Chapter 84: The Parting That Would Come Sooner or Later
By the time breakfast was over, Xiao Liang had explained the entire background of the Xiao Yujun case and Nanting Lake Juice Factory.
He Xueqing made her decision on the spot: she would go upstairs to say a word to her parents, then bring her heavy suitcase and leave for Yunshe with Xiao Liang and the others.
She had indeed already submitted her resignation to the newspaper. Although it had not yet been formally approved, she had taken an extended leave. Originally, she had planned to spend some time sorting out the sudden chaos of her life.
Seeing that Xiao Liang had actually managed to bring He Xueqing straight to Yunshe, Zhang Feili—who was on fairly familiar terms with her—took her directly to stay at her parents’ house.
Everyone was stunned.
By now, of course, they could all guess that He Xueqing had suffered some family crisis and had come to Yunshe partly out of desperation, as if she had nothing left to lose. What they couldn’t understand was how Xiao Liang could have known about it in advance.
…
…
On the eighteenth and top floor of Xinhua Tong Tower, Le You knocked once, then pushed open the door to Xu Jianqiang’s office.
Seeing Xu Jianqiang seated behind his broad executive desk, speaking on the phone, Le You walked to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a small glass of whisky. He took an ice bucket from the mini fridge, dropped a few cubes into the glass, then sprawled with his legs crossed on a pale yellow calfskin sofa, sipping slowly.
When he heard Xu Jianqiang asking someone over the phone about Nanting Lake Juice Factory, he waited until the call ended, then gave a dismissive laugh.
“You’re already a big boss. Don’t tell me you were actually taken in by that kid’s grandstanding and empty talk?”
After that night of tea, Xu Jianqiang had told Le You about the conversation when he returned to Dongzhou.
It wasn’t because he wanted to betray Sui Jing, nor because he wanted to discuss inviting Xiao Liang to join Fanhua. He was merely worried that Sun Feifei or Sui Jing might not think much of it and accidentally mention it in front of Le You first.
That would have put him in an awkward position.
Le You had not personally witnessed Xiao Liang’s talk that night, but knowing that Sui Jing had found an excuse to ditch him, only to drag Sun Feifei off afterward to drink tea with Yuan Wenhai and Xiao Liang, left him sour and deeply uncomfortable.
In his heart, he became even more convinced that Xiao Liang was nothing but a flashy talker with no substance.
So what if he graduated from a prestigious university? After graduation, he had still been kicked down to the township level and worked there for two years. What real ability could he possibly have?
Perhaps in forgotten corners like Yunshe or Nanting Village, a prestigious university degree carried a dazzling halo by default. After all, in such rural backwaters, they might not even be able to find three or five graduates from top schools.
But across Dongzhou as a whole, there were at least eighty to a hundred such graduates every year. Le You didn’t believe any of them deserved to be looked up to by someone at his level.
In this era, success ultimately depended on family background, connections, and influence. What use was education?
Le You still remembered his high school class monitor. When the man had first been admitted to Moling University, he had been so proud his tail practically pointed to the sky. But after three or four years of society beating him down, every time they met at class reunions, had he ever dared sit fully in his chair in front of Le You?
Of course, Le You did not think he was the emperor of heaven, unmatched under the sky. He knew there were many people in the world before whom he should remain humble.
But clearly, that person could not be some pretentious little nobody crawling out of a township corner.
“Nothing of the sort.”
Xu Jianqiang walked to the liquor cabinet and poured himself half a glass of whisky as well. Naturally, he had no intention of arguing with Le You, nor of trying hard to persuade him.
He merely smiled lightly and said, “The person I just called is a friend working in Xijiang. We happened to talk about how aggressively Nanting Lake Juice has been advertising there recently, so we chatted a little more.”
“What about the Shishan project? Should we meet Zhou Kangyuan in the next couple of days?”
Le You asked.
