Pei Qian felt dizzy. “What? You bought them? Forty percent?”

Doing a rough calculation, that meant they had purchased over sixty storefronts!

At an average price of 600,000 yuan per storefront, with a 50% premium that would be 900,000 yuan, these sixty-plus storefronts… nearly 60 million!

Pei Qian was confused. “When did I give you so much money? When we bought that farmers’ market before, didn’t I only give you 10 million?”

The farmers’ market chosen for the food court location was about 1,700 square meters. Because of its remote location and poor environment, the price wasn’t high, only about 4,000 yuan per square meter. When Tenda wanted to buy it, the price rose slightly, bringing the total to just over 7 million.

Adding renovation and other miscellaneous expenses, Pei Qian had given Liang Qianfan a little over 10 million yuan in funding, certainly no more than that.

But it couldn’t possibly be 60 million more, could it?

Liang Qianfan said, “Mr. Pei, didn’t you call me earlier and ask me to look for new buildings? I asked if storefronts would work, and you said yes.”

Pei Qian: “???”

After a moment of silence, he said, “If I remember correctly, at that time I asked you what area these storefronts were in, and you said they were in a rather remote area, where potential appreciation couldn’t be guaranteed.”

Liang Qianfan nodded. “Yes, isn’t this area remote enough?”

“And what I actually said was: ‘The appreciation potential can’t be guaranteed, but it should still be acceptable.'”

“If there was absolutely no potential for appreciation, I wouldn’t have applied for funds to buy them.”

Pei Qian was momentarily speechless.

This damn…

I allowed you to buy storefronts, but I didn’t tell you to buy this kind of place!

Pei Qian hurriedly called up the system silently, bringing up the list of fixed assets he now owned—no, the fixed assets the company owned according to the system’s records.

【Fixed Assets: 272,830,000】

【Details:】

【Mingyun Mountain Villa, one set (9,800,000)】

【City Dawn Building 1, 12 units (42,770,000)】

【Shundong Garden Commercial Residential Building, 77 units (24,710,000)】

【Lakeside Community Buildings 8 & 9, 32 units total (28,180,000)】

【Golden Mansion Gardens Building 5, 30 units (72,690,000)】

【Huaxin Mountain Language Community Building 3, 24 units (25,800,000)】

【Old Industrial District Farmers’ Market (7,600,000)】

【Old Industrial District Street Storefronts, 62 units (61,280,000)】

Golden Mansion Gardens was the first building purchased under the Sloth Apartment 2.0 model, while Huaxin Mountain Language Community was the second building under the same model, located in a more remote area, making it much cheaper.

When money was tight earlier, Pei Qian had originally planned to sell the newly renovated Huaxin Mountain Language Community building, but the sale hadn’t gone through, so it was still in his hands.

After the last item, “Old Industrial District Street Storefronts, 62 units,” there was detailed information that could be expanded to view specific information about each storefront.

After clicking to scan through it, Pei Qian finally remembered.

There had indeed been a period when the system had prompted information about purchasing some storefronts.

But at that time, the displayed information wasn’t “Old Industrial District Street Storefronts, 62 units,” but rather the specific names of these storefronts!

If there had been the words “Old Industrial District,” Pei Qian might have been slightly more vigilant.

Unfortunately, there hadn’t been.

After all, when Liang Qianfan signed contracts with the owners of these storefronts, he signed them one by one, and naturally, the system recorded them one by one as well.

Only after all were signed did the system create a collection, bundling them together for display.

Because there was too much information about fixed assets, Pei Qian habitually kept it hidden and was too lazy to look at it.

As for when the information had just been refreshed, Pei Qian couldn’t remember what he was doing at the time. He might have been playing games or watching TV shows.

In any case, when he saw a batch of random storefront names flash by, each with a price that wasn’t high, just tens of thousands of yuan, he didn’t think much of it.

The system would only refresh the information when fixed assets were first purchased, and then only refresh again at settlement time, with no updates in between.

This was because the value of these fixed assets was always experiencing slight changes, with ups and downs, and if they were always displayed, Pei Qian would see these numbers floating before his eyes every day, which would be too annoying.

So, it was only now that Pei Qian accurately grasped the specific information about the fixed assets.

Seeing the figure of 272 million, Pei Qian felt his head throb.

Buying buildings was a one-way street—money only went in, not out—and somehow the total had grown so large without him noticing!

Moreover, every time he saw these numbers, they seemed to only increase, never decrease.

It was truly a sad story.

This was considering that the expansion of Sloth Apartments had been slightly interrupted.

Previously, Pei Qian had planned to have Sloth Apartments buy buildings in remote areas of Capital City and Magic City, but it happened to coincide with Liang Qianfan going on vacation, so the matter was temporarily shelved.

