“Is this easy to handle?”
William was still unaware of the “grudge” between Whitaker Scarlett and Caroline, but obtaining this shop was not easy. At that time, there was no housing reform; except for very special cases like at Grandma Johnson’s house, all housing belonged to the state. Street-facing shops were even more so, tightly held by various units and departments. If you wanted to find a loophole to rent housing from a private individual, you could forget about renting a street-facing shop.
There were those who lived on the first floor and turned the street-facing side of their house into a small shop, at most opening a breakfast place… Selling clothes? Cheap street market goods might be more feasible.
Cheap clothes were everywhere in Harborfield , and if Whitaker Scarlett wanted to open a shop on West Street, she would truly have no competitive edge.
The storefront at Pinnacle Square was too good.
Aside from the fact that it belonged to National Cotton Factory No. 3, both its geographical location and the height of the first-floor shop made it the best choice.
Whitaker Scarlett bitterly smiled as she recounted her grudge with Comrade Caroline to William:
“If I were to step in, the chances of getting this place would be basically zero.”
Caroline was just a minor leader at National Cotton Factory No. 3; she might not even have the authority to rent out the factory’s properties, but she certainly had the ability to sabotage.
William was very angry, “Being overly eager isn’t a good deal. I’ve met that Parker Jace kid; he seems quite polite. How could his family be like this?”
On one hand, he looked down on Scarlett, and on the other, he felt that Scarlett shouldn’t be involved with anyone other than her son. Was it that all the benefits had to be taken by the Parker family? If Caroline didn’t speak up, was Whitaker Scarlett to wait like a young lady in the old society waiting for an arranged marriage?
Whitaker Scarlett quickly said she would retaliate on the spot, not giving Parker Jace’s mother any face:
“Who knew I could even set my sights on the property of National Cotton Factory No. 3…”
“If you knew, would you have let her off?”
How could that be? She would continue to retaliate.
However, it was a bit troublesome now; Whitaker Scarlett believed it could be resolved. Even if she didn’t fall out with Caroline, she couldn’t use Director Caroline’s connections to get the shop. To prevent Caroline from sabotaging her, Whitaker Scarlett felt she couldn’t step in. Who else could go? Elizabeth definitely couldn’t handle this kind of matter, and Amanda was more eloquent than Elizabeth, but it wouldn’t work to have her deal with a large unit.
“I’ll go.”
William was small in stature, and his previous injury made him look even thinner. The Miller family had slaughtered two pigs, and Amanda had saved a lot of meat, stewing it daily to help William regain his strength. The Miller family’s dining table had been too lavish lately, with stewed meat and stir-fried pig liver alternating. They had just moved into their rented house, and the smell of meat wafted from their home every day, raising the standards of their meals to the point that their neighbors were astonished. No one bullied them for being from the countryside—renting out a unit’s dormitory was wrong, and colleagues living together would definitely report it. They couldn’t say they were renting; they had to insist they were relatives temporarily staying.
As for where the landlord lived?
The landlord was a young person who had moved back home to squeeze in with their parents.
It was only right to make room for relatives; the sense of human connection was still strong in those days.
William wouldn’t go looking for Parker Jace; he seemed like a decent young man, but who knew what nonsense he might say at home. Whitaker Scarlett also gave William 20 packs of “Colorful Butterflies,” knowing that the big leaders wouldn’t care for “Colorful Butterflies,” as they smoked “Loose Flowers” produced by the Harborfield Cigarette Factory. But William didn’t know the big leaders, so he had to navigate through twists and turns to establish a connection with them, and the “Colorful Butterflies” would be consumed in that process.
In Harborfield , the six national cotton factories employed tens of thousands of workers. As the saying goes, “Daughters of cotton spinning factories, sons-in-law of the railway bureau,” with many female workers in cotton spinning factories and good benefits for the males in the railway bureau, these two professions had the most competitive young people in the marriage market… William’s family was currently living in the railway bureau’s dormitory! William had been idle for many years, accumulating rich social experience; if you asked him to work, he would find it hard, but chatting and joking with people was too easy for him.
