Reborn as a landlord in Shanghai

Chapter 119 Buying Books and Tools

What the hell?

Looking at the shopping list in her hand, Mao Xiaoyu felt overwhelmed.

Because Mao Xiaoyu only found out for the first time.

When I was studying in Hong Kong, the school didn't provide textbooks; students had to buy them themselves.

Moreover, it wasn't just one or two books that Mao Xiaoyu bought, but dozens of them, which gave her a headache.

Most importantly, in order to demonstrate her abilities, Mao Xiaoyu studied three different courses. This meant that she needed to buy books for each course, and each course had dozens of books. Buying so many books for all three courses was really going to be a nightmare.

Moreover, the shopping list includes not only books, but also tools. For example, music class requires musical instruments, dance class requires practice clothes, and even film and television class requires a digital video camera.

That's right. Students need to buy their own instruments for music lessons. Depending on the type of music they are learning, they need to purchase either classical or modern instruments. Furthermore, students are required to be proficient in at least one instrument.

The same applies to dance class. Practice clothes are essential and there are uniform requirements. Of course, in addition to practice clothes, students also need to buy their own costumes for performances. Since Mao Xiaoyu does not need to perform yet, the costumes for performances can only be discussed later.

The same applies to film and television classes. In order to give students a feel for the action or a sense of the camera, the school requires students to buy a digital camcorder for their own filming. Moreover, film and television classes often require students to shoot short films for classroom screenings.

Explain where the shortcomings are.

Seeing these densely packed shopping lists, Mao Xiaoyu finally realized that in Hong Kong, this wasn't studying, it was practically studying for money!

This would cost tens of thousands of yuan!

Moreover, some things are not a one-time investment; you need to spend money every month afterward!

The problem is, I've already registered, and if I want to attend this school, I still have to buy these things!

Ugh!

Fortunately, the shopping list at least included the purchase address; otherwise, it would have been even more troublesome to find a place to buy it in Hong Kong.

I took out my phone to check the time. Luckily, it wasn't too late, only a little past three o'clock. In that case, I might as well go buy some books.

After all, I have to go to the housing management bureau to transfer the property tomorrow morning, and I don't know when I'll be able to finish.

With that thought in mind, Mao Xiaoyu took the book list and left the house.

-

-

Half an hour later, I arrived at the bookstore. Fortunately, there were quite a few people there, which showed that everyone was very enthusiastic about buying books.

However, looking at the people buying books, many of them are about my age. They're probably all students from the performing arts academy. But that makes sense, since school starts the day after tomorrow. If I don't buy books now, I won't have any to use at school.

Ignoring the students, Mao Xiaoyu first looked around the store. Unexpectedly, she found something quite interesting: the bookstore divided books into new and old. New books were paid for in full, while old books were discounted, with the lowest discount being 35%.

After looking around, Mao Xiaoyu had a general understanding of the books. Then she took out her shopping list and started buying them.

One book, 10 books, 20 books, 30 books,————.

Mao Xiaoyu felt that the more she bought, the more something seemed off.

Even the way other people looked at her changed from normal to surprised, and then from surprised to looking at her like she was an idiot, which made Mao Xiaoyu feel a little uncomfortable.

After Mao Xiaoyu had picked out all the books, she realized that something was wrong.

------

Wow, that's a ton of books!

Mao Xiaoyu was startled when she saw the pile of books in front of her.

There are over 100 books in total.

Moreover, at least half of these 100-plus books are large volumes.

More importantly, of these 100-plus books, only about 30 are actually needed for class; the rest are required extracurricular reading.

These extracurricular readings are all for areas where Mao Xiaoyu has weaknesses. If she doesn't read them, she won't be able to understand anything in class.

As someone with very little background knowledge, Mao Xiaoyu had to read these books.

Therefore, Mao Xiaoyu couldn't buy less even if she wanted to.

Looking at this pile of books in front of me, I estimated that it must weigh at least 200 kilograms.

Thinking about how others would look at me, I realized I was being foolish enough to take so much.

Mao Xiaoyu now realized why others were buying books in bulk; it wasn't that they didn't want to buy more, but that they couldn't carry them all.

Well, seeing so many books, Mao Xiaoyu had no choice but to grit her teeth, ask the bookstore owner for two cardboard boxes, and then pack the books into the boxes.

