So I stood at the door, catching snippets of their conversation. In short, all of New City Group's assets were already mortgaged, and they needed a sum of money to套现—but the problem was how to get that money. Besieged on all sides, the group was struggling even to keep operations going. With insufficient funds on the books, they simply couldn't come up with the cash. Mr. Huang owned no personal assets; even the villa he lived in was purchased in the group's name.
In this predicament, Xu Min proposed a plan that boiled down to one core idea: pre-sell. As a real estate company, developing properties was the only way to make quick money, but construction required building materials and labor—both of which needed massive funds the group didn't have. So Xu Min told Mr. Huang: they could buy substandard batches of materials directly from factories, and hire contractors on a project-based payment contract. For building approvals, they'd ask Director Meng to pull some strings. They'd build a shoddy development, put it up for pre-sale, then immediately divert the pre-sale funds from homebuyers. Let the project go unfinished; once the group got back on its feet, they'd refund the homeowners. It was essentially borrowing money from ordinary people, just indirectly.
The plan seemed highly feasible. Mr. Huang was satisfied, agreeing to proceed—acknowledging it might impact society, but claiming the damage would be "controllable." He approved Xu Min's proposal but adjusted it based on the industry's realities. His revised plan: find someone to set up a separate construction company, then have that company partner with New City Group to establish a project joint venture, with the new company's legal representative at the helm. The project would be sold under the joint venture's name, and the legal representative would handle diverting the pre-sale funds. This way, if the project failed, New City Group avoided liability—the legal representative would take all the blame. The funds wouldn't need to be returned, but the representative would have to flee abroad and never come back.
I didn't understand all the twists and turns. I just did what Mr. Huang told me. Later, he handed me 50,000 yuan and a list of requirements for the person we needed to find:
1. Someone with at least 10 years in real estate, familiar with industry rules;
2. With a clean background, no ties to other developers—or only hostile ones;
3. No connections to New City Group or the police;
4. Willing to take on the role, tight-lipped, and preferably with a secret or weakness we could hold over them.
I thought it over. No one I knew met all four conditions. The third requirement—no links to the group—eliminated most people I knew. I went to the group's project department and thought of Zhou Quan, one of the earliest employees. He was a master at reading people, skilled at navigating social situations, and had accompanied Mr. Huang on countless trips—one of the few trusted by Mr. Huang.
I figured he might know someone. I called him to the parking lot and explained the situation privately. He didn't ask questions, just thought carefully for a while, then said, "I know someone who fits all the criteria. Come with me."