The auction of the haunted house has come to an end.

Just when Yuan Guang and Shi Qian were hanging their heads in despair, they heard an incredible number: "The starting price of this apartment is 300,000."

The two of them suddenly raised their heads and looked towards the auction table. After hearing the price, Bai Liu and his group also looked over with interest.

The auctioneer flipped through the catalogue with his head down while reading the introduction without any emotion: "This is a 2.45 square meter custom-made house on the 18th floor, located on the outskirts of Sunshine City. It is one of the supporting facilities in District E. The actual area after the average area is divided is about 2 square meters. It has no toilet or kitchen, no water, electricity or gas network, and no hospital, supermarket or transportation station nearby. It can accommodate one person."

"The previous owner of the house died suddenly at his job, so we are taking it back and selling it."

The auctioneer raised his head and said indifferently: "The starting price is 300,000——"

Yuan Guang nervously held up a sign for 310,000 yuan, looking around to see if anyone else was competing with him for the house. But surprisingly, there were only a few people holding up signs for such a cheap house, which was completely different from the previous scene of fighting over the house. Moreover, even if there were people holding up signs, they also had obvious fear and hesitation on their faces:

"305,000."

"306,000..."

"Thirty... Sorry, I won't take any more photos. I won't say that. Sorry."

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian looked at each other strangely. After they were sure that they had a high probability of winning the bid for the house, they discussed in a low voice:

"Why is no one buying this? It's very cheap, only 300,000 yuan."

"It's too small, and there's no water or electricity. Is that really why it's uninhabitable?"

"No way. There was a house in Area B before, which was only slightly bigger than this one, 3 square meters, with a basement and no electricity. The starting price was 470,000 and it was sold out."

“Is the location too bad?”

"They're here to shoot a haunted house. I don't think they care about the location..."

The more Shi Qian looked at it, the more she felt something was wrong: "I feel like they are afraid of this house."

Yuan Guang was increasingly confused: "These people are all shooting haunted houses. What kind of house can scare them?"

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian tried to ask people around them what was wrong with the house, but they were all evasive and unwilling to elaborate. Only the person who had spoken to them earlier kindly advised them, "Don't take pictures. This house is really deadly."

"Which house here doesn't have a dead person living in it?" Shi Qian asked in confusion.

The man waved his hands, glanced around, and whispered in Shi Qian's ear, "People may not die if they live in a haunted house, but they will definitely die if they live in this house. Stop taking pictures!"

But if you don’t shoot…

Yuan Guang hesitated for a moment. Then they would not be able to take any photos today. Just as the two were considering this, a deep male voice came from behind:

"Three hundred and twenty thousand."

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian turned their heads subconsciously, and when they saw that the person holding the sign was the tall and strong Tang Erda, they gasped, immediately retracted their heads, turned around and quickly entered the crowd, doubly covering themselves with sunscreen, not daring to breathe.

"Are you still taking pictures, Shi Qian?" Yuan Guang asked in a low voice.

"What the hell! Bai Liu and his team are here, if we take a picture they will definitely see it!" Shi Qian said depressedly, "We can only give this house to them for now."

As if he was afraid that Tang Er would change his mind, the auctioneer quickly hammered down the deal: "Sir, please come up and claim this house worth 320,000!"

Tang Erda walked forward with a tense expression, swiped the recruiter's ID card with a cold face and paid 320,000 yuan. He quickly took the property certificate and left with Bai Liu and his group. From the back, he looked a little flustered and unnatural, as if he was a thief for the first time.

Yuan Guang, who was hiding in the crowd, looked at Shi Qian as if he had telepathy, and asked quietly, "Tell me, where did they get their money?"

"If I'm not mistaken..." Before Shi Qian finished her words, the auctioneer screamed and pointed in the direction where Tang Erda left: "Patrol team! Hurry up and catch the person who just swiped the card! He stole someone else's card to swipe it!"

