CHAPTER 41: CHAPTER 41: THE COURT-AUCTIONED HOUSE NOBODY WANTS

Chen Yiyang saw that the expiration date for redeeming this scratchcard was still far away, so he carefully put it away.

Then, without checking the remaining scratchcards, he tossed them all back into the box.

Having been tired all day, it was really time to enjoy himself.

Chen Yiyang rubbed his sore shoulders, pondering how to spend the evening.

A massage?

He started to look down on such low-end places now; the therapists in the massage parlors either looked good and lacked skill, or were skilled but not good-looking.

Thinking it over and over.

Ask a girl out, ask a pretty girl out.

The first one ruled out was Chang Yuning. Her house deed hadn’t even been returned to her yet, he’d feel guilty inviting her out.

Xu Qing was currently a complete mess with busyness, she probably didn’t have time.

Besides, science girls are more suited to chatting or gaming together at home, going out isn’t really their thing.

Xu Xiaosheng?

Chen Yiyang remembered that this girl messaged him in the morning.

He was busy hunting for bargains at the time, so he probably hadn’t replied to her.

He opened WeChat to check.

Xu Xiaosheng: I’m going back to Jin City tonight. Want to come pick me up? My train’s at 6:30.

Checking the time, it was currently 5:30.

He could make it.

Without replying, Chen Yiyang headed out and drove straight to the high-speed train station.

6:30.

Xu Xiaosheng, carrying a small backpack, walked out of the high-speed train station.

She glanced left, then right.

Not spotting a familiar face.

She disappointedly headed outside to hail a cab.

At that moment, a Porsche 911 smoothly stopped in front of Xu Xiaosheng.

"Get in." Chen Yiyang said, rolling down the window.

"Ah, you really came." Xu Xiaosheng exclaimed in surprise as she opened the car door and got into the passenger seat.

"I sent you a message and you didn’t reply, I thought you were too busy with work to see it."

Having been on the train for several hours, Xu Xiaosheng finally felt her spirits lift.

"I saw it, I was just busy at the time."

Chen Yiyang felt fortunate for arriving just in time as he drove away from the station.

"So you didn’t reply to me."

"I did reply, how could I not answer your message?" Chen Yiyang said as he took out his phone with one hand to check WeChat.

Clearly, there was no reply from Chen Yiyang, only the lonely message from Xu Xiaosheng in the morning.

"Hey, I distinctly remember replying."

"Perhaps you were so busy at the time that your brain didn’t process it." Xu Xiaosheng suggested, helping Chen Yiyang cover up his oversight.

"That might be it. I thought I replied in reality, but actually, I just replied in my mind."

"It seems we’re not quite in sync yet, your mental reply didn’t reach me." Xu Xiaosheng said casually.

She was satisfied that Chen Yiyang had come to pick her up.

"Let’s make a pinky promise, maybe next time we’ll be in sync." Chen Yiyang extended his hand towards Xu Xiaosheng.

After hesitating for a few seconds, Xu Xiaosheng clasped it.

However, before they even left the intersection, a traffic police officer stopped them.

"Driving with one hand and holding your girlfriend’s hand with the other? You know that’s dangerous!"

"Got it, officer, we’ll definitely not do it next time." Chen Yiyang quickly apologized.

After receiving a bit of education, Chen Yiyang awkwardly drove away from the high-speed train station with Xu Xiaosheng.

"Where are we going now?" Xu Xiaosheng asked.

"I’m quite tired today as well, I know a great place, let’s go soak in a hot spring."

"Oh, a hot spring?" Xu Xiaosheng hesitated for a moment, then said, "But I didn’t bring a swimsuit."

"We can buy one when we get there."

Chen Yiyang drove Xu Xiaosheng to the private hot spring spa that Chang Yuning had taken him to last time.

He asked the staff to get a women’s swimsuit, then took Xu Xiaosheng into the room.

"I ordered some snacks for you, you can eat if you get hungry later."

"Okay." At this point, Xu Xiaosheng’s face was almost as red as a ripe fruit.

She thought the hot spring spa would be one of those public ones.

She didn’t expect Chen Yiyang to take her to such a private place with no one else around.

But soaking in a hot spring really is a great way to relieve fatigue.

After changing into their swimsuits, the two of them got into the water, and before long they felt completely relaxed.

Unlike the last time with Chang Yuning, who sat across from him.

Today, Chen Yiyang sat closely next to Xu Xiaosheng, chatting while enjoying hot spring eggs.

"Why did you come back to Jin City again?"

"Senior Sister Zhang asked me to come help." Xu Xiaosheng said, "I stayed in Jin City to help my advisor sieve soil, missing a few days doesn’t matter. Senior Sister Zhang said Jin City is hosting her uncle’s art exhibition, and she asked me to come help out. Plus, I could get my name on the related list, adding to my credentials."

Xu Xiaosheng spoke softly, her voice mingling with the hot steam of the spring.

It made people itch inside.

Chen Yiyang reached his right arm around from behind, gently hugging Xu Xiaosheng.

Blushing, Xu Xiaosheng tacitly accepted this gesture.

Lately, she had been constantly chatting and interacting online with Chen Yiyang.

It’s no wonder TV dramas love to script hero-saving-the-beauty scenes.

It’s indeed a way to easily win a girl’s favor and quickly deepen their relationship.