“Zhou Kangyuan’s secretary, Yuan Tong, has been following me around since we were kids. He knows how to behave. His father, Yuan Weishan, is director of the municipal government office, and he and Zhou Kangyuan were once comrades in the same company in the army. Their relationship is solid. I think we can first approach Zhou Kangyuan directly. If there’s difficulty, we can ask my father to put in a word with Yuan Weishan and Zhou Kangyuan. It’s only a matter of how much profit we give up.”
“The Shishan project may not be urgent,” Xu Jianqiang said with a frown.
“Yesterday, I went back to the provincial capital and spoke with Sun Yangjun. I also met with several senior people from the provincial banks. Central policy is locked down extremely tightly now. Several provincial banks have already begun urging real estate companies to repay loans early, to avoid crossing the red line set by the central government. At most, we can hold out until our loans mature. Renewing them next year will be very difficult, never mind expanding the loans. As for when policy might loosen again, no one knows. It could be one or two years. It could be three or five.”
Xu Jianqiang had resigned from public office and, to avoid conflicts of interest, had not stayed in the provincial capital, Moling, to develop his business.
At the time, Dongzhou happened to have a suitable project, so he sought cooperation with the Le family, which was deeply rooted in Dongzhou.
He himself had known Le You for several years. In the end, Le You handled land allocation, company affiliation, project approvals, and other matters in Dongzhou, while Xu Jianqiang was responsible for securing funding and construction.
Over two and a half years, they had built a twin-tower complex south of Changqiao in Dongzhou’s urban district, with a total floor area exceeding thirty thousand square meters.
But in this era, finishing construction on two towers was not the end. The real key was digesting the property afterward.
Of course, under Xu Jianqiang’s management, leasing had gone rather well. Banks, hotels, restaurants, shops, and various companies had already moved in. This year’s rental income was basically enough to cover financial and operating costs, including bank interest.
However, if Fanhua Construction wanted to repay its bank loans and pocket substantial profits, it still needed to sell the more than thirty thousand square meters of property in Xinhua Tong Tower completely.
That required time.
Under normal circumstances, during a property sales cycle, bank loans could be sustained in various ways—borrowing new to repay old, or expanding loans under new names.
Unfortunately, even with Xu Jianqiang and Le You’s family backgrounds, things could not always go their way.
Since the end of last year, the state had comprehensively tightened financial institutions’ lending to real estate. Not only had new loans become extremely strict, but maturing loans were also forbidden from being casually extended. This was a reality neither Xu Jianqiang nor Le You could reverse.
Fanhua Construction now had to accelerate property sales and increase cash recovery on one hand, while searching by every means possible for new sources of capital to replace the bank loans maturing next year.
“There’s really no room for flexibility from the provincial banks?” Le You asked, frowning.
“I originally wanted to ask my old man to step in. But when I went home, he gave me a lecture instead. He said if I couldn’t solve problems myself, I should clean up the mess and get back,” Xu Jianqiang said with a bitter smile.
“I was optimistic about the Shishan project from the start and put a lot of effort into it. But unfortunately, Fanhua is already stretched just trying to digest Xinhua Tong Tower. Unless we can resolve part of the funding in Dongzhou…”
“…”
Le You did not take the bait.
He thought to himself: he had handled the project approvals and opened up every link in Shishan, and in the end, they still wanted him to come forward and solve the funding problem too? If that were the case, why wouldn’t he take the entire project himself instead of cooperating with someone else?
“There’s always a way,” Le You said lightly, not in any hurry to reveal his true thoughts.
“Your old man is something else. If he’d agreed to let you develop in the provincial capital back then, the scene would be far bigger than Dongzhou. Now he won’t even help smooth things over for something as important as funding. Why make things hard for his own family?”
“I already fell out with him once when I resigned from public office,” Xu Jianqiang said with a helpless shrug. “The old man refuses to accept that the times have changed. In this era of bold construction and rapid expansion, how many people around us have the patience to wait until they’re in their forties before fighting for a chance to stand on their own?”
