The investment representative from Nanhai Hotel set the meeting date for Monday, May 20th.
Huo Chenzhou had originally given Yuanhui two weeks to revise the proposal, but Xia Xiaolan was too cautious and didn’t sign the contract in Pengcheng immediately, which compressed the revision time to just one week.
Huo Chenzhou wanted to teach the overconfident Xia Xiaolan a lesson, but he needed to keep her and Dongfeng Holdings in the same boat, so he had to endure her willful behavior.
After Huo Chenzhou left, Liu Yong took the new contract to Bank Manager Wu for evaluation.
Bank Manager Wu was also quite accommodating.
“Brother Liu, you’re doing quite substantial business here.”
Liu Yong’s company wasn’t state-owned. For a private company to take on projects worth millions was significant – Bank Manager Wu had never dealt with individual contractors of this scale before. No, this wasn’t just an individual contractor anymore, but a private enterprise owner.
For a 4 million contract, with the company and property as collateral, Bank Manager Wu could offer an 800,000 loan.
For a 7.5 million contract, even without the company and property as collateral, Bank Manager Wu could dare to loan 800,000. A project worth 7.5 million would surely generate at least 800,000 in profit. Bank Manager Wu asked Liu Yong if he wanted to borrow more, but Liu Yong shook his head:
“800,000 is enough. Any more would cause trouble on your end.”
Indeed, for loans exceeding 1 million, Bank Manager Wu didn’t have sufficient authority.
Xia Xiaolan had done the calculations for Liu Yong. According to Dongfeng Holdings’ payment terms, once construction began, 1.8 million would be deposited into Yuanhui’s account. The initial capital needed wasn’t much – from this perspective, Dongfeng Holdings was indeed doing Yuanhui a favor.
Bank Manager Wu handed the contract back to Liu Yong:
“Once your contract takes effect on Monday, I’ll process your loan.”
Liu Yong himself wasn’t certain.
Would the proposal that Xiaolan was revising be approved?
If approved, would it be the 16 million or the 30 million version?
These were all uncertain factors.
Only if Dongfeng Holdings won would Yuanhui have a chance to participate.
Otherwise, Yuanhui would have worked for nothing. Liu Yong even regretted the 20,000 yuan consulting fee – if the proposal wasn’t approved, he planned to pay it himself, not letting Xia Xiaolan waste both effort and money!
Bank Manager Wu was also worried for Liu Yong.
If they couldn’t secure this project, neither Liu Yong nor Xia Xiaolan would take out loans – who would he sell government bonds to?
Speaking of Xia Xiaolan, Bank Manager Wu remembered: “I found a storefront for her near Gulou. When will she come to sign the lease?”
Whether she took out a loan or not wouldn’t affect the opening of Blue Phoenix’s third store. This was Xia Xiaolan’s plan – from Xidan to Xiushui Street, then to Gulou, all three stores would be within the Second Ring Road. Only the north side was missing – Xia Xiaolan had almost encircled Beijing’s center. Bank Manager Wu wanted to ask what exactly she was planning!
Xia Xiaolan had no ulterior motives.
She just wanted to make money.
What was the point of opening stores so close together? Of course, she wanted to capture undeveloped markets. Among the four directions – east, south, west, and north – only the 1980s allowed her to choose where to open stores. Suitable storefronts could always be found.
Suitable management talent was harder to find. Those with real ability wouldn’t come work at a clothing store.
She could either search slowly or train people herself.
Unable to recruit college graduates, she would promote from current store employees. Xia Xiaolan had high hopes for Wang Lin, a shop assistant at the Xiushui Street branch who took the initiative to learn English.
Taking the initiative to improve oneself was a big advantage.
When the third store opened, Xia Xiaolan planned to let them compete for positions.
Xia Xiaolan signed the lease contract for the Gulou store over the weekend. She dragged Gong Yang out of bed after he had slept for a day and night at the guesthouse:
“Your work has come again!”
