booktalesy Chapter 117: Did you ask for leave?
Chapter 117: Did you ask for leave?
Chapter 117: Requesting Leave? There's a surprise inside, click to unlock now.
"Uncle, do you know the current housing market? You dare to ask for 720,000 for such a dilapidated house? Are you robbing me?"
Seeing that Huang Xiaochuan was young, the three old men tried to take advantage of their age and say, "This house was bought from the French by my grandfather for fifteen large yellow croakers. It would be worth 720,000 yuan today, which is not a lot."
"That's right!" the other two echoed from behind.
Huang Xiaochuan smiled and pointed to the house and yard, saying, "If you restore this house to how it was when your grandfather bought it from the French, I'll immediately pay you 720,000. How about it?"
The three old men immediately fell silent. Back to normal? How could it be possible without two or three hundred thousand?
Seeing that they were silent, Huang Xiaochuan continued, "You know the apartments on Jingcheng Road and Minnan Road, right? How much are they per square meter? Around 800, right?"
"This house of yours is 530 square meters, and according to your quote, that's over 1,300 yuan per square meter. With that money, I could buy a new detached apartment of over 800 square meters, or 14 apartments of 60 square meters each. Am I crazy to spend so much money on this shabby house of yours?"
These three families definitely knew about the apartment building Huang Xiaochuan was talking about, so the second oldest of the three brothers argued, "Our yard is so big, it's worth a lot of money too!"
Huang Xiaochuan pointed at the yard with a look of disdain and said, "How much do you think this yard of yours is worth?"
Because no one had taken care of it for a long time, the yard was in a terrible state of disrepair, overgrown with weeds and shrubs. Except for the paved areas, the rest of the yard was like this. In the summer, there would definitely be no shortage of mosquitoes. The three brothers looked at the dilapidated yard and lost all confidence.
Finally, Huang Xiaochuan left his contact information for the three families.
"I definitely won't accept your price. You guys should discuss it some more. Anyway, you're not the only ones selling houses in Shanghai. I'll go look around elsewhere. If you're willing to talk to me properly, then call me."
After saying that, he patted his behind and left without even offering a price. Huang Xiaochuan did it on purpose, not letting them know his offer in advance, which would be beneficial for the final transaction price.
Soon Huang Xiaochuan found another apartment he liked. It was an old apartment building with five floors in total. This particular apartment was on the third floor, with two households per floor.
It has an elevator, and it's an old one, with iron bars on the doors that you have to push and pull manually. It's quite rare that this old elevator can still work properly.
This house is 155 square meters, with three bedrooms, two living rooms, and two bathrooms. The master bedroom even has a large walk-in closet. It is evident that the house designed by the architects of decades ago was very avant-garde and better than the houses built by real estate developers in later generations.
The location was also good, near Huaihai Road, only 500 or 600 meters away from Jing'an Temple. It was quiet in the middle of the city and not far from the Second Military Medical University. Huang Xiaochuan liked it at first sight.
He planned to live in this house by himself. The villa was too big, and it would take a long time to repair and maintain it. Moreover, such a large house was not suitable for one person to live in. This kind of apartment was more suitable. What pleased Huang Xiaochuan the most was that it had a flush toilet and a fireplace. Yes, it even had a fireplace.
The house was well-maintained inside; the windows were original steel windows, and even the doors were original. The interior height reached 3.5 meters, unlike later houses where the actual ceiling height was only 2.6 meters, and the addition of a false ceiling made people feel incredibly oppressed.
However, this house is not cheap. The owner is asking for 190,000 yuan, which is about 1,200 yuan per square meter.
Huang Xiaochuan chatted with the homeowner and discovered that the guy actually wanted to sell the house to speculate on stamps.
This is like a pillow being delivered right to your doorstep when you're sleepy.
In the end, Huang Xiaochuan bought the house with two sets of 1980 Year of the Monkey banknotes plus 40,000 yuan in cash. According to the market price of the 1980 Year of the Monkey banknotes the day before, the two sets were worth 140,000 yuan. Although the two sets of 1980 Year of the Monkey banknotes could be worth more than 4 million yuan in the future, the value of this house would be even higher. Huang Xiaochuan remembered that the price of houses in this area was generally 180,000 to 190,000 yuan per square meter. That is to say, this house will be worth nearly 30 million yuan in the future. Although there is the factor of currency devaluation, this house can outpace inflation.
