Yang Yonghong felt that Xia Xiaolan’s words made a lot of sense, and she chuckled. She liked the idea of being called capable.
As for the male Literature major, she truly didn’t like him at all. A grown man spending all day wallowing in melancholy and complaining to her, unable to forget his ex-girlfriend, yet too afraid to stand up to his family. Yang Yonghong wasn’t moved by his “deep feelings” at all; instead, she felt completely uncomfortable.
Since Xiaolan had called her capable, Yang Yonghong felt confident: “I’ll need to make it clear to my supervisor at work that I’m not compatible with his son. I won’t consider relationships before I’m 30 – I’ll state that upfront.”
How could one talk about relationships without having a career first?
Yang Yonghong had taken the college entrance exam three times before getting into Huaqing University. When Xia Xiaolan was just 19 in her freshman year, Yang Yonghong was already 22.
Like the Architecture Department, Civil Engineering was a five-year program. Yang Yonghong would be 27 at graduation, and now she was a year older.
Yang Yonghong had never worried about being too old for marriage. She just felt that repeating high school had cost her two to three years, making her older than her fellow graduates. These two years needed to be spent establishing her career foundation; dating would be too much trouble and a waste of time – that could wait until after 30.
Of course, her supervisor wanted her as a daughter-in-law wasn’t just because of her capability, but also her personality.
Even when Yang Yonghong’s family had been extremely poor, she never felt inferior in her interactions with others. She was warm, generous, and helpful – such a personality would never lead to a bad life anywhere, and naturally made her likable!
Xia Xiaolan wasn’t worried about Yang Yonghong at all. What was wrong with considering relationships at 30? Even at 40, people would still pursue ‘Engineer Yang’, wouldn’t they?
Oh, by 40, she might not be Engineer Yang anymore, but Chief Engineer Yang instead.
After Su Jing and Gong Yang’s wedding, it was suddenly the end of 1990.
Xia Xiaolan and Zhou Cheng had been trying to conceive for six months without success, but she wasn’t anxious yet.
There was something else more urgent.
By late 1990, land prices in the coastal city of Qiong Island had skyrocketed, reaching nearly 900,000 yuan per mu. Xia Xiaolan couldn’t sit still and decided to start selling Qihang’s land holdings.
From 1987 to 1990, Qihang had developed three projects on Qiong Island. Riding the real estate boom, all three projects became bestsellers without much effort.
Qihang Real Estate earned nearly 50 million yuan from these three projects. While their first residential project ‘Haitian Garden’ wasn’t particularly profitable, the latter two projects earned substantial profits.
After clearing the final project, Xia Xiaolan began selling the land.
When Qihang first started selling land, the market hadn’t yet caught on, as Xia Xiaolan had sold most of Qihang’s land to ‘Chengrong Group.’ Many people knew of her deep friendship with Du Zhaohui but couldn’t understand her strategy in the Yecheng real estate market.
In reality, Xia Xiaolan was just using Du Zhaohui as an intermediary because too many people were watching her moves.
Du Zhaohui bought the land from Xia Xiaolan and waited a month without making any moves. It wasn’t until February 1991 that he started selling it. By then, good residential plots in Yecheng had exceeded one million yuan per mu, and the entire market was frenzied. With over ten thousand real estate companies, Du Zhaohui even made a profit on the land he’d bought from Qihang.
Whatever land he released, the market absorbed it; selling wasn’t a concern.
When Xia Xiaolan was selling the land, Tang Yuanyue hadn’t reacted, assuming she and Du Zhaohui had privately arranged to transfer land ownership to drive prices higher.
How could one speculate on land without circulation and price increases?
But when Du Zhaohui started selling land, even though he began quietly with small plots, Tang Yuanyue sensed trouble.
This wasn’t about jointly raising land prices – Xia Xiaolan had withdrawn first, and Du Zhaohui was following!
Tang Yuanyue cursed Du Zhaohui’s disloyalty under his breath but didn’t contemplate long before he too began selling land.
While the market could absorb Du Zhaohui’s land sales, Tang Yuanyue’s were more challenging. Large-scale selling in a short time affected Yecheng’s land prices, briefly dropping them back to 900,000 yuan per mu before quickly climbing back to a million.
The entire market had lost its rationality and seemed unaware of any warning signs.
With wealth right before their eyes, how many could maintain their rationality?
Meng Guanchao’s earlier sale of land at 260,000 yuan per mu had become a widely known joke.
Watching land prices approach a million, Meng Guanchao must have had regrets, but the old comrade kept his word and resisted greed, never setting foot on Qiong Island again. He tried to avoid news about Qiong Island, and whenever someone mentioned rising land prices there, Meng Guanchao would walk away.
Only by not listening, looking, or paying attention could he control the urge to re-enter the market.
People like Meng Guanchao were rare.
Xia Xiaolan withdrew first, Du Zhaohui followed, and both made substantial profits. Tang Yuanyue was halfway through his withdrawal, still holding unsold land, while Zhu Suizhou had just noticed something amiss. In March 1991, the state unexpectedly issued the “Sixteen Regulations.”
This was two years earlier than in Xia Xiaolan’s memory.
Xia Xiaolan wasn’t surprised at all. These “Sixteen Regulations” were influenced by her – back in November of the previous year, seeing land prices approaching 900,000 yuan per mu, she had submitted her economic research report on Qiong Island, including a detailed analysis of the current state and future of the real estate market.
After submitting it, she wasn’t sure if the authorities would take it seriously, but she had already exceeded her profit expectations in Qiong Island.
Developing three projects had earned nearly 50 million yuan, but selling land at 900,000 yuan per mu was where the real profit lay.
Having exceeded her expectations, not withdrawing would have been too greedy.
Xia Xiaolan submitted her report and began withdrawing. She left first, Du Zhaohui followed, while Tang Yuanyue was only halfway through when the “Sixteen Regulations” suddenly hit, stunning all ten thousand-plus real estate companies in Qiong Island.
The state had stepped in to control land prices!
State intervention was normal – when the “Sixteen Regulations” were issued, land prices in Yecheng had reached 1.2 million yuan per mu.
The “Sixteen Regulations” first halted bank loans and ordered banks to conduct self-examinations.
From the first silent snowflake falling to the market avalanche, it was unstoppable!
Tang Yuanyue couldn’t sell his remaining land as the entire market panicked. There were only sellers, no buyers, like a stock market crash… Tang Yuanyue calculated Yuhua’s profits on Qiong Island and remained calm, knowing that even with half the land unsold, they had recovered costs and made a profit.
If it couldn’t be sold, they could just hold onto it.
They’d made money anyway – it just changed from short-term to long-term investment. The land could be kept for Yuhua’s future development.
Qiong Island had no other economic pillars, but the scenery was nice, and Tang Yuanyue’s unsold land was all coastal.
He wasn’t worried.
Others were very worried.
Capital chains broke, banks pressed for loan repayment, and previously busy construction sites all stopped work within a month or two.
The clanging and banging turned to absolute silence, busy office buildings emptied, and some, at their wit’s end, jumped from rooftops. One landed in front of Sheng Xuan, making her scream and stumble backward—