Chapter 84: Infiltrating the Society of Socialites (I)
In addition to beauty products, hardware facilities are also very important when preparing for a beauty salon. The location of the beauty salon is naturally Su Luo’s mansion. The residential business location can make it easier for customers to relax and is also conducive to building brand characteristics.
This house was once a wealthy family, and the garden construction and decoration layout are luxurious, but it has been vacant for a long time and no one has taken care of it, so it looks a bit old. Su Luo wanted to start the renovation as soon as possible, but the construction was slow in winter, which would increase the cost. So Su Luo simply waited until now and specially invited gardening experts and decoration teams to weed and paint the walls. The house was divided into ordinary member areas, senior member areas, and distinguished member areas. A separate courtyard near the back door was built with more than ten rooms as employee dormitories and canteens.
It took another month to complete these tasks. During this period, Su Luo sent Zhou Chongwen and BMW to villages or towns on the outskirts of Nanjing to recruit apprentices and employees who were willing to sign long-term contracts.
Su Luo never demands too much from employees. Although the benefits offered are not excellent, the welfare system is comprehensive and the holiday bonuses are clearly marked. Su Luo believes that once such benefits are offered, the recruitment work will definitely go extremely smoothly.
After Zhou Chongwen and the others left, Su Luo asked Bao Zixing to follow up on the renovation work, and he took Su with him to visit Qin Huai's mansion.
Qin Huai's father died very early, leaving his mother to raise the three siblings. Qin Huai is the second child, with a younger sister and an older brother. Qin Huai's older brother was also a business elite in his early years, but for some reason he died young, which forced the young Qin Huai to take on the responsibility of being the head of the family. When Su Luo talked to Qin Huai, he also asked about his older brother, but Qin Huai was unwilling to talk more, so Su Luo gave up.
This time when she returned to Nanjing, Su Luo had wanted to visit Qin's house, but she was afraid it would be too abrupt, so she wanted to wait for Qin Huai to come back and introduce him. However, there had been no news from Qin Huai for more than two months, and Su Luo's beauty salon was already on the agenda, so she had to go there by herself. First, she wanted to visit Qin Huai's family and express her gratitude for Qin Huai's care for her for so long; second, she wanted to get to know some wives of officials, businessmen and celebrities through Qin Huai's mother, so as to promote her beauty salon.
Su was embarrassed for a long time about visiting such a wealthy family, fearing that she would be impolite and embarrass Su Luo. But Su Luo didn't think so. With Su's presence, she could not only show her sincerity, but also shorten the generation gap. They were close in age and were both mothers, so they always had some common topics to talk about.
Along the way, Su was asking Su Luo what she should and shouldn't say. Su Luo smiled and said, "Don't look up to her as some noble lady. Just think of her as a mother like you. You can talk about whatever you want. You can talk about anything except the fact that we are going to open a beauty salon."
Su was surprised: "Why don't you mention the beauty salon again?"
"Of course we'll talk about it later. Now is not the right time." Su Luo leisurely lifted the curtain of the sedan chair and looked at the street outside . "Dazhong has sent a letter back. It will take at least ten days for the printed books and the massage masters to arrive. By then, we will have to train the recruited employees. In short, it's still too early for our beauty salon to open. Now I just want to go over and thank Madam Qin for giving birth to a good son, and take the opportunity to build relationships."
Su took Su Luo's hand and sighed, "Whatever you say, it's up to you, but... I see you guys have been busy these days, it turns out that doing business is not that easy. You, don't always think about business, think more..."
"Understood." Su Luo quickly interrupted Su's long speech and stuck her head out of the sedan chair pretending to discuss the route with the sedan bearer. Su pulled her back with a smile, "Okay, let's stop talking. Mother knows you have your own ideas."
Su Luo smiled coquettishly and patted Su's cheek gently, "That's good. Don't worry about me. Think more about yourself." Su Luo looked at Su seriously, "We will live here in the future. The people and things in the past have nothing to do with us. We just need to live our own lives well."
It was not known whether Su understood or not, she just smiled and nodded. Su Luo wanted to say something further, but she heard the sedan bearer shout, and then the sedan tilted left and right and stopped.
Qin Huai's family lived deep in the rich area. The houses in this area were dwarfed by Su Luo's mansion. Su Luo thought his house was big enough, but when he got here, he realized that the courtyard wall was so long that he couldn't see the end of it. If he needed help from a neighbor in an emergency, he probably wouldn't be able to knock on the neighbor's door for more than 20 minutes.
When Su Luo got off the sedan chair, she found that they were not the only ones visiting. There were six or seven sedan chairs parked at the door . Some of the sedan chair owners had not gotten out yet and were chatting with the maids waiting beside them. It seemed that they had been waiting for a while.
