After settling the rental arrangements, Chen Jin and I met up on Renmin Road. We found a bar with a live band, ordered two dozen beers and a bottle of liquor, clearly aiming for a life of hedonism. In Dali, it seems that's how life should be lived.
As I handed Chen Jin a drink, I asked, "Why did you invite me to Renmin Road? Can't you have your own bar?"
"Don't even mention it. We officially closed down yesterday... We can't pay our workers' wages or our musicians' wages... I'm so frustrated. I've invested over a million yuan, how come I can't attract any customers willing to spend money?"
"It's unlikely that it will have to close down, is it?"
"I've managed to hold on for six months, but I'm really out of money!"
At that moment, what I saw in Chen Jin was not only frustration, but also a sense of defeat. I said to him, "We talked about the problem with this bar before... I think there is an 80% chance that it is due to the atmosphere of the decoration... How about this, we don't touch the basics, try to minimize the cost of renovation, and replace everything else that can be changed... I can come up with 200,000 yuan. I think as long as we control the cost, we can still transform this bar."
"Are you sure that spending 200,000 yuan will revive the bar?"
"I'm not sure... but how will you know the result if you don't try?"
Chen Jin waved his hands and replied, "No way... I've already lost so much money at this bar, I absolutely can't drag you down with me. You're about to marry Lu Jia, and there will be so many expenses to come!"
After a brief pause, he continued, "The reason I asked you to come back is: can we find another business like Jiulongju, which requires little initial investment but offers considerable returns and manageable risks?"
I shook my head and replied, "A place like Jiulongju is truly a rare find... and if it's not done well, it's just a one-off deal... You saw how much effort we put in upfront, but those intermediaries messed things up and immediately ruined the place... In my opinion, any project that doesn't have sustainable development is gambling... Since it's gambling, how many times do you think we can win?... To be honest, the Jiulongju project had too much of a luck factor. Now that the luck has run out, do you think I'd have the guts to go back and do this again?"
Chen Jin looked a bit dejected, and after a while, he asked me again, "Did you find any reliable projects during your trip to Shanghai and Hangzhou?"
"No, they are all high-tech projects, not our area of expertise, and we don't have that much money to invest."
"We need to find something to do, otherwise I'll really panic!"
I took a sip of my drink, then said seriously to Chen Jin, "We not only need to talk about what we need to do in the future, but we also need to summarize the mistakes we made in the past... Your investment in this bar was really too rash! I think that after we get our share of the money, we should let it sit for a while, instead of blindly using it to snowball... Because we all came from poor backgrounds, compared to those rich kids with capital, we need to summarize our past successful experiences and digest them properly... We really don't have the capital to fail, and we have to be careful with every step we take."
Chen Jin nodded and said, "I absolutely agree with what you said... Otherwise, I would say you're a smart person. You took this money, bought a house in Chengdu, and then the housing prices skyrocketed... You didn't have to do anything, and your assets doubled again. But I don't have that kind of foresight, nor am I as composed as you!"
"Yes, when you're unsure what projects you can do and don't want your money to sit idle, investing in real estate is the best option... But what you said isn't entirely correct. If that house in Chengdu is considered an asset, then it's not mine; it belongs to Lu Jia."
"Oh right... Your house is registered under Lu Jia's name... But you two are getting married soon, so whether it's in her name or yours, it's considered your joint property, right?"
I looked at Chen Jin, and after a long pause, I said to him in a low voice, "Let's make a hypothetical scenario: if Lu Jia and I don't end up together... and I offer this house as compensation... would that even things out?"
Chen Jin and I stared at each other for a long while before he finally replied, "Is there something on your mind?"
I firmly denied it: "I don't have any thoughts... I just feel that there are too many unexpected things in life... When I was in Shanghai, I firmly believed that Lu Jia would be the woman I would end up with, but she still gave up on me... Even if we got married, it doesn't mean we would grow old together. Who knows what will happen in the future?!... But for me, I definitely don't want to owe anyone anything."
"Come on, Lu Jia didn't marry you for your house... You're not at the level where you can compensate a woman with material things... You've seen it all, these days, when wealthy businessmen divorce, they all give each other hundreds of millions in assets... If you didn't have that much money, who would want to go through all that pain and seek psychological balance?... I think that when a woman breaks up or divorces a man, if she doesn't find a better man, she'll definitely be the one who suffers, because a woman's youth is too short, so she has to skin that unfaithful man alive, leaving him no way out... Think about it, if you hadn't been with Lu Jia, and she had taken your house in Chengdu, would you have had no way out?"
"No, I have other assets!"
"That's it then. I have to skin you alive before you two are even."
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