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian: "..."

Ah, as expected.

"Luckily we forced the recruiters to write checks..." Yuan Guang patted his chest in fear, "It was a close call, otherwise we would have been arrested too."

Shi Qian looked in the direction where Bai Liu left and slowly frowned, "What's going on with that 320,000 yuan house in District E?"

Area E.

Bai Liu and his friends made a few detours and easily got rid of the patrol team that followed them, and headed straight for the location written on the property certificate of District E.

"…No. 18 Street, No. 444…" Mu Sicheng complained as he read the address on the property certificate, "This road number is too unlucky, isn't it? No wonder it's so cheap."

Liu Jiayi glanced at Mu Sicheng and said, "I don't think the auspiciousness of the street number will affect the housing prices in Sunshine City."

"The people here probably don't care about this kind of thing." Tang Er looked around thoughtfully, "As long as they can survive, they'll be willing to live anywhere."

Mu Ke frowned and asked, "But they would rather live in a haunted house than here. It's such a cheap house, and there were no more than five people holding up signs just now. Why?"

Bai Liu was not in a hurry: "You will know when you get there."

Compared to the city center built of reinforced concrete, District E is remote and located on the outskirts of the city. The road surface is full of potholes and mud after rain. The entertainment facilities in the community, such as walking machines and slides, are all rusted or collapsed, and just like the road surface, there is no maintenance.

Although the buildings in the community are also high-rise, the walls are very old at first glance. The paint, putty and tiles have peeled off to varying degrees. Some are even covered with green vines. It is obvious that they are old houses.

The entire E area is filled with an air of old age and decay.

Most of the people living in these old houses are not young anymore. Those who stick their heads out of the windows to hang clothes are old men and women with gray hair, old looks, and sickly faces. Most of the clothes are work clothes that have been washed until they are faded and white, and have some patches on them.

The buildings were all similar, and there were no landmarks. Even the styles of the houses and the clothes hanging on the balconies were similar. Mu Sicheng was soon confused: "Why does everything in this place look the same? How do I get to Route 444?"

"Ask for directions." Tang Erda looked around with the property certificate in hand. He saw an elderly couple slowly walking down from the walker, supporting each other. "Hello, how do I get to Route 444 in District E?"

When the old couple heard Tang Erda asking for directions, they looked up at him. When they saw the faces of the two old people clearly, Tang Erda's gaze paused for a moment.

The two elderly people, one man and one woman, had cloudy and lifeless eyes, and age spots as dense as insects crawling from the corners of their lips to their soft noses. Their breath carried a stench of rotting dirt, and a yellow-green with reddish pus was flowing from their ears and nasal cavity, dripping onto the ground and being absorbed by the soil.

These two people have aged to the extreme of what a normal person could imagine using the adjective "old". It even makes people feel that they are like... two moving corpses.

"You are..." Tang Er glanced at the walker.

The old man replied tremblingly: "I am sick and was just exercising with my wife."

"Old man, you should have a good rest if you are sick." Tang Er put his hands on the couple and asked with a frown, "Where are your children?"

The old lady next to me shook her head: "We can't rest, we still have to go to work."

"Go to work?!" Mu Sicheng helped to support the old lady and asked incredulously, "Grandma, you are so old, and you still have to go to work?"

The old lady gave Mu Sicheng a strange look and said, "Yes, if you don't work, you won't get paid."

The old man next to him nodded in agreement: "We both still have to pay off our mortgage."

For a moment, everyone was silent. Only Bai Liu stepped forward slowly to take over. He pulled the old man from Tang Er's thugs and asked, "How many years have you been borrowing?"

The old man counted sevens with his shaking hands: "My wife and I took out a loan together for 70 years. I started working when I was 15, and now I have 10 years left to pay off the loan."

"You need to exercise well so that you can continue to work and repay your loan." The old man patted Bai Liu's hand as if he was teaching a young man, "Don't avoid work just because you are sick. This is wrong. Look, I have worked hard for 60 years and I will eventually have my own house soon."

