The backer suddenly stopped looking after the underling, Wen Ying speculated that there were two possibilities.
The first was that the underling had done something to disappoint the backer, the backer had kicked them aside with one swift move.
The second was that the backer themselves had fallen, too busy with their own troubles to lend any support to the underling.
Right now, Boss Qin genuinely valued her uncle, Wen Ying couldn’t figure out why the two would fall out.
As for the second scenario, Wen Ying was even more baffled.
Boss Qin going bankrupt within the next year or so?
Next year would be 2005, not the 2008 financial crisis. With Boss Qin’s vast wealth and thriving business, how could it collapse just like that? It sounded utterly ridiculous!
Wen Ying realised that being reborn wasn’t all-powerful. She could know Xie Qian’s future outcome and Chief Inspector Luo’s career trajectory because she had known them in her past life. But she had never crossed paths with Boss Qin in her previous life, naturally, she had no idea whether something would happen to him.
Sigh, it seemed she still needed to focus on her uncle.
When the mountain you rely on collapses, the people you depend on scatter, even though she didn’t understand what had gone wrong between Boss Qin and her uncle, it currently looked like the scheming was only aimed at her uncle, hadn’t implicated Boss Qin. So how could she expect Boss Qin to step in and help?
Wen Ying relaxed her mood, eating and drinking became a source of great joy.
Boss Qin’s fishing skills were rubbish, the chef at the villa where he was hosting was exceptionally talented. Wen Ying ate to her heart’s content. During the meal, she overheard Boss Qin chatting with a few other bosses. They mentioned a new property development planned for the east side of the city. A boss surnamed Wang at the table was very confident about this development, urging Deng Shangwei to buy a few units if he had spare cash.
Wen Ying’s eyelid twitched.
This development, she knew it well. Wasn’t it the very estate where her family had bought a house in Rongcheng in her past life?
Wen Ying knew her family currently had some savings, originally intended for buying a car. Her father, Wen Dongrong, thought it would look bad, so Chen Li persuaded Chen Ru to use the money to buy a house instead.
Housing prices in Rongcheng didn’t skyrocket as quickly as they did in Shanghai or Beijing, when Wen Ying’s family bought their house in 2004, it cost just over 3,000 yuan per square metre. By 2019, the price for the same estate had soared to over 20,000 yuan per square metre.
From 2004 to 2019, over those 15 years, the house Wen Ying’s family bought had increased in value seven or eight times. Meanwhile, Wen Dongrong and Chen Ru’s salaries hadn’t risen nearly as much. Money sitting in the bank, even with interest, would have lost value, investing in property had just about kept pace with inflation. So, it turned out Chen Li’s tip had come from this very dinner?
No wonder the rich kept getting richer. These snippets of information slipped casually from the bosses’ mouths, spoken without much thought but seized upon by those who listened. The guests at today’s dinner who acted on this tip would, without realising it, gain yet another step ahead of the average person.
Take Wen Ying’s family’s first house in Rongcheng, for example. By 2019, it had risen to over 20,000 yuan per square metre, a neighbouring estate in the same area didn’t even reach 20,000, a difference of several thousand yuan per square metre. For two homes of over 100 square metres each, the price gap between the two estates amounted to hundreds of thousands of yuan!
Chen Ru never sold that first house they bought in Rongcheng because it was proof of her keen eye. Relatives all praised her foresight. Back when they bought it, the prices of the two estates were roughly the same, who could have predicted that by 2019, one house in their estate would be worth hundreds of thousands more than one in the neighbouring estate?
The Wen Ying of 2019, with her high income, didn’t care much about a few hundred thousand yuan, for the average working-class family, it was a significant sum.
Wen Ying casually listened in, could connect the bosses’ conversation to the future housing market trends. The dinner her uncle had brought her to carried far more weight than she’d expected.
Boss Qin glanced at Wen Ying, noticing her listening intently with perked ears, couldn’t help but chuckle.
