Surprisingly Yao Xia moved to Qingdao Etsong at the beginning of the 2003 football league season, a team he helped relegate in the 1995 league season.[2] His time at Qingdao was fairly disappointing, despite playing a large part within the team Qingdao were constantly flirting with relegating and Yao was eventually loaned out to second tier football club Chengdu Wuniu. The move back to a Sichuan province football club seemed to be a personally fairly successful transfer and by the following season he would make his move permanent while the club renamed themselves Chengdu Blades. After several seasons of improving results Yao would be a vital part of the squad that won promotion to the top tier when the club came runners-up in the 2007 league campaign.[5] Despite his advancing age Yao would still remain a constant regular within the team and his experience would help guide Chengdu to become a regular mid-table club until the end of the 2009 league season saw the club relegated when it was discovered that Chengdu Blades fixed several games during their promotion campaign and were relegated to the second tier at the beginning of the 2010 league season, nevertheless Yao decided to stay loyal and remained with the club.[6]