CHAPTER 26: CHAPTER 26 THE BIZARRE FORMER MOTHER-IN-LAW!

By the time he got home, it was already past eleven at night. The three young women were all asleep.

They must have been tired from work.

After a shower, he lay in bed and opened his status panel. He was just ten experience points away from reaching level three.

Keep it up!

Before long, he fell asleep. Having spent the entire day at the amusement park, he was truly exhausted.

He woke up the next day. Just like yesterday, the three girls were already gone, having left for work early in the morning. He washed up and ate breakfast as usual.

Someone from the auto show called to say the car had been delivered downstairs and that he should come down to receive it. Their efficiency was quite impressive. He went downstairs and signed for his new car, which had been towed over on a large truck. After handling the paperwork, he parked it in the underground garage.

Back upstairs, he sat on the living room sofa, sipping his morning tea when his phone buzzed with a WeChat message from his mother.

She probably didn’t take my word for it about the blind date and went to ask her friends about it.

Annie must have had no choice but to grit her teeth and admit to the outrageous demands from the blind date. So, in her message, his mother offered a few words of comfort and told him not to lose heart.

[Just you wait. Mom will find you another good one.]

Sun Dasheng replied with an "OK" hand gesture emoji.

Being a prolific ’liker’ of his friends’ posts, he casually refreshed his feed. The very first post was from Ouyang Jiani: an emo emoji followed by a picture of an internet meme.

He clicked on it and nearly burst out laughing.

"When the boss picks food, I spin the table; when the boss proposes a toast, I refuse to drink; when the boss is one tile from winning at Mahjong, I win myself; when the boss walks, I take the car; when the boss gives a speech, I start chatting; when the boss sings karaoke, I change the song; when the boss shares a secret, I spread it around; when the boss drinks water, I slam on the brakes; when the boss gets chewed out, I just chuckle."

Alright, so the meme was from last year, but seeing it unexpectedly like this, he still found it amusing.

That girl must have been bullied at work.

With that thought, he gave her a call, but even after a long time, no one answered.

She must be busy.

He put his phone aside, turned on the TV, and surfed through the channels, finding nothing interesting. Eventually, he settled on a competitive "Fight the Landlord" tournament show. To his surprise, it was quite entertaining.

He hadn’t been watching for long when his phone rang. Sun Dasheng thought it was his apprentice returning his call, but upon answering, he realized it was the real estate agent, Xiao Li. The agent said that someone was interested in his house and wanted to buy it, but they needed to discuss the price in person.

"Alright, I’ll head right over. Is it okay if I come alone?"

"The house is registered under both you and your wife, so we’ll need both of you present to sign the papers."

"Alright. Please wait a moment."

"Okay."

He called Lee Li, told her about selling the house, gave her the address, and urged her to hurry over. He hung up before she could say much.

...

It wasn’t until eleven o’clock that Lee Li finally sauntered in. Three hours had passed since Sun Dasheng had called her, during which he had arrived at the agency and been chatting with the clients.

The clients were an elderly couple, both retired university professors, buying the house for their son’s wedding. Their entire family of four consisted of high-level intellectuals. Their son and prospective daughter-in-law were both lecturers at the same university, and both held PhDs.

Chatting with them felt like a breath of fresh air to Sun Dasheng, which was why he had been able to wait so patiently for so long.

Only when he saw the person trailing behind Lee Li did he understand her tardiness. Her mother had come along.

It was his ex-mother-in-law, Lin Chunfang. Now in her fifties, she still possessed a certain charm. As soon as she entered the agency, her face soured at the sight of Sun Dasheng.

"Back then, I must have been blind. How could I have entrusted my daughter to a worthless piece of trash like you?

"You wasted ten years of my Nan Nan’s youth! Can you compensate her for that?

"The money from selling this house should all go to her. Do you have the audacity to take half?"

Her loud, fiery voice stunned everyone in the agency into silence.

Sun Dasheng stared at her, astonished. So this is where Lee Li gets her mean and ungrateful streak. You two really put on a good show for me in the past! Back then, when my future was bright, it was all ’good son-in-law’ this and ’Golden Son-In-Law’ that. And now I’m a faithless scoundrel, the one who wasted your daughter’s youth? It’s a real shame you two never became actresses.

"The divorce settlement states the house is split fifty-fifty," Sun Dasheng said, no longer willing to indulge her. "If you don’t agree, you can sue me. I’ll be waiting for your court summons."

"Fine, you ungrateful wretch! Just wait to be sued."

Lin Chunfang grabbed Lee Li and started to storm out, scolding as she went, "Look at the fine husband you chose."

Lee Li quickly pulled her mother to a stop. "That’s enough, Mom! Please, stop."

"You’re a disappointment! When you signed the divorce agreement, why didn’t you demand the house? Now that it’s being sold, where are you going to live?" Lin Chunfang was so worked up she even turned on her own daughter. "Without a house, how can we women feel secure?"

Lee Li seemed a bit scared of her and quickly explained, "Mom, he would never have signed the papers if the agreement didn’t split the house fifty-fifty. A contested divorce would have wasted so much time. I’m already in my thirties. How many more years of my youth can I afford to waste on him?"

Catching her daughter’s meaningful glance and remembering her promising new boyfriend, Lin Chunfang’s anger gradually subsided. She sat down to the side without another word, but her eyes were still staring daggers at Sun Dasheng.

Their argument cast a pall of uncertainty over the elderly professor’s family, who sat nearby. Will this house deal even go through today? they wondered.

Agent Xiao Li, ever the sharp one, came over with a smile and several cups of tea to play peacemaker and defuse the tension. "Let’s all calm down. We’re all here to make money today, so let’s not let bad feelings get in the way."

He then led both the buyers and sellers to a small, circular negotiation room where they all sat down.

"We saw the house yesterday and it’s very nice," the buyer began. "We were just wondering if the price could be lowered a little."

The price didn’t matter to Sun Dasheng, so he glanced at Lee Li. If she didn’t agree, there was nothing he could do. The sales contract required both of their signatures to be valid.

Lee Li took an unhurried sip of tea and said, "I don’t even know what the listing price is."

Agent Xiao Li glanced at Sun Dasheng in surprise before turning to Lee Li with a smile. "Mr. Sun listed it for 7.5 million with our agency."

"What?" a piercing voice shrieked. It wasn’t Lee Li, but her mother, Lin Chunfang, who had been watching from the sidelines.

"Hey, Sun! Are you in cahoots with the agent, listing it low to get a kickback and cheat our Lee Li? A house with a market value of 8 million, and you’re listing it for 7.5 million? And now you want to lower the price even more? No way! Lee Li won’t agree. We can’t sell at this price."

She once again tried to pull Lee Li away. Sun Dasheng just sat there and smirked.

Seeing the deal about to collapse, Agent Xiao Li quickly put on a placating smile. "Auntie, you’ve misunderstood. Mr. Sun and I don’t even know each other. The kickback you’re talking about is pure fiction. Housing prices have stopped rising. The listed market prices are all inflated; you’ll never sell if you don’t lower it."

Hearing the commotion, the agency manager also came over to help smooth things over. After a great deal of persuasion, they finally convinced the women to sit back down.

"Get me a different agent. I don’t trust this one," Lin Chunfang huffed.

The manager, ignoring Xiao Li’s pale face, immediately swapped him out. After all, as long as the deal was closed within his agency, the profit would stay in-house.