Then when the bill came, wow, more than 100 books cost more than HK$6, which averages out to HK$500 per book.

Seeing such a price, Mao Xiaoyu felt a little heartbroken!

But if the problem isn't there, it won't work.

Finally, gritting his teeth, he reluctantly spent over 6 yuan before leaving with two suitcases.

Those who were initially watching to laugh at Mao Xiaoyu for how she managed to take the book away were startled when they saw her lift the book up with both hands.

After all, the two boxes were so big, and they were packed full of books. Each box weighed over 100 pounds, but this young man lifted them with incredible stability, as if they were weightless. That's amazing.

At that moment, Mao Xiaoyu just wanted to take her suitcase home and had no idea that by leaving with her suitcase, she almost made the onlookers around her eat their teeth.

Of course, even if he knew, he wouldn't care. At this moment, Mao Xiaoyu carried his suitcase and rushed home. When he arrived home, he wasn't even out of breath, as if he hadn't exerted much effort. This made Mao Xiaoyu exclaim that his reborn body was truly amazing.

Now that she had brought the books back, Mao Xiaoyu checked the time; it was almost six o'clock. Buying anything else at this hour was out of the question.

After buying the book, Mao Xiaoyu went downstairs, found a place to have dinner, and then returned to her own apartment to read music books.

There was no other way. In Mao Xiaoyu's opinion, she should at least spend a day or two learning to read sheet music. If she couldn't sing, she should at least be able to recognize some notes. Otherwise, it would be too embarrassing to go to music school and not know anything.

The next morning, after Mao Xiaoyu got up, she received a call from Ms. Liu, asking when she would be available.

Mao Xiaoyu calculated the time and finally decided to meet at their store at 8:30 in the morning, and then go to the housing management bureau together to transfer the property.

With the time set, Mao Xiaoyu acted a little faster. After finishing all her work, she went out and took a taxi straight to Ms. Liu's real estate agency.

"Mr. Mao, this is the landlord selling the house, Mr. Zhou." After Mao Xiaoyu arrived at the real estate agency, Ms. Liu introduced the landlord.

"Hello, hello." Both Boss Zhou and Mao Xiaoyu shook hands and looked each other up and down.

Boss Zhou looked to be in his forties, wearing glasses, with a 7-3 haircut, and dressed in a suit; he looked like a successful person.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

-

"Now that you two know each other and you've reviewed the contract yesterday, let's discuss the price. It's 1,458,000 yuan in total. Is that correct? If so, please take a look at the contract and then sign it."

Yesterday, Mao Xiaoyu signed a contract with the real estate agency and paid the agency fee and a deposit of 20 yuan. Today, she needs to sign a contract with the landlord to complete the transaction. Therefore, Ms. Liu introduced the basic information to both parties and then let them look at the contract.

When Mao Xiaoyu and Boss Zhou heard that they were going to sign a contract, they picked it up and read it over.

There were no problems with the contract. The two of them spent half an hour looking at it but couldn't find any loopholes. In the end, with Ms. Liu as a witness, they signed the contract.

After the contract was signed, the next step was to go to the housing authority to complete the transaction.

To show the importance of the occasion, Ms. Liu personally drove the company car, taking Mao Xiaoyu and Boss Zhou straight to the real estate bureau.

Once they arrived at the housing management bureau, Ms. Liu took charge of the entire process, while Mao Xiaoyu and Boss Zhou simply signed their names.

This led to Mao Xiaoyu and Boss Zhou having a casual chat, which revealed their respective purposes for buying and selling the house.

Mao Xiaoyu's decision to buy a house was simple: she would be studying here, and after graduating, she would need to find a job in Hong Kong. Since she would need to rent a place during that time, she figured she might as well buy one to be her own home.

Although this place is a bit small, at least I don't have to pay rent, and when the property value appreciates in the future, I can pay less and move to a bigger house.

For Mr. Zhou, buying a house is even simpler. His child has immigrated to Canada, and in order to reunite with his child in the future, he is now gradually moving his assets to Canada. Therefore, he plans to sell his house and car here little by little.

Of course, we're not ready to leave yet, since Boss Zhou still has businesses here, but the real estate can be sold off little by little.

Moreover, judging from Boss Zhou's tone, he probably still owns quite a few houses.

