Chapter 309: Everyone’s Here
Qin Xiangnuan carried the vegetables into the kitchen, washed them, sliced the meat, her movements were labored yet methodical. Right, she had forgotten—inside her backpack, there was twenty thousand yuan, the rent from leasing those two shops.
The rent was exorbitantly high, 500 yuan per month for each room, a total of 1000 yuan. Although it was the same rate as the shops near the market where she sold vegetables, the market’s shops were more than double the size of the ones near the train station; therefore, the rent in the latter location was indeed high.
A lease was signed for five years, as the tenants needed to renovate, which also involved money. So, the contract was lengthy. She was simply renting out an empty house; renovations would cost money as well. One of the reasons she settled for five years was because it was the late ’90s to the early 2000s, where rent wouldn’t change much. The changes would come after the year two thousand, and that’s when they’d discuss rent adjustments. She had taken twenty thousand yuan, half as a security deposit, the other half as rent. All of a sudden, she had twenty thousand yuan in hand, which she had placed in her backpack and forgotten. Tomorrow, she would need to make a bank trip to deposit this money. These past two years in Capital City had been good to her; her market booth had never missed a day’s business. In a year, she earned almost ten thousand yuan. She didn’t spend much elsewhere, as Jian Zhiqing, her co-tenant, took care of purchasing everything, such as vegetables. As a result, she had little to spend, and most of her money was saved. The account book showed an increasing balance; she made two thousand after buying the Hutong house and now added another twenty thousand, which was close to thirty thousand in total. This amount was a fortune in the present but would mean nothing in the future.
Thus, she pondered on how to spend the money.
Maybe invest in gold, she mused while wrapping dumplings. In the future, the price of gold would continue to rise to four hundred yuan per ounce, and money would depreciate quickly, especially a few decades later when 100 yuan would no longer buy much—not even a decent piece of clothing.
Steam bun baskets stacked on the stove as she cooked a pot of eight-treasure porridge, filled with assorted beans, jujubes, lilies, and lotus seeds—ingredients she enjoyed, and Jian Zhiqing liked them as well. Whatever she cooked, he usually gave face and would eat two or three bowls, and soon, Jian Zhiqin and the young Taotao might come over, so she made plenty to avoid running short later.
The steamed buns were cooked in bamboo baskets, seven or eight at a time, ready to be served with the basket too.
"Sister, I’m here," as expected, the door burst open with a bang.
It was Jian Zhiqin’s voice first, followed by another voice,