Returning wealthy individuals develop their hometowns and become rich in the 1980s

"I am Chen Zaixing!"

The bespectacled man in a suit holding the sign lowered it upon hearing Chen Zaixing's shout. He pulled down his glasses, revealing the whites of his eyes, and looked at Chen Zaixing and the excited Li Renfa with a mixture of disbelief and suspicion. He asked in Cantonese, "Are you Mr. Chen Zaixing?"

"I don't understand. Can you speak Tuocheng dialect?"

The man frowned, unable to understand Chen Zaixing's Tuocheng dialect either. Chen Zaixing had no choice but to ask again in Mandarin, "Do you know how to say 'boiled winter melon'?"

"One bouncy step!"

"Wait a minute," Chen Zaixing took out his cell phone from his bag and dialed Li Jiacheng's number. As soon as the call connected, Chen Zaixing laughed and said, "Uncle Li, it's me, Ah Xing. I've arrived at the Hong Kong border. Yes, yes, it's okay. The driver you sent can't understand our language, and I don't understand Cantonese either. We're just talking past each other!"

"I'm just afraid of getting on the wrong bus. Okay, I'll let the driver hear it." Chen Zaixing took the phone and gestured for the man to answer. The man nodded repeatedly and hung up the phone. He then spoke to Chen Zaixing in broken Mandarin, asking him to get in the car.

A few thugs squatting on the street nearby saw Chen Zaixing and his gang being picked up and put into a black Mercedes-Benz. One of them said, "Hey boss, this bastard isn't from our car dealership. How dare he come here to pick up customers? Should we go up and puncture his tires?"

"Are you stupid?" The boss slapped him on the back of the head and pointed at the black Mercedes that drove away, cursing, "That's a Mercedes. He's the boss's driver, here to pick someone up. Do you think he's one of those roadside chickens that you can bully?"

A black Mercedes drove past the group of thugs who were squatting down. The window rolled down, and Li Renfa spat a mouthful of phlegm right onto the foot of the thug who had said he was going to puncture the tires. The thug immediately jumped up in anger, pointing at the departing car and cursing, "What the hell are you talking about? You think you can just throw your money around like that?!"

Inside the car, Li Renfa turned to look at the thug jumping up and down on the roadside. Chen Zaixing asked with a wicked grin, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Li Renfa chuckled and wiped his mouth. "Who told him to glare at us just now? Besides, I'm just adding a touch of hometown flavor to the streets of Hong Kong."

The driver in front glanced at them in the rearview mirror, his lips twitched, but he held back from saying anything, thinking to himself that the two mainlanders his boss had sent to pick up were really not very well-mannered.

As the car entered the bustling street, the number of shops and pedestrians on both sides began to increase. Li Renfa had already forgotten about the little incident from earlier and started babbling in the car again.

"Zai Xing, look, that building is so tall!"

"Wow!"

"That building is taller!"

"Wow! What's that? And why is there a ball in it?"

Chen Zaixing ignored him, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes to rest, but his mind was not idle. He kept thinking about what to say, what to ask, and how to get Li Jiacheng to talk more when he met him later.

The car stopped in front of an inconspicuous building. The driver turned around and said to Chen Zaixing and his companion in the back seat in broken Mandarin, "Mr. Cheng, we've arrived."

Chen Zaixing opened his eyes and looked outside. The building was not tall, only a dozen stories high. The exterior walls were grayish-white, without any conspicuous signs. Compared with the surrounding high-rise buildings with glass curtain walls, it even looked a bit shabby.

The driver got out of the car and led Chen Zaixing and his companion into the building. They took the elevator to the tenth floor. As soon as they got out of the elevator, they saw a female secretary in a business suit sitting behind a wooden counter. Seeing the driver leading the people there, she assumed that this was the person her boss was waiting to see, so she put on a professional smile.

"Mr. Chen, Mr. Li, this way please," the female secretary said, placing her hand on her lower abdomen and politely gesturing for them to enter. She spoke in Mandarin that Chen Zaixing and his companion could understand.

Chen Zaixing and his companion followed behind the female secretary through an office area. The employees who had been staring at their computer screens looked over curiously when they saw Chen Zaixing and his companion being led in. Some even whispered among themselves, asking who had come, their faces full of gossip.

The female secretary led them to the innermost office, gently knocked on the door, and a calm voice came from inside, "Come in!"

Pushing open the door, Chen Zaixing saw a middle-aged man in his fifties, wearing black-rimmed glasses and a white shirt, sitting in the boss's chair, looking up at him. The female secretary said softly, "Boss, Mr. Chen and Mr. Li have arrived."

"Ah Xing," Li Jiacheng said with a smile as he stood up and called out to Chen Zaixing in Tuocheng dialect. He then reached out his hand to greet him. Chen Zaixing did not dare to be presumptuous and greeted him with a smile, calling him Uncle Li. Li Renfa also quickly followed suit.

"You must be tired from your journey. Please sit down, don't be shy," Li Jiacheng said, sitting down first and patting the sofa next to him, gesturing for Chen Zaixing to sit beside him. He then turned to his female secretary and said, "Mary, go and get out the top-quality Da Hong Pao tea I have in my closet."

"Okay, boss!"

"Uncle Li, there's no need for such good tea, we can just have some casual drinks," Chen Zaixing hurriedly waved his hand, saying it wasn't necessary. Li Jiacheng, however, smiled and said, "Relatives are visiting from my hometown, it wouldn't be right for me to serve you such cheap tea!"

"When your second great-uncle was alive, I had to call him Uncle Yu," Li Jiacheng began washing the teaware. "Now that you call me Uncle Li, I consider you my nephew. Don't stand on ceremony with me, Uncle Li!"

Chen Zaixing smiled and took out some local specialties from Tuocheng from his luggage, including Nanshan rice and Zhaoyang lard cakes. "Uncle Li, I didn't bring you any souvenirs. These are all local specialties from Tuocheng. Please try them."

"Wow, you're too kind. It's been so many years since I've had food from my hometown. Take this back for your aunt and your two younger brothers," Li Jiacheng said with a smile, nodding as he accepted the local specialties brought by Chen Zaixing. Once the female secretary brought the tea, the three of them sat on the sofa and drank the Da Hong Pao tea that Li Jiacheng had brewed.

The three chatted and drank tea. Li Jiacheng smiled at Chen Zaixing and asked bluntly, "Zaixing, I heard from Dong on the phone that you're thinking of developing real estate in Nanshan, Tuocheng?"

Chen Zaixing nodded, put down his teacup, and said, "Yes, I've found a piece of land in Nanshan District, more than 20 mu, next to our supermarket. The district wants to build housing for its officials, but they don't have the funds."

"I was thinking, could we learn from Shenzhen's model, where the government provides the land, I provide the money, and after the houses are built, I give a portion of them to the government and sell the rest?"

"Hmm," Li Jiacheng didn't immediately comment after listening, but nodded and asked, "Have you gone to see that piece of land?"

"I've seen it!"

"How much do you know about that piece of land?"

"Uh... I've watched it quite a few times..."

"I'm not asking how many times you've looked at it, but how you plan to develop this land," Li Jiacheng interrupted Chen Zaixing. "Twenty acres isn't that big, but building a residential complex on such a small plot is like making a temple in a snail shell; every single detail needs to be meticulously planned!"

Chen Zaixing looked intently at Li Jiacheng in front of him, listening quietly to his next sentence.