After Liang Qianfan returned, Pei Qian had the sudden idea to create the food court, and at the same time, Finger Company and Dragon Universe Group were engaging in a money-burning war, making Tenda’s funds a bit tight, so the plan to buy buildings in Capital City and Magic City was put on hold.

Even so, Tenda’s fixed assets had reached 270 million, clearly advancing toward the 300 million mark!

His head was throbbing.

This month’s initial system funds were 50 million, and the 270 million in fixed assets converted to about 27 million in system funds, which meant that the system fund quota available for Pei Qian’s loss operations was only 23 million left.

Even if he zeroed out the system funds, he could only convert 2.3 million in personal assets.

It was acceptable, not completely intolerable.

They had already been bought, what more could he say?

Looking on the bright side, at least a large sum of funds had been consumed, reducing the pressure to make losses.

Strictly speaking, these storefronts were actually purchased very much in line with Pei Qian’s requirements—remote location, moderate price. The only problem was that they happened to connect the food court and the Horror Lodge…

Value appreciation in the next few years seemed inevitable.

At this point, Pei Qian had nothing more to say, but he had one last question: “How is it that 40% of the storefront owners chose to sell?”

Logically, knowing that Tenda was planning something big nearby, shouldn’t they have firmly held onto their storefronts and demanded sky-high prices?

Or they should have only rented, not sold, right?

At the mention of this, Liang Qianfan immediately perked up, straightening his back a bit.

“Indeed, I encountered many difficulties when purchasing these storefronts.”

“Many storefront owners demanded sky-high prices, either refusing to sign long-term leases or wanting to increase the rent two or three times when signing long-term leases, which was ridiculous.”

“I certainly couldn’t be that kind of sucker!”

“So, after the special funds you approved arrived, I gave these storefront owners an ultimatum: either sign a ten-year long lease at the current rent plus a 50% increase, or sell to us at a 50% premium over the storefront price.”

“If they wouldn’t accept either option, I would redesign the food street route to bypass these uncooperative stores!”

“So, Mr. Pei, the food street route you see now has been redesigned. Those stores that were deliberately bypassed are basically the ones that demanded sky-high prices and refused to cooperate.”

“Between the two remaining options, either choice made sense.”

“The rent-to-sale ratio for storefronts is basically around 1:300, so even if a store with 2,000 yuan monthly rent increased by 50%, it would only be 3,000 yuan per month. And with a ten-year contract, the rent couldn’t be arbitrarily increased, so the rent wasn’t actually that much.”

“But if they sold the storefront, the same shop would go from 600,000 to 900,000 yuan, and they could get this money immediately.”

“Money has time value. A 50% real price increase now would definitely be more profitable than a possible future increase of more than 50%. Moreover, this was cash that could be immediately invested. With proper management, the long-term income could far exceed the principal, making it much more profitable than earning that little extra rent.”

“Some storefront owners planned to invest this money, while others simply needed money urgently, either to buy a house or for working capital.”

“Of course, some storefront owners were more practical. They couldn’t calculate this clearly, so they cautiously chose to sign long-term leases instead.”

“These were all their personal choices after weighing the pros and cons. For us, both options were actually quite similar.”

Pei Qian nodded.

Fine, he didn’t understand much about these things anyway, and since everything had already been purchased, there was no need to dwell on it any further.

The food court would officially open the day after tomorrow, and Pei Qian decided not to attend.

Because whether he came or not, the result would be the same—the food court would definitely be packed.

As long as it didn’t make money, it would be fine.

Pei Qian looked at his watch. He had planned to leave an hour ago, but unexpectedly ended up taking a tour of the food street and getting stabbed several more times in the process.

It was time to go home and comfort his wounded heart with good food and sleep.

Or should he say, his wounded back?

Whatever, it was all the same.

After having Xiao Sun bring the car over, Pei Qian got in and left.

Watching Mr. Pei leave, Zhang Yahui and Liang Qianfan began walking back.

Zhang Yahui sighed, “Mr. Pei hides his emotions so well. It’s hard to tell whether he’s satisfied with the food court or not.”

Liang Qianfan corrected him, “That’s not quite accurate. It’s not that Mr. Pei hides his emotions, but rather that his expressions often don’t match his true inner thoughts.”

“Based on past experience, Mr. Pei tends to be more optimistic in adversity, but more vigilant in times of success.”

“Seeing his somewhat worried look, it probably means our work has been completed satisfactorily.”

“At least it means there are no problems in the short term. Even if there are deficiencies, they’re issues to consider in the future.”

Zhang Yahui let out a long breath. “I see, that’s good.”

“I’ve only been a manager for a short time. Before, I was just selling cold noodles at a stall. As soon as I took charge, I was given such an important task, involving site selection, design, and renovation—areas I had never dealt with before. I’ve been on edge these few months, afraid of not doing a good job.”

“Now that I know Mr. Pei is relatively satisfied, I can relax!”