“Has Du family’s Fifth Mistress miscarried?” Xia Xiaolan’s expression turned peculiar.
It wasn’t Du Zhaohui who told her – it was Yu Li being a competent secretary. Having previously collected information about Du’s family’s Fifth Mistress, she paid close attention to Hong Kong’s tabloids.
This time, many paparazzi had photographed Xia Ziyu being hospitalized for pregnancy protection. The Fifth Mistress’s situation was all over the tabloids daily – paying attention naturally yielded results.
The latest news revealed that the Fifth Mistress couldn’t save her pregnancy. Master Du indeed favored the Fifth Mistress, abandoning his overseas business to rush back and comfort her. It was said he was furious.
Xia Xiaolan’s first thought was that Du Zhaohui had done it.
But she quickly rejected this speculation: “Would Du Zhaohui be that stupid? Just after having a conflict with Xia Ziyu at the club, he immediately strikes at her. Is he afraid his father isn’t smart enough to figure it out?”
It probably wasn’t Du Zhaohui.
Then who could be so vicious?
Du Zhaoqi… no, Du Zhaoqi’s attention wasn’t on the Du family’s domestic affairs now. If anything, Du Zhaoqi probably wanted to ally with Xia Ziyu against Du Zhaohui, especially since Xia Ziyu was now visibly receiving “special treatment” from Du Chengrong. A mistress confined to serving in a villa was completely different from one allowed to represent Du Chengrong on formal occasions.
Du Zhaoqi would only try to win Xia Ziyu over!
“It must be the Fourth Mistress,” Xia Xiaolan muttered. Fourth Mistress Liu Keying, who had been Du Chengrong’s favored woman for over a decade, truly exemplified ‘when one person attains the way, even their chickens and dogs ascend to heaven.’ She had helped her elder brother rise to prominence and had once cornered Du Zhaohui until he could barely breathe.
Liu Keying was extremely domineering.
Because she had climbed into bed as a family tutor to become the Du family’s Fourth Mistress, Liu Keying always felt others looked down on her. Unlike the dignified Second Mistress or the gentle and virtuous Third Mistress, anyone who offended her would face immediate retaliation – through such favored arrogance, Liu Keying had secured her position in the Du family.
This was all revealed by Du Zhaohui when he wanted to deal with Liu Tianquan and told Xia Xiaolan.
“Sooner or later, I’ll make Liu Keying taste the bitter fruits of her arrogance…”
Du Zhaohui had said this with a grin back then.
Thinking about it now, Du Zhaohui had learned patience, hadn’t he?
Previously, he would constantly talk about tying someone to a rock and throwing them into the sea, but lately, he’d stopped saying such things. He’d learned to let others do his dirty work.
Liu Keying’s desire to kill Xia Ziyu stemmed from the moment Xia Ziyu entered the Du family. Last time, Xia Ziyu had appeared at the Chengrong Group’s Spring Banquet on Du Chengrong’s arm, and then this high-profile appearance at the club’s opening ceremony – Liu Keying’s resentment had naturally accumulated.
Already knowing about Xia Ziyu’s rebirth, Xia Xiaolan no longer treated her with the same dismissiveness as before.
Though somewhat foolish, she certainly knew how to please men.
Additionally, knowing the bigger picture, if Du Chengrong wanted to help her, he could create many troubles for Xia Xiaolan’s business.
Hearing about Xia Ziyu’s miscarriage, Xia Xiaolan felt the child was innocent on one hand, but on the other, she wasn’t sentimental enough to feel heartache for Xia Ziyu.
To be honest, Xia Xiaolan not only didn’t feel sorry or heartache, she couldn’t help feeling happy.
A miscarriage wasn’t a small matter for women – the further along the pregnancy, the more damaging it was to the body.
If Xia Ziyu cared about her health at all, she would need to rest properly for at least a few months while simultaneously working to maintain Du Chengrong’s favor and avoid falling from grace… In other words, for quite a long time, Xia Ziyu wouldn’t be able to jump around causing trouble.
