After Xia Xiaolan’s birthday, Zhou Cheng did stay in Hong Kong.
Although he would disappear for a day or two occasionally, he still had time to accompany her.
Xia Xiaolan felt these days were too dreamlike in their perfection.
In the blink of an eye, mid-August arrived.
After three drafts, Xia Xiaolan’s thesis was finally settled.
Her thesis reviewers included professors from the Architecture Department and editors from “World Architecture.” Her paper was confirmed for publication in September’s “World Architecture.”
“World Architecture” had long reserved space for Xia Xiaolan’s thesis.
This wasn’t a case of special privilege cutting in line or pushing out other submissions. “Domus” and “A+U” magazines had already published it, and Chinese publications wanted to sync up, but “World Architecture” particularly wanted to publish Xia Xiaolan’s thesis on museum design!
“Alright, I understand. The thesis defense is set for September, right?”
September was quite good.
Huaqing University would be starting classes then.
Her roommates from Room 307 would be returning from internships, and other classmates from the ’84 cohort would be back on campus. Xia Xiaolan thought she could take graduation photos after her defense. Being an early graduate posed some challenges – she might not have time when the ’84 class took their official graduation photos.
The start of school brought another complication: Ji Jiangyuan could only come to Hong Kong once a week, just like when he used to work part-time at the golf course.
Fortunately, Zhang Byron proved somewhat useful.
Over these weeks, while revising her thesis, Xia Xiaolan humbly learned financial knowledge from Ji Jiangyuan and Zhang Byron. She deliberately made some losing moves, increasing account losses by several million. During Qihang Capital’s establishment period, they had “evaporated” over ten million – this was, of course, information deliberately leaked to Xia Ziyu. Xia Xiaolan only reported losses, spreading the word of money-losing operations everywhere while attributing profitable operations to Ji Jiangyuan’s efforts.
Between gains and losses, they had over ten million in surplus.
But there was no need to tell Xia Ziyu about that.
Qihang Capital wasn’t a public company – they didn’t need to publish financial reports!
The Qiu Jiaming incident blew over. Qiu Jiaming himself couldn’t identify who had attacked him or how he ended up hanging outside the Lixin Building.
He suspected Du Zhaohui, but Du Zhaohui refused to take the blame for Zhou Cheng and beat up Qiu Jiaming again:
“You bastard, when I beat someone, I do it face to face. If you’re not convinced, I’ll beat you every time I see you until you are!”
Qiu Jiaming was shorter than Du Zhaohui.
The Qiu family wasn’t as wealthy as the Du family.
Qiu Jiaming could only swallow this bitter pill.
Du Zhaohui’s brazen behavior really didn’t seem like someone who would attack from behind – so who could it be?
Qiu Jiaming was too naive; he had misjudged Du Zhaohui.
Less than a week after Du Zhaohui demonstrated what an open beating looked like, Qiu Jiaming, tired of being cooped up at home, went to a nightclub. There was a pretty new singer, and Qiu Jiaming took a liking to her, wanting her to drink with him.
Unfortunately, another customer had also taken an interest in the same singer. The situation escalated from verbal arguments to physical confrontations.
The customer had a sharp tongue, bringing up Qiu Jiaming’s embarrassing “bird-watching” incident. Qiu Jiaming naturally couldn’t stand it and ordered his bodyguards to beat the other party. Everyone was quite drunk, and both sides trashed the nightclub. Other customers got involved, and it turned into a massive brawl where friend and foe became indistinguishable in the chaos.
In the confusion, Qiu Jiaming was severely wounded in the groin with a fruit knife.
They say he was in shock from pain when taken to the hospital.
The Qiu family was furious, trying to save Qiu Jiaming’s ability to continue the family line. Hong Kong’s medical standards were quite advanced in ’87 – if something was cut off, they might be able to reattach it, but when mangled by a fruit knife, what could they save?
This wasn’t something you could just patch up and use for another three years!
