Chapter 53

Yoda looked at the two people in front of him with some curiosity: "Did you really find out about our agency online?" He didn't expect that Liu Si had only posted a few videos, but customers had actually come to the office on their own initiative.

"Well, actually, it's a long story," Tang Yun said hesitantly.

Ye Xin picked up where she left off and continued, "So I'll keep it short." Then she rattled off a whole bunch of things like beans pouring from a bamboo tube.

"I have a cousin who plays games a lot and follows a game streamer. A couple of days ago, he was watching the streamer's livestream and noticed the streamer's background had changed, so he asked about it in the chat. The streamer said it was because the streamer had just bought a new house. Although the location of the house wasn't mentioned, the streamer pinned the name of a renovation company in the comments. Coincidentally, we've run into some problems right now, sigh..."

Yoda pretended not to see Tang Yun step on Ye Xin's foot under the table and continued to listen with a smile.

Although Yoda's deception made Ye Xin feel that the other party hadn't noticed the loophole in her words, and Tang Yun's kick was unnecessary and even a little painful, she still restrained herself somewhat. After thinking for a moment, she continued, "Perfect timing, we need interior design. So, we..."

This time, Liu Si interrupted her. She had just returned and happened to hear Ye Xin speaking. She rushed over and asked, "You guys really came?"

Seeing the other person's somewhat confused expression, Tang Yun was the first to react: "You're that blogger from the internet, right? We just happened to have some free time today, so we came to check it out."

Then, turning to Yoda, he explained, "We looked up your agency's information online and found her account. Her newly released video has received good reviews, so we thought we'd come and take a look."

Ye Xin chimed in, "Yes, that's right, that's exactly it."

Yoda connected this long process of understanding and couldn't help but think of the theory of six people. Indeed, in this world, the relationship between people is one of interconnection.

Since everyone knows each other, there's no need for further explanation. Yoda went straight to the point: "Where is your house?"

The previously relaxed atmosphere between the two became somewhat tense for a moment. After exchanging a glance, they said in unison, "We have a request: this design needs to be carried out in secrecy."

Yoda and Liu Si couldn't help but look at each other in confusion in front of the customers: "What kind of request is this?"

Seeing that Yoda and the other person didn't react, Ye Xin quickly said, "The house is a duplex villa that we bought together. We're planning to do our own social media work while we're renovating it. So, the renovation process will be the content of our videos. Therefore, the renovation process needs to be kept secret."

Yoda nodded: "I understand. Don't worry, we protect our customers' privacy very well. After all, home renovation is inherently a private matter. I understand."

Seeing that Yoda seemed easy to talk to, the two were somewhat hopeful: "How about we sign the contract right away?"

Yoda scratched his head. Why did everyone seem eager to sign a contract the moment they saw him? He considered that the two people opposite him were clients with a certain level of recognition. Even if they trusted him, he couldn't just sign a contract without even seeing the property, as before; that wouldn't demonstrate the firm's professionalism. Therefore, for this deal, a property viewing was essential.

Yoda waved his hand dismissively, refusing without a second thought: "We are very professional, let's measure the room first." As he spoke, he looked intently at Tang Yun and Ye Xin, trying to show his trust in them.

The moment they met Yoda's gaze, they looked away nervously, each saying, "Haha, that works too."

"This is wonderful!" Yoda smiled when she arrived at the site. She had never furnished such a spacious house before.

The villa is a duplex with front and back gardens, and the owners are two single women. With such a large living area per person, there's plenty of space for design.

Liu Si couldn't help but exclaim, "You two are amazing! Such a big house, and you even live with your best friend upstairs and downstairs, it's practically my dream life!"

Tang Yun and Ye Xin: "Haha, is that so?"

Once inside, Yoda and Liu Si were speechless, and even considered taking back what they had just said.

If a bare-bones apartment is considered to have a renovation progress of 0, then the current renovation progress of the apartment should be +1-5+2-3.

With each step, the renovation progress teeters around the starting line. The living room walls have just been demolished, and the removed bricks are still piled up in the corner. The kitchen tiles have already started to be laid, but the plumbing and electrical work is only half done.

There were also some household appliances scattered around the staircase.

"What's this?" Yoda looked at the two people behind him. They hadn't uttered a sound since they came in.

Seeing that she couldn't hide it any longer, Ye Xin couldn't bear the pain of concealing it any longer and simply confessed: "We thought that since we bought the house, we'd be renovating it anyway, and doing it ourselves would give us more footage. After all, villas, sharing with friends, and DIY renovations are all trending topics. We just didn't expect that, thinking we'd watched so many videos, the renovation would definitely be fine. But..."

Tang Yun continued, "As a result, when we actually started decorating, we found that there were too many pitfalls in the renovation process. We lacked experience, so we kept making the same mistakes."

Anyway, now that things were out in the open, the two of them had nothing to hide and simply said, "We actually prepared for a long time, watching all sorts of videos online to avoid pitfalls and looking at a lot of renovation guides. But when we started installing it, we realized something was wrong. However, since the first video we posted online got a lot of traffic, we had no choice but to bite the bullet and start installing it ourselves."

