“Grandfather, what should we do?”
After Xia Xiaolan left the Ganquan villagers behind, Luo Yaozong quietly asked Old Man Luo.
Being a manager, Luo Yaozong could accept that.
But a security guard?
People like Luo Yaozong couldn’t see the professional value of security work, viewing security guards as just watchdogs for rich bosses. How humiliating to be Xia Xiaolan’s doorkeeper.
Old Man Luo’s silence meant he was weighing options.
Xia Xiaolan’s firmness was unexpected – getting both the person and money wouldn’t be easy, but Old Man Luo wasn’t one to give up easily. He had Luo Yaozong lean in closer, and after the grandfather and grandson whispered for a while, Luo Yaozong reluctantly said:
“I’ll do as you say, Grandfather.”
With their land being requisitioned plus compensation for demolished houses, the payment would be substantial.
Once they received the compensation, the Luo family wouldn’t lack money.
What Old Man Luo wanted was to get this land back.
People are greedy – he had already been devastated by the 278,000 yuan land price, and now that it had soared to over 10 million, Old Man Luo couldn’t bear to let go of this feng shui treasure that could make his descendants wealthy.
Luo’s family land should return to Luo’s hands – his grandson taking this security job was enduring humiliation for a greater cause.
Old Man Luo rallied his spirits:
“We agree, Yaozong will be a security guard. Hmph, if he does well as security, he could become manager too, right?”
At the workshed, Ge Jian dealt with Old Man Luo instead of Xia Xiaolan. Ge Jian was now a “manager,” so Old Man Luo wasn’t wrong – Ge Jian had worked his way up from personal bodyguard to project manager, so theoretically security guards did have promotion opportunities.
But someone like Luo Yaozong?
Ge Jian nodded expressionlessly:
“Start work officially tomorrow. As site security, you’ll be responsible for driving away troublemakers.”
Several villagers felt uncomfortable – they were the troublemakers who’d been coming.
Seeing Old Man Luo leave without even asking about salary, Xia Xiaolan’s face showed coldness.
The drinker’s heart wasn’t in the wine – not caring about salary or position, the Luo family’s scheming heart hadn’t died.
“Ge Jian, keep an eye on the Luo family’s movements, especially watch Luo Yaozong closely.”
“Understood, Director Xia.”
Miss Xia had said to run a legitimate business, telling him not to fight easily, but Ge Jian’s hands had been itching for a long time. He’d wanted to deal with the Luo family earlier, but Miss Xia said to use them to spread the word that Jinsha Pool was a feng shui treasure. Sure enough, after finding gold, Ganquan villagers gossiped the most enthusiastically, wanting all of Pengcheng to know about the gold discovery, making land prices soar in the shortest time.
Now that bank loans were basically settled and the Luo family had outlived their usefulness, yet still dared to cause trouble – Ge Jian had many tactics waiting for that coward Luo!
Xia Xiaolan couldn’t stay in Pengcheng long, but loan procedures would take several days, so she could only leave the loan matters to Ying Jinchuan.
The next day, Luo Yaozong did show up for work at the site.
This matter didn’t need Xia Xiaolan’s attention.
But something unexpected happened – Tang Yuanyue and Du Zhaohui seemed to have discovered her scheme. Xia Xiaolan had thought they’d settle scores later, yet Du Zhaohui showed no reaction.
Tang Yuanyue’s response was also unexpected – the next day she received his flower bouquet.
The attached card praised her intelligence, which pleased Xia Xiaolan more than compliments about her beauty. Beauty wasn’t eternal, even though she truly had an excellent appearance in this life!
The accumulation of knowledge, broadening of horizons, having substance in one’s mind – these were things that couldn’t be taken away no matter how many times one was reborn.
However, did some people enjoy being deceived and tormented?
“What’s wrong with Tang Yuanyue, has he lost his mind?”
Liu Yong’s expression looked like he’d swallowed a fly: “These Hong Kong rich boys are used to being playboys. He probably wants to pursue you – you must not fall for it.”
Tang Yuanyue was Meihua’s general manager, and Meihua was one of Nanhai Hotel’s investors. Liu Yong’s Yuanhui was doing the hotel’s renovation work, but renovation matters were handled by another shareholder, Dongfeng Holdings, so Liu Yong wasn’t afraid of offending Tang Yuanyue.
With Du Zhaohui’s previous impression, plus Liu Tianquan’s earlier contract manipulation, Liu Yong had developed an aversion to Hong Kong businessmen.
Making money from Hong Kong merchants wasn’t easy, and when a playboy rich son wanted to pursue his niece, Liu Yong didn’t trust his character!
Previously Liu Yong thought the Zhou family’s standards were too high, fearing Zhou Cheng and Xiaolan wouldn’t last.
Now he was grateful for Zhou’s family’s high standards – as long as Xiaolan was still with Zhou Cheng, surely no one would dare pursue her? If forceful methods didn’t work, soft pursuit tactics like Tang Yuanyue’s wouldn’t be very harmful as long as Xiaolan remained firm.
Liu Yong worried needlessly.
Xia Xiaolan had been plain-looking for many years in her previous life, never benefiting from her appearance.
Though exceptionally beautiful in this life, it had only been two years since her rebirth, and her previous life’s habitual thinking dominated – she often forgot how stunning she looked in this life… Her habitual thinking was that of a steel-straight woman.
A steel-straight woman focused entirely on her career; with Zhou Cheng, she couldn’t be bothered to look at other men.
Whether others were handsome or not, rich or not, their conditions were irrelevant to her.
For instance now, while Liu Yong worried about Tang Yuanyue disturbing her mind, this steel-straight woman was thinking something completely different.
After she’d used Tang Yuanyue to drive up land prices, not only was he not angry, but he wanted to pursue her.
Either he’d lost his mind, or this pursuit itself was a form of revenge – in her previous life, Xia Xiaolan had heard young female employees discuss popular CEO romance novels, where the female lead and CEO had grudges, but instead of using any of a hundred revenge tactics, the CEO insisted on marrying the female lead home, both sleeping with and humiliating her.
Wasn’t this just mental illness? What CEO had time for such nonsense – their company should have gone bankrupt!
The female leads were always ordinary girls with plain good looks, while the CEOs were handsome and wealthy. When they shared a bed, was it revenge, or was the CEO personally delivering benefits?
Xia Xiaolan had never understood this issue, always feeling the CEO seemed to be the one losing out.
So, Tang Yuanyue must have lost his mind.
Xia Xiaolan didn’t believe real-life rich second-generation heirs would be as foolish as romance novel CEOs.
She didn’t take it seriously, letting Tang Yuanyue’s flowers sink like a stone.
Tang Yuanyue wasn’t in a hurry, instructing his secretary:
“Remember to send Miss Xia flowers every day.”
The secretary had some doubts, “If Miss Xia returns to Beijing for school, should we still send them there?”
Mainland universities were conservative – if Mr. Tang sent flowers like this, the commotion probably wouldn’t be what Miss Xia wanted to see.
“When she’s at school, just send one flower daily. Make sure she receives my greetings every day.”
Oh, so that was it.
One flower wouldn’t be so eye-catching, but Mr. Tang could still maintain his presence this way.
This Miss Xia was quite different from Mr. Tang’s previous girlfriends. Mr. Tang usually didn’t consider things from the woman’s perspective – it was always the women putting effort into pleasing Mr. Tang. Whether it caused a commotion or trouble for the women, Mr. Tang didn’t care at all – any gifts he sent, whichever girlfriend had to accept them happily.
Being able to consider Miss Xia’s situation – the secretary sensed something unusual about Mr. Tang this time.