“You understand what they’re saying?” he asked.
Wen Ying hesitated for a moment before nodding slightly. “I think Uncle Wang is right. When buying a house, it’s not just about the size, you have to consider the location and the amenities. The estate Uncle Wang mentioned will definitely see its prices rise faster than the surrounding ones. I’m just saying this off the top of my head. If I got it wrong, please don’t laugh at me, uncles.”
In a setting like this, a secondary school student wouldn’t normally get a chance to speak. If it were anyone else, they’d likely have scolded Wen Ying by now. But Deng Shangwei had brought her along to learn, he was thick-skinned enough that even if she said something wrong, he wouldn’t feel embarrassed, so he didn’t stop her.
Boss Qin hadn’t expected Wen Ying to actually dare to speak, wanted to test her mettle, gesturing for her to continue.
Wen Ying wasn’t in real estate in her past life, while she hadn’t eaten pork, she’d certainly seen pigs run. Why was the river-view flat she’d bought in Shanghai so expensive? It wasn’t just the sliver of a river view, it was the location that mattered most.
Of course, in top-tier cities, housing was also tied to things like residency permits and school districts, with too many factors influencing prices. Wen Ying could only offer a simple explanation based on Rongcheng’s situation.
At first, the others didn’t take Wen Ying seriously. Since 2001, when Vanke City Garden entered the eastern part of the city, it had spurred the development of a slew of high-end estates. Everyone knew properties in the east sold for a premium.
Among all those developments, the one Boss Wang was passionately recommending didn’t seem to have any obvious edge.
The group let Wen Ying speak freely partly because Boss Qin was backing Deng Shangwei, partly because the girl spoke clearly, had a pleasant voice. They didn’t mind listening, it was a nice diversion during the meal.
But as Wen Ying continued, she touched on national policy. She believed whether house prices rose, by how much, was driven by the government’s macroeconomic controls.
“Take Rongcheng, for example. It’s not that high-end estates targeted the east side, it’s that the property companies sniffed out policy shifts first. Isn’t Rongcheng working on its east-west strategic plan? I’ve heard even the shops along Tianfu Avenue and in Huayang are selling at a premium now!”
What Wen Ying meant was that following the government’s plans might not get you the first sip of the soup, it certainly wouldn’t leave you at a loss.
Boss Qin found it intriguing.
It wouldn’t be surprising for one of the bosses to say something like that, without some vision and connections, they wouldn’t have made their fortunes.
But for those words to come from a young girl like Wen Ying? That was something else.
Boss Qin’s daughter, Qin Jiao, was already exceptional among her peers, her focus was still limited to school, her studies, maybe some teenage crushes. Qin Jiao certainly had plans for her future, like which university to attend and what to study. She was far more clear-headed than the average secondary school student.
But Qin Jiao wouldn’t be bothered about Rongcheng’s municipal strategic planning!
Boss Qin raised an eyebrow, asked Deng Shangwei, “Have you been teaching her at home?”
Deng Shangwei looked awkward. “Brother Qin, you know what I’m like. I can barely explain things myself, how could I teach her anything?”
Boss Qin didn’t press further. Instead, it was Boss Wang, the one advocating for investment in the eastern estate, who took a keen interest in Wen Ying. Her words aligned perfectly with his own thoughts, scratching an itch he didn’t know he had. After a couple more drinks, he told Deng Shangwei to nurture her well.
“This girl’s got a sharp mind. If you don’t want her, Little Deng, send her to work at my company after she graduates university.”
Wen Ying mentally raised a question mark.
Boss Wang must have had too much to drink to give such a high opinion of her round, moon-like face. She was a bit puzzled, weren’t the things she’d said just the most basic common sense about property investment?
Or was it that in 2004, people were still buying houses blindly, based on gut feeling alone?!
Judging by everyone’s expressions, Wen Ying realised her casual remarks might have gone a bit too far.