In short, Qiu Jiaming was ruined.
The Qiu family investigated but all evidence pointed to it being an accident.
Fortunately, the Qiu family had other sons. With Qiu Jiaming in this state, it was a loss of face for the family, so they sent him abroad to lie low after his discharge.
…This incident wasn’t traced back to Du Zhaohui, much less to Xia Xiaolan.
How could Xia Xiaolan, a delicate beauty, have ruined someone so crudely?
Besides, Xia Xiaolan truly wasn’t worried, because this time Du Zhaohui hadn’t even told her.
Xia Xiaolan “interrogated” Zhou Cheng, repeatedly confirming if he had done it.
Zhou Cheng naturally didn’t take credit:
“If I had done it, I would have acted the first time, why bother with a second? He’s done many bad things – walk in the dark long enough, and you’ll meet ghosts.”
Zhou Cheng suspected Du Zhaohui.
He was at least eighty percent sure it was Du Zhaohui.
The Qiu family thought that since Du Zhaohui had beaten Qiu Jiaming, he wouldn’t immediately ruin him, but they forgot the saying “darkness under the lamp” – mixing truth with fiction, real with fake, was Du Zhaohui’s way.
Du Zhaohui was growing too.
Zhou Cheng hesitated somewhat – perhaps he should talk with Du Zhaohui.
…
Time passed especially quickly with Zhou Cheng around.
Zhou Cheng said he’d stay in Hong Kong for a week or half a month, but suddenly a month had passed and he still hadn’t left.
Seems Zhou Cheng’s “mission” wasn’t going too smoothly!
Fortunately, Zhou Cheng himself wasn’t impatient, remaining very calm.
During this time, news came from Du Zhaohui that Xia Ziyu had finally “reunited” properly with Wang Jianhua. Whether they had crossed the final line wasn’t clear – Du Zhaohui didn’t say.
However given Du Zhaohui’s personality, the Du family would likely start causing trouble soon.
During this period, Du Zhaohui pledged 5% of Chengrong Group’s shares to the bank and repaid Tang Yuanyue’s money.
Du Zhaohui was deliberately trying to drive a wedge between Tang Yuanyue and He Zhitong’s relationship.
Even when He Shi’en came to play at Xia Xiaolan’s company, he sighed:
“My sister made a bad move. I see that Du fellow doesn’t get along with my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law is very upset, always going on business trips after getting married.”
Between brotherhood, wife, and a woman he once liked, Tang Yuanyue would be troubled.
Xia Xiaolan had always felt that married couples were one unit, so it was normal for Tang Yuanyue to help He Zhitong.
Du Zhaohui didn’t think so – he just couldn’t stand seeing He Zhitong doing well.
But what could she say? Du Zhaohui was getting revenge for her – if she went to persuade Tang Yuanyue to treat his wife well, wouldn’t that be asking for trouble? Only a true white lotus would do such a thing.
Xia Xiaolan decided to thank Du Zhaohui in her way:
“Wait two more months, and I’ll make sure you’re very satisfied with this pocket money amount! Your pledge of Chengrong Group shares will bring rich returns!”
She would return one hundred million next year for the fifty million Du Zhaohui had lent her.
That was already a very high interest rate.
Apart from that, Du Zhaohui was still Qihang Capital’s second-largest shareholder, holding 30% of the shares. If Qihang Capital made 100 million in this stock market crash, at least 30 million would go to Du Zhaohui.
Of course, how much they could profit from the crash would depend on Xia Xiaolan’s operations!
After hearing Xia Xiaolan’s “guarantee,” Du Zhaohui felt choked. He had done many things for her, but this wasn’t the kind of gratitude he wanted – why wasn’t this woman following the usual script?
Any other woman would have been moved to fall into his arms by now-
Was he the kind of person who only cared about money?
-Xia Xiaolan underestimated him!
-Well, if she helped him make a lot of money, he was willing to be underestimated!