After discovering a new business opportunity at 62, what did he do?

Highlights: Short hair, belt worn on the outside, never worn a skirt - she can't do a single thing that ordinary women do well. In business, she fears neither hardship nor difficulty, and at 62 she was still discovering new business opportunities. Her friends jokingly call her a "black-hearted" old lady. Building the Hebo Garden, holding a lotus festival, organizing a loach-catching competition - she tries every trick to draw a crowd. All to fulfill a wish she has kept buried for many years. See how Xu Dashan of Huzhou, Zhejiang, fulfills her wish and makes wealth come to her without being sought.

This is the Hebo Garden in Lushan Township, Changxing County, Zhejiang Province. When tourists heard that a reporter had come to interview the person who built this Hebo Garden, their curiosity was aroused, and they wanted to guess on the spot who exactly the reporter had come to interview.

Reporter: Which of these people looks like the boss to you?

Tourist: They all say that if someone has a big belly, he's either the boss or the cook. He must be the boss.

Reporter: Do you think the boss is among these people?

Tourist: That one.

Reporter: Why do you think it's her?

Tourist: She looks like it. More professional.

What the tourists never expected was that the person who built this Hebo Garden was her, Xu Dashan, a 64-year-old woman. Looking at this old lady planting lotus, no one could imagine that she is a leading figure in Huzhou's landscaping industry. Xu Dashan likes to do everything together with the workers. Wading into the lotus pond to dig up lotus roots - this is what 64-year-old Xu Dashan does every day. Every time she digs up a lotus root, she gets so excited that she wishes she could show every single root she digs up to the camera.

Xu Dashan: I'm so happy inside. I can barely even lift it. Look at this, is it big or not?

Reporter: This one is pretty big.

Xu Dashan: The biggest. This one is very tender. The lotus root tip can be eaten raw. Snap it off like this. This part is tender. What sprouts out here is a lotus leaf.

The moment lotus roots are mentioned, Xu Dashan is an expert. To let the reporter taste fresh tender lotus root, she broke the root apart with her knee as soon as she got ashore.

Xu Dashan: See that? Very crisp, it just splits open with a crack.

Reporter: You just said this lotus root tip is the most delicious, right?

Xu Dashan: Very sweet - only I know just how sweet it tastes. It goes right down your throat. Try it if you don't believe me, this one hasn't been bitten.

Reporter: This one hasn't been bitten.

Xu Dashan: Is it sweet?

Reporter: This is really crisp.

Xu Dashan is skilled at every kind of rough work, but if you ask her to pick up a needle and thread to do some mending, she will absolutely throw in the towel.

Xu Dashan: I'm no good with a needle. I'm no good at any woman's work. Holding a needle feels like holding a sledgehammer, as heavy as a sledgehammer, because I'm not used to doing it. I can't do it - I do men's work as a woman.

In today's terms, Xu Dashan is a tomboy. This tomboy has been in the nursery stock and landscaping business for more than twenty years. In 2013, at the age of 62, she discovered a new business opportunity in lotus. In her first year in the lotus industry, sales reached more than 12 million yuan. Seeing how good she is at making money, her friends all joke that she is "black-hearted."

Jiang Jianping: Black-hearted, meaning she's just too driven - at such an age, she's still so ambitious, running such a big business. Only fairly close friends would joke with her like that.

Reporter: So when people say you're black-hearted, are you happy or unhappy?

Xu Dashan: Happy. Anyway, I'm formidable. As long as I'm formidable, as long as I take first place, that's fine.

Xu Dashan seems to love to compete and win. It was only during the reporter's interview that we learned that Xu Dashan's drive is tied to a wish she has kept buried for many years. What business opportunity is hidden in Xu Dashan's wish? How did she, after fulfilling her wish, make wealth come to her without being sought?

A photo from decades ago.

Short hair kept for decades, never worn a skirt, likes to tuck her top inside her belt. This is 64-year-old Xu Dashan.

Xu Dashan: Back then, weren't we under the people's commune, living on work points? Men got 10 points, women got 6 points. No matter how strong or capable a woman was, she could only get 6 points, never 10. So there was this prejudice, and that's how I thought - I had to do business just like a boy.

Back then, it was precisely those 4 points of difference between men and women that made Xu Dashan very unconvinced. From that time on, she began to move toward a masculine style in her clothing and appearance. Xu Dashan truly is no good at the things ordinary women do - even now, she can't even fold a piece of clothing properly.

Reporter: Do you usually do housework like this?

Xu Dashan: I don't do it. I'd rather bunch it up and toss it down. I can't do it well, I'd just work up a sweat doing this kind of work.

Xu Dashan can't do housework, but no matter how hard business is, she's not afraid. In 1990, while still a worker, Xu Dashan borrowed money to take over a company and began dealing in landscaping nursery stock. In Huzhou's landscaping industry, everyone knows that as long as Xu Dashan wants a project, there is no project she can't get.

Xu Dashan: Black-hearted means I absolutely have to get it. No one dares come take it again. If I want in, I absolutely have to take it.

With this burst of drive, Xu Dashan's company grew from a small workshop at the start into one of the top landscaping enterprises in Huzhou. Xu Dashan's husband also quit his job and followed her into the business. By 2013, through undertaking landscaping projects, Xu Dashan had accumulated more than 80 million yuan in savings.

In 2013, Xu Dashan heard that there was a bidding process for a wetland park landscaping project in Changxing County, Huzhou. Through competitive bidding, she won this project worth more than 60 million yuan. Of the entire project, 1.6 million yuan was spent on planting ornamental lotus and water lilies. It was precisely this inconspicuous small sub-project within the big project that let Xu Dashan see a new business opportunity.

Xu Dashan: When we were bidding, it seemed like 70 yuan or 80 yuan per square meter, and I paid him (the purchase cost price) 20 yuan. Doesn't that mean I made money - made a lot of money? I thought the profit margin must be huge. Landscaping is too competitive now. This (planting lotus) is still a niche after all.

Just then, a piece of good news reached Xu Dashan's ears.

Tan Xiaoyong, deputy director of the Social Development Office of the Taihu Tourism Resort Management Committee in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province: The Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee proposed a sewage control strategy. All river channels were to be dredged, and after that, we did an overall job, which was to carry out ecological river channel construction on the river channels after dredging.

Lotus has the function of purifying water quality. Building ecological river channels inevitably requires planting lotus. It was precisely this piece of good news that made Xu Dashan's eyes light up. Most crucially, based on Xu Dashan's observations from her years in landscaping, no one locally was yet growing ornamental lotus or working on water pollution purification. She had to seize the business opportunity quickly and build up the lotus industry.