this chapter is brought to you by mio
as translator, proofreader and editor!
They had seen RVs before, but they were all in TV dramas; in reality, it’s rare to see one.
On the roadside, a girl checked online and exaggeratedly elbowed her friend beside her, mouthing, “Two million.”
A two-million RV, just used to store clothes and accessories for outings!
Xu Yao also felt that her outfit was fine for collecting rent in a high-end community, but she needed to change for the elevator-less urban village.
Xu Yao climbed into the RV and pulled the curtains, while Lu Ye helped her close the door, turning around like a guardian, standing with his back to the door.
Xu Yao changed into a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, swapping her high heels for rhinestone flip-flops. After considering for a moment, she chose a simple white oversized tote bag from a row of bags.
After changing her outfit, Xu Yao walked into the urban village with Lu Ye, who briefly explained the situation as they walked: “The rental situation in the urban village is quite complicated, so we haven’t collected rent in person before. Instead, we rented to a second landlord, who then sublets it to the tenants. This month, our contract with the second landlord happens to expire.”
The so-called second landlord is when the landlord rents the house to a second landlord, who then rents it out at a higher price to ordinary tenants, profiting from the price difference.
In fact, many tenants have long suffered under second landlords!
Not only are the rents high, but the second landlords also raise the utility fees. For ordinary residential electricity, which costs over fifty cents per kilowatt-hour, unscrupulous second landlords can charge up to one and a half yuan per kilowatt-hour.
As Xu Yao listened to Lu Ye’s explanation, she suddenly noticed several delivery guys not far away watching the commotion, and one delivery guy who had already left came back.
Clearly, there was gossip to be had!
In the crowd, a pale young girl was desperately clutching a middle-aged man’s shirt, hysterically shouting, “The bed leg was already broken! You didn’t fix it when I moved in, so why should I pay for it? Why!”
Li Xiaoli was about to break down. She had been working in Haicheng for almost a month but had not found a job. Her expenses were piling up with no income, and today was the time to pay next month’s rent. When the second landlord came to check, he found that the only piece of furniture in the room—the wooden bed frame—had a broken leg, which Li Xiaoli had propped up with a red brick for balance, and he demanded she pay to fix it.
The pressure of recent days exploded in an instant, and with red eyes, Li Xiaoli was unwilling to pay for the repairs.
The man angrily shook off Li Xiaoli’s hand, saying, “If you don’t want to rent, pack your things and leave. There are plenty of people who want to rent.”
The implication was clear: if she damaged the furniture, she could forget about getting her deposit back.
Although the urban village environment was poor, it was close to the subway, had a good location, and low rent, making it a top choice for students who had just graduated and were short on funds.
Hearing this, Li Xiaoli was on the verge of a breakdown; the deposit was one month’s rent of fifteen hundred yuan, which was no small amount for her!
As it looked like the two were about to get into a scuffle, Xu Yao looked at Lu Ye, who immediately stepped forward and easily pulled the two apart.
The man felt a bit angry when pulled away, but noticing Lu Ye’s shoulder, he saw the scar running from his brow to his eye and immediately felt intimidated.
Lu Ye said directly, “You must be Li Qiang, right? Our rental contract with you expires this month, and we do not plan to renew it. From now on, our lady will collect rent directly from the tenants.”
Since their contract with Li Qiang was expiring, it naturally meant that the second landlord would no longer collect rent.
Li Qiang was initially taken aback, then his gaze fell on Xu Yao a few meters away. Standing in the crowd, she shone like a star, exuding the aura of a wealthy young lady.
Li Qiang made his money through being a second landlord; if the landlord was unwilling to renew the lease with him, he would have no right to sublet to other tenants, thus losing the opportunity to profit from the price difference, and he certainly had no right to demand Li Xiaoli pay for the bed leg repairs.
However, when Li Qiang saw Xu Yao, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Collecting rent in the urban village was not as easy as he had imagined; in the end, this lady would still find it troublesome and tiring, and would hand the work over to second landlords like him!
Li Qiang first showed a look of regret and readily agreed.
Only Li Xiaoli, with wide eyes, instantly recognised Xu Yao!
The Xu Yao who had recently been rumoured to be involved with her idol, Sheng Zhou!
In person, she was even more beautiful than online; if it weren’t for Li Xiaoli being a fan of Sheng Zhou, as a beauty enthusiast, she couldn’t help but want to become a fan of Xu Yao’s looks.
Xu Yao couldn’t be bothered to look at Li Qiang and said to Lu Ye, “Let’s go, time to collect rent.”
Li Xiaoli looked up at the six-story building in front of her, then at Xu Yao’s retreating figure, feeling somewhat stunned.
Xu Yao said on Weibo that she was going to withdraw from the circle and go home to collect rent, and she really had a property to collect rent from?
*
The urban village environment was poor; a single room in a nearby community could rent for three thousand, while here it could be solved for just over a thousand.
The building was somewhat dimly lit, with piles of garbage at the entrance, and some liquid spilled on the concrete floor. Li Qiang, seemingly oblivious to Xu Yao’s frown, enthusiastically said, “Miss Landlord, the water meter box is up ahead, the electricity meter box is every two floors, and the gas meter is in each room.”
After speaking, Li Qiang handed them the water, electricity, and gas meter readings for the two buildings in the urban village from last month.
