The real estate industry is just that surreal. Wang Zhenhua, chairman of Seazen Holdings, was rumored to have been “set up” back then. In 2019, he was jailed for molesting a young girl; in 2024, after serving his full sentence, he was released—only to perfectly miss the peak, feverish period of development growth. When one door closes, who knows what might be good—back then, while the old man went in, banks cut off lending, forcing his son to scale down. Still, his abilities were quite solid: Wuyue Plaza was developed quite well. As a result, the company’s finances became increasingly stable—effectively stepping out of a huge pit ahead of time. The outcome was that he served 5 years in prison, and upon returning, he remained in the first tier among private real estate developers in terms of steadiness. In the same period, Vanke, also among the top 500 private enterprises, kept shouting “survive,” but in practice kept adding leverage. In other words, Wang Zhenhua went in looking gray and disgraced, came out with a big grin; Huang Guangyu, cursing and grumbling, still went and gave a thumbs-up. $SOL