Although both of them mentioned buying and selling houses during their chat, only they themselves know whether it's true or not.

And so, Ms. Liu was busy from morning till noon. Because the house was very small, Mao Xiaoyu didn't pay as much tax as she had imagined. She only paid a little over 100,000 yuan in fees, and the house was transferred.

Upon seeing the completed property transfer information, Mao Xiaoyu immediately transferred HKD 80 to Boss Zhou.

After deducting the HKD 200,000 deposit paid yesterday, there is now HKD 458,000 left for Mr. Zhou. This amount can only be paid to Mr. Zhou after Mao Xiaoyu receives the property certificate.

However, after swiping the card, Mao Xiaoyu took it back and was heartbroken to see the more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars she had spent in the past two days.

However, I'm also glad that Du Yue and Peng Yu were really helpful. If it weren't for the fact that they earned me more than 1000 million Hong Kong dollars last week, I wouldn't have had the money to buy a house at all.

-

Knowing that attending school would cost money, Mao Xiaoyu withdrew all the Hong Kong dollars from her securities account before coming to school, leaving only 20 million Tencent shares.

As for why he did this, it was mainly because Mao Xiaoyu no longer allowed him to buy stocks in his own name, so he withdrew the cash from the account.

After the money was withdrawn, HK$400 million of it was lent to Du Yue and Peng Yu.

Then, Du Yue and Peng Yu each contributed HKD 100 million, and Mao Xiaoyu contributed HKD 200 million, totaling HKD 400 million to buy the house. This settled the cost of the village house. If there wasn't enough money, a loan would be taken out in Du Yue and Peng Yu's names.

As for the HK$100 million each in their hands, it is intended to be used to invest in government-designated projects. In other words, from now on, Mao Xiaoyu has already asked Attorney Zhang to apply for immigration visas for Du Yue and Peng Yu.

When the immigration visa process reaches the final stage, Mao Xiaoyu and the other two will establish a financial company with a registered capital of HKD 10 million. Mao Xiaoyu will hold 50% of the shares, while Du Yue and Peng Yu will hold 25%. This way, Du Yue and Peng Yu will invest HKD 4.5 million as investment immigration funds.

It was precisely because of this withdrawal of funds that she later borrowed and used less than HKD 600 million. However, Mao Xiaoyu still had more than HKD 500 million on her, which made her quite wealthy. Therefore, when she came here to study, she did not hesitate to buy this house.

"Mr. Zhou, would you like to come back to the real estate agency with me?" Ms. Liu asked with a smile as she stood at the entrance of the housing authority.

After all, Mao Xiaoyong paid the commission after the contract was signed yesterday, and the landlord came over this morning and paid the commission as well. It can be said that the commission for this deal has already been earned, and Ms. Liu's commission is also quite substantial, so of course she is happy.

"I have something to do this afternoon, so I won't be going back to the agency. Mr. Mao can transfer the money to me once he gets the property certificate," Boss Zhou said, waving his hand in refusal.

"Okay, then see you next time." Ms. Liu shook hands with Mr. Zhou and watched him leave.

Mao Xiaoyu then followed Ms. Liu to the parking lot, got into the car, and returned to the real estate agency once again.

By the time they arrived at the agency, it was already noon, so Ms. Liu treated Mao Xiaoyu to lunch.

After finishing lunch, Mao Xiaoyu said goodbye to Ms. Liu. Then, she started buying the digital camcorder, music equipment, and dance practice clothes that she hadn't bought the day before.

Fortunately, the shopping list from yesterday clearly listed everything that needed to be bought, so Mao Xiaoyu followed the instructions on the list and found the place to buy a digital camcorder and practice clothes.

The first two were alright, but when it came to choosing musical instruments, Mao Xiaoyu was dumbfounded. There were so many instruments, what was she supposed to learn?

Left with no other option, Mao Xiaoyu asked the shopkeeper which musical instrument was quick to learn and easy to pick up.

Ultimately, the shopkeeper recommended the guitar because it's easy to learn; with just three to five months of study, a talented person can play it well.

Hearing this, Mao Xiaoyu bought a guitar and some guitar lessons. After buying these things, Mao Xiaoyu saw that it was getting late, so she had dinner outside. After dinner, she took the things she bought in the afternoon and returned to her house.