The door has a fingerprint lock, no need for a key.
Chang Yuning reached out and opened the door, inviting Chen Yiyang inside.
"The place is a bit messy, I hope you don't mind."
Chen Yiyang followed behind Chang Yuning into the house.
Since he had a legitimate reason, he carefully scanned the entire living room that could be seen after entering the house.
Actually, it's not that messy.
This house's living room doesn't even have a sofa, only a wall-mounted TV.
The floor is covered with a yoga mat, and there's a treadmill placed in the corner.
Apart from some scattered personal belongings, there's nothing that really needs attention.
The kitchen is also very clean, which suggests the owner rarely cooks, only making some steamed or boiled food.
The bathroom has no peculiar smell.
The guest room has no signs of being lived in, with some fitness-related clutter piled up in the corner.
"Do you want to see the master bedroom?" Chang Yuning asked.
"No need to go in." Chen Yiyang wasn't really there to check out the house.
Even if this house were leaking, as long as he sells it for over a million dollars, he would earn his commission.
But the biggest issue now is, the originally planned buyer, Chang Yuning, no longer wants to buy, and he needs to find someone else willing to pay in full from somewhere.
Do I really need to find an agent to handle it directly?
Or maybe just buy it myself?
Chen Yiyang silently calculated.
He currently has ninety-nine thousand in savings. Based on his earning speed, he might earn tens of thousands more in a few days.
By then, spending a million on a house isn't really a difficult task.
After all, buying this house for a million would definitely not be a loss. If he can't sell it, he can live in it himself.
But the process would take a bit longer.
He should at least wait until he has a cash flow of over one hundred and fifty thousand before starting the house-buying process.
Thinking about this, he felt much calmer about the disruption to his previous plan.
"The house doesn't have major problems. You'd better start preparing to move soon, as I might sign a contract with someone else any time now."
"Wait a second." Suddenly, Chang Yuning stopped Chen Yiyang.
"What's up?"
"Could you..." Gathering great courage, Chang Yuning finally spoke, "Could you give me a few months to raise the money?"
"You want to buy this house too?" Chen Yiyang thought, finally she's willing to say it.
Was her previous performance to negotiate a lower price?
But he didn't mind it too much and spoke as planned,
"Due to the entrustor's request, we only accept full payment for the house purchase. According to the nearby housing prices, you'd need to pay a hundred and fifty thousand at once."
Hearing about the full payment.
Chang Yuning's face suddenly turned pale.
Only then did Chen Yiyang realize it. This girl seems to be having financial difficulties.
Could it have been after he received the tip-off for bargain-buying information?
Which made her lose the ability to buy a house.
And the tip-off for bargain-buying information is only pushed once for a single bargain-buying event, meaning his intel on Chang Yuning's purchasing power is outdated.
Thinking of this, Chen Yiyang felt he needed to go back and rethink his strategy.
This way, it also gives the girl some time to cool down.
"How about this, this kind of matter can't be resolved in a day or two. Let's arrange a place to chat again tomorrow."
"Sure, thank you so much." Chang Yuning hurried to express her gratitude.
Chang Yuning personally escorted Chen Yiyang out the door, and as they were about to part ways, she suddenly reached over and touched his clothes.
"There's a dog hair here, do you have a dog at home?"
"Yeah, I have a German Shepherd. This way I can go out for walks to exercise every day."
With this action by Chang Yuning, the distance between them suddenly closed.
Chen Yiyang was directly bumped by her, and his breathing changed suddenly.
"Let's add each other on WeChat." Not distancing herself, Chang Yuning took out her phone and said, "I'm a fitness coach, if you have fitness needs, you can contact me directly, I can give you a discounted price."
After parting with Chang Yuning, Chen Yiyang only felt a surge of anger.
But before he found a way to quell it, a phone call came in.
It was Manager Yang from Jin City Convenient Warehouse, asking whether Chen Yiyang allowed him to give Chen Yiyang's contact to someone.
After Chen Yiyang agreed, another call quickly came in.
"Hello, brother." The voice on the other side was full of urgency and fatigue, like someone who hadn't slept well in a long time.
"Who are you?" Chen Yiyang inquired about the other party's name.
"My name is Peng Changzhao. Can I ask, are you a friend of Old Lu?"
"Who?" Chen Yiyang searched his mind, but the name didn't ring a bell.
"You bought the stuff he left in the warehouse," the other party continued, "those suitcases. I know half of those suitcases aren't empty, they're filled with mining cards.
But I'm not here for them. Can we meet and talk? Please, I have something very important to ask you."
"Sure, but I'll choose the location." It was the first time Chen Yiyang was approached after finding a bargain.
However, the other party didn't seem to be interested in those mining cards.
