Speaking of grand hotels, Shanghai had the Hilton, Guangzhou had the White Swan Hotel and Hua Guo Hotel, along with the Garden Hotel under construction, and Beijing had the soon-to-be-built Great Wall Sheraton Hotel. As a Special Economic Zone and one of the nation’s window cities to the world, Shenzhen lacked a landmark hotel like the White Swan.
The ‘South Sea Hotel’ was meant to be Shenzhen’s new calling card.
After careful deliberation, they finally settled on Zhejiang Design Institute’s proposal last year. Once completed, the hotel would resemble a giant sail about to leave the bay.
With its garden-style beauty complemented by endless ocean views, Secretary Peng had carefully studied the design institute’s renderings. He could close his eyes and imagine the South Sea Hotel’s magnificent grandeur. For such a landmark building, it would be a shame if the interior design didn’t match up!
Some leaders suggested hiring foreign teams for interior design, while others insisted on using domestic companies.
Secretary Peng knew Tang Hong’en was among the latter. Of course, it wasn’t just for the sake of a female colleague from Yunan Province – Tang Hong’en wanted domestic industries to align with international standards, believing they needed opportunities to grow.
The Municipal Government Guesthouse was a “practice” project.
Whoever could give the guesthouse a fresh new look might win the South Sea Hotel’s interior design contract.
Two Hong Kong decoration companies came sniffing around like sharks. One belonged to Hong Kong’s Boss Liu, who had built Shenzhen’s first commercial housing project, “East Lake Beauty Garden.” The success of East Lake Beauty Garden had eased the Shenzhen government’s financial pressure, so naturally, they had a good impression of Boss Liu. Boss Liu was a shrewd Hong Kong businessman who developed real estate and handled the decoration business himself, creating complementary operations – Xia Xiaolan thought the same way, though Boss Liu started with real estate before moving into decoration, while Xia Xiaolan, limited by domestic policies and her modest finances, planned to start with decoration before becoming a real estate developer.
Of course, Xia Xiaolan, far away from the commercial capital, didn’t know Boss Liu’s company was participating in this bid.
She wouldn’t recognize the company even if she heard about it. While her memory was good, it was limited to industries she knew about and people she happened to remember… like Chen Xiliang, who was hard to forget after appearing in legal news.
Boss Liu, whom Xia Xiaolan had no impression of, currently maintained very close relations with the Shenzhen Special Zone government.
Boss Liu only wanted to bid for the restaurant’s decoration project, which was why Secretary Peng found this matter particularly difficult to handle. The other Hong Kong company wanted to win all the bids, China Construction Corporation also wanted all the bids, while Nantong First and Third Construction companies were slightly more modest, only wanting the guest rooms and restaurant.
Boss Liu shared a surname with the owner of ‘Yuan Hui,’ making them relatives from five hundred years ago, but unfortunately, their status levels were worlds apart. While everyone else was looking at Boss Liu’s bid documents, only Secretary Peng was studying Yuan Hui’s proposal, gradually becoming interested.
“Take a look at this one,” Secretary Peng pushed Yuan Hui’s bid document to the center of the table. He had carefully examined it for over ten minutes.
“Yuan Hui is bidding for the main restaurant, just like Tiancheng.”
“I think Taicheng is quite good, very grand, and the Hong Kong company is professional.”
“Yes, we’ve never even heard of Yuan Hui…”
Secretary Peng didn’t care whether they’d heard of Yuan Hui or not. Their current bid document was quite good – why not give them a chance?
The others finally picked up Yuan Hui’s bid document to look at it.
Oh, these were the renderings, and they looked quite good. It wasn’t just the restaurant’s renderings; there was a design proposal for the entire guesthouse. Yuan Hui was interesting – while bidding for just the restaurant, they’d provided a complete proposal.
The Hong Kong companies and China Construction both had overall design proposals. The Hong Kong company and Boss Liu’s Tiancheng followed the same approach, both going for grandeur.
No one knew who China Construction had hired for their design, but it was conventional and distinctly Chinese.
It looked like every other guesthouse around – how would the Shenzhen Municipal Guesthouse be any different? Though they called it a guesthouse, they wanted to make it a high-class hotel. Of course, it couldn’t be too luxurious.
But while the leaders had decided to split the overall decoration into several smaller bids, the Hong Kong companies and China Construction came in wanting to take everything – going against the leaders’ decisions.
They lacked awareness, and the Hong Kong companies’ quotes were also too high, while the Special Zone’s finances weren’t abundant.
China Construction’s quote was lower, but taking all the decoration projects… that wouldn’t work. Even their design proposal wouldn’t do – following Yuan Hui’s design would be better.
“What’s Secretary Peng thinking?”
After everyone had reviewed the bid documents, someone couldn’t help but ask.
Secretary Peng’s thoughts were the leader’s thoughts, weren’t they? Specifically bringing out Yuan Hui’s bid document – wasn’t that a hint? So was it between Boss Liu’s Tiancheng or Yuan Hui? The meeting room erupted in debate.
…
“This brother seems very confident?”
Liu Yong was in the restaurant, with some meat stuck between his teeth. He kept pushing at that spot with his tongue, making his expression particularly strange.
Everyone else was expressionless, but his animated face made him stand out.
Plus, with a bodyguard standing nearby, people wanted to know Liu Yong’s background. What background did Liu Yong have? The most valuable things he had were two wire transfer receipts – one for 70,000 and another for 40,000. ‘Blue Phoenix’ had distributed profits early for his project work in Shenzhen. Summer was indeed peak season; one month’s sales equaled almost two months of spring collection sales.
The distributed profits, which neither Xia Xiaolan nor Li Fengmei had touched, along with the 10,000 Xia Xiaolan had kept, were all brought by Liu Yong.
But did Liu Yong’s behavior match someone who had scraped together 110,000?
He looked more confident than a millionaire, with a casual attitude approaching that of a multimillionaire.
The representative from Nantong Third Construction couldn’t help but strike up a conversation.
Liu Yong shook his head, “No confidence at all, I’m just here to learn.”
The representative from the Hong Kong company chuckled, “What project is boss bidding for?”
“The restaurant.”
The representative’s smile froze slightly – their Tiancheng was also bidding for the restaurant. For a business of this caliber, the big boss wouldn’t come personally.
Tiancheng’s representative was very confident, “What a coincidence, our company is also bidding for the restaurant.”
Since the bids were already submitted, revealing some information didn’t matter, especially since Tiancheng had good government relations. The restaurant bid was practically in their pocket. The bigger the company, the more composed they were – the representatives from China Construction and the other Hong Kong companies didn’t engage with others.
Time passed quickly once people started talking, and soon it was 3 o’clock.
Liu Yong saw the young man who had been accompanied by Little Wang earlier walk out with several others, holding everyone’s bid documents.
“This bidding work has achieved complete success. Thank you all for participating. Now we’ll announce the bidding results. The first winning bid is for the restaurant decoration project, and the winner is… Yuan Hui Decoration.”
Tiancheng’s representative had already stood up when they announced Yuan Hui’s name.
How was this possible?
Liu Yong was in a daze – they’d won the bid?!
The Hong Kong guy who had been chattering with him earlier had been going on about how amazing their company was, making Liu Yong think he had no chance.
Now Liu Yong understood – the Hong Kong guy was the real actor. Damn, where did that confidence come from? Why hadn’t lightning struck you down?