"Third Grandpa, our old grandfather knew you were coming and hasn't slept well for several nights. He was going to pick you up today, but he caught a cold yesterday. Second and third aunts were worried, so they stopped the old grandfather." The driver looked in the rearview mirror at Ruan Yuanjiang, who didn't look much like his own old grandfather, and spoke.
How could Ruan Yuanjiang take it to heart? Think about it, his second brother is already 78 years old this year. According to Yuan Qing's letter, his second brother has not been in good health in recent years. He is not a child, so there is no need for his elderly second brother to pick him up.
However, Ruan Yuanjiang's eyes flickered slightly. It was not because he was sensitive. Before he set out for Hong Kong City, he received a letter from Yuan Qing, saying that he could not get away due to some things abroad, and he and Yuan Bai could not come to the border to pick him up. However, none of the other young people in the second brother's family showed up, and only a driver was sent. This was obviously...
Ruan Yuanjiang sighed, hoping that he was not overthinking.
******
In the past 30 years since Ruan Yuanjiang's second brother came to Gangcheng, he has turned the Ruan family, which was originally unknown in Gangcheng, into a famous family today. Needless to say, the hardships involved.
The port city is such a small place. In addition to the local forces, there are also forces from Country Y, as well as families like the Ruan family who come from inland with their families to get a piece of the pie. To break out of the siege in such an environment, the means used are not clean.
The Ruan family's current industries in Gangcheng are very diverse. The most obvious ones are of course the flour, grain and cloth factory businesses that made the Ruan family rich in the past. When Ruan's second brother who came to Gangcheng to support Xinjiang came to Gangcheng, in addition to bringing a large amount of capital, he also brought some backbone workers from the old factory. Not long after arriving in Gangcheng, he started the factory after understanding the situation in Gangcheng. Although there were some twists and turns along the way, it was also smooth sailing.
Since the 1970s, the Ruan family, under the management of Ruan Yuanqing, began to get involved in fashionable industries such as hotels and film companies. The hotel business was good, but the film business was not so good and has always been in a loss-making state.
In the past few years in Hong Kong, the Ruan family has also run a lot of gray area businesses, such as casinos, dance troupes and other places involving gangs. These shady things make money quickly, which can be said to be the bulk of the Ruan family's income. However, Ruan Yuanqing has his own ideas and he does not touch those things. Usually these matters are controlled by the old man himself.
After Ruan Yuanjiang's second brother came to Gangcheng, he married a concubine who was the youngest daughter of a former inspector in Gangcheng, named Cai Shaoyun. The Cai family was considered the local tyrants in Gangcheng. After Ruan Yuanjiang's second brother married this concubine, he took advantage of the power of her family and gradually expanded the power of the Ruan family, which took root in Gangcheng.
Few inspectors at that time were clean. On the surface, they were protecting the people, but in private, they all colluded with the underworld and plundered the people's wealth. The Cai family was once very powerful in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, Cai Shaoyun was also the most powerful person in the Ruan family. The third concubine who came in later was almost bullied by her and became a yes-man. It was not until the mid-to-late 1970s, after the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, that the Cai family began to decline gradually, and the third concubine's life began to get better.
However, more than twenty years is enough for the Ruan family to gain a foothold in Hong Kong City.
The arrogant Cai family had long since become a vassal of the Ruan family. The younger generations were not ambitious and had to rely on Cai Shaoyun for support. As a result, she had become much more honest. However, in the past two years, as her two sons grew up and began to get involved in the affairs of the Ruan family, this woman began to become restless again.
Feng Wu, the third concubine of the Ruan family, is the daughter of the president of Gangcheng University. As a family of scholars, how could they allow their daughter to be a businessman's concubine? At the beginning, the relationship between Feng Wu and the old man of the Ruan family was very passionate. One was a financial tycoon in his fifties, and the other was a young female college student who had just turned twenty. The age difference of nearly thirty years cast a rosy atmosphere on this "love" in the upper class of Gangcheng.
As a representative of women in the new era, Feng Wu did not think that age was a roadblock to love. She boldly declared her love and resolutely married Mr. Ruan despite her family's opposition, and announced the news in the newspaper. Her father, the president of Gangcheng University, was furious, but he loved his daughter so much that he had to accept this "son-in-law" who was older than him.
No one knows whether Feng Wu is true love, but as Ruan Yuanjiang's second brother, he must have selfish motives.
He is a real businessman, unlike Ruan Yuanjiang who still has some literary pride. For him, nothing is more important than his own business empire. He approaches Feng Wu because he values the literary circle behind her, and wants to use her social status to whitewash the Ruan family's bad reputation.
He was very successful in this regard. He used the Feng family's status in the literary circle to open several schools. Some schools provided free education opportunities for children from poor families, while others only accepted children from aristocrats. He made a lot of money. And this also left a good impression of charity in the minds of the public.
Over the years, Feng Wu gave birth to two sons and a daughter. The youngest daughter is a few years younger than Ruan Yuanqing's son.
A first wife, two concubines, eight children, and countless younger generations. Just think about it and you will know how complicated the Ruan family in Gangcheng is now.
These were all mentioned in the letters sent by Ruan Yuanqing over the years, so that Ruan Yuanjiang could understand the current situation of the Ruan family in Gangcheng before coming to Gangcheng.
