Yi Anguo took a detour to Hu Jing's place. When he walked in, he found the apartment empty. He called out, but there was no response.
He opened the door to the master bedroom and saw someone in pajamas applying makeup at the dressing table. Assuming it was Hu Jing, he walked over and said, "Why the sudden makeup session? Where are you planning to go? Didn't you hear me calling?"
As he spoke, he instinctively hugged her from behind.
"What are you doing? Taking liberties in broad daylight!" To his astonishment, she immediately jumped up. Face beet red, she turned and pushed him away.
"Ah! You're Hu Qian? What are you doing in this room?" Yi Anguo exclaimed in surprise.
"This is my sister's room. Why can't I be in my sister's room?" Hu Qian retorted. "Besides, my room doesn't have a dressing table. If I want to put on makeup, where else am I supposed to go?"
"Oh, sorry about that! I thought you were your sister. I really didn't mean to offend you!" Yi Anguo apologized hurriedly, flushed with embarrassment.
"Brother-in-law, how did that feel?" Hu Qian asked, her face still red. "Was it as good as when you hug my sister?"
"Qian! Spare me, please! You can't tell your sister about this!" Yi Anguo begged.
As for how it felt, what difference could there possibly be between identical twin sisters?
"Brother-in-law, many of my classmates have laptops now. They say it's really convenient for looking up medical information," Hu Qian said.
"If other people have one, then our Qian has to have one too! Your brother-in-law will give you the money to buy it yourself. Is twenty thousand yuan enough?" Yi Anguo said quickly.
"What! Brother-in-law, you're really giving me twenty thousand? I love you so much!" Hu Qian shouted with delight.
"This is your reward, Brother-in-law!" Hu Qian suddenly threw her arms around Yi Anguo and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Just one kiss on the cheek for twenty thousand? That's not nearly enough!" Yi Anguo complained.
"Then what else do you want?" Hu Qian asked.
"At least one for the other side!" Yi Anguo said, pointing to his other cheek.
Just then, the sound of the front door opening startled them. It was Hu Jing, back from grocery shopping.
"Brother Yi! You're here," Hu Jing said with a bright smile when she saw him. "I'll start cooking right away. You have to stay for dinner!"
"Of course! I came over specifically to have some of your cooking," Yi Anguo replied with a smile, walking over to greet her.
"What did you get?"
"I bought a lot. Today is the Lantern Festival, and my sister is heading back to school tomorrow."
"It's the Lantern Festival today? I've completely lost track of the days. I thought it was tomorrow!"
Yi Anguo offered to help in the kitchen, but Hu Jing shooed him out, telling him to just wait in the living room for dinner.
Hu Qian emerged from the bedroom in a fresh set of clothes. She sat down next to Yi Anguo, boldly kissed his other cheek, and held out her hand. "Brother-in-law, the money, please. I'm going back to school tomorrow."
"Give me your bank account number and I'll transfer it to you. It's not safe to carry that much cash," Yi Anguo said.
"Okay! Wait here! I'll go write it down for you."
After the Lantern Festival, Hu Qian left and Li Sisi arrived, and life began to settle back into a routine.
However, Yi Anguo noticed that while Li Sisi was often smiling, she sometimes fell into a pensive silence, as if something was weighing on her mind. But whenever he asked, she would just say it was nothing. Yi Anguo didn't want to pry. If she didn't want to talk about it, asking would be pointless.
After the New Year, the housing market in Blue Mountain District seemed to spring to life. Prices rose across the board by an average of 300 yuan per square meter. As of February 1st, the latest price for Blue Coast's third phase was 7,200 yuan per square meter, with no discounts offered whatsoever.
Discounts and promotional events at all major developments had also been completely canceled. It seemed the housing prices were genuinely rising, and sales volume was climbing right along with them. The higher the prices climbed, the more sales increased instead of falling. This phenomenon was strange, but it was also a stark reality. All the real estate developers were the same in this regard: the more people bought, the higher they raised their prices. If no one was buying, their prices would tumble. It was a perfect example of 'a rising tide lifts all boats.'