The old lady seemed to sigh: "It's a pity that there is nothing left in District E now. In the early days when District E was full of young people, it was as prosperous as District A and the housing prices were high. It's a pity that only old people like us live here now."

"We are old now and don't have as much energy as we did when we were young to work seven or eight jobs a day. We don't make much money. High-cost places like hospitals and schools can't remain open. They all moved away a few years ago. In recent years, there are only a few restaurants left around here." The old man shook his head.

"A hospital or school will move away?" Mu Sicheng was surprised. "You can't rent a house here. They should buy a storefront to turn it into a hospital or school. How can they move?"

The old man nodded and said, "Of course they have to move away if they can't continue. Although the fees charged by hospitals and schools are very high, we can understand that the mortgages for buying storefronts to do business are very high. People in hospitals and schools also have a hard life. Forty-eight of the fifty dollars they earn has to go to the mortgage."

"It's the same with restaurants. A dish costs 70 yuan, and 65 yuan has to be used to pay the mortgage. It's hard to do business. It's hard to do business." The old lady shook her head and agreed, "Everyone is just making some hard-earned money. If they can't continue and can't pay the mortgage, they will have to close down. After they close down, the property will be taken back. Isn't that just moving away?"

Mu Sicheng opened his mouth to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.

Soon the old man cheered up again: "Although the current supporting facilities in District E are not very good, the houses in District E still have one good thing."

The old lady also smiled with relief: "Fortunately we bought it early, otherwise we would have to eat the small ones now."

The old man nodded in a serious and matter-of-fact manner, and commented with disdain, his beard shaking with anger: "Yes, this generation of young people nowadays do nothing, yet want to live a good life and have a good house. They don't fight or gamble, but only know how to rely on others for the rest of their lives. It's really disgusting!"

"What do you mean by eating younger ones?" Mu Sicheng was a little confused and turned around, "What do you mean by the next generation?"

The old man glanced at the young man who knew nothing and explained in a good-natured manner: "It's the property rights period."

"The house in District E was bought early, and the property rights were granted for 100 years, which means you can live in this house for almost 100 years, so we can get a loan for 70 years, but now real estate developers are unwilling to grant such a long property rights period."

"Yes." The old lady nodded. "I remember that the property rights period was only 20 years. After 20 years, the real estate developer would take it back, so the loan had to be repaid within 20 years. The monthly mortgage payment was very high. Many young people could not afford it unless they had a small loan."

Tang Er, who was standing beside him, frowned when he asked, "What is nibbling little?"

He has only heard of "living off one's parents" but not "living off one's children".

The old man looked around at this group of young people who knew nothing, hesitated for a moment, and finally spoke: "It's an advance payment of the future, so that your future children can help you repay the loan. It's a new loan repayment model developed by the five major developers."

"If you are interested, a new property has opened in District C today. You can go there and ask."

New property in Area C.

As soon as the magnificent building sales center was opened three days ago, countless people came to inquire about it. Now that it is finally open, a group of people swarmed in like hungry men who have been hungry for more than ten days and smelled the scent of a feast.

On both sides of the door stood ferocious-looking patrol teams armed with guns, high-voltage electric batons and steel forks to maintain order.

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian were completely swept in by the crowd that swarmed in. After entering, the two of them were squeezed so hard that their heads were dizzy for a few seconds, and it took them a while to come back to their senses.

There were so many people coming to the new property, which was beyond Yuan Guang and Shi Qian's expectations. They had just heard the news and planned to come and take a look. After all, the prices of the new property were too terrifying and they could not afford it with only 60 million yuan in their pockets.

However...compared to auctioning haunted houses one by one, it is not certain that every house can be auctioned off. Buying new properties should be the most stable and accurate way to complete this game.

