Chapter 145: No One Needs to Envy Anyone

Double standards had always existed. From the feudal age onward, people had already developed a deep appreciation for their usefulness, especially rulers.

William did not yet have the weight to use double standards. In the mayor’s eyes, he was still too green. Even if he could build his business as large as he claimed, he still did not have the standing to apply one rule to himself and another to everyone else.

Things like the Minimum Wage Act, the Employment Act, and the Workers’ Rights Protection Act were not things even the most powerful capitalists were willing to change lightly. It was not that they lacked the ability. It was that the price and consequences of changing them were too severe.

So William really did want to change certain things. The mayor’s tightly knitted brows suddenly loosened again, and a faint smile even appeared on his face. In the end, he was still a young man.

He did not understand the world at all. He did not know that when facing this seemingly simple world, one needed to carry a certain reverence.

Still, that kind of drive stirred something in the mayor. It made him involuntarily recall the days just after he had graduated, when he, too, had wanted to change the world. But look at him now. He was already in his forties, and he was still only a mayor.

Perhaps he might eventually reach the governor’s office, but that was still a long way from the “arrogant” dreams he had held in his youth.

Everyone had moments like that, but reality would teach them how to face the world properly.

Thinking of this, perhaps moved by a little sentiment, the mayor lifted his glass and took a sip. The wine had already had time to breathe before they reached the restaurant. The ice in the dry ice bucket had kept the wine at the most suitable drinking temperature, while full contact between the wine and the air had softened its astringency until it was almost undetectable.

A good bottle. When the mayor set down his glass, he raised his brows slightly. Now, when he looked at the bright red wine in the glass, he no longer found it as repellent as he had a moment ago.

So many psychological changes occurring in such a brief span of time was, in truth, both interesting and complicated. He did not want to think too much about it, so he turned his attention elsewhere.

“Compared with that, I have an idea. I don’t know whether you’d be willing to hear it.” People seemed born with the urge to lecture others. In truth, the real essence of that impulse lay in using the act of passing on knowledge and experience to set off one’s own greater vanity.

It was an instinct. But the consequences it produced were not necessarily bad, so it could be counted as a good thing.

William nodded slightly, and the mayor continued, “I suggest you donate a sum of money to a university, then go back to school...” He paused as he spoke, then immediately offered an explanation. “What I mean is, you need a network that belongs to you. This is my advice.”