Even so, Meng Wanqing still shook her head slightly, looking as if she had made up her mind.
Thinking that he wouldn't have a beautiful woman by his side to keep him company when he came home to sleep each night, Song Tianyao felt a little disappointed, but he didn't insist that Meng Wanqing stay. "Alright, but how many days? Even the temple keeper has holidays; we can't let this double bed be empty for too long."
"I'll come in five days... three days will do." Meng Wanqing originally wanted to say five days later, but as soon as she said it, she saw that Song Tian already had an expression of being ready to object, so she changed her mind and said three days.
"After the workers finish tidying up, let's try out the double bed first..."
"Secretary Song! Secretary Song! I was beaten up while delivering vegetables..." Before Song Tianyao could continue teasing Meng Wanqing, the Scribe Hui had already run up, clutching his bruised left eye, and stood at the door shouting at Song Tianyao like a pig being slaughtered.
These words turned the tenderness in Meng Wanqing's eyes into shyness, causing her to turn away. Song Tianyao's burning passion seemed to be extinguished as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over his head. He turned to look at the Scribe Hui, who looked like a one-eyed dragon with a punch to his eye socket, and his voice was numb or rather, desperate:
"When will you ever understand what 'reading between the lines' means?! You're delivering vegetables, not going to kill someone or seize a port, how can you get beaten up for that?"
Chapter 196 Barter in the Military Camp
Scribe Hui stood at the door, looking pitifully at Song Tianyao. Song Tianyao had complained to him far too many times. When they first met, if Scribe Hui were scolded by Song Tianyao, he might be so frightened that he wouldn't dare to breathe for a long time, and would go back and rack his brains trying to figure out what he had done to upset Secretary Song. But after so many times, Scribe Hui had gotten used to being scolded every time he saw Song Tianyao. If Song Tianyao smiled at him and praised him for doing a good job, he would feel uncomfortable.
So when Song Tianyao scolded him for not being able to read people's expressions and for not even being able to do something as simple as delivering vegetables, he didn't care at all. He covered his eyes, held his head high, and said confidently:
"I went to the Sai Ying Pun barracks to deliver vegetables to the soldiers as Secretary Song instructed. After exchanging the vegetables for cigarettes, alcohol, and salt at the military warehouse, wow, I hadn't gone far from the barracks when a group of old women stopped my truck and called me an idiot, saying that I only took such a small amount, how were they supposed to manage in the future? I tried to explain myself, but one of the old women spat at me!"
"You beat up that old woman?" Song Tianyao asked, looking at his Scribe Hui.
Scribe Hui lowered his head. "No, she spat at me, so of course I spat back at her. She's older, so of course she's not as vicious as me. She couldn't possibly spit as hard as me. But as soon as I finished spitting at her, a country bumpkin appeared behind her. He was as strong as an ox and punched me without saying a word, beating me up like this. Most of the cigarettes, alcohol, and sundries I got in exchange were taken by those old women."
"You're really something. I'll show you! You can even spit on an old lady like that, and you can even get the goods you traded for stolen by some country bumpkin." Song Tianyao scratched his head hard, spun around a couple of times, and said to his Scribe Hui, with a look of exasperation.
He planned to read books to recharge himself, but Lou Fengyun, his own parents, the widow and orphan A Shuan, and the Scribe Hui all needed to be busy. Although Song Tianyao could withdraw eight thousand Hong Kong dollars from Crown Asia's account every month, which was more than enough to take care of these people, Song Tianyao didn't want them to be idle. It wasn't that he was unwilling to spend money to support them, but he always felt that people would only become lazier the more idle they were. It would be better to keep them busy and make them look more vibrant.
Lou Fengyun now sits comfortably in the Western medicine shop, practically the head manager of British-German Western Pharmacy. She can handle inventory, bookkeeping, and collection all by herself, leaving Song Tianyao's mother Zhao Meizhen, with only the title of nominal boss lady, to sit in the Wind-and-Rain Corridor outside the shop every day, rain or shine, playing mahjong and chatting with the neighbors. She no longer even cooks three meals a day. Song Tianyao's Dad, Song Chunliang, goes to Li Heng Company once a week to buy goods, and spends the rest of his time sitting in a chair listening to the radio. Song Wenwen is the most unhappy because she has recently been responsible for cooking and cleaning for Lou Fengyun and her parents, who rarely get to relax.
A Shuan's wife, Sister Fen, although Song Tianyao had settled her in a detached tenement building on Jordan Road in Kowloon and hired a maid, she was also from a poor family and couldn't get used to the life of a wealthy idler. When British-German Western Pharmacy opened, she had repeatedly told Zhao Meizhen and even Song Tianyao himself that she didn't want a salary, just wanted to come to the pharmacy to help out and run errands as a token of her goodwill.
Wu Xiu'er had a maid to take care of her three meals a day and her housework. Seeing that Sister Fen was indeed a person who couldn't sit still, Kowloon Song Tianyao simply rented the shop on the ground floor of the tenement building where Sister Fen and her daughter lived on Jordan Road Kowloon, and opened a small Wu's Miscellaneous Foreign Goods Shop, which he handed over to Sister Fen to manage. In this way, her living quarters were upstairs and the shop was downstairs, so a woman wouldn't have to travel too far.
As soon as the shop opened, the Scribe Hui took the initiative to find Song Tianyao and said that his wife, Sister Yun, was enough to manage the Western medicine shop. However, Sister Fen was a woman, a widow with an orphan, and she was illiterate and might be easily cheated. He suggested that he go and help Sister Fen manage the general merchandise shop. His excitement was already written all over his face before he even opened his mouth.
When Scribe Hui spoke up, he himself thought that Song Tianyao would not agree. Unexpectedly, Song Tianyao actually agreed to let Scribe Hui help Sister Fen. However, instead of managing the grocery store, he was to go every morning to buy vegetables from the indigenous people in the New Territories who wanted to sell in the city. He would then weigh the vegetables, transport them by boat to the Sai Ying Pun military camp on Hong Kong Island, and exchange them for supplies such as tobacco, alcohol, salt, and sugar from the British Forces in Hong Kong. He would then transport these supplies back to the grocery store to sell.
The reason Song Tianyao sent his Scribe Hui to the British Forces in Hong Kong to engage in barter was not because he had any unreliable intentions of reselling British Forces in Hong Kong military supplies. Bartering in military camps was now one of the most common small businesses among the lower-class people in Hong Kong.
The Britain British Forces in Hong Kong Hong Kong received a vast amount of supplies from Japan at the time of Japan's surrender. After Japan captured Hong Kong, it used it as a logistical supply base and sanatorium for wounded soldiers in Southeast Asia. In addition to supplies supplied by Japan itself, most of the supplies looted after the invasion of Southeast Asia were also transported to Hong Kong. After Japan's surrender, all of these supplies benefited the British Forces in Hong Kong Britain.