The Deal That Never Happened: Two Machines, One Year in Jiangmen
The first part of The Story Behind Xiuhui Precision stopped at the investor with one sentence left unfinished: “we stayed in touch with Zhao afterwards — but that’s a story for another day.” This is that story.
After that negotiation fell through, Zhao walked away and started over on his own. The old place kept running for another year before it slowly wound down. The two aluminum die casting machines were dismantled, trucked back to Jiangmen, and parked inside the investor’s own die casting factory.
They sat there for a year.
A Phone Call
One morning in July 2026, Zhao’s phone rang. It was the investor.
“Little Zhao, those two aluminum die casting machines of mine have been sitting here untouched. Sell them to you. If cash is tight right now, haul them over and run them first — pay me once you’re making money.”
For the first half of that year, Zhao and Guo had been circling one question: how do we build up the aluminum side of the die casting factory? They were stuck on something very concrete — no equipment.
The Missing Piece Was Never Orders
Customers kept coming. One after another, they wanted aluminum die castings. But without a machine of our own, every job meant designing the part, building the tool, and sending the casting out.
With outsourcing, the price is not what hurts. Not knowing is.
A casting moves from tool to blank through several steps you will never see unless you are standing there: whether the alloy is the right grade and comes with a certificate; how much of the overflow, the biscuit and the runner goes back into the furnace — too much regrind and porosity, cold shuts and shrinkage follow; whether anyone inspects the raw castings on a schedule, or whether they sit in a box until the next process opens it.
Miss one of those, and the cost is never just that one blank. It is polishing, plating and assembly all completed — or the whole batch discovered the night before shipment — and then the batch is scrapped, the line waits for material, and the delivery date is broken.
“Outsourcing makes me uneasy” sounds like a feeling. Behind it sits a very specific amount of money.
So when the call came, Zhao’s first thought was not how far he could push the price down. It was: someone just handed me a pillow at the exact moment I needed to sleep.
He Didn’t Price It at Market
Zhao thanked him on the spot — and handed the decision straight back. If the aluminum business worked, the investor could either sell at the original equipment price, or convert the amount into an investment in the company. His choice, either way.
Zhao could say yes on the spot because he and Guo had already talked one thing through: only a win-win lasts, and integrity is the best strategy there is. A few sentences later, it was settled.
Two days after that, the two of them drove from Dongguan to Jiangmen to work out the details.
Because it was framed as a win-win, it moved quickly. The two machines were finally valued at a little over fifty percent of our own quotation.
That number did not come from grinding him down. It came with his own reasoning: he had been financially free for years, and machines sitting idle produce nothing. Letting us run them frees up floor space and turns a dead asset into cash. He added that if we were willing, he might put in more later, and that any related business leads would come to us first.
He had built his business locally very early, and he likes helping young people who are willing to work. Many of the people he helped are established now — and none of them have forgotten him.
A Sample That Wouldn’t Come Out Right
With the equipment settled, the investor took a part off his desk.
He said the requirements were severe and it had never run smoothly: aluminum, bright chrome plating, extremely high demands on the surface finish. He hoped we could solve it.
That same day, the tool was moved back to Dongguan.
Opening the tool, there were plenty of problems. The urgent thing was not to rework the tool — it was to show him whether the part could be made at all. So: emergency fixes first, then a peer shop to run trial shots and cast a batch of blanks, straight into polishing and plating.
On the fourth day, the samples arrived in Jiangmen.
The end customer looked at them and said one sentence: “If you can hold this finish, we have no problem at all.”
That single sample did more than any introduction ever could. It settled one thing for the investor: these two young men are solid, and they move fast.
One Thing Worth Being Clear About
The moving, the installation, the commissioning — no need to go into the details.
Looking back, Zhao says he keeps meeting people who are willing to help him.
He is reluctant to put it down to luck. If there is a reason, it is a few bottom lines he held to over the years: don’t be greedy, don’t gain at someone else’s expense, and before you act, think first about whether the other side loses.
The odd part is that none of it is on your mind while you are doing it. You are not calculating what it will return later. You just think it is the right way to do things.
Someone who is not greedy and does not profit at another’s expense can stand straight anywhere he goes.
