Chapter 78: Buying a House

Xu Heng left Huang Kai at Shanyin; there were still many follow-up matters that needed handling. Printing and selling Legends of the Three Kingdoms required not just a basic factory, but also solutions to the difficult problems of promotion and retail points.

Relying on Huang Kai alone for these tasks was certainly not enough, so Xu Heng gave Huang Kai another two million to recruit personnel, pull together a team, and incidentally rent a suitable office floor in Modu to serve as the workplace for Xianwan Card Studio.

Xu Heng told him that if his girlfriend was also willing to come, he would give her the same treatment as him. After all, the Dragon Edition Legends of the Three Kingdoms was the result of the two of them working together, and since Li You was a design student, she surely had a solid foundation in card design; she could also help with the design of the upcoming Ultraman cards.

Upon hearing this, Huang Kai thought, "There's such a good deal?" He immediately called Li You from Beijing to Modu.

In any case, they were fourth-year students; on weekdays, besides their internships, they had no other classes to attend. As for the internships, they had already found jobs with monthly salaries of fifty thousand, so could their school teachers really make things difficult for them?

With the addition of Li You, the Shanyin Factory as a foundation, and a large pool of excellent talent resources from universities in Modu, the card division of Xianwan Company soon began to take shape.

In a month or two, the first edition of Legends of the Three Kingdoms should be ready for official release, at which point it would inevitably spark a craze for domestic tabletop card games.

Xu Heng planned to start printing the Ultraman series of cards once the popularity of Legends of the Three Kingdoms rose, adding more dry firewood to the raging fire.

Of course, these were matters for the end of the year. At this moment, having been busy running around for nearly a week, Xu Heng was lying on Liu Yiyan, physically and mentally exhausted.

"Are you going back to Jinling?" Liu Yiyan asked softly, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"No rush, I'll leave tonight." Xu Heng leaned in close to her ear, holding her small, cute earlobe in his mouth to play with it for a moment. "Are you used to living at school?"

"It's alright, it's just that because of 'The Wind Has Risen', many people come to block the downstairs of my dormitory every day, which is quite annoying." Liu Yiyan felt ticklish from his teasing; after speaking, she giggled and pushed him away.

It would have been fine if she hadn't pushed him, but with the friction from their physical contact during the push, and given that Xu Heng was a man who kept his word, therefore...

He kept his word.

It wasn't until noon that Xu Heng got up to get dressed.

"I'm going to buy a house in Xuhui; you should move out."

"Huh?" Liu Yiyan never expected that his asking if she was used to living at school meant this; for a moment, she was a bit dazed.

Xu Heng said, "Didn't you say before that you sold your house in Tong City? It just so happens I'm buying a house here; when your mother is discharged from the hospital, you can just pick her up and live there."

"If you're still willing to be with me in two years, the house will be transferred to your name."

"Honey, you're not... joking, are you? A house in Xuhui costs at least one... one or two million at the cheapest." Liu Yiyan said, stuttering.

"It doesn't matter, a house is something that won't depreciate just sitting there." Xu Heng smiled and pinched her chin. "Or do you think you aren't worth two or three million?"

"No, I mean, let's not be so materialistic..."

"Just tell me, do you want it or not?"

"I do!"

No girl could refuse a house in Modu.

Liu Yiyan was no exception. Over a month ago, she had told Xu Heng that her biggest dream in life was to buy a house in Jinling. As a child from an ordinary family, she only dared to hope for a house in Jinling, because at least that was something she could afford.

But that didn't mean she didn't like Modu.

After all, Modu was one of the most prosperous cities in Huaxia. How many young men and women drifted and struggled for the glitz and glamour of this city? Countless workers poured into Modu from all corners of the land—weren't they all doing it just to be able to buy a house in Modu?

Possessing a Modu household registration was equivalent to giving one's children the best start in life. How could Liu Yiyan possibly refuse a house in Modu, especially one in Xuhui, the city center of Modu!

Xu Heng shrugged and said, "There you go. You gain material wealth, I gain happiness; it's a win-win."

Hearing this, Liu Yiyan could only remain speechless.

After the two of them finished washing up and had lunch at the restaurant downstairs, they took a taxi to Xuhui.

Strictly speaking, Xuhui was not just a district, but a commercial center. From Jingan down to Minhang, Xuhui fell right in the middle, leaning against the DF Pearl and the Huangpu River; it was currently the most prosperous commercial zone in Shanghai.

Whether it was high-end digital products, fashion, cosmetics, or 4S dealerships, they all crowded into this area. Every Saturday and Sunday, Xuhui was a scene of bustling crowds.

At the same time, the land prices here were worlds apart from those in the outer circles of Modu, especially the riverside villas along the Huangpu River, which were priced at astronomical levels.

Currently, Xu Heng couldn't afford a riverside villa either. Although these villas would increase in value later, a single villa cost tens of millions, and he had to admit he wasn't capable of that yet.

What he had his eye on was the Yongcheng Residential District west of Lujiazui. The price per square meter here had now reached the terrifying figure of eighteen thousand, but it was still within Xu Heng's means.

A three-bedroom, one-living-room, hundred-square-meter finished apartment, including furniture and miscellaneous items, totaled just over two million.

Of the twenty million Xu Heng had taken, over seventeen million had been spent on the card business of Xianwan. The remaining money was barely enough to buy a house here, but to keep some assets on hand, Xu Heng pulled another two million out of the stock market.

The super bull market of '07 had already shown signs of decline by October. The investment companies that had been shouting to the heavens about breaking through ten thousand points were gradually quieting down, with no more sound.

Many people saw that the bull market had reached its end and began to cash out. At this time, stocks would have small dips, leading those stock investors who wanted to exploit loopholes to buy heavily, and the stock prices were propped up by this group and still wouldn't fall.

By the time the late-entering investors realized their stocks weren't rising and wanted to escape the market, it was already too late. They could only watch helplessly as their trapped capital fell to cabbage prices bit by bit.

This black storm sweeping through the stock market wouldn't ease until the second bull market of next summer.

However, whether the stock investors still fighting in the market now would be jumping off buildings by then was another matter.

Therefore, Xu Heng didn't feel any heartache pulling two million out of the stock market now; in any case, it was hard for stock prices to go up any further, and any rise would only be a matter of a few cents.

He still had over twenty-three million left in the stock market. With so much money sitting in the market, he couldn't even earn one hundred thousand in interest a day, so it was better to take it out early to do real things and buy real property for peace of mind.

For example, the house he bought in Yongcheng Residential District was two million now; in ten years, it would be ten million, or even ten million with no sellers to be found.

After haggling with the people at the Yongcheng Real Estate Center for half an hour, he secured a 126-square-meter finished new apartment for 2.18 million.

There were no ups and downs in the process. Facts proved that the plot where a pot-bellied middle-aged man suddenly appears with a kept mistress, has a conflict with the protagonist, and then gets slapped in the face, only happens in novels.

This is reality; the probability of running into an idiot is relatively small.