Of course, the main reason is that Chen Yiyang himself doesn’t look bad, and Xu Xiaosheng is also a decent person.

Chen Yiyang then told him the story of how he discovered a box of Glazed Beads left from Ancient Rome amidst a pile of trash with his keen eye over the past few days.

As he spoke, Chen Yiyang stretched out his other hand in front of Xu Xiaosheng and opened it.

"Wow." Xu Xiaosheng happily took it.

"A millennium-old twisted silk Glazed Bead from Ancient Rome, born over a thousand years ago, brought over by the Romans through the Silk Road, and buried deep underground, only to recently see the light of day again."

No wonder they say that antiques need a story to sell for a good price.

If you just say it’s something made by the Ancient Romans over a thousand years ago,

then it’s just an ordinary, not even very good-looking decoration collectible.

But paired with the thousand-mile journey of the Silk Road, the rolling dust of the Northwest frontier, and the thousand-year regret of being buried deep underground,

this bead suddenly seems a lot more pleasing to the eye.

"It’s a testament to the cultural exchange between the East and West, a tangible relic left by ancient people crossing the mists of history for later generations."

Xu Xiaosheng held the bead with great fondness.

"Thank you for your gift."

After bathing in the hot springs, the two of them took a shower.

Then Chen Yiyang lay on the bed while Xu Xiaosheng lay in Chen Yiyang’s arms eating fruit.

As the sky gradually darkened,

Xu Xiaosheng began to tell Chen Yiyang about her interpretations and guesses from the miscellaneous book she had bought earlier.

Her graduation thesis should yield results from this.

As she talked, this little girl gradually fell silent.

Chen Yiyang took a careful look and found that she had fallen asleep in his arms.

Probably she had sifted through the soil in the morning and then rushed over by high-speed train.

Seeing her carrying all sorts of materials, she probably hadn’t rested on the train either.

Chen Yiyang couldn’t really wake her up at this moment to ask her what the phrase "Drunken in the embrace during a tortoiseshell feast, helpless beneath the lotus canopy" means, could he?

So, let her sleep.

Chen Yiyang pulled the quilt over himself and also went to sleep.

The next morning upon waking up,

Xu Xiaosheng was already dressed and had brought breakfast for Chen Yiyang.

"My senior sister called me to go over now, I have to head out first."

"Zhang Yuling has already arrived in Jin City?" Chen Yiyang asked.

"Yes, she has." Xu Xiaosheng nodded.

Chen Yiyang could only grab the little girl’s face and give her a few pecks, and then let her go.

Today’s update, a judicial auction house no one wants: Jin City’s court will auction a 50-square-meter judicial house today. For some reasons, no one wants to buy this house.

You can pick it up at a starting price of six hundred thousand.

A judicial auction house?

Chen Yiyang didn’t need to look up to know what a judicial auction house is.

Usually, it’s when the debtor doesn’t have enough cash to pay fines or repay loans and such.

The court then auctions off the debtor’s assets to pay off debts.

Generally, judicial houses are cheaper than regular homes.

But buying this kind of property can easily be tricky.

For example, some houses have long-term lease contracts with other people, making them uninhabitable after purchase.

Or, there’s an elderly person living in the house who can’t be evicted, so buying it is no different from not buying it.

Chen Yiyang glanced at the specific information on the briefing and checked it on his phone.

This judicial house is in a prime location. Opposite the community is one of the top three high schools in the city.

Within walking distance, there are elementary, middle schools, and kindergartens.

It’s potentially an education district house that could be used until the child’s college years.

Logically, it shouldn’t be hard to sell.

But because the house has the 80-year-old father of the debtor living in it, the court has also informed that there’s no way to forcibly evict him after purchase.

If you have the means to persuade the elderly person to leave, then consider purchasing.

Chen Yiyang didn’t mind the issue of the elderly living in the judicial house.

He found an agent online to inquire about the normal price of this house.

Two hundred twenty thousand.

A fifty-square-meter house, priced higher than Chang Yuning’s ninety-square-meter house.

It’s expensive due to being an education district house.

Of course, similarly, precisely because it’s an education district house, buying it is generally for moving in with a child for convenient schooling.

But the current problem is, there’s an elderly person living in it. After buying it, perhaps by the time it’s habitable, the child will already be in college.

But since the report said you could pick it up as a bargain, Chen Yiyang felt that the elderly person inside wasn’t a problem.

Buy it!

The starting price is six hundred thousand.

Chen Yiyang had this amount of money, but it would consume his reserved safety funds.

The auction was set to start at three in the afternoon, and Chen Yiyang planned to do two things before that.

One was to quickly sell the thirty thousand scratch-off lottery ticket.

The other was to find a buyer for this house, ideally someone who could immediately flip the house after Chen Yiyang purchases and evicts it, thus replenishing his cash flow.

As for the lottery ticket, Chen Yiyang called Liu Chen.

"This is a real treasure!" Liu Chen’s tone changed upon hearing about the thirty thousand scratch-off lottery ticket.

"Forty thousand, forty thousand to sell to you, Brother Liu."

"I’m only accepting cash transfers on my end, don’t try to settle with goods again." Chen Yiyang said.

"No worries. Last time, it was your transaction with someone else. Brother, I was just the middleman."

"Now it’s a transaction between you and me, brother. Could I scam you? Forty thousand cash direct transfer, give me an address, and I’ll come over now."