The rhythmic hum of the sewing machine filled the small workshop. The air carried the sharp scent of pressed fabric and faint dust from chalk marks on suits. Light filtered weakly through the shop's front window, blurring against streaks left by last night's rain.
Alexander sat quietly on a stool, his chin propped on his small hand, pretending to scribble schoolwork. In truth, he was watching every detail of the tailor shop—the way customers entered, glanced at fabrics, haggled, left. The way money flowed—or failed to.
To anyone else, the shop was just a humble store in Mong Kok. To Alexander, it was an underperforming asset with unrealized potential. He thought like a banker now. Customers came slowly, profits dripped—steady, but weak. In another decade, rents would skyrocket, fortunes made and broken around property. This little shop, if left unchanged, would be swallowed whole.
That would not happen under his second life.
The bell chimed as a new customer entered: a man in crisp khaki uniform, belt buckled, shoes polished. A police officer of the Hong Kong colonial force. His eyes swept the shop quickly, then landed on the rolls of fabric at the back wall.
His father hurried forward. "Sir, looking for a suit? We have good English fabric. Very fine."
The officer frowned. "Need three uniforms altered. Pants too loose." He tugged at the waistband with irritation. "Boss pays for nothing. Must fix myself."
Alexander perked up. Three uniforms, not one. A pattern. Most colonial officials and local policemen struggled with standard-fitting clothes issued cheaply. Tailors who fixed them quietly could profit—not honorably, but steadily.
His father began quoting a price for hemming and mending. Too low, too eager. Alexander clenched his pencil against the page.
When the officer stepped outside to retrieve the other uniforms from his bag, Alexander leaned toward his father quickly. "Papa—make him a deal. One uniform, price same. But three together, cheaper. He feels smart, but you sell more hours of work. He will tell his friends."
His father frowned at him. "Quiet. This is not for children."
But the idea lodged. When the officer returned, grumbling, his father—hesitant but deliberate—muttered: "Hemm three uniforms together, small discount. Better than one by one."
The officer's frown softened. "Hmn. Good. I bring more later if work is decent."
Coins clinked. The deal was struck.
Alexander smiled faintly, lowering his head back to his notebook. One test, successful.
That evening, as his father counted the day's earnings, Alexander watched silently.
"Three jobs, fair pay," his father said thoughtfully. He didn't look at his son, but Alexander caught the subtle shift—curiosity, maybe even respect.
Scale. That was the lesson. One man wrestled over small cloth profit. But deal with a group—uniforms, bulk shirts, anything in numbers—and the same scissors cut wealth faster.
He wrote furiously in his notebook that night:
Uniform contracts = stepping stone. Police, schools, factories. Steady clients, repeat business.
Father listens when idea brings results. Repeat.
Rule: Show numbers, not theory. Profit opens ears.
It felt almost too small compared to what he knew—the billion-dollar flows of global finance, the typhoon of real estate speculation soon to come. But his instincts whispered: start here. Build roots. Tomorrow, skyscrapers.
Late into the night, as the sewing machine rattled under the dim bulb, Alexander pretended to sleep. But he listened to his father's scissors and thought:
How many thousands of tailors worked like this? Hands stained, backs bent. They would die unknown, their children struggling in crowded apartments. Yet a few—the Lis, the Chao Chois, the Tungs—escaped. They saw patterns, not just fabrics. They used trade to enter property, then finance, then the world.
He clenched his fists under the blanket.
This time, he would be one of them.
Outside the window, Victoria Harbour's nightscape shimmered—a modest skyline compared to what it would become, but to Alexander, it was already alive with ghosts of future towers not yet built. He whispered, almost inaudibly:
"From uniforms to corporations. From cloth to crowns. I see the ladder. And I will climb it."
In the stillness of 1978, the boy closed his eyes, while in his mind, skyscrapers rose above him like promises waiting to be claimed.