Chapter 181: Chapter 180: Storefront

After Xue Yue got back, He Lang told her about it.

“I heard about it at school too. A large number of educated youth are returning to the city, but is it really that many?”

He Lang said, “They probably won’t all come back at once, but since the policy has been enacted, there will definitely be a lot of people. Prices are bound to go up then.”

Xue Yue agreed. “Buying a storefront is a good idea. I have class tomorrow, are you going to look by yourself?”

He Lang: “I’ll go check things out first. If I find something decent, I’ll call you over. How much money do we have at home right now?”

“After setting aside the money for your inventory, we have a little less than seventy thousand.”

He Lang nodded. “That should be almost enough.”

He Lang had Shitou and Little Chen go to the market first, while he spent the day running around with a real estate agent.

He wanted to pick a place relatively close to home, somewhere with a lot of foot traffic in a bustling area.

There were two places for sale that He Lang thought were pretty good. He hadn’t decided which one to buy yet and planned to take Xue Yue to see them.

The next day, Xue Yue only had a morning class, so she took the rest of the day off.

A half-hour bus ride brought them to their destination. The two shops weren’t far from each other, both facing the street, but their prices were worlds apart.

The first was a shop of about sixty to seventy square meters. It wasn’t huge, but it was decent. They could get it for twenty-five thousand yuan.

The second one was much bigger. It had two floors, each over a hundred square meters, and there was even a small room on the second floor that could be lived in.

“This one is spacious. We can display a lot of things on two floors, and it would be great to set up a fitting room on the first floor, too,” Xue Yue said after looking it over.

He Lang also thought this one was good. It was large to begin with, and with two floors, there was even more room to work with.

Xue Yue asked, “How much is this one?”

“100,000.”

Hearing this, Xue Yue turned to He Lang in disbelief. “One hundred—thousand?”

He Lang shrugged. “That’s the owner’s asking price. Even if we can haggle it down, it probably won’t be by much.”

The shop instantly lost its appeal for Xue Yue. ’Good heavens, the courtyard house we live in now only cost ten thousand yuan. How could they ask for 100,000? Where are we supposed to get that much money?’

“It’s nice, but we can’t afford it!” Xue Yue lamented helplessly.

They had less than seventy thousand, which meant they were short by more than thirty thousand. This wasn’t child’s play; this was real, hard cash—the kind you could hear go THUMP THUMP when it hit the floor.

They might have that much if He Lang sold all his merchandise, but they had just opened and hadn’t earned any money yet.

Xue Yue looked at him. “Why don’t we buy the smaller one?”

He Lang carefully observed the storefront. After a moment’s hesitation, he said to Xue Yue, “The small one would work for now, but we’d definitely have to upgrade to a bigger place later. If that’s the case, we might as well buy a big one from the start.”

Xue Yue spread her hands. “And the money?”

He Lang thought for a few seconds, then suddenly looked at Xue Yue. “We’ll have to do what we did last time.”

It only took one look from He Lang for Xue Yue to know he was talking about the gold bars.

Xue Yue didn’t hesitate. “Okay. Let’s talk to the owner first and see if we can get the price down. I get dizzy just hearing that number.”

In the end, they negotiated the price down by one thousand yuan. In the owner’s words, ninety-nine thousand was a good number, symbolizing longevity and permanence.

Xue Yue could only manage a dry laugh. ’Heh.’ All that was left was to scrape the money together.

After returning home, Xue Yue took out all their savings. Setting aside some money for household emergency expenses, they had a total of sixty-eight thousand. That meant they were still short thirty-one thousand. They would also have to renovate later, as the shop’s current interior wasn’t suitable for selling clothes. All in all, they’d need close to forty thousand.

Xue Yue asked, “How many more are you planning to sell?”

“Let’s take fifteen bars for now.”

He Lang figured that since prices for everything were going up, there was no reason the price of gold wouldn’t rise too. Still, he chose a conservative number of bars to sell.

That evening, Xue Xingzhou and Zhang Qian came over to mooch a meal.

“Is Uncle Zheng not home?” Xue Yue asked.

Zhang Qian nodded. “These past few days, Dad’s been so busy he’s slept at his office several nights.”

“He’s that busy?”

“Yeah, something about foreign investment, some car company… I only overheard a little, so I don’t really get it,” Zhang Qian said vaguely.

Xue Yue looked at her brother. Xue Xingzhou nodded. “It’s about bringing in foreign investment. They’re probably planning a joint venture to develop the automobile manufacturing industry.”

“Wow, Uncle Zheng is really amazing,” Xue Yue remarked.

Xue Xingzhou asked about their plan to buy the storefront.

“Do you know how much they’re asking?”

Zhang Qian looked at her, a bit confused.

“One hundred—thousand!!!”

Zhang Qian was so shocked she dropped the half-eaten apple in her hand.

“Did you guys strike it rich? Is selling clothes that profitable?”

Xue Yue let out a laugh. “We haven’t even scraped the money together yet, have we?”

Zhang Qian blinked. “Well, I have a few thousand yuan, but it’s all money my dad gave me. I can bring it over for you tomorrow.”

Xue Yue smiled. “Sister-in-law, I didn’t bring this up to borrow money from you. We already have a plan.”

Only then did Zhang Qian breathe a sigh of relief.

Xue Xingzhou, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised. “The space must be pretty big, right?”

He Lang said, “Two floors, each over a hundred square meters, facing the street.”

“That’s great. You can sell clothes on the first floor and shoes or accessories on the second,” Xue Xingzhou suggested.

Xue Yue nodded. “That’s a good suggestion. But, Big Brother, it seems like you know a thing or two about interior design. For the shop’s design—”

Xue Xingzhou knew Xue Yue was referring to the design of their house back home. “Sure. I can draw up a plan for the construction crew. They can just follow that.”

In truth, it wasn’t that Xue Xingzhou knew anything about interior design. It was just that he had seen a lot in his past life, and he could adapt any one of those designs.

That night, He Lang took Xue Xingzhou to the black market again.

Sure enough, the black market had completely changed since their last visit. Last time, it had been bustling with people, as lively as if it were daytime. Now, there was almost no one there.

They had anticipated this. Now that private sales were allowed, people no longer had to come here to trade secretly in the dead of night.

The two of them went straight to the courtyard house where they had sold the gold bars last time.

After a quick look to confirm it was the right place, He Lang went up and knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” a sleepy, muffled voice called out.

The door opened. Uncle Ming saw two men standing at the entrance. He shone a flashlight in their faces, and the bright light made He Lang squint.

“Who are you?”

“We’re looking for Brother Hua. We came once before to sell something.”

Uncle Ming yawned and waved a dismissive hand at He Lang. “We’re not buying anything. Whatever it is, come back tomorrow.” He started to close the door.

“We want to sell gold bars. We’ve been here before. Could you please let him know? We’re looking for Brother Hua.”

Uncle Ming froze for a second, then carefully sized up He Lang and Xue Xingzhou.

“You do look a little familiar.”

He Lang smiled.

“Then you two wait here.”

Uncle Ming closed the door again. From the sound of his footsteps, he had gone back inside.

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