After the New Year, the number of prospective renters gradually increased. Even the larger apartments were no longer difficult to rent out. By March 13th, every single property in Blue Coast's third phase was leased, and that particular burden was finally off Yi Anguo's shoulders.
By this time, the share price of National Liquor had also climbed to about 35 yuan.
Yi Anguo had swing-traded three times, making a small profit of five or six million yuan. His holdings had now increased to 3.5 million shares. His total stock account value reached over 122 million yuan, with a total profit of more than 56 million yuan.
Because he collected a two-month security deposit and rent for the newly leased properties, he had a small surplus each month after paying the mortgages. This was on top of not having to pay property management fees. For example, a 100-square-meter apartment rented for 3,000 yuan a month would leave a surplus of about 300 yuan after the mortgage payment. This was at a time when mortgage rates were still relatively high. If he had to pay property management fees on top of that, he'd probably only clear a few dozen yuan.
Now that all the properties were rented out, he had a monthly income of roughly 500,000 yuan. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself.
There was still the issue of vacancy rates to consider. However, with 500,000 yuan a month as a base, it should be enough to cover any costs. The chance of taking a loss was minimal unless there was a massive wave of tenants moving out. But such a scenario seemed unlikely.
On April 8th, the share price of National Liquor finally broke through 40 yuan. Yi Anguo quickly seized the opportunity to sell during the upswing. Over two days, he managed to offload 2 million of his shares. The trading volume for National Liquor was quite low; daily turnover was usually only a few tens of millions of yuan, sometimes dropping to just over 20 million. The highest single-day trading volume was just over 100 million yuan, so Yi Anguo didn't dare sell too aggressively for fear of tanking the price.
It took another two days to liquidate the rest of his position. Fortunately, the average sale price was quite good, exceeding 39 yuan per share, and he recouped a total of 137 million yuan.
After that, Yi Anguo stopped paying attention to the stock market. He knew National Liquor was heading for a long, slow decline and likely wouldn't recover for at least two months. As for other stocks, he wasn't sure about their specifics, so he didn't dare to make any reckless moves.
With his focus off the stock market, he turned his attention to collecting rent. With more tenants came all sorts of problems. The occupant of Apartment 17D in Building 13 of Phase Two, for instance, was now two months behind on rent. He had called several times to press for payment, and each time they said they would pay soon and were "working on it."
Yi Anguo had sent Wang Bing to knock on the door and check on the situation. Wang Bing reported back that the tenant, a woman with a young daughter, said her husband was on a business trip and hadn't returned. She claimed they would have the money for the rent as soon as he was back.
A business trip? What kind of business trip keeps someone away while rent goes unpaid for two months? That doesn't make any sense. The two-month security deposit is already used up, and what about the utilities for those two months? If this tenant secretly moves out, I'd be at a loss. Even if I'm a good-natured landlord with no temper, I can't be completely without a backbone, can I?
Yi Anguo decided he had to go collect the rent in person.
He really didn't want to take this step. He truly hated chasing tenants for rent. Normally, if a tenant was less than half a month late, he wouldn't even call. After a full month, he would only send Wang Bing to check on the situation. Going to collect rent in person—this was a first for him.
Arriving at the door of Apartment 17D in Building 13, Yi Anguo reached out and rang the doorbell.
He waited for quite a while, but no one answered. A flicker of anger started to burn in his chest.
Yi Anguo forced himself to calm down. He had a spare key, but he wouldn't use it to open a tenant's door unless it was an absolute emergency. Especially since the tenant was a woman with a child and her husband wasn't home. Using a spare key to barge in would be far too rash.
Just then, Yi Anguo thought he could faintly hear something from inside the apartment—the sound of a little girl crying.