It wasn’t that Xia Xiaolan feared her.
Rather, this was the perfect opportunity to focus on handling the lawsuit in America!
Suppressing the urge to call Eric immediately, Xia Xiaolan instead asked Yu Li:
“How are the sales at Luhu Tiancheng?”
Luhu Tiancheng opened for sales last Friday, March 20th. Between the 20th and 21st, they had sold 151 units. That weekend, Xia Xiaolan had gone to attend the golf club’s opening ceremony and then flew directly back to Beijing, without time to check the sales data.
This week had been especially busy with school matters.
The department was planning to give her extended leave, so the teachers inevitably had to give her extra tutoring, marking important and difficult points in advance, keeping Xia Xiaolan very busy!
She only knew that weekend sales were 59 units, showing a slight decline.
She hadn’t had time to pay attention on Monday and Tuesday.
Yes, it was now Wednesday, and amid the busyness, another week was nearly half over.
Little Yu didn’t even need to check her notebook:
“Monday sold 53 units, Tuesday was 51 units. Chairman Xia, as of yesterday, Luhu Tiancheng has sold 314 units, with less than a hundred units remaining. Manager Ge expects to sell out within this week.”
Clearing an entire development in one week?
Although it was less than 400 units, it was still an incredibly efficient sales situation. This was truly China’s real estate wild era – the key wasn’t competing with other developments but letting buyers know there were commercial properties available-
Pengcheng no longer had just Qihang doing commercial housing.
After ‘Luhu Tiancheng,’ new developments would have to compete with others… Xia Xiaolan remembered that Pengcheng’s real estate market still had four or five good years ahead, first rising to unbelievably high prices, before crashing.
She would need to avoid those crash years.
That timing coincided with the burst of the Qiong Island real estate bubble, ultimately due to “real estate overheating.” The state needed to cool down the property market and issued the shocking “Sixteen Articles” nationwide, dramatically tightening credit… At its peak, Qiong Island’s total population was just over 6 million, yet it had over 20,000 real estate companies. In 1993, after the state issued the “Sixteen Articles,” Qiong Island’s real estate boom came to an abrupt halt, with over 20,000 property companies going bankrupt or withdrawing in an extremely short time.
The number of people who lost their fortunes speculating in real estate was no less than those who lost in stocks.
However, that was still several years away.
As long as one could resist greed and withdraw from Qiong Island when the state issued the “Sixteen Articles” in 1993, making money wouldn’t be a problem.
Continuing to build and sell houses in Pengcheng, Xia Xiaolan worried about affecting Old Tang, especially after knowing Xia Ziyu would enter this field, Xia Xiaolan was even less inclined to stay in Pengcheng.
With Pengcheng as the battleground, winning or losing was a minor issue – if any scandals broke out, Old Tang would be implicated.
Although she didn’t call Old Tang “Dad,” he treated her like his own daughter. It was just a title – in fact, Old Tang held a “father’s” weight in her heart. A stepfather was still a father, and Xia Xiaolan couldn’t deliberately hurt her father!
Better to make money in Qiong Island – her Chengzi was there too.
As for knowing about Qiong Island’s future real estate bubble, was making this money unconscionable?
Others would make it anyway.
At least if she made it, she could provide more financial support for the “Young Eagles Qihang” project.
Xia Xiaolan acted on her thoughts, “Little Yu, Luhu Tiancheng’s sales are stable, with just a few dozen units left – that’s not a big issue. Once things settle here, you and Ge Jian should take a business trip to Qiong Island, focusing on investigating Lucheng and Yecheng, to see their development situation.”
Lucheng would become Qiong Island’s hottest tourist city in the future, with ‘The Ends of the Earth’ becoming Lucheng’s hyped tourist spot.
Yecheng was Qiong Island’s provincial capital.
As the name suggested, it had many coconuts… hehe, Xia Xiaolan felt thirsty – she wanted some coconut milk.