"The first step, scraping off the old paint, didn't go well. Because I wanted to be a genuine DIY renovation blogger, and also to save some money, I thought I'd scrape it all off myself, since I could find the tools online anyway. But I was exhausted after scraping just one room, so I decided to just do enough for filming. I planned to finish the rest later when I had enough money from filming more videos."

However, once they gave up at the first step, they had no choice but to do the same every time they encountered difficulties. As a result, the two of them completely ruined the spacious house, room by room.

"So, you guys have been faking it all?" Yoda couldn't believe it. Looking at the two tall, thin girls in front of him, how could they have caused such a big mess?

Tang Yun and Ye Xin nodded slowly, their expressions grave.

At first, they didn't expect to last so long. Every time they wanted to give up, they thought about how the other person's house had already been ruined, and if they stopped halfway, wouldn't they be betraying their friend?

Another reason is that the two of them had already posted the previous videos and had some followers. Although reality was bleak, in order to attract more views, they tried their best to show their best side in every video.

So everything looks fine in the video, but the person is actually on the verge of death.

But for the sake of friendship and their careers, the two of them secretly gritted their teeth and persevered.

It wasn't until the two of them were preparing to knock down the bedroom next to the living room to create a super large open space that netizens discovered they were demolishing what appeared to be a load-bearing wall, and even pointed out the steel bars that had been knocked out of the wall.

At that moment, their world collapsed. The house they had bought with all their savings, and despite their hard work and efforts, before they could even finish decorating and successfully transition into bloggers, became a dangerous building.

Because of this, the two of them were completely exhausted and stopped working, and the videos were no longer updated.

As more and more netizens demanded follow-up comments, and even started digging up clues from previous videos to try and piece together evidence of their downfall, the two had no choice but to regroup. Of course, even without this pressure, they couldn't bear to just leave the house they had worked so hard to save up for unfinished.

After all, it was the result of both of their hard work. Even if they closed their eyes and didn't look at it, their minds were filled with regret every second.

Just then, a design firm suddenly appeared before them. Thinking that even such a popular game streamer was willing to have their firm renovated, and considering they were both internet celebrities (their identities were yet to be confirmed), they figured they could be trusted, so they rushed over. At this point, the two looked at Yoda together: "Can this house still be saved?"

After hearing all this, Yoda didn't know what to say. Speaking of the two of them, getting the house to this state must have taken a tremendous amount of effort from both of them.

The wall plaster was scraped off haphazardly, but at least one side was clean. It looked odd that the kitchen tiles were laid out separately, but the grout material displayed on one side was of the highest quality, clearly indicating that they had done their homework.

Yoda looked around, then at the two who seemed to be swaying in the wind and rain, and sighed: "Do you have the original structural drawings? Let me check if any load-bearing walls have been moved."

Tang Yun and Ye Xin looked at each other and said, "It seems like we have it, but we didn't bring it."

Yoda couldn't help but frown, looking at the two worried people, and comforted them, "Don't worry, just because there are steel bars doesn't mean it's a load-bearing wall. The steel bars that were hammered out look very thin, so they should just be structural columns, which are used to stabilize the wall above."

Hearing what Yoda said, the two felt much more relaxed. If it weren't for the fact that they owned the entire villa, they were truly afraid that a sudden collapse would affect others. Even so, the thought of it only affecting themselves was still heartbreaking.

However, Yoda still cautioned, "Even if only the structural columns are demolished, it's still dangerous if the walls above are unsupported. You still have half a wall hanging there; you can't go over there until it's removed."

Seeing that Yoda didn't turn around and leave because of their concealment, Tang Yun tentatively asked, "Can we still sign the contract?"

Hearing this, Yoda was somewhat conflicted.

To be honest, this was the first time she had ever worked on a house like this. Before, she had only worked on bare-bones houses. Building something from scratch seems difficult, but it was actually easier for a full-service designer like Yoda.

On the contrary, the situation is much more complicated for houses that are already half-finished than for unfinished houses.

Firstly, when they were renovating the plumbing and electrical systems, they did some work and then left some unfinished. Now, when asked, it's unclear which parts were done and which weren't. The workers they hired were all casual laborers, and they've long since left; you definitely can't find them now.

If you're going to do interior design, you need to start from the basics and determine which procedures were completed and which weren't. Mistakes need to be corrected, and omissions need to be rectified. This will add up to a significant amount of extra work.

Tang Yun and Ye Xin looked at Yoda with some trepidation.

They had actually consulted other designers before, but either the designers were reluctant to take on the design work since the house was already partially renovated, or their quotes exceeded their expectations. A few even walked away as soon as they saw the condition of the house, which is why they wanted to try finding a designer online.

Yoda felt the gazes around him, but he was still somewhat undecided.

After thinking for a moment, I asked the two of them, "Does this count as faking it?"