Su Luo was a little confused by this situation. Just when she was about to go over to inquire about the situation, a young man sitting in front of the Qin Mansion came over and politely asked Su Luo's name and the purpose of her visit.
Su Luo hurriedly said that she was here to visit Old Madam Qin, and that she was very familiar with Qin Huai.
The man smiled and didn't say much. He wrote down Su Luo's name and said, "Our old lady never sees guests. All matters in the mansion are handled by our aunt. But unfortunately, a distinguished guest has come to the mansion today, and our aunt is not in a position to greet the girl. You'd better come another day." After saying that, he nodded, turned around and left.
Su Luo hurriedly stopped him, "I wonder what distinguished guest has come to the mansion? I am really a close friend of Qin Huai. I just want to visit Old Madam Qin today and will not disturb my aunt's hospitality."
The man smiled indifferently and politely, "Miss, please come back another day."
Su Luo pointed at the sedan chairs in the front row and asked, "Are they the same as me?"
The man nodded and said, "The first few are the families of the bosses in the Yingtianfu Business Association. If you have time, you might as well chat with them."
Su then lifted the curtain of the sedan chair, and Su Luo made a "wait" gesture to her, and asked the sedan bearer to carry the sedan chair to the end of the line, and then walked to the sedan chair in front of the line. The sedan chair was empty, and Su Luo took a few more steps and went straight to the sedan chair where she had just seen someone. The owner of the sedan chair was a woman of about 36 or 37 years old, with fair skin and ruddy complexion, a pair of smiling eyes, and a very approachable look. Her round face looked very wealthy, and she was dressed very brightly and decently.
Su Luo looked at the goose yellow satin shirt on herself awkwardly. She was wearing the same one... not with this lady, but with the maid beside her.
The lady looked at Su Luo standing in front of the sedan chair and sized her up with a puzzled look. "Whose maid are you? I've never seen you before."
Su Luo smiled dryly, "From the Su Mansion."
"Su Mansion?" The lady thought for a moment, got out of the sedan chair, and looked back. "Could it be that Mrs. Su from Jin Mantang has arrived?"
"No, no..." Su Luo didn't know how to continue. She had heard of Jin Mantang, a well-known gold and silver jewelry store in Nanjing.
"That is……"
"We just moved to Nanjing. We used to do fabric business in Henan." Su Luo said that she wanted to break off the relationship with the Su family, but she also borrowed their name. It's not that Jintaixuan is famous, but Su Luo was afraid that she would be regarded as a brothel owner if she said that she used to do entertainment business.
The lady asked again which cloth shop it was, and Su Luo once again gave the name of Jintaixuan. Although Jintaixuan was quite big in Zhuxian Town, it was not well-known nationwide. The lady's enthusiasm faded a little, and she smiled at Su Luo, said a few perfunctory words, and was about to return to the sedan chair. Su Luo just asked the lady's name when a hand reached out from behind and pushed her aside. She was a woman of about 27 or 28 years old, with a decent appearance and dressed like a lady, but the overly flattering smile on her face was not commendable.
"Mrs. Chen, you are here too. My sedan chair is in the front. I am sorry that I didn't see you."
Mrs. Chen, who had already got on the sedan chair, had to come out again and nodded to the woman, "Mrs. Xu, you're here early." Then she talked about some things that happened during their recent gathering, and they got along very well.
Su Luo couldn't get a word in, so she asked the maid next to her and found out that Mrs. Chen's family ran the largest chain of inns in Nanjing, and that Mrs. Xu was the mistress of a seafood shop.
It turned out that they were all business celebrities. Compared with Su Luo's 6,000 yuan, their family's assets were enough for Su Luo to look up to. Even such a person had to wait. Su Luo couldn't help but wonder what level of guest Qin Huaili had today.
The little girl was well-informed. Seeing that Madam Chen didn't pay much attention to them, she whispered, "Under normal circumstances, the aunt of the Qin Mansion would be quite polite to our Madam, but today we have to entertain the wife of the governor of Hezhou, so we can only wait outside."
Su Luo suddenly realized that it was the wife of the mayor of the neighboring city who came to visit. No wonder these well-known business socialites would rather wait than leave. It seemed that they all wanted to have a chance to go in and get to know the wives of officials.
At this point, we have to talk about "socialites". "Socialites" is a foreign word that originated from the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century. At that time, a large group of nouveau riche who did not have aristocratic blood appeared. They became rich overnight by investing in financial businesses. In order to show off their wealth to the world, the wives and daughters of these nouveau riche wore gorgeous clothes to social occasions and entered the upper class. Since they did not have aristocratic titles such as countess and princess, these people were collectively called "socialites". In other words, they have wealth worth showing off, but no status worth showing off. Such people naturally have to work hard to make friends with wives of officials, which can not only improve their status, but also bring an indispensable boost to their family's industry.
