Epiphanies of Rebirth 37.2
Chapter 37.2
Fang Wenhao remained deeply confused. He really couldn’t figure out what Lin Jingzhe was implying.
Lin Jingzhe owned two pieces of land at Shiku Lane. One was around 100,000 square meters, bought with over 20 million yuan, and the second one, which was around 300,000 square meters, was purchased for 30 million yuan. Because the location was good, these two plots were now highly coveted. If Lin Jingzhe agreed to sell them according to the price Fang Wenhao was proposing, he’d make a net profit of no less than sixty million!
Sixty million! Fang Wenhao’s company might not necessarily earn this amount even after two years of painstakingly developing multiple projects! Why was Lin Jingzhe still hesitating?
If it was up to Fang Wenhao, he definitely would’ve sold them. Now that the market was hot, many companies with land in their hands had removed them from listings, leading to a large short-term gap between supply and demand. It was a seller’s market now; whoever was willing to sell land could pretty much dictate terms at will. This meant that it was best to quickly take advantage of the current environment to sell—if those companies who were still holding back their land decided to let go, this wonderful phenomenon would end.
In the end, only money was real. If you didn’t have cash in hand, something like “worth” was just an abstract concept.
But Lin Jingzhe didn’t seem to be joking when he said “There’s no hurry.” After that conversation at the Fangs’ house, he really didn’t bring up the matter of selling his land anymore, as if he hadn’t noticed the situation that was getting more and more heated in Yan City’s real estate market.
Seeing this, it was hard for Fang Wenhao to avoid worrying. However, every time he found Lin Jingzhe to advise him, the youth’s attitude was as calm and leisurely as if he had not a care in the world, and Fang Wenhao only ended up with a stomach full of tea and no useful information gained.
In early spring, after a series of record-breaking land auctions, Yan City welcomed a new wave of “new rich,” attracting widespread attention.
For example, a 400,000-square-meters plot of farmland in the north eventually sold for an unprecedented, sky-high price of 110 million yuan.
Over a hundred million yuan!
This figure, despite being a true fact, seemed completely fantastical. It was apparent that the real estate market in Yan City was about to enter a new era. Businessmen who participated in the auction all appeared to be in a frenzy; Fang Wenhao could only see constantly raised bid cards with rapidly increasing numbers in the venue. In the end, every piece of land ended up sold at prices far higher than the industry’s original estimates.
He left the auction venue in a daze, infected by everyone’s enthusiasm, and his boiling blood didn’t calm for a long time.
Then, another bombshell came, driving his emotions to the peak again.
New Beginnings Real Estate finally put their land up for sale!
It wasn’t the triangle-shaped plot by the 2nd Middle Road, priced by the industry at 22 million yuan, nor was it either of the two individual plots at Shiku Lane.
It was both of the plots at Shiku Lane, together! A combined area of half a million square meters!
The newly crowned “land king,” who had sold a 400,000-square-meters piece of land at the last auction, was overthrown with lightning speed, making his “reign” the shortest in history. The new “land king” who was poised to ascend the throne scalded everyone’s eyeballs with the 500,000-square-meter figure.
Sure enough, this shocking news quickly spread through real estate developers throughout the country—after all, the “land kings” were what insiders paid the most attention to. And so, a simple listing of land for sale, an event which couldn’t be more ordinary, suddenly became extremely special. Even those property developers who couldn’t afford to swallow such a huge piece of land talked about it enthusiastically, repeatedly evaluating and discussing it in private. This was a piece of cake that everyone wanted to have a taste of.
At this point, the true giants began to stir. This was no longer a level of competition that Fang Wenhao’s Boundless Realty Group could participate in.
With this one move, Lin Jingzhe pushed the unknown New Beginnings Real Estate into the limelight!
Fang Wenhao had imagined countless possibilities, but he never thought that Lin Jingzhe’s appetite could be so big! With the metaphorical balls to match! The other man’s tactics completely exceeded the scope of what he had predicted, and he could do nothing but watch from the sidelines.
Of course, besides those who were shocked and awed, there were also some naysayers. The figure of half a million square meters was well beyond most people’s imagination, after all. Sure, the “land king” gimmick was a crowd-puller, but how many developers could in fact swallow such a large plot of land?
Among the storm of discussions, questions, and doubts, Lin Jingzhe never made an appearance. He arranged for Deng Mai to go through the listing procedures for him, and he himself, on the contrary, carried on like a completely uninvolved person. Fang Wenhao bumped into him several times at school, and each time the youth was as cool as a cucumber. He never even missed a single class.
Someone who could remain so calm in such a situation could no longer be called human, alright?!
