One hundred acres of industrial land.

Lu Ming didn't express any opinion over the phone, simply saying, "Let's talk about it tomorrow," before hanging up.

That evening, he opened his computer in the bedroom and searched for the location of Shilipu Village.

Southeast of the county town, about seven kilometers from the main urban area.

On the satellite map, it appeared as a large expanse of gray-yellow bare land, adjacent to the provincial road, with an irrigation canal to the north, and beyond that, endless farmland.

He zoomed in on the map to the maximum, but the pixels were so blurred that he could only make out that the land had been leveled.

Scattered around were a few low houses, likely self-built by villagers.

The road conditions were average, a two-lane cement road with no streetlights.

Lu Ming also checked the listing records for industrial land in Yunmeng County.

The County Natural Resources Bureau's website was extremely rudimentary, using a template from ten years ago, and the page took forever to load, eventually displaying a bunch of garbled text.

After flipping through several pages, he finally found a listing announcement from 2022.

Shilipu Village industrial land, area 66,840 square meters, approximately 100.2 acres.

Land use: Industrial.

Transfer period: 50 years.

Starting price: 240,000 yuan per acre.

At 240,000 yuan per acre, a hundred acres would be 24 million yuan.

Two years had passed, and no one had taken it.

24 million yuan, a hundred acres of land, and it couldn't be sold in Yunmeng County.

What does this indicate? It indicates that there are no local enterprises with expansion needs.

All production capacity is shrinking.

Lu Ming closed the computer and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

The system panel refreshed punctually at midnight.

[Today's disbursement: 60,024,700 yuan has been credited]

[Account balance: 240,148,800 yuan]

Four days, and the money spent wasn't even a fraction.

Two hundred and forty million quietly lay in the account, growing at a rate of sixty million per day.

The next morning at eight, Lu Ming drove to the building.

Lu Yuan was already there, squatting behind the front desk on the first floor, connecting wires.

She was wearing the same white shirt and trousers as yesterday, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, holding a roll of electrical tape in her hand.

"You know how to connect wires?" Lu Ming walked over.

"Learned it on TikTok," Lu Yuan didn't look up. "The property management said they'd send someone, but who knows when. I'll do it myself."

"What about the bank account opening?"

"Scheduled for ten-thirty, at the Rural Commercial Bank." Lu Yuan stood up, dusting off her trousers. "Here, take a look at this."

She pulled a brown kraft paper envelope from her bag, took out the document inside, and handed it to Lu Ming.

Business license.

Yunmeng Investment Co., Ltd.

Legal representative: Lu Ming. Registered capital: 100 million yuan.

Address: Mid-section of Yingbin Road, Xincheng Commercial Tower, Yunmeng County.

Lu Ming glanced at it and put the license back in the envelope.

"When is that guy named Zhou coming?"

"He said he'd come in the morning. I gave him the address."

At eight forty, a silver-gray Volkswagen Lavida parked in the plaza.

A man in his early forties got out of the car.

He wore a light blue short-sleeved shirt, with a Casio digital watch on his wrist.

His hair was cut very short, his skin was dark, and he walked with a slight forward lean, exuding a sense of urgency.

As soon as he entered the lobby, his gaze swept around the empty first floor before landing on the Maybach keys in the corner.

"President Lu?" The man walked over quickly, extending his hand. "Zhou Yan, Geology and Mineral Resources Section of the Natural Resources Bureau, I spoke with your sister on the phone yesterday."

Lu Ming shook his hand.

Zhou Yan wasn't one for small talk. After sitting down, he directly opened his phone gallery and handed a set of photos to Lu Ming.

"This is the land in Shilipu. I took these last September. It's just over a hundred acres, with a regular shape, and the Three Connections and One Leveling have been done."

The photos showed a large expanse of leveled yellow land, marked with concrete boundary stakes, with the occasional truck passing on the distant provincial road.

"Why has it been listed for two years with no takers?" Lu Ming asked as he flipped through the photos.

Zhou Yan rubbed his fingers together. "There are several reasons. First, the location is remote, a bit far from the county's main urban area, and the infrastructure can't keep up. Second, there's no mature industrial cluster nearby, so building a factory there would mean bringing in the entire supply chain, which would increase logistics costs. Third..."

He paused, glancing at Lu Ming.

"Go on."

