“I’m already expediting the company formation. We won’t use Yuanhui’s name for the land acquisition. Yuanhui should stay focused on the renovation industry for now – it’s best not to diversify too much,” Xia Xiaolan stated confidently. Heaven knew she still owed a heap of debt to the bank, hadn’t sorted out the company’s qualifications, and couldn’t even produce 100,000 yuan for registration, let alone one million. Ten thousand yuan wouldn’t be a problem though – with income from the clothing store, she wasn’t short on small cash flow.

The situation was quite dire, but she couldn’t show weakness in front of Secretary Peng.

Though she claimed to be close to Secretary Peng, Xia Xiaolan knew well that their relationship wasn’t nearly as solid as hers with Tang Hongen.

She suspected Secretary Peng was planning to leave Tang Hongen’s side for another position, which explained his change in attitude toward her. This was her chance to demonstrate strong capabilities and earn his trust.

Sure enough, Secretary Peng didn’t probe further, just waved his hand impatiently.

Xia Xiaolan chuckled: “I’ll leave this matter in your capable hands.”

Her request wasn’t excessive – she wasn’t eyeing prime real estate, just a stagnant pond. The Xiangmi Lake Resort would remain popular for years to come, and Harold’s golf course was a high-end project – how appropriate was it to have a fetid pond between them?

Secretary Peng acknowledged that while Xia Xiaolan was clever, she had never made unreasonable demands that would trouble Mayor Tang.

Most times, it was Mayor Tang who felt he could and wanted to help, giving Xia Xiaolan small assists.

She had firmly grasped both opportunities she’d been given – once with the municipal government guesthouse and once with the Nanhai Hotel – and had performed well so far, bringing no shame to Mayor Tang.

Rather than causing trouble, she brought face – Secretary Peng had no reason to refuse such a person.

When he took his new position, he would need to maintain good relations with Xia Xiaolan – at minimum, he couldn’t afford to offend her.

With this in mind, Secretary Peng’s expression softened:

“Alright, I’ll keep this in mind. As long as it complies with policies and regulations, acquiring the land shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll first inquire about the land’s ownership. I can’t decide the price alone – that depends on the municipal government’s opinion, but it shouldn’t be too expensive.”

Shenzhen intended to push forward with housing reform. If Xia Xiaolan acquired land according to policy and regulations, it wouldn’t count as pulling strings. From the leadership’s perspective, having Xia Xiaolan fire the first shot at housing reform was more trustworthy than giving the land to other companies.

At least so far, she hadn’t dropped the ball.

Xia Xiaolan was delighted to hear the land wouldn’t be too expensive.

After all her careful plotting to find this spot, wasn’t getting it cheap exactly what she wanted?

Xia Xiaolan happily returned with Ge Jian.

Back at the hotel, Mao Kangshan wasn’t there.

Seeing her return sweating, Madam Song said, “Little Xia, why are you pushing yourself so hard as a young woman?”

Xia Xiaolan gulped down a glass of water, “Master’s wife, working hard while young means enjoying life later. Besides, I’m not tired – doing what I love brings me joy.”

Each day brought new problems to solve.

It was like passing levels in a game – the sense of achievement from solving each problem was indescribable.

Xia Xiaolan wasn’t lying – she didn’t feel frustrated, but truly energized.

She loved having her own business, and building wealth from scratch – such days were deeply fulfilling.

People only overthink when idle. The saying that women bring drama comes from most women making themselves too comfortable. While men focus on career development, women waste time gossiping about others. Starting from the same point, after 5 or 10 years, they fall behind men in career development – then when men look down on them as useless, it’s partly women’s own doing.

Xia Xiaolan didn’t feel inferior to men.

Business success depends on brains, not brawn – she wasn’t competing at manual labor, so why couldn’t she soar?

Madam Song was somehow infected by her vibrant spirit.

Little Xia was different from Guosheng – she radiated vitality and threw herself completely into everything.

Guosheng wasn’t like that. In these days in Shenzhen, he only overthought things.

All day wondering if Little Xia was a fraud, if her company was real, where her million yuan came from… what use was all this thinking? Little Xia’s plans were laid out clearly, yet he refused to accept them, remaining rigid and hesitant, frozen in place – could merely thinking to change their unsatisfactory situation?

Though he was her son, Madam Song was deeply worried.

But she didn’t want to dump all the family’s troubles on Xia Xiaolan. She lowered her voice to tell her:

“I heard your master making calls in his room. Your company matters will surely be resolved. He’s not in the hotel – he went out!”

Xia Xiaolan had assumed Mao Kangshan had gone to the Nanhai Hotel construction site again.

From Madam Song’s tone, that wasn’t the case.

And Mao Guosheng wasn’t around either.

Father and son going out together was rare.

She had said before National Day, and Master Mao took the company matter to heart – it seemed things would be settled soon.

It was good timing that Xia Xiaolan had found suitable land early – better to get the company matters settled quickly.

But what about the 100 million yuan registration capital?

She wondered if her uncle could spare some money first.

She wasn’t joking this time – she needed several million yuan. Xia Xiaolan couldn’t conjure up millions, so her only play was the project payment Dongfeng Holdings owed to Yuanhui.

The building materials store was their own, so they could delay payments. With just a two-month gap, once she secured the land, she could pledge it to the bank for a loan to repay the project funds.

Construction costs weren’t a worry either – these commercial properties were essentially pre-sales.

Hong Kong people were used to buying “lou hua” – paying for properties before seeing them. Future pre-sale properties would be similar – they dared sell houses with just foundations laid, learned from Hong Kong.

To do 10 million in real estate didn’t require 10 million in cash from the developer.

Developers only needed land – if they could sell houses, they could make money using bank funds and buyers’ money from start to finish!

This was why future real estate companies would maintain high debt ratios – the sweetness of making money with others’ money easily made people lose their senses.

If banks tightened loans and broke the capital chain, real estate companies would be in dire straits.

“100 million registration capital? Fine, if you need it, I can move it to you!”

Liu Yong had always tried to meet Xia Xiaolan’s requests.

Xia Xiaolan felt slightly relieved. By evening, she met driver Wang. He came to deliver information – they had found the owner of the land she was eyeing.

“The Luo family from Ganquan Village?”

Wang nodded: “The Luo family has been village chiefs of Ganquan for two generations. They could hide this piece of land, but we don’t know their reason.”

There was compensation to be had – were they crazy to not take it?

That plot was over 20 mu.

Xia Xiaolan suddenly realized, “The village chief is called Luo Degui, and he has a son called Luo Yaozong.”

So that’s how it is!