“You’re really not going to Shishan?” Le You stood and asked.
“You keep in contact with Shishan for now. Maybe an opportunity will come. But I need to focus my energy here first. This is our foundation.”
Xu Jianqiang smiled as he watched Le You leave his office. Once the door closed, his expression grew serious.
Even if the bank loans matured next year and property sales remained weak, it wasn’t as if Xu Jianqiang had no way to resolve the funding gap. No matter how coldhearted his father was, when the time came, he wouldn’t truly sit by and watch Fanhua collapse.
What Xu Jianqiang needed now was an excuse to hand over the Shishan project.
Of course, that didn’t mean the commercial building project at No. 11 Jiefang Road in Shishan County was genuinely poor in prospects.
He had identified that project early on. After approval, he had also conducted preliminary talks with several commercial partners about moving in. It could be considered a good project with relatively clear profit prospects.
But if giving it up could push Le You to make up his mind and part ways with him, Xu Jianqiang did not mind handing it over.
He had now realized that Le You—who preferred gathering people to talk grandly about projects but had no patience to manage teams and operations in a down-to-earth manner—was not a good partner. A peaceful separation would be the best outcome.
The question was: where should Fanhua Construction’s path forward lie?
After the central government abruptly tightened policy, the previously overheated property markets in places like Hainan had become a wasteland of wreckage and corpses. The real estate markets in inland provinces and cities were also filled with a bleak, chilling atmosphere.
Xu Jianqiang was deeply uncertain about Fanhua’s future. The industry was full of conflicting voices.
That night over tea, Xiao Liang had not mentioned his judgment of the real estate industry’s future. Even after speaking nonstop for more than an hour, there had been no way to go deeply into commercial real estate.
Still, Xu Jianqiang had at least never met anyone in the industry who could sort out the logic and structure of the sector so clearly.
That clearly could not be explained away as mere empty talk.
Of course, Xiao Liang had declined his invitation that day and had no intention of joining Fanhua. Xu Jianqiang could not shamelessly pester him.
During this period, whenever he had the opportunity, Xu Jianqiang used various channels to learn more about Xiao Liang and Nanting Lake Juice Factory.
There were no particularly professional investigation firms in this era, and what Xu Jianqiang could learn in bits and pieces was actually limited.
He had gained a rough understanding of the Xiao Yujun case, as well as Xiao Liang’s entry into Nanting Lake Juice Factory, the rebuilding of the sales team, and his main role in overseeing market promotion in Xijiang.
Even these surface-level facts were enough to prove that, young as Xiao Liang was, he was not merely a gifted talker—he also had an extremely strong ability to lead a team.
Xu Jianqiang had also learned that in early August, Xiao Liang had formally registered a new company called Suyun Biotechnology, mainly to take over Nanting Lake Juice Factory’s external marketing and sales operations.
By now, Xu Jianqiang naturally understood that Xiao Liang registering a personal company meant he had personal ambitions. He was not narrow-minded enough to feel displeased by that.
But one thing puzzled him greatly.
Suyun Biotechnology had placed its actual headquarters in Yunshe Town. Xu Jianqiang had heard that over the past month, Suyun Biotechnology had already recruited forty to fifty employees, mainly salespeople, and was even recruiting sales staff in Xijiang.
Even so, the recruitment advertisements Suyun Biotechnology had placed in the Dongzhou Evening News and Xijiang Morning Post had not stopped as of today. It seemed they intended to keep hiring salespeople continuously.
Nanting Lake Juice Factory had limited production capacity, and Shishan County’s fruit resources were also limited.
Xu Jianqiang could not understand what this newly registered Suyun Biotechnology planned to do with so many salespeople.
After sitting behind his desk in thought for a while, Xu Jianqiang picked up the phone and dialed his secretary’s internal line.
“Sister Zhou, come with me to Yunshe later. I’m going to see a friend…”
