wrong?" Song Tianyao asked Angie Peris.

The wife of a deputy director does not cover up and does not exclude any dissident brokers to convey some news through her. This incident itself is very abnormal, although the deputy director will buy internal bonds because of joining Hong Kong. For the sake of this, there may be a temporary need for money, but in accordance with the style of the British, especially the Anglican believers, it is impossible to assume such an unscrupulous attitude.

It can only be said that the deputy director is using this method of wishing the bait to find the collaborator he really needs, and the requirements are very high. An official who lacks money already has colonial status, so all he needs is money. , So many people line up to send money to fill his appetite? Of course not, there is only one explanation, that is, this guy wants both money and a good reputation. He frequently contacts these people who come by, but he is only screening the one that satisfies him.

"Just what you think." Angie Peris put down the red wine glass in her hand: "Tomorrow night, Deputy Director Shi Zhiyi and his wife will have dinner at the mountain top restaurant. Besides us, they at least invited another The four Chinese businessmen averaged the waiting time before the meal. The average time for each one was at most five to seven minutes. If he couldn't move him, we should have to go back and invite the middle-level customs officials to have a chat. I think We can change our direction. Buy a middle-level customs official and let him take care of it for a while. It doesn't take much money to invest, and it won't only get five minutes of communication time. According to the current situation of Likang, you can't give the deputy director. If I want the benefits and reputation, I can use the daytime tomorrow to check news about other middle-level customs officials."

She thought that Song Tianyao would decisively consider her opinion after listening to her own words and get to know some intermediate British officials of the customs, but Song Tianyao did not respond at all, staring at the red wine in front of him in a daze.

"Your thinking at this time is more like hesitation. You can't insist on thinking because of the other party's deputy director status..." Angie Peris felt that she had to use her rationality as a lawyer to remind the young man in front of her. It is also a market strategy for employers to resolutely give up changing directions. After all, Likang’s current situation cannot satisfy Shi Zhiyi’s two needs for money and fame.

Unless Shi Zhiyi talks nakedly about Likang's plans to smuggle the contraband business, this will definitely meet his money needs, but the good reputation he wants to maintain will no longer exist when the smuggling business starts. Will become like most colonial officials, insatiable, which is obviously not what Shi Zhiyi wants.

In addition, Shi Zhiyi wanted to get involved in the smuggling of prohibited goods. He didn't need to meet so many people at all. He just met with a few British businessmen to solve the problem completely, and then only waited for the profits of the smuggling.

"I don't know if I can satisfy the Deputy Director Shi Zhiyi tomorrow, but I can guarantee that if I can't do it, other businessmen in Hong Kong should also be unlikely to do it. This involves a problem of vision, but it works. Okay, he should be able to get the archway he wants, as well as the money brought by the huge profits." Song Tianyao looked sharply at Angie Peris.

Angie Peris looked at the red wine in front of him, and then at this seemingly confident employer: "It is of course a good thing to have confidence, but where the confidence comes from is a question."

"Confidence is of course derived from Likang’s legitimate business, huge profits, and good reputation. He wants it all, so I have to give me a little time, right? I’ll help him draw a pie first, and let him help with this pie. Let's do something, this is the attitude that a collaborator should have." Song Tianyao picked up the wine glass, took a sip, took a sip in his mouth, swallowed and said, "Good wine."

Perhaps attracted by the confidence in Song Tianyao's words, Angie Peris did not notice that when Song Tianyao held the glass of red wine, her hand trembled a little, and after a small amount, it became calm as iron again.

...

It is rare that Chu Yaozong did not go for a walk in the garden after dinner today. Instead, he sat in the study and listened to the long story "Xiao Yuebai" by Li Wo, a Cantonese broadcaster from Cantonese who is broadcasting on the radio, which is being broadcasted by the Cantonese broadcaster Li Wo.

Chu Yaozong was one of the earliest Chinese in Hong Kong to install a radio at home. At that time, it was 1929. There was only one English station on the radio station. It broadcasted once every Monday and Friday for three hours each time. At that time, when each radio applied for a listening license when it was installed, it was necessary to pay an installation fee of 25 Hong Kong dollars, and a monthly listening fee of 10 Hong Kong dollars. It was only a monthly listening fee of 10 yuan. A worker leader of a large commercial firm, who does not exceed one hundred Hong Kong dollars a month, spends one-tenth of his salary to listen to the screams of the British on the radio? It’s better to buy rice and noodles to eat in your stomach.

In fact, Chu Yaozong did not understand English, but he considered a question at that time. Since the radio was broadcast to Guilao, maybe it will broadcast some Guilao’s business affairs. Therefore, in those years, Chu Yaozong specially hired a translator. His job was to stay by the radio every Monday and Friday two days a week, translating all the words broadcast in it into Chinese characters for him to see, and later it developed into buying all the English newspapers in Hong Kong at that time and translating them into Chinese characters for him.

It is precisely this way, let Chu Yaozong understand what the British need faster than other Chinese businessmen, what business he should do to make a profit, the British or Hong Kong colonial government has a demand for food, he made grain and oil, and the demand for cloth increased. So the British said that the pharmaceutical industry in Western countries was greatly damaged during the war, and the recovery was slow, and Western medicine was scarce in Southeast Asia. He immediately opened Likang and won the agency rights of two pharmaceutical companies in the United States and Germany. Sell ​​medicines to Southeast Asia.

Nowadays, there is no need for translators to translate the English broadcasts on the radio for him every day. There are already Chinese channels in the broadcasts, and they start to broadcast them all day long. Therefore, Chu Yaozong has lost the same interest in radio as before. For him, radio is no longer needed. From a tool to obtain information for him, it became a dispensable pastime.