"Third, this land was originally reserved for an out-of-town company. Three years ago, the county was attracting investment, and a pipe manufacturing company from Hebei said they wanted to build a factory here. The county prepared the land in advance and even built a section of road. But then the company's funding chain broke, the project fell through, and the land was left idle."

Lu Ming handed the phone back to him.

"Let's go see it in person."

"Now?"

"Now."

Zhou Yan was clearly eager for this.

He jumped up and headed for the door, then turned back after a couple of steps. "President Lu, should we take my car or..."

"Mine."

The three of them got into the Maybach.

Lu Yuan sat in the front passenger seat, while Zhou Yan sat in the back.

Zhou Yan was visibly taken aback when he got into the back seat.

He discreetly touched the leather of the seat, glanced up at the starlit ceiling, his Adam's apple moved, but he didn't say anything.

The car drove southeast along the provincial road.

Once out of the main urban area, the scenery on both sides of the road changed rapidly.

Shops and buildings disappeared, replaced by expanses of wheat fields and poplar groves.

"Turn left at the next intersection," Zhou Yan directed from the back.

They turned onto a narrower cement road, where the bumps were much more noticeable.

The Maybach's air suspension silently worked to filter out most of the vibrations, but there was a pothole every few meters that couldn't be completely smoothed out.

Seven or eight minutes later, the car stopped in front of an open area.

Lu Ming opened the door and got out.

The wind was strong.

The land before him looked even larger than in the photos.

What does a hundred acres look like?

About sixty-seven thousand square meters.

Roughly ten standard football fields.

The ground had already been leveled, the yellow soil compacted and hard, crunching underfoot.

The concrete boundary stakes at the corners still stood, with faded red cloth strips tied to them, flapping against the stakes in the wind.

On the north side of the plot was the irrigation canal, the water not deep, the bottom visible, but it flowed continuously.

The canal banks were overgrown with reeds and weeds.

The south side bordered the provincial road, the road surface decent, two lanes in both directions, with the occasional truck hauling sand and cement rumbling by.

To the east was a row of low houses, gray brick and red tile, with slogans like "Strictly Prohibit Burning Straw" painted on the courtyard walls.

Lu Ming walked around the edge of the plot.

Lu Yuan followed behind, her notebook open, sketching a rough map of the plot.

Zhou Yan followed closely, pointing out details whenever Lu Ming stopped: the power lines would be drawn from this side, the natural gas pipeline was buried under the provincial road, and the water interface was by the irrigation canal to the north.

"Three Connections and One Leveling, electricity, water, and roads are all in place. As for gas, the interface is on the provincial road, about three hundred meters away, the cost isn't high," Zhou Yan explained in detail.

Lu Ming squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil, and rubbed it in his hand.

When you're just trying to make great content at pawread.com .

Yellow-brown loam, moderately granular, neither loose nor sticky.

"Was this land previously farmland?"

"Yes. The villagers were compensated during the land acquisition, all the paperwork is in order." Zhou Yan pulled a stack of photocopies from his briefcase, "Land transfer contract, environmental impact assessment report, planning permit, all here."

Lu Ming took them and flipped through, not scrutinizing the legal terms, only glancing at a few key figures.

Floor area ratio: 1.5. Maximum building density: 50%. Green space ratio not less than 15%.

"Listing price is 24 million?"

Zhou Yan nodded, "Not a penny more. To be honest, the leadership's stance is that as long as someone comes, the price is negotiable."

Lu Ming returned the stack of documents to Zhou Yan, stood up, and dusted off his hands.

He walked a few steps to the center of the plot, turned around in a circle, and scanned the surroundings three hundred and sixty degrees.

The wind lifted the hem of his clothes.

In the distance, the wheat fields were lush green, and the sound of water from the irrigation canal was faintly audible.

Standing in the center of the plot, Lu Ming's gaze crossed the provincial road, looking towards the silhouette of the distant county town.

He thought of the half-dead "Wanjiafu Shopping Plaza" in the New District, and the monotonous entertainment life in the county town.

This land seemed remote, yet it was a major traffic artery into the county town. In the future, with a little guidance, traffic would turn into people, and people would turn into money.

A modern commercial complex could not only completely change the consumption pattern of Yunmeng County but also become a huge magnet for employment and people.

With this thought, he withdrew his gaze, his heart filled with boundless ambition.

"Section Chief Zhou," he turned to Zhou Yan, "if I buy this land, not to build a factory, but to construct a large-scale commercial complex, how long would the approval process take in your bureau?"