Xu Jing was a teacher at Beijing Normal University.

As a university faculty member, he had been badly bullied by his tenants – it was like a scholar meeting soldiers, unable to reason with them!

Xu Jing wanted to sell the house to follow his fiancée abroad. They were both ambitious young people – his fiancée was studying overseas on a government scholarship, but Xu Jing hadn’t been selected. He could either pay his way or wait in China for his fiancée to return after completing her studies. When his fiancée clearly expressed her desire to stay and work abroad after graduation, Xu Jing became anxious.

With them worlds apart, if he didn’t follow her abroad, wasn’t he just waiting to be dumped?

Xu Jing liked his girlfriend and yearned for life abroad, which was why he wanted to sell the house.

Selling for a higher price now meant more dollars to exchange, as expenses abroad were quite substantial.

Xu Jing had asked for 80,000 yuan for the house, and others had viewed it both before and after Xia Xiaolan’s visit. They too were troubled by the tenants, and knowing Xu Jing urgently needed money, they drove extremely hard bargains. After comparing offers, Xu Jing found Xia Xiaolan’s attitude the most agreeable.

He had initially rejected her outright, only to discover others offered even less than Xia Xiaolan and demanded that Xu Jing remove the tenants. If Xu Jing could accomplish such a difficult task, perhaps he wouldn’t have been so determined to sell the house.

He could only leave the troublesome tenants for the buyer to handle.

Meeting Xia Xiaolan again, Xu Jing explained everything clearly.

Xia Xiaolan wanted to buy this house for Liu Yong, and with Manager Wu’s help, she was quite confident about reclaiming the property. Manager Wu would certainly solve it, and if not, it must be because they hadn’t bought enough government bonds – she could always buy more!

“Could you increase the price a bit?”

Xu Jing was bowing for a measure of rice – negotiating business deals troubled him.

Xia Xiaolan also found such people very straightforward, but that wasn’t reason enough to raise her offer randomly. She was buying the house for her Uncle Liu Yong, who would provide the funds. It wasn’t her money – what right did she have to be generous? The extra money would come from Liu Yong’s hard work; her generosity here would cost money that Liu Yong had earned through countless smiles to his clients.

So Xia Xiaolan shook her head: “Just 60,000. Don’t worry about the tenants. If you agree, I can give you the deposit today.”

Xu Jing was very disappointed.

Xia Xiaolan could see his struggle and hesitation, but she didn’t rush him.

Sigh, selling for 60,000 yuan now what would be worth millions in the future – giving Teacher Xu more time to hesitate was appropriate.

Xia Xiaolan didn’t feel guilty.

Xu Jing needed money urgently, and she had it available – this deal aligned with the current market economy. The future value of the house was another matter entirely. Seeing that Xia Xiaolan truly had no intention of raising the price and that this young woman had remained completely composed throughout, Xu Jing could only agree to the 60,000 yuan price.

“I need the cash quickly.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a 2,000 yuan deposit today, with the remainder to be paid within three days. If I breach the contract, you keep the deposit; if you breach, you’ll compensate me ten times the deposit amount.”

For Xu Jing to breach the contract would mean someone offering over 80,000 yuan within three days.

Otherwise, he’d have to pay Xia Xiaolan 20,000 yuan in compensation – if he couldn’t even sell it for over 80,000, wouldn’t that be pointless trouble?

Xia Xiaolan did buy the house.

Xu Jing told the tenants to move out – in three days, this house would no longer belong to him!

The tenants created an uproar, cursing both Xu Jing and Xia Xiaolan.

Xia Xiaolan’s demeanor changed completely from her gentle house-viewing persona: “I’m not like Teacher Xu. He feared you causing trouble at his workplace, but I’m not afraid of you. Three days is your time to move out. If you haven’t moved after three days-“

Xia Xiaolan left her sentence unfinished.

She was leaving room for these tenants’ imagination.

Don’t call her heartless – these people had been quite united in bullying Xu Jing.

However much time Xu Jing had given them to move, they hadn’t budged at all. The house had been returned to Xu Jing by the state, but these people were just resentful and would take advantage if they could. So many people bullying Teacher Xu – did they want to seize the house or what?

With various systems still imperfect, Xia Xiaolan had heard of tenants taking landlords to court over property.

She wouldn’t indulge these people. If the tenants weren’t removed now, in a few years they’d be deeply rooted in the house!

They were fierce with Xu Jing because he was soft.

But Xia Xiaolan wasn’t soft – despite her delicate appearance, her manner of speaking carried more authority than ten Teacher Xus combined. Look at Manager Wu, who had the bearing of an official, yet ran errands for Xia Xiaolan.

These days, anyone who could produce tens of thousands to buy a house couldn’t be simple.

Having just paid the deposit, Xia Xiaolan already carried herself like the owner. She carefully inspected the house, asking Xu Jing which items were original to the house and which belonged to the tenants.

The house’s original furniture had long been looted.

All current furniture belonged to the tenants, except for a water vat in the courtyard that belonged to Xu Jing’s family.

Thinking that in three days the house would no longer be his, Xu Jing felt quite emotional.

“Then they’re permitted to take their personal belongings.”

Xia Xiaolan was being quite reasonable, but some tenants immediately jumped up: “We won’t move! The government has approved us living here…”

Xia Xiaolan turned with a smile, “The government also allows private property transactions. If you can produce the money, I’ll sell you this house at cost. If you can’t, then say no more. In three days, I’ll send people to take possession. I like being reasonable, but whether the people coming to take possession are reasonable – that’s not my concern.”

The tenants’ faces turned liver-colored.

If they had money to buy the house, who would be making such a fuss?

Really, renting anywhere was the same, they were just habitually trying to take advantage. It had worked before – there was no reason it should fail now!

Xia Xiaolan couldn’t be bothered arguing with these people.

Having paid the deposit, the house was hers. She immediately called Shenzhen, asking her uncle to come to sign the contract and prepare to take possession.

“Uncle, do you have enough money? If not, use mine first!”

“Enough, enough. As soon as you mentioned buying a house, I started gathering funds.”

Liu Yong knew Xia Xiaolan was efficient – once she decided to buy property in Beijing, he quickly gathered money. Now that Xia Xiaolan called him to Beijing to take possession, mentioning troublesome tenants, Liu Yong said to Li Dongliang:

“You and Ge Jian accompany me to Beijing tomorrow.”

Having spent several months in Shenzhen, Liu Yong had confronted smugglers with Li Dongliang and Ge Jian – could a few unreasonable tenants turn the world upside down?

Two days later, Liu Yong appeared in Beijing.

Two bodyguards followed him – thin and small, but looking quite impressive. When Manager Wu heard about Xia Xiaolan’s uncle, his eyes sparked with joy – this looked just like a southern boss!

After all, who didn’t know that southern bosses were rich and naive, wearing gold chains while collecting scrap metal on the streets – surely they could be tricked into buying government bonds too?