Chapter 39: Hundreds of Millionaires
“Lu, did you see how much my shooting has improved?”
A young man clad in special operations gear stood a hundred meters away, waving his assault rifle with pride as he flashed Lu Ye a thumbs-up.
Lu Ye curled his lip. “Huang Yu, you shot a hair off my head. Pay up!”
Huang Yu laughed. “It’s late, what brings you here? Something urgent?”
Lu Ye tossed him a portable hard drive. “All highly classified research data. Get it back to the Bureau overnight.”
Huang Yu nodded. “Anything else, bro?”
“There is.”
Swish!
Before the words had even faded, Lu Ye blurred forward, sprinted to Huang Yu’s side, and hoisted him upside down.
Smack, smack, smack!
Poor Huang Yu, standing over six feet tall, found himself dangling as Lu Ye gave his backside a thorough spanking.
“If you ever dare shoot near my head again, I swear I’ll stick a rocket launcher where the sun doesn’t shine!”
Huang Yu flushed in shame. “Sorry, I was wrong, bro!”
...
“Lazybones, get up already. I’m driving you to work!”
So much for yesterday’s affectionate address—today, the handsome man’s endearment lasted only a day.
Lu Ye groggily rolled out of bed to brush his teeth and wash up. He didn’t even have time for breakfast before Su Qianqian dragged him, half-alive, into the car.
The Koenigsegg roared out of the driveway, dropped Lu Ye off at Su Group, and only then did Su Qianqian head to her own Yiren Group for work.
Why was this older woman so attentive?
Because Su Group and Yiren Group weren’t on the same route at all—she simply wanted an excuse to drive an extra dozen kilometers each day, just to show off her new car.
Lu Ye entered the Su Group’s lobby, only to be greeted by a demure, refined young secretary who bowed slightly. “President Lu, here are yesterday’s financial statements for your review. If there are no issues, may I have your signature?”
President Lu?
Heh, did everyone hear that?
She called him President Lu!
“Wait a minute, shouldn’t Old Su be the one signing these?” he asked.
The secretary replied, “Mr. Su is on leave for a few days. He’s instructed that you have full authority over all company matters.”
Lu Ye stared, then muttered, “Damn, didn’t think he’d hand things off even more thoroughly than I would.”
Nevertheless, he picked up a pen and scribbled his signature across the statements.
Stepping into what used to be Su Shiming’s office, he swept the curtains aside—
Outside the frameless floor-to-ceiling windows sprawled half the cityscape of Mingzhu, a view that gave one an exhilarating sense of command.
Say what you will, but the occasional experience of being a chairman was quite satisfying.
Suddenly, Su Qianqian called the office: “Lazybones, the Jiangbei development project has officially begun. Xu Fugui put me in charge and even had his people deliver Fugui Real Estate’s official seal. Tell me—how should we deal with him?”
“Let me think for a second.”
Setting the phone aside, Lu Ye pondered.
Mingzhu was split by a great river: the southern bank, Jiangnan, held the city’s economic core; the northern, Jiangbei, was nearly half shantytown—one might call it a slum, with property prices not even a tenth of the southern district’s.
The rest was mostly undeveloped wasteland.
Xu Fugui clearly intended to scoop up this wasteland on the cheap and build a new district to rival Jiangnan…
Snap!
Lu Ye suddenly snapped his fingers and picked up the receiver, grinning. “Got it!”
“Darling, send some people to Jiangbei’s shantytowns with red spray paint. Mark each house with a big ‘Demolish’ character. As for the land acquisition compensation contracts—just fill in extra zeros with your eyes closed. Fugui Real Estate’s name is on the project, so make them pay for it!”
“Once the land’s acquired and construction starts, subcontract all the work to our own people. Add extra zeros to the project sums—Xu Fugui can afford it!”
“If cash flow gets tight, don’t forget you have their official seal. Just use Fugui Real Estate’s name to get hefty loans from the bank—add a few more zeros to those as well!”
Hiss!
On the other end, Su Qianqian gasped. “You really mean to bankrupt Xu Fugui?”
“No kidding. Did you think I was joking?”
“Hahaha, I’ll get right on it!”
After hanging up, Su Qianqian decided she had to savor the thrill herself.
She donned a hard hat and led a formidable land acquisition team straight to Jiangbei.
“Open up! Land acquisition!”
“What? You don’t want to move?”
“Ten million per square meter. Will you sell or not?”
Other developers cut corners and tried to lowball prices. Only Su Qianqian feared paying too little—offering prices in the tens of thousands, sometimes over a hundred thousand, per square meter.
A heaven-sent chance to get rich overnight—anyone who refused would be a fool!
Word spread like wildfire throughout the shantytown.
“Did you hear? Fugui Real Estate is buying up land for a new district—offering over a hundred thousand a square meter!”
“Is that reliable?”
“I already sold! My rundown two-story place was over a hundred square meters—I pocketed twenty-three million. I’m a multimillionaire now!”
“Damn, is the project manager burning cash for fun?”
“Who cares? Rich and dumb—let him be!”
“Lao Xu, hurry home and get your wife to grab the property deed. If you don’t sell before Fugui Real Estate runs out of cash, you’ll regret it!”
“Right, right!”
Money truly paved the way.
Every old house in the shantytown was emblazoned with a bright red “Demolish.”
In less than a day, Su Qianqian had bought up the entire district, a floodgate of eighty billion yuan pouring out without pause.
That night, every engineering team under Yiren and Su Group mobilized. Hundreds of excavators flattened the shantytown, and construction began at breakneck speed—no groundbreaking ceremony needed.
Though overnight shifts were grueling, every worker beamed with joy: five times their usual pay, triple night-shift bonuses—one month here was worth over half a year elsewhere.
Su Qianqian stood by the river, gazing at her handiwork, her heart swelling with accomplishment.
“After hanging around that rascal so long, I’m starting to pick up his mischief!”
The next day.
Xu Fugui was sprawled on a luxury hotel bed, an obscure starlet in his arms, sleeping soundly.
Suddenly, his phone rang, startling him awake.
“Xu Shao, something terrible has happened!” his assistant cried, panic in his voice.
Xu Fugui, cranky from being roused, barked, “You idiot! Do you know what time it is? I just went to sleep—unless the sky is falling, don’t bother me!”
His assistant pressed on. “Sir, the Jiangbei project—something’s gone wrong!”
Xu Fugui snapped, “Su Qianqian is in charge! Whatever it is, talk to her!”
The assistant hesitated. “Anything she wants?”
“Yes!”
He tossed his phone aside and went back to sleep, unaware that Fugui Real Estate’s debt ratio was skyrocketing.
All of the company’s liquid assets had already been paid out as compensation to the relocated residents.
Su Qianqian then took out several billion in loans from every bank in Mingzhu, using Fugui Real Estate’s official seal. The banks, trusting the financial clout of the Xu family in the capital, approved the loans at lightning speed.
All the equipment and materials for construction were supplied at inflated prices by Yiren Group and Su Group.
Even so, their stocks alone couldn’t meet such vast demand.
Su Qianqian brought in Zhang Yunjie—now Lu Ye’s loyal lackey—so Yunjie Materials could share the profits. Everyone got a piece of the pie.
Those who’d received compensation money grinned as wide as chrysanthemums, while both the Zhang and Su families made a killing—everyone was delighted.
Xu Fugui slept till noon, only to hear the starlet beside him exclaim,
“Wow, Mingzhu has produced hundreds of multimillionaires overnight!”