Seeing the old man so sad, Tang Baozhu didn't know what to say. As an outsider, anything she said would be wrong, so she decided to say nothing.
"Grandpa, you're in such a hurry to sell the house, have you already set a time?"
I asked tentatively, thinking the old man wouldn't answer, but to my surprise, he answered directly.
"Yes! There are only eight days left. I was thinking of taking advantage of these days to sell the house so we could leave. It was going to be easy to sell, but when people found out we were moving, they kept trying to lower the price. They wouldn't care if I lowered it by a little or two, but they would try to cut the price in half. I had no choice but to come out and try my luck to see if anyone wanted to buy the house. That's why I came to you when I heard you were looking for a house these days."
Tang Baozhu didn't expect that this was the reason why the old man was so anxious, but there will always be people who take advantage of others' misfortunes.
Although she couldn't be considered a good person, she was still very easy to talk to as long as no one offended her.
"Sir, since you're in such a hurry, let's look at other houses. But I don't have that much cash, so I can only pay with gold bars. I wonder if you can do that?"
“Gold bars would be even better; they’re easy to carry and hold their value better. Come on, I’ll take you to see some houses now. The other houses aren’t far away. That area used to be all our houses. Although we’ve returned probably less than half of them, it’s still a considerable number. You might really like the houses over there.”
Just thinking about it, Tang Baozhu realized how big that area would be if all the houses were there! It must be as big as the villa where she retired in her previous life!
I wonder what the old man's family did before, they were so rich.
We followed the old man to the area where the houses were located. It wasn't far from the two houses we had just seen, maybe a 15-minute walk.
After listening to the old man's explanation, I learned that this half of the street originally belonged to their family, but they haven't returned it all yet. I don't know the specific reason, but even the half that has been returned now is quite a lot.
They own a quarter of the street's shops, and most of them are two-story, though the shops vary in size.
There are more houses behind, all of them are courtyard houses, but some are now inhabited, while others have been vacated.
The original owners were the old man's family. The people who moved in now have signed new rental contracts and are not as domineering as before. The previous group of people had lived here for a long time and treated the house as their own. It took a lot of effort to get them out.
For Tang Baozhu, as long as there are no disputes over these houses, there's no problem. He's just an ordinary citizen now, and if there are any disputes, he probably wouldn't know who to turn to.
But for Tang Baozhu, who wanted to live a carefree life, she didn't want any of the houses behind the shops. She had so many shops to collect rent and two houses to live in, so buying more wouldn't make a difference.
"Sir, you own far too many properties. I probably can't afford to buy them all. I'll just buy the two-courtyard house I just looked at and these shops. I really can't afford the rest of the houses. Please don't take offense."
The old man smiled and said, "You've already done a great job by buying these shops. If you really can't sell the houses, just let the landlords who rent them buy them. I think they'd be happy to."
Upon hearing this, Tang Baozhu realized that she had been tricked by the old man. The old man probably intended to sell those shops and that house from the beginning. Although she felt a little uncomfortable, she wouldn't go against the house.
"The old man is truly remarkable. I wonder how much all these shops, plus that two-courtyard house, cost in total?"
“Young lady, this old man won’t beat around the bush with you. I have at least dozens of shops here. If it weren’t for the special circumstances now, I wouldn’t be selling them. Since I’ve chosen to sell to you, I won’t change the price just because you’re young. At the current gold price, it’s about 20 yuan per gram. It may fluctuate a bit, but let’s set it at 20 yuan per gram.”
"House prices aren't high right now. I'll sell you this second-courtyard house for 5,000 yuan, which is still a bit cheap. You know, the materials I used for the renovation cost almost 3,000 yuan, so 5,000 yuan is already very cheap."
“The price of the shops is different from that of the houses. I roughly calculated that there are about 60 shops. Since they vary in size, I’ll round it up to 1 million. If you convert that to gold, it’s about 100 jin (50 kg). Let’s round it up to 100 jin. I wonder if this price is satisfactory, young lady?”
For Tang Baozhu, 100 jin of gold was just 100 gold bars. He had gold in various sizes, some weighing one jin, some half a jin, and some even one or two liang.
Where to transport something weighing 100 pounds is a problem. Suddenly I remembered the house I just looked at; it seems like a good place.
"I'm quite satisfied. The old man will borrow your two-courtyard house for a while. Once the gold arrives, he will deliver it directly to you. You can just come to the house to pick it up then."
"Alright, since the young lady trusts this old man, then just leave the things in that room."
"Thank you, sir. I'll head back now and bring the things over tomorrow. We'll meet in that room at 10 a.m. tomorrow."
"Sure, no problem. Here's the key to the house."
Tang Baozhu took the keys from the old man, initially wondering if she should offer him a ride home, given his advanced age. However, seeing someone watching them and the old man waving in their direction, she knew someone was there to pick him up.
After parting ways with the old man, Tang Baozhu took one last look at the shops that were about to become hers. Some were still unrented, while others were already rented out and in operation.
More and more vendors are setting up stalls on the streets. In this day and age, you can make money quickly no matter what you sell.
Although this street isn't a main street, business seems to be doing quite well. Anyway, it'll be demolished sooner or later, so I'll just collect the compensation and live off it.
I glanced around briefly and went straight back to school. I greeted familiar people and nodded to unfamiliar ones before leaving.
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