Huang Xiaochuan acted quickly. He immediately had someone tidy up the house inside and out, bought some furniture and appliances, and of course, air conditioning, planning to move in before this summer.
However, once the house is ready, I need to bring Yu Xiang to see it as soon as possible to give her a surprise, because the house is registered in her name. Don't ask why she doesn't need to be present to do this; in this day and age, money can make it happen.
To my surprise, the old man's office was locked, and after asking around, I learned that he was on leave and hadn't been teaching recently. His classes were temporarily taken over by a teaching assistant.
Huang Xiaochuan was not giving up, so he made a special inquiry and found out that the old man was actually sick.
He now lives in the cardiology department of Changhai Hospital.
Now that he knew, Huang Xiaochuan felt he should visit the old man. After all, the old man had helped him, and he couldn't just use him when he needed him and then discard him when he didn't!
Moreover, as far as Huang Xiaochuan knew, the old man was all alone, without any children. His wife had passed away during that special era, so Huang Xiaochuan felt even more compelled to visit him.
Huang Xiaochuan took canned malted milk powder and fruit to the hospital and quickly found the old man by name.
At this moment, Wang Deyi lay quietly on the hospital bed receiving an IV drip. He looked very haggard and lacked the energetic spirit he displayed in the classroom.
Moreover, he was staying in an eight-person room, and the ward was filled with the pungent smell of formaldehyde. The school dormitory was better than this, and Huang Xiaochuan was at least staying in a six-person room.
Huang Xiaochuan felt a sudden lump in his throat when he looked at Wang Deyi.
Since the reform and opening up, there has been a saying that those who work on missiles are not as well off as those who sell tea eggs, which shows that the status of intellectuals was not high during this period.
Huang Xiaochuan tiptoed to sit on the edge of Wang Deyi's bed, afraid of disturbing him.
Wang Deyi still sensed it. He thought it was a nurse and slightly opened his eyes to look.
What he saw was Huang Xiaochuan, who was looking at him with concern. Wang Deyi felt a warmth in his heart. He had been hospitalized for so many days, and apart from one person from the department who came to visit him on behalf of the school, no one else had come. Huang Xiaochuan was the only one who had come.
So she tried her best to greet Huang Xiaochuan softly, "You shameless rascal, you're here?"
Huang Xiaochuan asked with a worried look, "Why didn't you stay in a single room? The conditions here are really bad!"
"I'm not at that level, I don't enjoy that kind of treatment. I'm just grateful to have a place to stay!"
Huang Xiaochuan forgot that the country's overall medical conditions were not up to par at that time, unlike in later years when as long as you had money, you could get a private ward and receive meticulous service 24 hours a day.
During this period, there were different levels of rank for staying in VIP wards, and professors like Wang Deyi certainly could not enjoy such treatment.
Huang Xiaochuan placed the things he brought on the old man's bedside table.
"I didn't know what you liked to eat, so I just bought some random things. You can keep them to help you recover."
"What else did you bring? You're so thoughtful!" Wang Deyi didn't even have the strength to speak; he had to pause for a long time after saying just one sentence.
Huang Xiaochuan sat quietly with Wang Deyi for a while, and then went to find the nurse after Wang Deyi fell asleep.
"Big sister, I have a question for you."
"What is it?"
"I'm a student of the patient in bed 55. I'd like to ask if your hospital has any private rooms? I'd like to transfer my teacher to a private room. The cost is not a problem; I'll pay for it."
The nurse seemed to be going through menopause; she had quite a temper, and her first words almost choked Huang Xiaochuan to death.
"So what if you're rich? Single rooms are for high-ranking officials. If your teacher's rank is high enough, he can get a room without you even having to come. Not high enough? Then sorry, we're lucky if there's a hospital bed for him!"
Huang Xiaochuan was so angry that his blood pressure almost spiked to 220. He finally managed to calm himself down, realizing it wasn't worth arguing and getting angry with an old woman.
"I'm Back in 1990" - Stunning writing style and a captivating plot!