After breaking up with my boyfriend, I made a fortune and rose rapidly in my career.

He stuffed the kraft paper envelope into his pocket, the orange-red planning markings still lingering in Chen Ping's mind.

The application for commercial and residential land in Changning District was submitted just last week.

The site selection plan for the second phase of Chipfire was only finalized last month, and fewer than ten people knew about it. It's incredible that someone was able to start working on it two weeks in advance; the timing was impeccable.

This is clearly because someone inside leaked the information.

Chen Ping flattened the envelope and sent Zhang Chao a message: "Tomorrow morning at seven o'clock, get the car ready, and go to the reserved land at the border of the High-tech Zone and Changning District."

After sending the message, he put away his phone and walked back into the corridor, already planning what to do next.

---

The two cars were parked at the end of a dirt road in the eastern suburbs of Changning District, just as dawn was breaking.

Chen Ping had looked at this plot of land on the blueprints countless times. As a reserved area for industrial land expansion, it borders the High-tech Zone to the north, has flat terrain, and is adjacent to a provincial highway, making logistics convenient. It was the top choice for building the second phase of the Xinhuo factory; there was no better option.

But the scene before them was completely different from the black and white drawings on paper.

The loess soil was densely covered with saplings, arranged in neat rows, their roots still covered with fresh soil. They stretched for hundreds of meters from the roadside, seemingly endless. The saplings were not tall, only about the thickness of a wrist, but their sheer number was astonishing.

Zhang Chao squatted down, pinched a handful of soil from the tree root, and rubbed it between his fingertips.

"I just watered it last night, the soil is still wet."

Chen Ping stood beside the sapling, took a few steps further in, and said nothing.

He was very familiar with this method. As long as trees were planted on the land, additional compensation for the saplings would be required during land expropriation; the more trees, the more money.

He took out his phone, snapped a few photos of the saplings, and then turned to the other side.

They've even stopped pretending over there.

An illegal building with a roof covered in half-buried asbestos tiles and a pile of red bricks lying at the entrance.

Zhang Chao walked around and returned to Chen Ping's side.

"With these saplings added, the demolished houses will generate at least three to four million more."

That's just a small fraction.

Chen Ping put away his phone, stepped onto a patch of freshly turned, loose soil, and sank in.

"Once the land is changed from industrial to commercial and residential, the appraised value will be on a completely different level. The current residential land price in Changning District is astronomical compared to this industrial reserved land."

Zhang Chao didn't say anything more, turned around and walked towards the car, his steps much faster than when he came.

Chen Ping took one last look at the saplings and the half-built illegal structure before turning away.

"Go to the Changning District Government."

---

The receptionist led the two to a small conference room on the third floor, poured them tea, and said that the district head was in a meeting and asked them to wait a moment.

The first cup of tea had gone completely cold before someone came in to change the hot water and brew a fresh cup.

Zhang Chao played on his phone for an hour and forty minutes, opening and closing the notebook in front of him without writing a single word.

Chen Ping leaned back in his chair and looked around the four walls of the conference room. His gaze finally settled on a map of Changning District’s 14th Five-Year Plan hanging on the west wall.

He stood up and walked over, getting closer to the lower left corner of the picture, where he saw an area circled in red with a line of small print next to it.

"Changning Eco-friendly and Livable Demonstration Area (Phase I)".

Phase 1.

Since there's already a phase, there will definitely be a second and third phase. Ma Guoliang wants more than just this piece of land; he wants to make this land acquisition and rezoning method a model before he retires from the second-tier city, and to acquire all the land he can.

The fact that the planning maps are already hanging on the wall shows that this was not a spur-of-the-moment idea, but something that had been planned long ago.

Chen Ping silently noted down the coordinates, turned around and sat down, picked up the third cup of tea that had already gone cold, and took a sip.

Two hours later, the sound of leather shoes approaching came from the corridor, and the conference room door was pushed open from the outside.

The man who entered was nearly sixty years old. His hair was neatly combed, his back was slightly hunched, and a provincial model worker badge was pinned to the lapel of his suit. As soon as he entered, he smiled at Chen Pingfang. The smile was very smooth, clearly honed in the ways of officialdom.

He is Ma Guoliang, the district head of Changning District, a retired cadre at the level of a division chief, who will probably retire to the second line in about a year.

"Director Chen, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. I had one meeting after another this morning and just couldn't get away. I'm so sorry."

Ma Guoliang sat down in the main seat and, before Chen Ping could speak, picked up his teacup and took a sip, firmly grasping the initiative.

"I know why you're here today, it's about the land issue for the second phase of Corefire."

He put the teacup back on the table, then spread his hands out on the table, adopting a very relaxed posture.

"Director Chen, the land belongs to our Changning District, and the planning was approved by the city. You want to acquire the land?"

He paused for a moment, then slowly but clearly spoke the last half of the sentence, word by word.

"Let's discuss it based on commercial land prices."

The meeting room fell silent immediately.

Zhang Chao rested the corner of his notebook on the edge of the table, didn't write anything, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the blank pages.

Chen Ping put down his teacup, moved his chair forward, looked at Ma Guoliang's face across from him, and didn't rush to speak.

He waited there for two hours, drank four cups of cold tea, and was thoroughly chilled. But as soon as the other party came in, they skipped the formalities and went straight to the price.

The other party is directly offering a price, skipping even the initial probe.

Ma Guoliang probably thought that this young director, who was only in a technical role, didn't understand the intricacies of land finance, and that he might have city leaders backing him up, which was why he dared to be so arrogant. Leaving him hanging for two hours was a way of giving him a warning first.

He was betting that Chen Pingfang didn't know anything about this stuff.

Chen Ping pushed the chair forward a little more, placed his hand on the edge of the table, and spoke in a low but clear voice.

"District Chief Ma, I understand."

Ma Guoliang held his teacup, leaned forward slightly, and waited for him to continue, a smile on his face.

"I have a question for you."

Chen Pingfang continued, "Regarding the land use change application submitted by Changning District Urban Investment Group two weeks ago, are you clear on which approval process it should go through?"

Ma Guoliang's hand, holding the teacup, paused in mid-air for a moment.

Chen Ping took out his phone from his pocket and pushed a screenshot of an agreement onto the table.

"The annex to the agreement for the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund contains a specific lock-in clause for the supporting industrial land. Any application for change of land use for this reserved industrial land approved by the High-tech Zone must first be reported to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for record and confirmation before the formal procedure can be initiated."

He pushed the phone towards Ma Guoliang again.

"If this change application continues to proceed, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will first receive a statement of the situation, and then the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Management Committee will also receive a notification at the same time."

"By then, District Chief Ma," Chen Ping put his phone away and leaned back steadily in his chair, "the approval authority will no longer be in the city's hands."

Ma Guoliang's teacup was still hanging in mid-air; he neither put it down nor drank from it.

The faint roar of construction machinery could be heard outside the window; the sound was very faint and came through the cracks in the glass, making it seem very distant.