“He’s ugly and has always had bad luck!”

Du Zhaohui agreed with this assessment.

If Du Zhaoqi had good luck, how would he have been the one to meet Xia Xiaolan?

A loser like Du Zhaoqi should just hang around with Xia Ziyu.

“There’s nothing wrong with the Yaohan model, it just depends on whether it will adapt to China’s conditions. Honestly, when I received Second Young Master Du’s proposal, I was quite interested.”

Du Zhaoqi might have had bad luck, which was why he lost 5% of his shares to Du Zhaohui—who had Xia Xiaolan’s help.

But Du Zhaoqi was not stupid.

Wanting to make a comeback wasn’t wrong. After losing the competition, Du Zhaoqi invested all his energy into mainland projects, which Tang Yuanyue saw as the right choice.

If Tang Yuanyue didn’t believe in the mainland market, why would he stay in Pengcheng?

It was precisely because he believed in the mainland that Tang Yuanyue was quite interested in Du Zhaoqi’s ideas.

Simply put, he wanted to make money but didn’t want to damage his friendship with Du Zhaohui, which was why he arranged this meeting—saying, I’m very interested in this business, but it happens to be initiated by your brother Du Zhaoqi, so I’m giving you a heads-up before joining, considerate enough, right?

Xia Xiaolan also detected Tang Yuanyue’s interest.

This made her troubled.

This life had seen some changes—the Asia Department Store now had Du Zhaoqi.

While Zhu Suizhou was forceful, Du Zhaoqi wasn’t weak either. Who would eventually dominate the business between these two?

If Du Zhaoqi managed Asia, would it still go bankrupt like in her previous life… it was hard to say. Now Du Zhaoqi wanted to follow Japan’s Yaohan model—retail businesses that expanded too quickly died fast. But without expansion, could they maintain good operations?

With rising rents, increasing labor costs, plus the impact of e-commerce, brick-and-mortar retail would become very difficult in 30 years. It wasn’t just Asia and Yaohan that would close—not adapting to the times meant death, this was an iron law.

Why did large chains fail faster?

It was like ships sailing—the bigger the ship, the harder it was to turn.

They thought their scale was large enough to withstand storms. When small waves came, they ignored them, but these small waves were signals. Large ships ignored such signals, and when small waves accumulated into big waves, it was too late to turn!

Being too big meant every move was constrained, lacking flexibility!

Expansion wasn’t the real issue.

The problem was that operators needed keen instincts, not just focusing on their business, but staying vigilant at all times. When social conditions changed, they needed to actively adapt to these changes.

Du Zhaoqi had chosen a poor model to learn from, plus there was an expansion-obsessed Zhu Suizhou.

Xia Xiaolan found it hard to be optimistic about Asia’s prospects… larger investment wouldn’t necessarily change history, it might more likely hurt the shareholders. Unless Du Zhaoqi and Tang Yuanyue had enough funds to survive Asia’s crazy expansion period.

Did they?

Together, they could probably hold out better than Zhu Suizhou did in her previous life.

Tang Yuanyue hadn’t expected Xia Xiaolan to come along, but since she was here, he wanted to ask her opinion.

Informing Du Zhaohui was just a courtesy.

Asking Xia Xiaolan was serious business.

No help for it—who told Xia Xiaolan to be smarter than Du Zhaohui, and already being a shareholder in Asia Department Store?

Tang Yuanyue smiled at her, making Xia Xiaolan’s scalp tingle.

“Chairman Tang, I don’t know. Every investment is a gamble for businesspeople. When to enter, when to exit, whether one can bear the risk of losing the investment—every businessperson has different psychological expectations… I can’t give you advice.”

She held 18% of Asia Department Store’s shares, originally planning to sell at the peak.

However, in this life, first Du Zhaoqi joined, and now even Tang Yuanyue was interested in this project. Xia Xiaolan wasn’t even sure if Asia would still fail.

How could she advise Tang Yuanyue about something she wasn’t certain about herself?

If Tang Yuanyue avoided a big pit, he would naturally be very grateful to her.

If he missed a chance to make big money, Xia Xiaolan couldn’t compensate him.

When she saw things going wrong and wanted to sell her 18% shares, would Tang Yuanyue follow her lead?

Tang Yuanyue wasn’t disappointed. His relationship with Xia Xiaolan wasn’t that close—she indeed couldn’t publicly advise him whether to invest or increase investment.

“I understand. I guess in these few days, Second Young Master Du should be having a straightforward talk with you as the second-largest shareholder. His idea is to establish a new company to operate the ‘Asia’ chain brand. The current Asia Department Store would just be ‘Asia’s’ first store. Miss Xia should know what this means.”

Something that would eventually come up anyway, Tang Yuanyue didn’t mind giving an early warning.

Xia Xiaolan’s expression darkened. “I know. It means I either agree to Second Young Master Du’s plan and add investment to remain Asia’s second-largest shareholder or have my shares diluted.”

Or be kicked out entirely.

This day would come sooner or later—either she kicked Du Zhaoqi out, or Du Zhaoqi kicked her out. Even though Xia Xiaolan hadn’t planned to stay long, if Du Zhaoqi offered a reasonable price for her 18% shares, she’d run faster than a rabbit.

Making money without going down with Asia’s ship—only a fool wouldn’t run!

But that would have been Xia Xiaolan’s active choice.

Being passively kicked out would piss her off.

There was another big problem—had Du Zhaoqi lost his mind?

The most common scenario was struggling together during hard times, and then fighting after making profits. Du Zhaoqi was even more impressive—Asia was still under construction, far from opening, yet he already wanted to turn Asia into China’s Yaohan. Damn it, where did this confidence come from? She was a reincarnator who knew Zhu Suizhou would make Asia Department Store famous, but this bastard Du Zhaoqi hadn’t even seen Asia’s success yet and already wanted to make such big moves.

Was this a normal business operation?

The main purpose was clearly to kick her out…

The young man was getting a bit cocky—didn’t he worry that taking too big a step would split his legs!

Seeing Xia Xiaolan’s expression, Du Zhaohui secretly rejoiced.

That loser Qi had angered Xia Xiaolan.

Xia Xiaolan couldn’t possibly part ways with him. He hated that loser Qi, and Xia Xiaolan didn’t like him either, so he and Xia Xiaolan could still fight side by side.

Rounding things up, he and Xia Xiaolan could still like each other, hehe.

Tang Yuanyue also noticed Xia Xiaolan’s anger:

“So will you add investment?”

Whether Xia Xiaolan had the financial capability to add investment was another question. Tang Yuanyue wasn’t short of money—he inherited his father’s business empire. Du Zhaoqi was also richer than Xia Xiaolan. Even without Cheng Rong Group shares, he was still Du Cheng Rong’s son—if the son had a good project, borrowing money from his father, how could the father not care?

Only Xia Xiaolan had started from scratch. Tang Yuanyue suspected she might not have the money for additional investment!