"I'll call Australia right now." Zhang Yulin turned and walked towards his car.
Song Tianyao said behind him, "Why don't you go to a hotel tonight and have your driver go home and send a message saying you're drunk and staying at a hotel? Be careful that Zhang Yuliang doesn't see through it. Leave everything to your two brothers. I've arranged five 'Red Pole' outside the Zhang Family compound to ensure Zhang Yuliang stays there safely until your two brothers return to Hong Kong and we'll see what they think."
At home, Zhang Yuliang first accompanied his mother to offer incense and chant scriptures for his father. After sending his mother back to her bedroom, he went upstairs to his own bedroom with his wife. His wife was the daughter of an old worker in the family, and her marriage was arranged by his mother. His wife was hardworking, diligent, and down-to-earth. Like his two sisters-in-law, she helped out in the family business every day and took care of the housework after work. She was a typical Zhang Family daughter-in-law.
"Is your mother-in-law asleep? I've prepared some hot water for you to wash your feet." Seeing her husband come in, Kuang Jieying went over to help Zhang Yuliang take off his coat and hang it in the wardrobe in the corner.
Zhang Yuliang sat down on the edge of the narrow double bed and reached out to take off his shoes and socks. Kuang Jieying had already come over and squatted down to help Zhang Yuliang take off his shoes and socks first, and then placed the slippers next to the foot basin.
"I can do it myself. You've had a long day, get some rest," Zhang Yuliang said to his wife. "Oh, right, I almost forgot, bring my coat."
Kuang Jieying turned around and helped Zhang Yuliang retrieve his suit jacket. Zhang Yuliang took a small bag of granulated beef jerky from his suit pocket and handed it to his wife, whispering like a thief, "I had someone secretly buy these from that Macau- style braised food shop in Tsim Sha Tsui. I'm giving them to you."
Holding the small bag of dried meat, Kuang Jieying carefully locked the door before saying, "You should eat it. You didn't eat much for dinner, so it must not be to your liking. Besides, your mother-in-law hates it when people steal food from you."
"I ate too much outside, that's why I couldn't eat. I bought this especially for you. You work so hard, and all you get for three meals a day is steamed buns and vegetables. I don't know better than to think the Zhang Family can't afford meat." Zhang Yuliang reached out and gently pulled his wife to sit beside him, then put his arm around her waist as he spoke.
"How about we eat together tomorrow?" Kuang Jieying asked Zhang Yuliang cautiously.
Zhang Yuliang laughed, "You want to kill your own husband? Wouldn't that mean the whole family would know I secretly bought dried meat? Hurry up and eat it yourself, then throw away the wrapper when you go out to splash water later, and destroy the evidence."
"Mmm." Kuang Jieying leaned happily on Zhang Yuliang's shoulder, unpacked the package, picked up a piece of dried meat, and fed it to Zhang Yuliang first. After Zhang Yuliang ate it, she put a piece in her own mouth.
Her husband knew how to make her happy. He had studied abroad, yet he had married someone as naive as her. Knowing her lack of education, he never talked to her about business or difficult topics to avoid leaving her speechless. Instead, he would come home and chat about everyday things, or like today, share a small bag of beef jerky. This made Kuang Jieying happy for a long time, and most of her fatigue and hardship would disappear. With such a considerate man, Kuang Jieying's only small worry now was not knowing when she would be able to conceive.
Thinking of this, she frowned and looked at the cramped bedroom, which was only eight or nine square meters. A double bed, a desk, a chair, and a wardrobe filled the small bedroom to the brim. Her third brother Zhang Yulin's room was next to her on the left, and Wei Lin's room was on the Wei Lin. Both rooms were occupied, and the couple dared not have sex, for fear of being overheard by the people next to them. Her mother-in-law kept asking why she couldn't get pregnant.
As if sensing his wife's slight distress, Zhang Yuliang gently stroked her hair and said, "Don't worry, it won't be long before we live in a big house. Then you won't have to work so hard. I'll hire dozens or even hundreds of servants to take care of you all day long. You can have as many babies as you want, and I'll arrange a separate room for each baby."
"Neither my mother-in-law nor my older brother mentioned buying a new house. You need to come up with a new idea to make me happy, acting like you can make the decisions now." Kuang Jieying raised her hand and popped a piece of dried meat into Zhang Yuliang's mouth. "But I just like hearing you coax me like that."
Zhang Yuliang chewed on a piece of meat, let out a long breath, and hugged the woman in his arms tighter. "It'll be soon. You'll know whether I'm just trying to make you happy or not when you move in. This Zhang Family home is really too small."
Chapter 141 Good!
Zhang Yujie lay in a suite at the Chinatown Chinese Hotel in Melbourne's Chinatown. This suite, which was even more spacious and comfortable than his own bedroom, had caused him to suffer from insomnia for several days, despite being used to sleeping on his own wooden bed.
Zhang Yujie is thirty-eight years old this year. He started helping his father sell mountain products in his hometown when he was fourteen. Now he has been in the business world for twenty-four years. Among Hong Kong Chinese businessmen, he is the only one who has become a leader in his industry at the age of thirty-eight. Compared with his peers who are full of ambition and working hard to expand their business in Hong Kong, Zhang Yujie has begun to consider gradually getting the family business out of the pharmaceutical industry. If possible, he may even move the family to Australia.
The Korean War was the foundation of the Zhang Family's rise to prominence. Without the Korean War, the Zhang Family would have been nothing more than small pharmaceutical merchants. However, wars will eventually end, and the pharmaceutical business will plummet and return to normal. At present, the Hong Kong Pharmaceutical Association is a place of fierce competition and prosperity. I wonder how many of these businesses will close down in obscurity after the war ends.
Zhang Yujie's current thought is to find another way for the Zhang Family to make money. Hong Kong cannot be left behind. If the Korean War ends and Mainland China really decides to use force to retake Hong Kong, not only will the Zhang Family's pharmaceutical business be unable to continue, but he might also be executed for what he did during the war.
So he decided to come to Melbourne to look at the real estate business. The Australia gold rush decades ago brought a large influx of overseas immigrants to Melbourne, including many Chinese from Guangdong and Guangxi. With the increase in population, there was a need for more housing. Moreover, Zhang Yujie specifically asked his younger brother Zhang Yuqi to learn about the Melbourne real estate business before coming. As a Britain colony, Melbourne had a more systematic plan for urban development, unlike the rigid, one-size-fits-all urban planning policies of the Hong Kong Colonial Government.