"Master, Mr. Du Zhaojiandu is here." Uncle En, the housekeeper, appeared at the entrance of the study, with a small voice reminding him.

Chu Yaozong got up from his seat: "I'll go to meet him in the hall."

When he came to the entrance hall of his house, a vigorous old man just stepped out of the back seat of a Rolls-Royce car, and Chu Yaozong took a few steps outside the door to greet him. He rarely changed his usual expression like an ancient well. , With a smile on his face, and a joke in his mouth: "must come so late? Do you think the food at my house is too unpalatable, or dislike my cook is too ugly? Or don't want to visit me and send you a worker Just send it."

The visitor is a shareholder of Hang Seng Bank, the owner of the Yau Ma Tei Ferry Company and the Kowloon Motor Bus Company, the first chairman and permanent consultant of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, and the Prime Minister and Chairman of Hong Kong Po Leung Kuk Tou Shiu Kin. Tou Shiu Kin is fifty years old this year, wearing a traditional long gown. After getting off the bus, walk two steps quickly, stand side by side with Chu Yaozong, and pat each other on the shoulders.

"It's not that you don't know my habit. Even if it's a charity dinner, I seldom eat anything for fear of frightening others." Du Zhaojian explained as they walked into the door with Chu Yaozong.

Behind the two, Uncle En was responsible for greeting the driver and others who were accompanying Du Zhaojian to the small hall to rest.

When Chu Yaozong's self-combing maid, Hong Jie, had already prepared tea and fruit in the study when Chu Yaozong went out to meet Du Zhaojian, when Chu Yaozong and Du Zhaojian came in, she quietly retreated out and helped the two of them get the door of the study away. Take it outside.

Du Zhaojian sat down and saw the tea label of Cuiheng Village next to the tea set. He said to Chu Yaozong who was helping the two of them to make tea: "It's rare to be a guest at your family in more than a year in the future. Sister Hong still remembers that I like tea in Cuiheng Village. The tea label was specially displayed for me to see."

"She's afraid of you." Chu Yaozong looked up at Du Zhaojian, and said four words slowly.

Du Zhaojian was referred to by their old friends as more than three gentlemen, referring to Du Zhaojian's kindness, wealth, and quirks.

The first two or more are easy to understand. Although the rich in Hong Kong have put a philanthropist's hat on their heads as a standard, they don't want to be laughed at as a lonely rich man, but whether it is the annual charity fundraising, It is also the biennial re-election of the Premier of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, the two big Hong Kong rich men fighting wealth and charity event, Du Zhaojian has always been a steady banker.

Since Du Zhaojian joined various Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong to set up the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals to get involved in charity since he was 27 years old, he has donated about 5.45 million Hong Kong dollars, which is definitely the number one philanthropist in Hong Kong.

As for the wealth, the annual wealth brought by the Kowloon Motor Bus Company, Hang Seng Bank, Yau Ma Tei Ferry Company and some hospitals to Du Zhaojian is probably a few percent more than that of Chu Yaozong's grain, oil and textile business.

There are many quirks. Du Zhaojian has many quirks. For example, he never wears western clothes and only wears traditional Chinese clothes. Whether it is for honorary awards or the Governor’s dinner, he will always wear only Tang suits or long robes. And he never wears a watch, including a pocket watch, whether Chu Yaozong or other big Chinese businessmen have the experience of being asked about the time by Du Zhaojian in public. Never bring a wallet, wrap the change in paper letters and put it in the pocket of the gown. When buying some vegetable food by yourself, you must make up the money into auspicious numbers, such as 18 yuan, 28 yuan, 188 yuan, and so on.

When dining, you must have two cups of white water on hand. One cup is to rinse your mouth. Du Zhaojian needs to rinse your mouth three to five times during a meal, and the other is to rinse greasy food, such as barbecued pork, soak the meat first. Wash in a soaking cup, remove the greasy surface before eating. When you go out to meet British people, there are designated coffee shops for coffee, and there are designated western restaurants for western food. If you drink tea with others, you must go to the tea house in Cuiheng Village. Must be located in the Pearl City restaurant.

So now he occasionally goes out to be a guest at a friend's house, and the other party will go to the tea house in Cuiheng Village in advance to prepare a piece of black tea there.

Du Zhaojian took out a paper envelope from his pocket and slowly placed it on the coffee table between the two: "The principal of the Hang Seng Bank of seven million Hong Kong dollars, and the interest of six years will be sent tomorrow."

"Forget it, the interest has helped me donate the Baoliangju to you. If you want to repay the interest, you would have paid it back." Chu Yaozong divided the tea cup and gave Du Zhaojian a cup, and said.

Du Zhaojian said in a slow tone: "Without the money you borrowed after the war, I wouldn't have breathed out so quickly."

"If you are grateful, you have said it many times when you brought the seven broken cars left by the Japanese. Although you wear long gowns all day, you learned from the West and didn’t understand Chinese businessman Tai Chi. It’s better to get straight to the point. In short, even if you yell at you today, I won’t turn your face.” Chu Yaozong picked up his teacup and said to Du Zhaojian, “Come on, drink tea.”

"These old local friends pushed me ahead and probed the tone of the three of you. Everyone felt that the businessmen from Shanghai could no longer cause trouble." Du Zhaojian was said to have broken his mind by Chu Yaozong, so he no longer covered up, and acted simply. Picking up a cup of tea and drinking it all in one fell swoop: "Good tea."

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