After finishing laughing, Xia Xiaolan remembered the important matter:

“Did you find out what’s going on from your inquiries today?”

Zhou Cheng pointed at his mouth, and Xia Xiaolan understood, giving him a soft, lingering “reward” kiss.

Zhou Cheng was left breathing heavily, taking quite a while to calm himself down.

This was torture.

He had asked for the kiss himself, but his body’s reaction was too strong!

“It’s the lower-level troublemakers causing problems. When Grandmother Yu had someone change the property rights, someone found a loophole and transferred Number 45’s ownership back to State Cotton Factory No. 3, then transferred it out again, all for building a shopping mall. I visited Factory Director Yuan Honggang today—he’s dealt with you before and still remembers you. Regarding the property rights transfer of Number 45, Yuan Honggang seemed genuinely surprised. As the factory director, he knew nothing about it!”

Yuan Honggang used to be the deputy director of State Cotton Factory No. 3.

Back then, he had made the decision with Grandmother Yu to rent Number 45 to Xia Xiaolan and Li Fengmei for their shop.

To convince Yuan Honggang to help, Liu Yong even ran errands taking care of Yuan Honggang’s parents, looking after the two elderly people.

Later, when Ding Aizhen and the factory director’s illegal activities were exposed, the original director was stripped of his position and imprisoned. Yuan Honggang was promoted from deputy to director, becoming State Cotton Factory No. 3’s new leader.

Xia Xiaolan had dealt with him then and felt Director Yuan was quite upright, always fighting for Grandmother Yu’s rental interests.

Of course, times change—Yuan might have been upright as deputy director, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t changed after becoming director. Power can be intoxicating, and perhaps Director Yuan now had his agenda—

Xia Xiaolan couldn’t judge, so she decided to trust Zhou Cheng’s assessment and assume Yuan Honggang truly knew nothing about it.

“So? Who wants to build the mall? Has the land been officially approved? Did you find out?”

Zhou Cheng hadn’t spent half a day running around and waiting until 10 PM to come to the guesthouse for nothing: “It’s a company called Chaoyang Real Estate, the southern capital, with a CEO named Zhu Suizhou.”

Zhu Suizhou!

The general manager of Asia Mall in her previous life!

The man who had single-handedly created Asia Mall’s glory and also led to the Asia Group’s end.

But Zhu Suizhou wasn’t supposed to be the CEO of any Chaoyang Real Estate—at this time, he should still be a junior official who had just resigned in Shangdu.

Xia Xiaolan clearly remembered that in her previous life, Zhu Suizhou’s investors weren’t Chaoyang Real Estate.

Had her butterfly effect changed some history again?

“Is this Zhu Suizhou a local from Shangdu? What’s his background?”

“No, he’s not local. He was an official transferred to Shangdu from elsewhere. They say he’s got a good head for economics, but his ideas are too ahead of their time. He felt too restricted within the system and resigned from his position this year. He reappeared two months ago as Chaoyang Real Estate’s CEO, wanting to build a mall at Erqi Square. The man’s quite eloquent—though Chaoyang Real Estate’s actual strength is unclear, Zhu Suizhou has attracted quite a lot of local investment in Shangdu.”

Zhou Cheng’s words made Xia Xiaolan want to jump up.

This was completely different from what she knew! Only the name matched, and the fact that he was previously a young official in the system—everything else was different.

“Eloquent and attracted lots of investment? So this mall Chaoyang Real Estate wants to build—they can’t afford to fail, can they?”

Gathering support everywhere, binding everyone’s interests together.

Xia Xiaolan couldn’t even be that smooth, though the approach did somewhat resemble her style.

Resigning from his position this year, reappearing two months ago as a real estate company CEO—this wild, aggressive rise matched her impression of Zhu Suizhou from when she heard professors analyzing the “Asia Mall case” in her previous life.

“That’s not the worst news. The worst is that Chaoyang Real Estate has already gotten land approval! I discussed this with Uncle Shao today—Chaoyang Real Estate’s procedures are proper. Even if there were misunderstandings, it was others who tampered with Number 45’s ownership… Uncle Shao is in a difficult position. This is a major investment, at least several million yuan for the mall. He hopes we won’t make too big a fuss and consider the bigger picture!”

Consider the bigger picture.

Wasn’t that just asking Xia Xiaolan to give up ownership of Number 45?

“Mayor Shao must have said they’ll investigate this thoroughly, that relevant personnel will be dealt with appropriately, and that Number 45 will be returned to my name—but since the government has already approved Chaoyang Real Estate’s land use, I should step back and accept compensation from either Chaoyang Real Estate or the government?”

As a real estate developer herself, Xia Xiaolan couldn’t empathize when asking others to relocate.

Because she wasn’t responsible for negotiating relocations.

The local government handled relocation talks; she only received land free of complications.

It wasn’t just Qihang—almost all real estate companies operated this way now, whether state-owned, private, or foreign-invested… Few people would wrangle over land. China needed development everywhere, and urban land wasn’t as precious as it would be in later years. If an area was planned for development, residents could simply be moved.

There wouldn’t be cases of people being relocated from the Second Ring Road to beyond the Fifth Ring Road as compensation.

Beijing didn’t even have a Fifth Ring Road yet!

Other cities had empty land everywhere.

From a residential perspective, if Number 45 at Erqi Square was taken, compensating Xia Xiaolan with another house would be fine.

A place to live was a place to live, right?

Mayor Shao’s meaning was clear—he wouldn’t let Xia Xiaolan suffer losses.

But from a business perspective, that golden gateway at Erqi Square, the future site of Asia Mall, Shangdu’s most prosperous commercial district for the next decade—compensating Xia Xiaolan with any other location would be a huge loss for her…

“I knew you wouldn’t agree, so I refused Uncle Shao.”

Zhou Cheng’s face was asking for praise. After Xia Xiaolan physically “praised” him, she said: “Aren’t we being too aggressive with this approach? Won’t it make people dislike us? Shouldn’t we first clarify whether the property belongs to State Cotton Factory No. 3 or Grandmother Yu?”

Xia Xiaolan didn’t want Zhou Cheng to make enemies for her sake.

Especially since Shao Limin was Shao Guangrong’s uncle and knew Zhou’s father’s generation—butting heads over something like this… made it seem like she and Zhou Cheng were being inconsiderate.

Of course, Xia Xiaolan wasn’t one to accept losses either.

“I think Uncle Xu is even angrier than me. Anyway, I’m returning to Pengcheng tomorrow, so I’ll leave Shangdu’s matters to Uncle Xu. How can the Shangdu city government want to attract investment while failing to handle the Yu family’s returned ancestral property properly? They can’t have it both ways. No need to put Mayor Shao in a difficult position—the city government needs to give Grandmother Yu and Uncle Xu an explanation!”

That was true.

Zhou Cheng couldn’t help but gently stroke her nose with his fingertip:

“I know you too well. You never fight unprepared battles. You want the Xu father and son to take the lead here in Shangdu while you return to Pengcheng to investigate Chaoyang Real Estate. I’ve already asked people to look into this Zhu Suizhou.”

—Was she that kind of person?

She was!

Xia Xiaolan gave Zhou Cheng a “figure it out yourself” look. How annoying—why did he have to speak such blunt truths?