For Gong Yang, renovating a clothing store in Beijing wasn’t a problem, especially since Liu Yong had left Ge Jian behind. As for Liu Yong himself, he returned to Pengcheng right after Huo Chenzhou.
Regarding Xia Changzheng’s matter, Xia Xiaolan and Ge Jian tacitly avoided discussing it further. How the thugs had turned themselves in was already pushing the boundaries of legality – Xia Xiaolan wouldn’t bring it up herself.
She was safe.
Ge Jian was safe.
And her enemy was already in prison.
This was exactly the outcome Xia Xiaolan wanted!
…
In Pengcheng.
Following the company’s requirements, Xia Dajun ended his recovery period and officially started working. The doctors also encouraged him to walk more instead of relying on the wheelchair – as long as his body could handle it, he should walk more.
The company assigned Xia Dajun to a sinecure position.
Just delivering materials and such – he couldn’t handle anything more complex. Never mind whether the documents were in English or Traditional Chinese; even with Simplified Chinese, though he could recognize the characters, he couldn’t understand what the documents were trying to express.
Xia Dajun was completely unsuited for office work.
The manager was also troubled about how much salary to pay him next month.
The work Xia Dajun did could be done by an office tea lady – for several hundred yuan per month, people would be fighting for the position!
The manager wanted to ask Ah Hua, but Ah Hua had already returned to Hong Kong with Du Zhaohui.
With the young master not in Pengcheng, the manager could only let Xia Dajun continue working at the company until Ah Hua returned.
Xia Dajun was unaware that his career faced a huge crisis.
After various setbacks, he welcomed his second spring – after careful consideration, Xiao Yu had agreed to be with him!
When Xia Dajun brought Xiao Yu back to the rented house, Old Mrs. Xia criticized her from head to toe, while Xia Hongbing’s family was collectively dumbfounded.
Old Mrs. Xia saw that Xiao Yu was skinny and wondered if this young woman could bear sons.
Xia Hongbing was stunned – he had been counting on his second brother to support his entire family, but unexpectedly, his second brother had quietly brought back a new second sister-in-law!
With a new second sister-in-law, there would be children later.
Never mind if it was a daughter, but what if she had a son? Not everyone was as easy to manipulate as Liu Fen. What if the new second sister-in-law kept tight control of the second brother’s money…
Xia Dajun was unaware of his family’s undercurrents, “Mom, this is Xiao Yu. We’ve known each other for quite a while. Xiao Yu is from Henan Province’s Hedong County. We’ve agreed to live together from now on. Please meet your new daughter-in-law.”
Old Mrs. Xia had suffered a stroke, leaving her face twisted and her speech less fluent than before.
Whatever she asked, Xiao Yu only answered what she could. When Old Mrs. Xia heard that her family was poor and she came to Pengcheng to work, she was very displeased. She felt that now that Xia Dajun had made it, he could find someone with better conditions.
Being young and pretty was just a basic requirement; at minimum, she should have a formal job.
Her family didn’t need to be wealthy, but she couldn’t be a burden! She must bring advantages to the Xia family. They had been blind before, finding Liu Fen who couldn’t bear sons and whose family was dirt poor!
Xia Dajun thought he would have a better life than Liu Fen. Old Mrs. Xia dared to think bigger – not just better than Liu Fen, her son could even marry a cadre’s daughter. Xiao Yu’s circumstances were too poor.
However, since Xia Dajun had chosen her himself and liked her, and hearing that they would only return to their hometown at the end of the year to get their marriage certificate, Old Mrs. Xia didn’t voice any opposition – there was still half a year. Why should she object to having a free woman to do housework, sleep with Xia Dajun, and follow her orders?
Looking at this family, Xiao Yu had her thoughts.
Besides following Liu Tianquan’s instructions to get close to Xia Dajun, she also wanted to use Xia Dajun to secure her future. While Xia Dajun’s salary wasn’t low, he had to support such a large family… As Xiao Yu greeted the Xia family members gently, in her heart she was thinking about how to drive out these extra people!