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian originally thought that such an expensive new property would not have many people coming to look at it because they simply could not afford it. However, when they arrived, there was already a long queue in front of the property sales center which had not yet opened.

The people in the queue were a mixed bunch. Yuan Guang and Shi Qian saw some well-dressed upper-class people who looked like first-class citizens, some house slaves with sallow complexions and shaky looks, and some temporary residents who were half-naked and had resume tags hanging on their chests.

This extremely mixed crowd structure made Yuan Guang and his friends even more confused.

Why would first-class citizens buy another house if they have already bought one? Aren’t house slaves paying off their loans? Why would they buy a new property? Can they afford it? Temporary residents have no ability to pay off their loans and can’t even come up with a down payment. Why would they come and look?

Before they could come to their senses, they were swept into the crowd and an enthusiastic salesperson helped them up. He asked politely with a smile on his face: "Hello, are you here to buy a house?"

When Yuan Guang was helped up, he was flattered and surprised: "Yes, yes."

The real estate-related NPCs here are all extremely arrogant and conceited. Once they see that the clothes you wear cannot afford the cost of buying a house, they will look down on you and wave their hands impatiently to chase you away like a fly. Yuan Guang thought that the sales NPCs who came to the sales office would be more tolerant, but he didn't expect them to be so nice.

"Today's property market hasn't started yet. Do you want to check out the location first? I'm Xiaodong, the sales representative for Area C, number 1534. You can ask me anything." Xiaodong smiled and quickly helped Shi Qian and Yuan Guang sit down. "May I ask if you have any drinks or teas you like?"

Yuan Guang said cautiously: "Coke, any?"

Shi Qian: "Chrysanthemum tea will be fine, thank you."

Xiaodong smiled and nodded, and touched the microphone beside his ear: "Please prepare a cup of Coke and a cup of chrysanthemum tea for me. OK, I'll get them for you. Please wait."

Looking at Xiaodong's receding back, Shi Qian and Yuan Guang quickly took a look at the situation around them and found that all the sales were very enthusiastic, whether they were homeowners, house slaves or temporary residents, as if these were their potential customers and everyone could afford to buy a house.

Shi Qian said calmly: "Such enthusiasm, there must be something wrong. We will ask in detail later."

Yuan Guang nodded heavily.

Xiao Dong came over with a tray and handed the cola and chrysanthemum tea on the tray to Shi Qian and Yuan Guang respectively. She opened the map of the property and introduced it to them: "What kind of house do you want to see this time?"

"We have small apartments here, 12-16 square meters, which are very suitable for a family. After removing the average floor area, there are still more than 11 square meters, which is the choice of many families of three."

"Of course, if you want to raise more children, a 20-25 square meter apartment is highly recommended. If you remove the average floor area, you can still get 20+ square meters, which is enough to accommodate three or four siblings."

"For example, in this apartment, two folding beds and a hidden bed can be nested during decoration. There is also a large bookcase in front of the bed of the parents and the child. You can only see each other's feet but not each other's head, so each other has privacy."

Xiao Dong smiled slightly timidly when he said this: "And this won't affect your married life."

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian stared blankly at the small house of more than 20 square meters. There was only a large bookcase crammed between the parents and the child. They could even see each other's feet. How could they have sex under such circumstances...

Besides, there was a man and a woman looking at this apartment next to Yuan Guang and Shi Qian. They nodded in agreement and said, "Yes, this will give us more privacy. Our previous apartment was 12 square meters, and our three children could only sit on the floor and watch us bury ourselves in the bed. My wife and I couldn't stand it."

Shi Qian, who was drinking water nearby, almost spit out water when she heard this.

Brother, you have three kids watching over you, and you still have sex with your wife, are you seriously ill?!

The salesman's eyes lit up when he heard this: "You have three children?"

The man nodded slightly reservedly: "Yes, we came here this time because of the child..."

The salesperson smiled more friendly: "Since you have three children, you can consider this large apartment of 28 square meters..."

