Jiang City.

The Yangtze River, the world’s third-longest river, and its largest tributary, the Han River, cut through the city center, dividing the urban area into three parts. Known as the “Nine Provinces’ Thoroughfare,” the city had risen to prominence in modern times due to its unique location.

The first “Modern Chinese Architecture Creative Symposium” chose Jiang City as its venue. Like the commercial capital, this city served as a transportation hub, making it convenient for attendees from both north and south to participate in the symposium.

These days, any conference that covered accommodation and meals was considered good. Travel expenses would certainly not be reimbursed—the organizers didn’t have that much funding!

The arranged accommodation wasn’t expensive, but with Xia Xiaolan bringing two people along with just one invitation letter, staying at the organizer-provided guesthouse seemed a bit inappropriate—not only had Liu Fen come with her, but Xia Xiaolan had also brought along Gong Yang, the only designer currently at Yuan Hui.

“The invitation letter is an official pass, a credential for meals and accommodation. You’ll be able to get in when the conference starts.”

It wasn’t a conference involving state secrets; surely having a few extra observers at such a creative symposium would be acceptable. Xia Xiaolan had invested considerable effort in nurturing Gong Yang. Given Yuan Hui’s current circumstances, if someone could temporarily replace Gong Yang, she wouldn’t even mind him taking time off for further studies.

Liu Fen and Gong Yang were quite familiar with each other, as Gong Yang had supervised the construction of their house in the countryside.

The three of them now sat at a small food stall, each with a bowl of Jiang City’s hot dry noodles before them.

Gong Yang, sweating profusely as he ate, wiped his mouth and said, “Director Xia, bringing me along means extra expenses. I know attending the symposium will benefit me, so I’ll cover my costs for this Jiang City trip.”

When they went to find the guesthouse listed on the invitation letter, they discovered that one invitation letter only covered accommodation for one person, making Gong Yang the extra person.

Xia Xiaolan glanced at him: “Don’t worry, I haven’t planned to pay for your expenses personally—it will go through Yuan Hui’s accounts. This is the company’s investment in your development. You work for Yuan Hui, and naturally, Yuan Hui wants you to improve. There will be many more opportunities like this in the future.”

Liu Yong and Xia Xiaolan truly treated Gong Yang well.

Although he was a university student—the only one under Liu Yong—it was Xia Xiaolan who had guided him into the industry. While his art-related knowledge was pre-existing, it was Xia Xiaolan who had introduced him to architecture and interior decoration. Take the recent Nanhai Hotel project—Xia Xiaolan was the leader, Gong Yang the executor. Xia Xiaolan had paid Ning Yanfan 20,000 yuan as a consulting fee, and separately gave Gong Yang a 1,000 yuan project bonus.

This was the largest bonus Gong Yang had ever received.

For usual small projects, Gong Yang would receive performance bonuses ranging from 10 to 100 yuan for design proposals. The Nanhai Hotel project had a budget of 7.5 million yuan, with Xia Xiaolan and Liu Yong each earning hundreds of thousands… Gong Yang wasn’t dissatisfied with his 1,000 yuan bonus; he clearly understood that while he could independently handle small projects, he couldn’t secure large projects like the Nanhai Hotel just by drawing plans.

The real effectiveness came from Xia Xiaolan and Liu Yong.

Especially Xia Xiaolan, who had both the connections to secure such large projects and the capability to complete them.

Originally, they had decided to give the hotel decoration design credit to Ning Yanfan, but true to his reputation as a master, he was magnanimous and didn’t care about empty fame. In the end, he left the designer’s credit to Xia Xiaolan… This was how Director Xia gained the qualification to attend the symposium, and brought him along too.

Thinking about how all the attendees would be industry leaders made Gong Yang inevitably excited.

Xia Xiaolan couldn’t stand his unsophisticated behavior: “What are you nervous about? Haven’t you already met Ning Yanfan? Isn’t Old Ning easy to get along with?”

