"The rent goes up every year, so how much do you want? Tell me how much the rent is for the first year."
Yu Jiu frowned, feeling that this landlord was very greedy and that many problems might arise in the future.
"Twenty yuan a month in the first year, thirty yuan a month in the second year, and forty yuan a month in the third year."
The landlord had already decided on the price, and he said it outright. Good heavens, the rent for the third year was double that of the first year, more than double!
They rented a house, a very big one in a good location, for only ten yuan a month. This is a shop, in a better location, and she could accept twenty yuan a month, but she wants to raise the price to forty yuan a month.
The rent for those three years added up to a lot: 240 in the first year, 360 in the second year, and 480 in the fourth year, totaling 1,080.
Add to that the cost of employees, renovations, and raw materials, and the cost would be far higher than running a clothing store. Even if she could still make a profit, it would be too little, and the risk too high. It would be better to set up a street stall. She didn't even need to discuss it with Xu Zijiang; she simply and decisively refused.
"The rent is too high, it's not suitable for us, let's forget about it."
“That’s right, let’s look at some other options. We can’t afford this rent.”
Xu Zijiang also said coolly, then took Yu Jiu's hand and turned to leave.
The rent is already so high after three years. If business is still good, he'll definitely raise the rent significantly when the contract expires, which they certainly won't accept. They'll then have to find a new place and move their things there. In that case, they shouldn't have rented here in the first place; they should have rented somewhere else.
It's not that they couldn't find other shops, but they preferred this one because it was closer, so they came to discuss it first.
"Hey, don't go! Why are you just leaving? The price isn't right, we can talk about it again!"
The landlord panicked when he saw the two turn to leave. He had been confident; he knew how successful Yu Jiu and Xu Zijiang's clothing store was across the street, and they must be making a lot of money. That's why he had set such a high price, assuming the two wouldn't refuse.
After all, even if it's forty yuan a month, it's not much to them. At most, it's just hiring another employee for the store, just like the girl she hired at the clothing store, who was paid thirty-five yuan a month. Why is it different for him?
He was too greedy, and since he hurt people, of course he had to prioritize profit. They had other options, so why did they spend so much money to choose him? It's ridiculous.
You know, when he rented this place out as a house, he could only get five to eight yuan a month. Now that he's turned it into a shop, twenty yuan a month is already an extremely high amount, almost four times the original amount. He's still not satisfied with that, and wants to increase it even more. No wonder Yu Jiu and Xu Zi will turn against him.
"There's no need to talk anymore; we're not suited to cooperate."
Yu Jiu didn't even turn his head, his throat frozen.
"Twenty! Twenty yuan a month, is that okay? Just sign a three-year contract, I won't raise the price, alright? This price is the same for three years, isn't that cheap enough? Come back now!"
The landlord shouted desperately from behind, but Yu Jiu and Xu Zijiang left without turning their heads.
"We don't want the twenty yuan."
She said calmly, then returned to their clothing store with Xu Zijiang to discuss countermeasures. They decided that they should never cooperate with this landlord, no matter who they partnered with. Even if he compromised now, he would definitely cause trouble again once he saw their business was booming. She hated dealing with trouble the most, and Xu Zijiang agreed with her decision.
"Let's go ask about prices at a few other places. They're all within a five-minute walk, which is very close."
"Don't rush to ask the price, let's think about it some more, come here."
Yu Jiu told Sun to take good care of the guests and not to worry about them. Then Yu Jiu pulled Xu Zijiang into the warehouse to discuss matters with him.
“I think renting a storefront is too troublesome. What if we encounter a landlord like this again? We haven’t signed a contract yet. If he causes trouble after we sign the contract, even if we are in the right, it will still be troublesome to deal with and will affect our business.”
"Why don't we just buy another shop? Let's count our money again; we still have enough to buy a house. We didn't plan to buy another one because we wanted to have more money on hand for cash flow."
Yu Jiu whispered in Xu Zijiang's ear, discussing with him that after buying the shop, they should tell others that it was rented, so as to keep a low profile.
So they need to set aside some money to buy clothes, but they already have a lot of clothes on hand, and the clothes sell quickly, so the cash flow is not slow. They don't need to keep so much money on hand.
However, buying liquor would require a large sum of money. Yu Jiu thought for a moment and realized that they had many valuable items that they could exchange for some.
"If we run out of money when it comes time to buy liquor, we can sell the gold, which will be enough to keep us afloat."
Yu Jiu still has a lot of gold saved up. It came from the small jade bowl, as well as some that the two of them had found by luck before. Selling some of it would be enough for them.
"Let's count the money we have first. We should avoid selling the gold if possible."
Xu Zijiang had no objection, but he felt that they hadn't reached the point where they needed to sell gold.
"Okay, let me see how much money we have left."
Because Yu Jiu has storage space, they basically kept their money in Yu Jiu's space instead of depositing it elsewhere. Now she can take it all out directly.
"Come on, everyone count one."
Yu Jiu divided the money into two groups, and the two squatted on the warehouse floor, carefully counting the money. Because they had bought the clothing store shop and restocked, and then sold clothes, all the money they received was put directly into the warehouse. Because there were too many things to do, they didn't have time to carefully count all the money they had, and only had a rough estimate.
Now the two of them need to re-count everything.
"One thousand...two thousand...three thousand..."
"I have three thousand four hundred and sixty-seven yuan and fifty-two cents here."
After counting the remaining wine, he gave a very precise number.
"I have 4,1032.63 yuan here."
Before long, Xu Zijiang finished counting as well. The two of them still had more than 7,590 pieces of wood-based mortar left, which, if rounded up, would be 7,600.
Then, today's clothing store revenue hasn't been included yet, and there are still a few hundred yuan left at home, which is for household use, so we won't include that for now.
"It cost about a thousand yuan more than I estimated. We'll buy a storefront, which is about the same size as a clothing store, for around six thousand yuan. We'll still have sixteen thousand yuan left. Four hundred yuan should be enough for the decoration and furnishing. We mainly need to make cabinets; we don't need to decorate much else."
"We have 1200 left. There's also the cost of ordering the gift boxes and buying flour and other raw materials—let's say 500 for that. We'll make the first batch; 500 should be enough, and we'll still have 700 left."
“Let’s take another two hundred yuan as a reserve, and fill in the gaps wherever needed. That will leave us with five hundred yuan, which can be used to buy the first batch of wine.”
"Even if it's a little short, it won't be more than two hundred yuan. The income from the clothing store can completely make up for the shortfall here. If you do the math, although we're a bit tight on money and need to be careful with our spending, it's enough."
Yu Jiu calculated the cost to the extreme.
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