Moreover, he had legally purchased the mining cards, so there was no fear of being threatened over this matter.
Still, for safety reasons, he called Zhou Jianjun, a driver who had once learned martial arts at the Shaolin Temple, to drive him and bring a baseball bat.
Chen Yiyang chose the location at a bar in Jin City Center Mall.
This was one of the busiest areas in Jin City, with a police station nearby and plenty of security in the mall.
The bar also had outdoor seating under tents, offering good visibility and open space, making it easier to escape in case of an emergency.
Chen Yiyang sat at a table and ordered a beer.
Zhou Jianjun, wearing a hat and carrying a bag with a baseball bat, dressed in sportswear, sat a few steps away from Chen Yiyang at another table.
Not ten minutes later, a slightly overweight young man ran over and plopped down in front of Chen Yiyang.
"I'm Peng Changzhao," the fat man said breathlessly, without waiting for Chen Yiyang to speak, "I used to run a mining operation with Old Lu. After the 924 notice, domestic mining operations faced penalties, so Old Lu and I moved to the countryside to continue.
But the electricity consumption of the mining operation was too high, and soon we were under scrutiny again. So Old Lu decided to find a place abroad where electricity is cheaper to continue mining.
He packed the mining cards into suitcases and stored them in the warehouse, then went abroad alone, and since then, I haven't been able to contact him."
"I don't know where he went either," Chen Yiyang replied honestly.
"Honestly, I don't care where he went. With Southeast Asia being so chaotic, he hasn't been in touch for so long, he must have met some kind of accident. He's probably long gone."
Peng Changzhao stared at Chen Yiyang and said, "I'm not here to find him. Old Lu and I were just business partners, whether he's dead or alive means nothing to me."
"Then why are you looking for me?"
Chen Yiyang asked curiously.
"The paper wallet, he took half of the paper wallet with him!" Peng Changzhao immediately revealed the reason he was looking for Chen Yiyang.
"I was the one who brought him into the Bitcoin world. We both bought coins when the price was cheap. But when the price increased, we couldn't resist and sold our coins.
This caused us to lose a lot of money, so we later agreed to store mined Bitcoins as paper wallets, each holding half.
That way, even if one of us got impulsive, we couldn't sell the Bitcoin. We could hold onto the Bitcoin for a long time, waiting for it to appreciate.
But before Old Lu went abroad, he didn't tell me where he kept his half of the Bitcoin!"
After Peng Changzhao explained the whole story.
Chen Yiyang suddenly realized.
The half paper wallet he found in the trash early this morning was likely the half Old Lu had kept.
Putting the pieces together, he could quickly guess the truth and the sequence of events.
Peng Changzhao and Old Lu partnered to run a mining operation, mined two Bitcoins, and stored them as paper wallets, each holding half to prevent someone from succumbing to temptation and selling the Bitcoin early.
Then, as the government increased its crackdown on mining, Old Lu bought a lot of rolling suitcases to store graphics cards, ready to move the mining operation at any time.
In the end, realizing that mining was impossible domestically, Old Lu stored the suitcases and graphics cards in a warehouse and went to Southeast Asia to find a suitable mining location.
But that trip led to his complete disappearance.
After being missing for over a year, his family successfully declared him a missing person and began handling his estate.
Among the belongings were the suitcases in the warehouse, which were then bought by Chen Yiyang.
Unable to find Old Lu, Peng Changzhao, upon learning that someone had bought the suitcases filled with what were probably Old Lu's mining graphics cards, approached Chen Yiyang hoping to learn the whereabouts of the other half of the paper wallet.
And things happened to coincide just like that.
It's likely that Old Lu stored the paper wallet in a metal box. But when his family handled his belongings, they considered the metal box trash and threw it in the trash can.
And under the tip from a bargain hunter, Chen Yiyang dug that half of the paper wallet out of the trash early this morning.
Two Bitcoins, based on the current market price, are worth over a million.
Even if he could only get half, it would still be quite valuable.
Thinking about this, Chen Yiyang calmly took a sip of beer, and then slowly said, "How much are you willing to pay for the two Bitcoins on the paper wallet?"
As soon as Chen Yiyang finished speaking, Peng Changzhao across the table suddenly lifted his head, staring intently at Chen Yiyang.
Because he and Old Lu were the only ones who knew that the paper wallet contained two Bitcoins!
In other words, Old Lu's half of the paper wallet was indeed in the other party's hand!
Peng Changzhao's breathing became rapid.
After Old Lu disappeared, he originally didn't care because he still had some money to trade in Bitcoin.
But just last month, amid the turmoil in the Bitcoin world, he lost everything, down to his underwear!
These two Bitcoins were his last hope for a comeback!