Fang Wenhao questioned his beliefs in tears, nearly unable to eat and sleep from the agitation.
On the day of the auction, despite the fact that it was impossible for him to eat this plot of 500,000 square meters, Fang Wenhao still came to the auction venue. Similarly, representatives from almost every real estate company, known and unknown, all appeared at the scene. Although they didn’t have the means to participate in the bidding, they didn’t want to miss this extraordinary sale.
Fang Wenhao sat among the representatives of small and medium-sized companies. Before the auction began, he could still hear many voices doubting whether anyone would dare to bid. Such a huge event had gathered almost all the real estate giants; if the auction flopped and the land failed to sell in the end, New Beginnings Real Estate would become the laughingstock of the industry.
As he kept listening, he couldn’t help but worry. This anxiety reached its peak when the reserve price was revealed.
The whole venue fell into a dead silence for a few seconds—the reserve price of the two pieces of land at Shiku Lane, consolidated into one plot, was 110 million yuan!
Though the value estimated by the industry was higher than this, this unprecedented starting price still made Fang Wenhao choke. As he and the small business owners around him tried to get their breath back, in the rows ahead, the first bid card rose.
“One hundred and ten million.”
It was like sitting in an auditorium before a performance as a crimson front curtain unhurriedly drew open.
When Fang Wenhao left the auction venue, he was light-headed, and he wasn’t alone. By the end, several bigshots were going toe-by-toe as they engaged in a fierce bidding war, deeply shocking the onlookers. Every time a bid card was lifted up, the price turned more and more unbelievable, and the previous record of 400,000-square-meters of land selling at 110 million was broken over and over again. At the same time, it also smashed everyone’s fossilized, conservative predictions about the future prospects of the real estate market.
It wasn’t until he almost arrived home that he suddenly remembered something and told the driver to turn around and head to school.
As he suspected, Lin Jingzhe was actually in class, sitting in the front row. He propped up his chin on his hand and took notes as he listened to the professor giving a lecture on the dais. He never looked away even though Fang Wenhao stood at the door for nearly thirty minutes.
What an earnest and conscientious student! He didn’t get distracted even once!
Fang Wenhao felt as if he was about to self-immolate from the nerves. He couldn’t understand how Lin Jingzhe could be so calm. Had he mistaken the date and forgotten that today was the day of the auction which would make New Beginnings the new “land king”?
He barely endured until the class was over. Then, not even waiting for the professor to exit, he rushed into the classroom, drawing everyone’s stares, and slammed his hands on Lin Jingzhe’s desk.
“Lin—”
As soon as he opened his mouth, he was interrupted by Lin Jingzhe’s raised hand. The youth glanced around, motioning to the classmates who were looking over with concern that everything was all right. Then, while gathering his notes, he pulled out a newly bought pager from his pocket and dropped it onto the desk. “I’ve received the news.”
Fang Wenhao stared at him blankly, his lips opening and closing like a fish. Seeing that Lin Jingzhe’s expression looked no different from before despite knowing the news, he fell speechless.
Lin Jingzhe wrote down his name in the lower right corner of a new notebook. After packing everything, he looked up and was confronted with Fang Wenhao’s dumbfounded gaze.
He gave him a tranquil smile, commenting calmly, “One hundred and sixty million is not bad, a little more than what I had estimated it would sell for.”
This ordinary smiling expression seemed to hide unfathomable depths.
For the first time, Fang Wenhao felt a deep reverence for this young man he had always regarded as his little brother.
The land belonging to the new “land king,” New Beginnings Real Estate, sold at the auction for a new record price of 160 million, unprecedented in the history of domestic real estate. With such a dazzling performance, Flux Realty’s sale of two plots at 60 million and 55 million respectively was barely worth mentioning. What they had in common, however, was that those plots were also located in the northern part of the city.
But the successive record-breaking sales sent a clear message to everyone: the northern district was truly about to soar!
Along with this, New Beginnings Real Estate rapidly rose from obscurity to prominence.
In the nineties, sales histories were still almost completely transparent, so anyone could easily figure out how much New Beginnings had spent and earned since the time it was established. This land trade could be considered as the company’s “opening move”—and with this first undertaking, it made over 100 million yuan!
This huge number left any similar-sized company in the dust. No one was willing to believe this sensational deal was a simple coincidence; for a time, the background behind New Beginnings Real Estate became one of the most hotly discussed topics in the real estate industry.
However, despite many discreet investigations into this matter, nothing was ever discovered.
Apart from the initial connection with Fang Wenhao, this company was completely clear and transparent, just like any other typical small company. There was not a single snag to catch onto. New Beginnings Real Estate didn’t even have an office! It appeared to be very poor!
