"Hey, Shanghai people? What are you up to? While my older brothers were in Australia, you were always running off and disappearing. Although my older brother asked me to help manage the business, you're still a member of the Zhang Family, you have a share too. Also, where is that lackey of yours from? Doesn't he need his family to pay his salary? Remember to tell me, I'll put him in the company directory and pay him a monthly salary." Zhang Yulin said, looking at Zhang Yuliang who was turning to leave.
Zhang Yuliang turned around and smiled, "It's not my place to decide on the family business as the youngest. I'm going to meet with some small business owners, planning to use my savings from all these years to start a small business with them. You know I only have a few tens of thousands of dollars in pocket money I earned in United States when I was in school. As for my assistant, I'll pay for it myself. I can afford to pay him two hundred dollars a month."
After speaking, Zhang Yuliang stepped out of Zhang Yulin's office. Zhang Yulin shook his head and continued pruning the flowers and plants. Perhaps only his second brother, who was far away in Australia at the moment, could see clearly what his mysterious fourth brother was thinking.
As Zhang Yuliang was about to leave, something suddenly occurred to him. Customs was inspecting All-Hong Kong Pharmaceutical Company warehouses in Hong Kong, and Likang was definitely among them. If, just when Foreign Devil Britain were looking for an unlucky scapegoat to make an example of, the news broke that Likang was using deworming medication to impersonate PSA Lung Tablets, wouldn't that throw Chu Xiaoxin into a panic?
In business, you have to strike while the iron is hot.
Thinking this, he turned and went back to his office, picked up the phone and called Lawyer Pan: "Lawyer Pan, is part of the packaging I ordered ready? I'm not in a hurry to use it. Pay a few people who keep their mouths shut to report to the Police Station that the packaging for this batch of Penicillin was made by Song Tianyao, the secretary of Likang Trading Company, who wanted to make counterfeit drugs to sell in Malaysia and the Philippines. Also, have a few Chinese newspapers publish a news article tomorrow to ridicule them. Yeah, that's it."
After hanging up the phone, Zhang Yuliang touched his face and smiled faintly, "Chu Xiaoxin, you spilled a cup of tea on me, so I'll spill an indelible stain on you."
Chapter 122 There Will Always Be an Opportunity
After the ceremony, the journey naturally began with the donation of medicines to several Squatter Area in Kowloon. The route had been arranged by Song Tianyao and Angie Perlis in advance. The medicines were transported from Central in a truck, then taken on a passenger-cargo ferry to Kowloon Pier. The first stop was Kowloon Tong Old People's Home, a must-visit place for Britain to do charity work in Kowloon after the war.
He Mingguang, Ge Mulian, Shek Chi-yik did not wait for the ceremony to end before taking their leave. Instead, they crossed the harbor together to the Kowloon Tong Old People's Home, where they would wait until the donation was completed before leaving.
Kowloon Tong Old People's Home, judging from its name, might seem no different from those self-funded nursing homes in the New Territories countryside offering simple meals and lodging. However, it is actually the only free old folks home in Hong Kong established by the colonial government. The Hong Kong Colonial Government used taxpayers' hard-earned money to build a modern, garden-style old Western-style House home covering dozens of acres in Kowloon Tong, complete with a small hospital, restaurant, and garden. Each resident has their own large suite with complete facilities, 24-hour electricity, and a radio. In addition to three meals a day, afternoon tea and supper are also provided. Each resident has a butler and three full-time Philippines maids to accompany them, clean their rooms, do laundry and iron their clothes, cook their food, and take care of their daily needs. Most importantly, the residents do not have to pay a single penny for any of the services they receive; everything is paid for by the Hong Kong Colonial Government.
After the establishment of this nursing home, the Britain Government specially sent a BBC reporter to Hong Kong to report on it, writing a report to show the world how excellent Britain's social welfare was in its overseas colonies. Several Western countries also praised Britain in their respective media. Many Britain citizens who saw this nursing home in Hong Kong were amazed, saying that it was even better than the life of elderly people in Britain who had their children to take care of them.
In fact, apart from the time the BBC came to take photos, the Hong Kong Colonial Government brought in some elderly China people to pretend to be there, but as soon as the reporters left, those elderly China people were taken away from the nursing home and their parents were taken home by various China employees working in the government. It was all fake.
This nursing home does indeed, as the Hong Kong Colonial Government declared, require no payment from residents. However, the condition is that the nursing home only accepts destitute foreign elderly; local Hong Kong taxpayers are not permitted to apply.
So this nursing home, built with money from the China person, now houses over thirty Britain seniors, a dozen United States seniors, Belarusians, Dutch, Portugal, and even two India, but not a single China senior.
Less than a kilometer away from the nursing home is the Beacon Hill Squatter Area in Kowloon District. Many people lost their families in the war, sold off all their labor, and are left with only their old age. They can only huddle in the Squatter Area waiting to die, unable to even fulfill their small wish of being raised and buried. The distance of less than a kilometer is a chasm that is difficult to cross in a lifetime.
As Ge Mulian, He Mingguang, Shek Chi-yik, Angie Perlis, Mrs. Bess, and even Chu Xiaoxin, among others, entered the Kowloon Tong Old People's Home with warm smiles amidst the flashing lights, Song Tianyao, walking at the back, for some reason, gazed at the magnificent main gate of the nursing home and suddenly thought of his grandfather, who had been lonely and guarding the Longjin Charity School, and of the couplet at the Charity School's main gate—a couplet that, though weathered by a century of wind and frost, still retained its scholarly and martial spirit:
The smoke and rain of the barbarians have been completely washed away, and the tides of the Suzhou and Han seas are evenly divided.
Before stepping into the nursing home, he turned his head and glanced at Beacon Hill not far away, saying in a voice so low that even his Scribe Hui couldn't hear him, "There will always be an opportunity."
Looking back, it was Song Tianyao, the smiling, unremarkable secretary of Likang Trading Company, once again.
Wan Chai Tai Wo Street in Wan Chai, two or three hundred local women had gathered outside the tenement building where the Song Tianyao family lived. The crowd was so large that it completely blocked the street. Some truck drivers who liked to watch the excitement or rickshaw drivers who did not have any passengers also stopped and squeezed into the crowd to see what was going on.
"Auntie Zhen! Is it really true?"
"You've just moved in, it's not that we don't trust you, Auntie Zhen, why don't you show everyone the money!"