harleyscars 025 Jiang Yihe's Home
025 Jiang Yihe's Home
Yu Wenhao and Jiang Yihe carried the clothes upstairs. When they opened the door, Yu Wenhao saw that the apartment was a loft, about fifty square meters, with two floors. The combined usable area was larger than their own home. The lower floor had a kitchen and a large living room connected to a dining room. The upper floor had a bedroom, a living room, and a small study.
The house is decorated in a high-end style with exquisite materials; it's not the kind of house that's decorated specifically for rental purposes.
After entering the room, Jiang Yihe greeted Yu Wen, saying, "Brother, please have a seat."
Yu Wenhao raised her hand, indicating where to put the clothes in her hand. Jiang Yihe said, "Just put them anywhere, I'll come down and get them."
She said, carrying her clothes, and went upstairs to her bedroom. Yu Wenhao couldn't follow, so she sat down on the sofa in the living room downstairs and put the clothes she was carrying on the sofa next to her.
Jiang Yihe hung the clothes she had carried upstairs in the closet, came downstairs, and instead of immediately going to the sofa to pick up the clothes and go back up, she first made Yu Wenhao a cup of tea, came over and put it down, and said to Yu Wenhao:
"Brother Yu, please have some tea."
Yu greeted him and quickly said thank you.
Jiang Yihe smiled at him, then picked up the clothes from the sofa and went upstairs.
Yu Wenhao watched Jiang Yihe's rising figure with each step, feeling a pang of emotion. He thought that this girl was very proper in her speech and manners when he interacted with her normally, and she was very polite to people. She didn't have the arrogance of a rich second-generation at all, which was a real pity.
Yu Wenhao stood up, took her cup, and walked to the glass window. The window faced the plaza in front of Raffles City, which was brightly lit and colorful. The fountain changed colors and shapes to the accompaniment of music. There weren't many people entering or leaving the shopping center, and the plaza seemed somewhat empty and lonely, with only three or four children chasing each other around the fountain.
Jiang Yihe had come downstairs at some point. She walked up behind Yu Wenhao and asked, "What are you looking at?"
Yu Wenhao turned around and said, "This place is really nice, and this house is so well decorated. No wonder your family is reluctant to rent it out."
Jiang Yihe smiled and said, "My mother loves decorating. If she buys a house but doesn't decorate it, she will be very sad. She says that an undecorated house is just a doghouse, and even a dog wouldn't live in it. How can it be called a house? Every house she buys must be decorated as soon as possible and then left empty."
Yu Wenhao shook his head and said, "That means you're rich enough to treat home renovation like a game. By the way, were your other two houses here also renovated like this?"
Jiang Yihe nodded: "We were renovating together. Even during the pandemic, my mother never stopped. She was always renovating, and she spent most of her time traveling to Hangzhou while several construction sites were underway at the same time."
Yu Wenhao understood. It seemed that there was something wrong with their family. Not only Jiang Yihe, but her mother was probably also a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder. She couldn't help but want to buy a house, and once she bought a house, she had to renovate it, and the renovation had to be done to a high standard.
Yu Wenhao said, "Isn't it a pity that the renovation is done and the space is left empty?"
"It's not a pity. As long as no one has lived in the house, it's a new house. Once someone has lived in it, it becomes an old house. You may think you've received some rent, but the house itself has depreciated in value, so it's not worth it in the long run," Jiang Yihe said. "I think my mother's idea is right."
"How many houses does your family own in Hangzhou?" Yu Wenhao asked.
"I don't know," Jiang Yihe said. "There should be a lot. My mom doesn't like saving money. She says that money in the bank only gets smaller the longer it's saved. She prefers buying houses, saying that houses can hold their value and are easy to liquidate. Our family owns houses in Hangzhou and Lin'an. I think we have a lot of houses. I've seen one of my mom's safes, and it looks like it's full of property deeds."
"Wow, how did you manage to avoid the purchase restrictions?" Yu Wenhao asked curiously.
"Don't you know, there are many houses in this city that are not subject to purchase restrictions? For example, this is a commercial and residential building, which is not within the scope of purchase restrictions. That's why there are so many so-called large-sized apartments now. Large-sized apartments are basically commercial and residential buildings. Even residential properties can be managed. Anyway, everyone in my family has several properties registered under their names."
"Wow, so many houses, all already renovated?"
"Most of them are, and some are still under renovation or are working on renovation plans."
Yu Wenhao found it somewhat unbelievable. He said, "Poverty really does limit my imagination. The question is, with so many houses, can you even live in them all? Or is your mother a professional real estate agent?"
"She's not a professional, but it's true that she buys and sells houses frequently. Buying and selling houses is what she loves to do most. She's a VIP client of many real estate companies. They invite her to the opening of new developments, and she gets discounts on her purchases. She also frequently sells houses, and some houses aren't for sale, but are rewards given to employees who have made contributions to the company, or to talents she has brought in."
Yu Wen was taken aback and asked, "A house as a direct reward?"
"Yes, houses and cars," Jiang Yihe said. "We are a private enterprise, and everyone in the industry is scrambling for talent. Compared with those state-owned enterprises, what advantages do we have? Isn't it just our flexible mechanism? The talent we bring in complains that Lin'an is too far away, but if you reward them with houses and cars in Hangzhou, they feel that it's not so far."
"Your parents really went all out!" Yu Wenhao exclaimed.
"What's wrong with that? Why are they considered talented? The benefits they bring to the company are more than ten houses. You're only rewarding them with a house, which is a fraction of their value. Isn't that fair? And those in production, the top sales performers every year—they work so diligently. Shouldn't you ensure they have no worries about their livelihood?"
Jiang Yihe said, "My parents weren't very educated. They started out as salespeople in a factory before starting their own. If they hadn't been willing to spend money to hire all sorts of talented people, how could the company have grown so big?"
Yu Wenhao noticed that Jiang Yihe seemed a bit naive, but when she talked about company matters or matters related to her family and company, she was remarkably clear-headed.
Yu asked, "What does your family do?"
"We started out making cables, and now we make both cables and fiber optic cables. We also own a copper mine and a copper smelter."
"It must be a very large scale, right?"
"It's alright, I have a bit of a reputation in the industry. But my dad is under a lot of pressure. The competition in this industry is fierce these days. In my dad's words, he has to sleep with one eye open, otherwise, he'll be overtaken by his competitors." Jiang Yihe sighed as she spoke. "Actually, it's not just this industry; which industry isn't fiercely competitive these days? You agree, right?"
Yu Wenhao said yes, "There are five supermarkets, three barbershops, three fruit shops, two pharmacies, and a small clinic that also sells medicine within a 100-meter radius of our neighborhood. Sometimes when I come and go, I worry about them. I don't know how they make money or survive."
Jiang Yihe laughed, tilting her head to look at Yu Wenhao, and asked, "Stop worrying about them, worry about yourself instead. Aren't you hungry?"
Yu Wen chuckled and said, "I wasn't hungry until you mentioned it, but now that you've said it, I'm very hungry."
"Let's go downstairs for dinner," Jiang Yihe said with a giggle.