But the more innocent it looked, the more unfathomable it seemed.
The hearts of insiders were filled with awe and caution in equal measures. Though no one’s inquiries had yielded any results, they didn’t dare to investigate any further.
That aside, there was a new object of ridicule in the industry.
One person’s happiness was another’s misery. New Beginnings Real Estate, which made a huge profit, was the ultimate winner. And Dominion Properties, which had sold almost two-thirds of the land it owned in the northern quarter to this new “land king,” undoubtedly became the biggest loser.
In just a few months, the piece of land sold for 30 million yuan nearly tripled in value. At the time, Dominion Properties’ management had been so happy to get rid of that worthless land, they actually threw a company-wide celebration party; now, it was clear that they couldn’t have been any more foolish for letting it slip from their hands. Furthermore, the Dominion Properties’ boss, Qi Kai, was reckless and arrogant and had made a lot of enemies, so as soon as this matter was made known, countless people ridiculed him behind his back.
For the first time in his life, Qi Kai discovered that anger could rise three octaves up, like the voice of a professional opera singer.
He’d felt vaguely uneasy when the news of the highway construction first came out. The news about the location of the highway’s entrance and exit, announced a few days later, had been a staggering blow to the head; he was so frustrated that he couldn’t sleep well for several days.
When the announcement of the central business district’s establishment followed soon after, he got so angry that he couldn’t see straight, and directly vomited blood.
Before he managed to pull himself together, there came news of the auction and the new “land king.”
Qi Kai felt like dying. As he was given an IV, he kept having the urge to drink the saline solution in the hanging bag and stab himself in the eye with the IV needle.
A close friend and business partner who had accompanied him to the hospital advised him not to be so hung up on this matter. “‘If you successfully get something, it’s due to luck. If you lose something, it’s just not your fate.’ You shouldn’t take things like this so seriously or you’ll only make things harder for yourself. What’s more important, money or your health? That dumb sucker from New Beginnings Real Estate…”
Qi Kai turned his head and looked at him blankly. “‘Dumb sucker’?”
The friend swallowed saliva. “Cough.”
As they stared at each other, the man wondered if it’d be better to remove the hanging bag? With how foolish Qi Kai was currently looking, perhaps he might really drink it…
Soon, there was a rumor that Qi Kai had been sent to the hospital because of the matter regarding the new “land king.” Once it reached her ears, Xiao Miao let the book rest on her knees and sank deep into thought.
She decided to stop reading and to go worship the Bodhisattva first.
It wasn’t that she had suddenly become pious, but the Bodhisattva enshrined in their family’s prayer room seemed to really be imbued with divinity.
How long had it been since her brother started wearing that blessed leather jacket? Maybe keeping away from Hu Shaofeng also contributed. Either way, Qi Kai had unexpectedly really suffered a huge disaster!
Recalling how she had often grumbled about her brother being not right in the head for always running to pray and ask Buddha for divination, Xiao Miao was horrified. Right, and hadn’t she read some not-quite-respectable comic books in the prayer room? And she’d also asked for divination on some really random questions!
Amitabha! Amitabha!
Please don’t punish me, Bodhisattva!
Translator: Eques
Editor: Luoshenhua
Consultant & proofreader: Austera
Interesting. I bet Feng Wenhao is desperate to know how Lin Jingzhe manage to grab success so well.
Thank you for the update ❤️
thank you for the chapter !
this novel is really great It makes you retain an equal amount of enthusiasm even though you read it sporadically and this rarely happens
Thanks for the chapter
Thanks for the chapter 😍😍😍
Thank you so much for this chapter! I absolutely love this story. Really
Looking forward to what happens next
This novel is so awesome. The development of the chinese economy is so interesting… I want to see LJZ become filthy rich <33
LMAO Qi Kai is too dramatic 😀
Thank you very much for the chapter (⺣◡⺣)♡*
Thank you for the update!
I wish there was more chapters, huhu 😭
Been waiting for this 😭 Thank you Eques for the chapters 😘
Lin Jingzhe: Oh, I got more money then I expected, nice. (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
Fang Wenhao: I should call him older brother! ฅ(º ﾛ º ฅ)
Qi Kai: *drama queen desu* (۳ ಥ_ಥ)۳
Xiao Miao: I’ll never again read my BL stuff in this room!!! ∑(⊙д⊙)
Thx for the ch (ㅅ˘ㅂ˘)
I adore this novel. So fun& well translated 🍸
Thanks for the chapter translator-nim ^^
This is sooooooooooo interesting!!!!! I’m really enjoying it! And what a pleasant read!! Thank you so much and looking forward the next chapter!