Gong Yang scratched the back of his head: “Not everyone can be as approachable as Master Ning. Director Xia, you’re different—you’re properly trained in architecture. I’m just an outsider who crossed over…”

Oh heavens, while others would introduce themselves as graduates of certain university architecture departments, currently working at design institutes, or simply teaching at universities, what would Gong Yang say—that he was from the Commercial University’s Fine Arts Department?

Xia Xiaolan wanted to scoff at him.

“You’re right, I’m just a small seedling!”

Properly trained? Nonsense. Sure, she was from Hua Qing’s Architecture Department, but so what? She had just finished her first year and hadn’t even started her second.

Probably even the attendees’ assistants had more experience than Xia Xialan.

Only Ning Xue, her classmate, was similar—though also an undergraduate, she had entered the industry early.

But Xia Xiaolan wasn’t insecure; she hadn’t come to confront anyone.

She wanted to experience the current top academic level in China’s architectural field and become familiar with people at the symposium. Building relationships was never an overnight process—even when approaching with money, having some prior connection made things easier.

With this in mind, Xia Xiaolan decided to stay at the organizer-provided guesthouse after all, covering her mother’s and Gong Yang’s accommodation costs herself!

The conditions weren’t great.

But there was a notable advantage—nearly every guest in the guesthouse was attending the symposium. Except for Xia Xiaolan, anyone you picked out could be an industry leader.

Even among the leaders, there were differences. Top-tier masters like Ning Yanfan only arrived in Jiang City on the evening of the 19th.

By then, she had already taken her mother and Gong Yang to try several local delicacies and had roughly toured Jiang City.

After a day of eating and sightseeing in Jiang City, when returning to the guesthouse that evening, Xia Xiaolan happened to run into Ning Yanfan’s group.

Contrary to Xia Xiaolan’s expectation that he would bring seven or eight assistants, Ning Yanfan was accompanied only by Ning Xue and Xu Yuejin.

“Master Ning, Ning Xue, Senior Xu, I’ve been wondering when you would arrive!”

Xu Yuejin thought, while he hadn’t noticed any particular talent, her thick skin certainly surpassed Ning Xue’s. Seeing Xia Xiaolan reminded him of the terror of having to produce two proposals per week under her direction.

Ning Yanfan nodded, “You arrived quite early.”

Xia Xiaolan smiled brightly: “Master Ning, I must thank you for getting me an invitation letter, allowing me to attend the symposium.”

The ‘infinity pool’ was a highlight.

But she had been unknown before, and the Nanhai Hotel hadn’t opened to the public yet—no one in the industry knew she was the designer. Even if they did know, a single work wouldn’t have attracted attention. It was through Ning Yanfan’s help that Xia Xiaolan could attend this creative symposium, and she was well aware of this!

Xu Yuejin’s expression softened somewhat.

Old Ning would never take credit for young people’s work.

But there was a difference between the master not taking credit and young people showing gratitude.

Ning Yanfan smiled: “The invitation letter is a small matter. You truly have talent, though you might not have realized it yet.”

Talent?

Xia Xiaolan remained silent. The concept of the ‘infinity pool’ wasn’t her original creation—she had just taken advantage of her foreknowledge to introduce a future hotel industry trend early. Only when she had her own original work would she know if she had talent… Being a businessperson didn’t conflict with being an architect; she could apply professional knowledge to business and use business to nurture her profession.

A group of people came down the corridor, with the leader wearing a broad smile: “Master Ning, you’ve finally arrived! We were just talking about you, about how you still like to promote young people, like giving an invitation letter to some new junior we’ve never heard of before. Which design institute are they from?”

The so-called new junior—Xia Xiaolan, who had completed her first year but not yet started her second year at Hua Qing’s Architecture Department—stood quietly to the side, as if they weren’t talking about her at all.

What was a design institute anyway? Could you eat it?