The two parties walked further and further away while talking. Shi Qian looked around with a hint of confusion. She finally realized what was wrong.

——Most of those who come to buy houses are one man and one woman, many of whom bring several children with them, and a few have only one or two children. In addition, most sales introductions focus on the house type being able to accommodate children.

That's a little... strange.

In Sunshine City, Shi Qian asked herself that she was definitely unwilling to get married or have children, but the people here had a high desire to have children, which could be seen from the most popular apartment types - most people asked about an apartment of about 25 square meters that could accommodate three children.

Xiaodong introduced all the apartment types. She glanced back and forth between Yuan Guang and Shi Qian and asked, "Are you two still planning to get married and have children?"

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian were both stunned. They had been colleagues for many years, and in reality, because they were too much of a social slave and had encountered the bad-finished building and game issues, they had long since let go of everything and no longer had that kind of worldly desire for the opposite sex.

No matter how good their relationship is, if the relationship deteriorates, they will just jump from friends to family. Since I have never thought about this problem, I was a little confused when I was suddenly asked this question.

Yuan Guang was about to say no, but Shi Qian quickly covered her mouth and stopped him. She had already discovered that the problem was with the child, so she looked up at the salesperson and pretended to be shy: "...Yes, I plan to give birth to three children for him."

Yuan Guang, who had finished a whole can of Coke next to him, widened his eyes and burped in fear.

Xiaodong understood what she meant: "Since you two are planning to have children, let me introduce to you a brand new loan service that Sunshine City Real Estate has launched to facilitate everyone's home purchase - Sunshine Seedling Loan."

Shi Qian took her hand back and asked intently, "What kind of loan is this?"

"Many people living in Sunshine City cannot afford the down payment for a house in their lifetime. For example, this 25-square-meter apartment, according to the current average price of 320,000 yuan per square meter, costs 8 million yuan. The minimum down payment for Sunshine Seedling Loan is 50%, which is 4 million yuan. The remaining balance has to be repaid in 20 years. Without interest, the monthly repayment is 16,000 yuan. Most families can afford it and can buy a house."

Shi Qian couldn't help but retort: ​​"How can a loan be interest-free?"

Xiao Dong smiled and said, "The solar seedling loans we promote are interest-free, guys."

Yuan Guang shook his head: "It's not possible to not have interest. A down payment of 4 million is too high. Not many people can afford it."

"This is the beauty of Sunshine Loan." Xiaodong's enthusiastic smile deepened, "Sunshine Seedling Loan provides a pre-mortgage loan service for children."

Yuan Guang was stunned for a moment: "What mortgage loan?"

"Children." Xiaodong repeated in a clear voice. She took out a contract and introduced it with a smile, "It's like this. Suppose you can only pay a down payment of one million. Then you can let your children sign a labor contract with our real estate company for the remaining three million. Let them use their labor as collateral in the future. For example, if there are three children, each of them only needs to mortgage a salary of one million."

Yuan Guang looked down at the labor contract that Xiaodong handed to him:

[…Party A promises that when his descendants are over 16 years old and have the ability to work, they will enter Party B's company to work 12 hours a day. Party B promises to pay a monthly salary of 4,500 (average salary level) and deduct 80% of the mortgage repayment from Party A's descendants every month until Party A's descendants repay Party A's mortgage debt.]

Yuan Guang felt a chill down his spine. He slowly raised his head, his mind suddenly dizzy: "Eighty percent of the salary has been deducted to repay the loan. He still has to work twelve hours a day without any rest time. How can this child survive?"

"Then this is not your problem to worry about." Xiao Dong smiled indifferently and said, "Children and grandchildren have their own blessings. As a father, didn't you give birth to him just to let him raise a house for you so that you can enjoy the happiness yourself?"

"Besides, if you are worried that your child will live a hard life, he can have children in the future and enjoy the happiness."