Chapter 532: Receiving Guests and Checking In

March 10, 1631. Bai'etan Hotel, Guangzhou New District.

In the hotel lobby, with its smooth marble walls and ceiling lights, filled everywhere with the decorative philosophy of later generations, Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" was playing softly. Guests sat in twos and threes on sofas, waiting to register.

The newly opened Bai'etan Hotel faced south to north, situated right at the great crossroads of the New District facing White Goose Pond, standing opposite from afar the White Goose Hotel of later generations.

Among the current cluster of buildings in the New District, it seemed every planned government department had its own plot of land, but the majority of these plots were still landscaped greenery. The only structures actually usable for offices were simple one- or two-story street-facing buildings. Apart from the Prime Minister's Official Residence, the Parliament Hall, and the Supermarket Edition Imperial Palace, the most complete was this Bai'etan Hotel... yet it was merely an ordinary three-story matchbox-shaped square building, not even comparable to a single podium building of the later White Goose.

From this, one could see that the priority of the Bai'etan Hotel in the eyes of the Transmigrators was still very high. After all, it was the face of the New District, the government-designated hotel for receiving all manner of people.

Bai Shenming, the Honorable Bai, was at this moment sitting together with Shopkeeper Wu on a soft, springy, genuine leather sofa, looking around at the decorations and furnishings in the hotel lobby.

"Seemingly simple and plain, yet in truth elaborate and luxurious. There is a whole philosophy to it — I fear this is a style brought from beyond the seas."

Old Master Bai, dressed in a soft robe of sapphire-blue satin, leaned back on the sofa, blinking his eyes, his hands folded over his belly, constantly looking around this lobby the likes of which he had never seen before.

Old Master Bai did not know that the words he had spoken unintentionally were, in fact, the correct answer.

Since it was the showpiece, the lobby of the Bai'etan Hotel naturally employed the concepts of later generations to the fullest.

First, in terms of architectural structure: the reinforced concrete frame and the airy, transparent lobby with a floor height reaching five meters astonished the Ming people. Because in this era, no matter what kind of great hall, even the imperial palace, all were propped up by log pillars one after another. This kind of broad lobby, common in later ages, was truly something the Ming people had never seen. This was the reason many guests would occasionally look up at the ceiling: people could not fathom why the ceiling had not yet fallen down.

Speaking of the ceiling, a massive chandelier hanging upside down overhead, its bones hand-forged from iron into branching vines and inlaid with tiers of natural crystal lamp holders, shining with the bright light of electricity, astonished the Ming people even more. Quite a few people entering for the first time, even wealthy old masters from Guangzhou City, would crane their necks like country folk, unable to finish taking it all in.

Fortunately, Old Master Bai was not among them.

Old Master Bai had crossed the sea and visited Chikan once. He had seen electric chandeliers, and he had seen the glazed-glass nightscape along both banks of the Taijiang. So today, aside from being slightly surprised by the sheer size of this chandelier, he did not betray any sign of being a novice in other respects.

What truly fascinated him were the floor and walls of the lobby.

Pale yellow, mirror-bright — beautiful stone slabs upon which one could truly see one's own reflection, laid beneath his feet as if cut by a knife. When Old Master Bai first entered, he could barely walk steadily.

And the warm-red stone slabs affixed to the walls, noble and grand, equally capable of reflecting a person's image, instantly elevated the class of the entire hotel lobby, allowing the Ming merchants arriving for the first time to immediately feel the extraordinary nature of this place.

Before this, due to the backwardness of basic industry, the cement and standard Taiwan-produced green and red bricks that had gradually become familiar over the past two years were roughly the ceiling of the Ming people's understanding of new construction materials. The Transmigrators, who had been committed to shoring up the foundations, naturally would not make a fuss over some upgrade projects, such as high-end decorative stone.

The stone tiles Old Master Bai saw today on the lobby walls and floor were, in truth, also emergency products processed on a temporary basis.

Fujian produced top-quality granite, marble, and other such stone materials. What was currently affixed to the hotel walls was a natural, gem-red wall surface known as "Taiwan Red." One does not know why later generations called this high-end stone from Fujian "Taiwan Red," but today, here, the name was truly fitting: these products all came from the Kiln Area Base.

Of course, since there was no production line for this, the batch of stone materials specifically for the Bai'etan Hotel was all temporarily processed in the Kiln District. This situation inevitably led to wasted labor and materials, but fortunately, in this era, raw materials were worthless, and labor was worthless too. So, after wasting large quantities of top-grade raw materials extracted by local stone quarries in Fujian and Taiwan, the craftsmen in the Kiln District, under the guidance of the Transmigrators, finally cut and polished this batch of decorative wall and floor tiles by semi-manual means.

In truth, what Old Master Bai did not know was that these floor and wall tiles, which he adored and in which he saw business opportunities, had already been included in the cement plant's ancillary investment plan — and he himself was one of the shareholders of the cement plant.

After sitting in the lobby for roughly half an hour, a young man in a red front-buttoned mandarin jacket came over, bent down with a smile, and said to the Honorable Bai, "Hello, you must be Old Master Bai from Zengcheng, here to attend the South Seas Investment Conference. My apologies for the wait. The reception desk is now available; please follow me, everyone."

Upon hearing this, Old Master Bai hurriedly rose and took Shopkeeper Wu, a servant, and his personal attendant — four people in total — to the reception desk to register.

After registration was complete, Old Master Bai's party of four opened two rooms. Having received their room tags and keys, they were led by a bellboy to their guest rooms.

The bellboy lit the standard-issue kerosene lamp in the room, then, smiling, introduced the operation of the various facilities to the guests. After receiving his tip from Old Master Bai, he took his leave.

Generally speaking, aside from the rather extravagant and luxurious facade, other aspects of the Bai'etan Hotel could not compare to the official guesthouses along the two banks of the Taijiang. This was because the rooms here had no electricity. Furthermore, since the pipes and boiler were not yet fully completed, hot water was not supplied twenty-four hours a day either.

The power plant supporting the New District was still a distant prospect. What provided lighting for the lobby chandelier in the hotel was actually a simple donkey-powered electrical system, usable only for showing off with the lobby's decorative lighting. The guest rooms still used kerosene lamps.

However, compared to other inns of this era, this clean, luxurious, and high-end Bai'etan Hotel run by the Transmigrators was already heaven itself. All the rest were mere details, not worth minding.

When evening arrived, Old Master Bai went to the restaurant and enjoyed a luxurious buffet costing three taels of silver per person (with conference subsidy). After this, the attendees went to the second-floor bar, full of exotic ambiance, drank white wine, and listened to piano and violin performances. Finally, back in his room, Old Master Bai, attended by his servant, finished a hot bath and fell peacefully asleep.

Early the next morning, in the hotel's large conference room, Old Master Bai sat together with other wealthy men from all over Fujian and Guangdong interested in investing in the South Seas. They exchanged pleasantries and chatted among themselves while waiting for the main figures to appear.

Not long after, surrounded by a large crowd of attendants in plain clothes, Mayor Ding Liqiu made his entrance first. Following behind him, wearing a crisp olive-green military uniform and likewise accompanied by a large number of adjutants and staff officers, was Pioneer Army Commander Wang Bo.