******
Jiang Yilu was sitting in the car, not noticing Grandpa Ruan's somewhat solemn expression. He turned sideways and paid attention to the scenery outside the car.
The current port city is not as prosperous as in later generations, but it has taken shape. The wide road is lined with shops and residential buildings on both sides, which are densely packed. The colorful signs are hung on the outside of the building walls, which looks a bit messy. There are not many high-rise buildings. Occasionally there is a building with more than ten floors, which is already very impressive. Most of the houses are about five or six floors, and there are a bunch of messy wires on the roof, which seem to be TV antennas receiving signals.
Jiang Yilu looked at the fashionable men and women walking on the street, occasionally seeing a few foreigners with high noses and blue eyes, and the cars everywhere on the street. He felt like he was seeing old Shanghai.
"That's our Ruan family's commercial building. It's twenty-three stories high, and it's just one of the Ruan family's businesses." The driver drove past a building that looked newly built and magnificent, and introduced it to the people in the back seat.
"Now that the Ruan family is rich and powerful, there are often poor relatives who come from nowhere and ask our old master for help. Our old master is kind-hearted and never refuses anyone. As long as there are relatives coming to visit, he will warmly entertain them. This really annoys our second concubine."
As the driver spoke, he observed the expressions of Ruan Yuanjiang and others through the rearview mirror.
There is not much communication between the two places now, and the only way for people in Hong Kong to learn about the situation in the interior is from the oral accounts of the Chinese who have immigrated there.
In the minds of most people in Hong Kong, people in the inland areas cannot eat enough, wear warm clothes, and can only live in slum-like shacks. It is a luxury to eat a piece of meat during the Chinese New Year. The economic level of Hong Kong is much higher than that of the inland areas. For them, it is completely unimaginable that they can only eat rice bran for every meal and have to chew grass roots when they are starving.
Therefore, facing their compatriots in the inland, they naturally developed a superior mentality over time, especially now that Hong Kong is still a colony of country Y. In their minds, they are people of country Y and have nothing to do with those people on the mainland.
Jiang Yilu withdrew his gaze. The driver's meaningful words made the three people sitting in the back seat stunned, and then they began to think deeply.
How could an ordinary driver have the guts to say such insinuating words? There must be someone behind the scenes instructing him. It seemed that someone in the Ruan family was very dissatisfied with their arrival and regarded them as poor relatives who came to beg for money.
However, the three of them were calm people and did not show any dissatisfaction at all because of the driver's words.
The driver was a little nervous at first, but his words became more blunt because of the reactions of the three people. Along the way, he told a lot of stories about ungrateful people and questioned the character of those relatives who were begging for money. In addition, he also emphasized the help of the second concubine's family to the Ruan family, and almost said that the reason why the Ruan family could be what it is today was all thanks to the help of the second concubine.
His words implied that Ruan Yuanjiang should be grateful to the second concubine and respect her.
Is this driver the second concubine's man?
Jiang Yilu asked in his heart, he was a little curious, could it be that the concubine married by Grandpa Ruan's second brother was such a brainless person, or in her heart, Grandpa Ruan was just a poor relative who came to beg for money as the driver said, and there was no need to care about him at all?
In short, the driver's behavior cast a shadow on the journey and made the three people more worried about Ruan Ruan who was sent to the port city early.
*******
Since the Ruan family has such a status in Hong Kong City, they naturally would not live in an ordinary Western-style building.
The entrance was a large iron gate with carvings. The house was surrounded by a two-meter-high wall. A group of bodyguards in black were guarding the door. After opening the gate, the car drove about a hundred meters inside, and a tall and majestic European-style building appeared in front of Jiang Yilu and others.
"Third old master, the old master is waiting in the house, please follow me in."
A middle-aged man dressed as a butler had been waiting outside the door for a long time. He bowed and said to Ruan Yuanjiang respectfully, "Mr. Huo and Young Master Jiang, please follow me in."
Jiang Yilu felt a little relieved by the completely different attitude from that of the driver. It seemed that at least the real owner of this house welcomed their arrival.
The relatives he hadn't seen for many years were in this room. Ruan Yuanjiang's heart was surging and he almost cried. He took a deep breath and followed the housekeeper in. Huo Wu and Jiang Yiliu followed him one meter behind, paying attention to the surrounding environment.
"The third one."
An old man with white hair and age spots on his face sat in a wheelchair, looking at Ruan Yuanjiang who walked in, tears streaming down his face.
"Second brother."
It has been almost forty years since the two brothers last met, but they did not feel strange at all. They had both aged so much, but when they met for the first time, Ruan Yuanjiang instantly recalled the happy memories of his childhood. He rushed over with a few quick steps, half-knelt and hugged the elderly man.
Ruan Jingguo was the business tycoon, an old fox who was still active in the business world at the age of over 90. Jiang Yiliu looked at the familiar old man and patted his head. How could he not have guessed such an obvious thing? How many Ruan families could there be in Gangcheng? He should have figured it out long ago!
Jiang Yiluo complained about himself crazily in his heart, but after the excitement, he looked at everyone in the room. There were two old ladies who still had charm, one with a kind and gentle face, and the other still had a hint of the sharpness and cunningness of her youth. It was obvious at a glance which one was the second concubine and which one was the third concubine.
But apart from these three masters, there was no one else in the magnificent hall.
Where is Ruan Ruan? Where did Ruan Ruan go?
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