Chapter 803 — The Orphanage Negotiation

Wei Zhao had said nothing, but given Tang Yun's temperament, she found it outrageous all the same.

Mother Tang shook her head and turned to her daughter. "By the way, you still haven't told me — those two girls from yesterday, what are they to Wei Zhao?"

"My rivals in love. Both of them are richer than me, and they're about to squeeze me out. Satisfied?" Tang Yun said bitterly. She stood up and ran to the washroom off the ward, where she wept her heart out alone.

"Rivals in love?" Mother Tang was taken aback. "That doesn't seem quite right."

Qibing Real Estate had paid out nearly double its budget today. True, even at that rate of compensation the company could still turn a profit — but so much had already been sunk into building Qibing Tower that the profits from the shantytown development fell far short of covering the losses on those two towers.

As things stood, holding the profit on the whole shantytown project somewhere between thirty and fifty million would already be a fine result; anything more was out of the question. The original budget had counted on earning enough to put up one tower, and now that Wei Zhao had stepped in, the dream was dead.

Zhao Qibing sat in his motorhome, and the news left him seething. Both his legs were broken, so he had not shown his face at the demolition site this time; instead he sat far off in the RV by the roadside, directing everything from a distance.

"My career has barely begun and I've already lost two hundred million — one project can't even recoup it. What is the Zhao family going to think of me?" Zhao Qibing glared at Li Cihua. He had slid into a half-deranged state; the old ambition of building something grand to show off had utterly collapsed. Now, so long as he did not lose money, that was good enough.

"Young Master Bing, Wei Zhao as an unstable factor — no one could have foreseen that. Who could have guessed Songshan City would suddenly produce a figure like him?" Li Cihua sighed as well. The days when he had commanded the wind and rain in Songshan City were gone. Now Li Cihua was less than nothing in Wei Zhao's eyes — Wei Zhao did not even bother to look at him.

"Wei Zhao, just you wait. I won't let you off!" Zhao Qibing clenched his fists with savage force.

"Young Master Bing, could we not speak to the boss, ask him to send some real experts and have Wei Zhao killed?" Li Cihua hesitated, but made the suggestion in the end. Wei Zhao's arrival had made Li Cihua timid in everything he did, and he loathed the feeling.

"I'll ask..." Zhao Qibing vaguely knew something of the agreements and the mutual restraints among the hidden clans: Earth-rank experts were not permitted to appear at will in the mundane world, and any hidden clan that broke the pact would become the enemy of all the rest.

Zhao Qibing did not know whether the pact was real or false. In any case, no hidden clan had broken the rule yet, and it was a fact that no Earth-rank expert had ever been seen in the mundane world.

"But my father is already quite displeased with me. The pressing task is to build the company up — once I have results to show, everything else will be easy!" Zhao Qibing was in no position to ask his father either. He had accomplished nothing; how could he ask his father to dispatch an expert to assist him?

"With Wei Zhao meddling in the shantytown affair, there's no way for us to make much profit. And we can't cut corners when we put up the buildings — that concerns our reputation. If someone exposed it, our apartments would be impossible to sell!" Li Cihua knew that anyone who wanted a business that lasted could not play games with the quality of the buildings.

"Have you made any contact about the orphanage? That plot looks good to me — big, and better located than the shantytown. Tear it down and put up a high-end villa district — that would be nice!" Zhao Qibing said.

"No contact yet. It was only decided these past two days, wasn't it? I was planning to go and sound them out in a little while!" Li Cihua replied.

"It's just a private orphanage. Put out a few harsh words and I doubt they'll dare resist!" Zhao Qibing said. "Here's the plan — in a bit, we'll go negotiate with them together!"

"Fine. Bring a few of Zhong Fabai's men along as well, to overawe them!" Li Cihua nodded in agreement.

Once the matter was settled, a little later Zhao Qibing, Li Cihua and Zhong Fabai set out with a pack of black-clad underlings — apart from the two who had been crippled by Wei Zhao's kicks and already sent to hospital — and arrived in grand procession at the private orphanage in the shantytown.

A Mercedes-Benz motorhome, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, and two Jinbei vans suddenly appeared in the orphanage's courtyard. Such a convoy had never been seen here, and it frightened the children playing in the yard out of their wits.

Li Cihua pushed Zhao Qibing down out of the motorhome, while Zhong Fabai and the black-clad thugs took their places one by one on either side of Li Cihua and Zhao Qibing, like a detail of close guards.

"Get the person in charge here out where I can see him!" Zhong Fabai snarled at the children.

"Who are you people? What do you do?" Xiaoken heard the noise from the courtyard and came running out of the orphanage's red-brick house. The sight of that lineup startled him badly as well.

"Is there anyone here who can speak for this place?" Zhong Fabai did not deign to notice Xiaoken; he was not about to talk to a child.

The old director was in Yu Xiaoke's room, sitting with her and chatting, when he heard the clamor from the courtyard. He hurried out with Yu Xiaoke and came into the orphanage yard, where he saw Li Cihua, Zhao Qibing and the others, along with a crowd of black-clad thugs. His heart jumped in his chest.

"I am the director here. What business brings you gentlemen?" The old director gave Li Cihua a cold look, thinking the man looked somewhat familiar. That said, he turned to Xiaoken. "Xiaoken, take the children back inside. There's nothing for you here!"

"Yes, Director." Xiaoken did not dare disobey, and quickly led the other children away. He knew as well that this was not a matter for children to meddle in.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Li Cihua, and this is Young Master Zhao Qibing, chairman of Qibing Real Estate!" Li Cihua announced his own name first, then introduced Zhao Qibing.

"Li Cihua? So you are the famous Li Cihua of Songshan City's underworld!" The old director had finally recognized who had come. "But I wonder, Boss Li, what brings you to my little orphanage?"

"I've taken a fancy to this plot of land of yours. Name your price!" Zhao Qibing was growing impatient. He was burning to have his way, and any roundabout maneuvering struck him as a waste of time; he wanted the land in his hands as fast as possible.

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