Xia Xiaolan certainly couldn’t produce 500,000 yuan.

But she said she could gather it.

When short on money, one goes to the bank. As long as she contributed some government bonds, Manager Wu would surely be willing to help.

Xia Xiaolan didn’t need Manager Wu to bend any rules; she just needed to apply for another loan. Last time, she borrowed 200,000 yuan, bought 20,000 yuan worth of government bonds, and received 180,000 yuan, which was used to invest in the new store. After buying the house, Xia Xiaolan had only a few thousand yuan left from her original savings.

Later, Liu Yong and Li Fengmei insisted on giving her all the winter clothing dividends from Shangdu’s Blue Phoenix, and they even reduced half the renovation costs for her two Beijing stores.

For her two Beijing stores, Xia Xiaolan used the Shangdu dividends for inventory and her remaining savings plus Manager Wu’s loan for renovation, actually only using a small portion of the loan.

Now, with 140,000 yuan still in the bank, Xia Xiaolan was planning to open a third store.

Once she secured the storefront and started renovation, she would be someone who owned a quadrangle courtyard, a Citroën CX20, and three clothing stores. After repaying the first loan, she could combine these assets to borrow 500,000 yuan from Manager Wu without much trouble.

“I might be able to gather between 500,000 and 700,000 yuan, but I need about two months to put it together.”

Xia Xiaolan was confident about borrowing 500,000 yuan since her two stores were profitable. Even without the explosive business of the first month, in just over a month, she could earn 60,000 yuan to repay the first loan. With a good credit history, getting another loan wouldn’t be difficult!

The 700,000 yuan figure included the 170,000 yuan Zhou Cheng had entrusted her to manage.

Zhou Cheng’s money would earn interest in the bank anyway, and lending it to Liu Yong wouldn’t harm Zhou Cheng’s interests.

Liu Yong was overjoyed: “If you can gather 700,000 yuan, I’ll try to match it. Let’s partner up again like we did with the municipal government reception renovation!”

With Zhou Cheng’s money in consideration, Xia Xiaolan didn’t oppose Liu Yong’s suggestion.

If she borrowed 500,000 yuan from the bank, she would be risking everything. If something went wrong with the Dongfeng Holdings cooperation, Xia Xiaolan could lose everything, so sharing in the profit distribution made sense.

Her business with Liu Yong was already separate, and Liu Yong didn’t like taking advantage of her.

They needed to be upfront about everything to avoid any future issues that might affect her relationship with her uncle.

As they seriously discussed gathering funds for the project, both wanted to take on this work. Although Xia Xiaolan had portrayed the situation as severe to Huo Chenzhou, even if Elder Ning disagreed, she would find a way to overcome this obstacle.

This wasn’t just about Yuanhui’s growth and profits; Tang Hongen had approached them directly, and Xia Xiaolan had to forge ahead despite the challenges.

Difficulties could be overcome, and business required some cunning. Even though she wanted this deal, she couldn’t let Dongfeng Holdings see all her cards!

While the two discussed enthusiastically in the car, Gong Yang was sweating nervously.

He had thought Liu Yong and Xia Xiaolan truly didn’t want to cooperate with Dongfeng Holdings, but it seemed he had been too naive.

They were all university graduates, but was there such a gap between Tsinghua and the University of Commerce?

No, Xia Xiaolan hadn’t even entered university then.

Gong Yang, who originally only knew how to draw, now understood renovation design, but business matters confused him. He decided to just work honestly for Liu Yong. More work meant more pay – that was Yuanhui’s rule, applying to everyone from him to the renovation workers.

After discussing the loan with Liu Yong, Xia Xiaolan asked him to meet with Tang Hongen again. “If Mayor Tang is busy, meeting with Little Wang is fine. Report today’s discussion with Dongfeng Holdings.”

“Your uncle isn’t stupid; I understand.”

This was official business, and despite Liu Yong’s discomfort, he couldn’t delay it.

Xia Xiaolan had no choice; the weekend was too short, and she needed to return to Yangcheng soon. The car would be driven directly to Yangcheng, then someone would help drive it back to Beijing to register under Kang Wei’s work unit.

During this visit, she resolved the car issue and handled matters at the building materials store.

Then there was the Nanhai Hotel matter.

Xia Xiaolan had set herself a goal of reaching one million yuan in assets this year. Besides expanding her clothing stores, the Nanhai Hotel project would greatly help shorten the distance to her million-yuan goal!

It had been a productive weekend, but back in Beijing, she still had a tough battle ahead – even if Ning Yanfan approved the revised plan, Xia Xiaolan and Gong Yang faced an enormous workload.

The entire month of May would be consumed by this!

…

With his wife in Yangcheng, Liu Yong, despite being busy, had to see her, so he conveniently took Xia Xiaolan’s car along.

At the guesthouse, Liu Fen and Li Fengmei had just returned from the train station after shipping out some summer clothing.

“Is… is this your car?”

Liu Fen hadn’t expected Xia Xiaolan to return with such a beautiful car.

Li Fengmei circled the small car, “Ah Fen, your family is living the good life.”

Though both were making money, Xia Xiaolan didn’t deny herself enjoyment, while Li Fengmei and Liu Yong were more restrained. Apart from buying the quadrangle courtyard in Beijing, the couple hadn’t made such large purchases.

It couldn’t be helped; Liu Yong’s business often required advance payments, and he worried about having insufficient working capital. Sometimes he could only watch opportunities slip away, and Liu Yong wouldn’t even buy a 40,000-yuan Jeep 212 – not because he was stingy.

He was forced by circumstances, as opportunities wait for no one.

This time, Xia Xiaolan could help gather half the advance payment; otherwise, he couldn’t have taken on Dongfeng Holdings’ 4-million-yuan budget project!

Hearing the envy in Li Fengmei’s voice, Xia Xiaolan smiled cheerfully: “Aunt, Uncle is taking on a big project this time. After it’s done, you could buy two cars like this without problem.”

While Liu Yong wouldn’t buy a Jeep for himself, if Li Fengmei wanted one, he’d squeeze out the money to buy one like Xia Xiaolan’s – 80,000 yuan would be worth it.

A man should provide for his wife and children, but Li Fengmei didn’t let him provide. Instead, she had been subsidizing his business with money from the clothing store, opening another store in Shangdu, and taking care of their son Liu Zitao. Liu Yong felt buying a car was appropriate!

Li Fengmei was frugal herself, “I don’t need a car. I’m just grateful if he takes care of himself!”

80,000 yuan – that was about the price of their quadrangle courtyard in Beijing.

“I need to get to the airport now.”

Liu Fen nodded, “Your aunt and I still need to select merchandise; we’ll return tomorrow. By the way, we saw you on TV last night.”

The ten-episode program aired its final episode last night.

Xia Xiaolan had won glory, taking first place in the competition. Liu Fen had known the result but hadn’t seen it herself. Watching it on TV last night, she was too excited to sleep.

Liu Yong slapped his thigh, “I didn’t have time to watch TV last night!”

They had stayed up most of the night, but it hadn’t helped them in front of Huo Chenzhou. Ning Yanfan being the original plan’s designer had disrupted Liu Yong and Xia Xiaolan’s prepared strategy.

Xia Xiaolan consoled her uncle: “There might be similar competitions in the future; I’ll let you watch it live! If you’d like to hear foreigners speak, I could take you abroad to experience it?”