Xu Yao approached the water meter box, but the dim environment made it hard to see the meter. Lu Ye took out a flashlight from his bag: “Miss Yao Yao, let me do it.”
“No need, I’ll try it myself.”
Xu Yao began to read the water meters one by one, bending over to see better, and soon felt a bit sore.
Xu Yao suddenly realised that collecting rent seemed quite hard…
Just then, a pair of unusually bright eyes appeared under the flashlight, and the next second, a dark rat darted out from the water meter box.
Lu Ye rushed forward, stepping on the rat’s tail, causing it to squeak in pain. Not only did Lu Ye show no mercy, but he also brought his other foot down, nearly crushing the rat’s skull, the sound of cracking bones clear and crisp, blood pooling beneath his leather shoes.
Lu Ye, realising what he had done, instinctively glanced over at Xu Yao.
Xu Yao, stroking her chin as she surveyed the “crime scene,” remarked, “This must weigh at least two pounds, right? Quite fat.”
Rats in the south are as astonishingly large as cockroaches.
After finishing the water meter readings, they walked up the stairs to the second floor to read the electricity meter, and then they had to knock on each door to read the gas meter.
Little 6 felt heartbroken: [Host, isn’t this too hard for you? Retiring to be a landlord is exhausting too.]
Xu Yao felt the same way.
Li Qiang looked at Xu Yao, who was holding her waist, and immediately said, “Miss Landlord, why not do it like before? Just rent everything to me, and I’ll transfer the money directly to you.”
He wasn’t afraid of the hard work of reading the meters! Let him do it!
Unlike high-end residential areas, where you just inform the property manager and let the tenants transfer the money via WeChat without even meeting, in urban villages, you have to personally read the water, electricity, and gas meters.
Li Qiang was sure Xu Yao wouldn’t be able to go door to door reading the meters!
Xu Yao looked at Lu Ye and tentatively asked, “How about you do it?”
Lu Ye: “…”
Xu Yao suddenly felt she was being too much of a taskmaster to her bodyguard and thought, “Let those tenants take pictures of the water, electricity, and gas meters and send them to us.”
Even in slippers, Xu Yao felt tired climbing up to the sixth floor to read the meters.
Lu Ye replied straightforwardly, “That might be a bit difficult.”
Many tenants had a good attitude; as soon as they heard about paying rent, they would transfer the money without a second thought, but getting someone to read the meters was something few would be willing to do.
Li Qiang stifled a laugh and didn’t chime in.
Xu Yao smiled, “Isn’t it simple?”
*
pls do not share this anywhere or u will always stub ur toe when u walk past a door frame !! this translation has been stolen from mioscorner.com, pls only read there i’m begging u :kneels:
In front of a flower bed in the urban village, a long table was set up with a large sunshade overhead, and Xu Yao was sitting underneath, enjoying the comfortable breeze.
On the long table was a payment QR code.
A passerby excitedly uploaded a video online: “I met Xu Yao, she’s really collecting rent.”
Although Xu Yao had become an ordinary person now, she couldn’t escape the widespread negativity online and that explosive announcement about her withdrawal from the scene, as well as her effortless way of resolving contract issues. Discussions about Xu Yao were still very hot online.
Just then, a middle-aged woman with an empty bag, planning to go to the supermarket, walked out of the building and headed towards Xu Yao and the others. After all, with supermarkets now charging for plastic bags, bringing your own could save some money.
The middle-aged aunt looked them over for a moment, somewhat uncertain, and asked, “Was that young man who knocked on the door just now saying we should come pay the rent and that he could give us coupons for Fuhui supermarket?”
Landlords were all quite crafty; it was already good enough that they hadn’t raised the rent, who would give out supermarket coupons?
However, she had heard that Fuhui supermarket was a large national chain opened by the richest man, the Xu family, and a new branch had recently opened nearby with discounts. She thought she’d come here to try her luck.
Seeing Lu Ye nod, the middle-aged woman cautiously confirmed that they were indeed the landlords, then took out her smartphone, somewhat clumsily opened her photo gallery, and showed the meter reading she had just taken before leaving.
Xu Yao pushed the payment QR code in front of her and said,
“The total for rent and water, electricity, and gas plus sanitation fee is 1730 yuan. If everything looks correct, please scan this code.”
The middle-aged woman calculated it herself using her phone’s calculator and found that Xu Yao had even kindly rounded down by five yuan, instantly lifting her spirits as she quickly scanned the code to pay.
At the same time, Xu Yao’s phone chimed—”Alipay received 1730 yuan.”
Xu Yao thought this was the sweetest sound in the world; even the smallest mosquito is still meat, and when accumulated, it becomes a fortune!”
Lu Ye handed a red coupon to the middle-aged woman, who looked at it in surprise, “No minimum spend of 100 yuan?”
Who gives out coupons like this? Aren’t they usually conditional discounts or percentages off? Those are the supermarket’s usual tricks.
The middle-aged woman was skeptical but thought since she was already planning to shop at the supermarket, she might as well go. After buying her goods, she nervously handed the coupon to the cashier and asked, “Excuse me, can this be used?”
The cashier scanned the code on it and smiled, “Yes, you just need to pay me the extra five yuan.”
The middle-aged woman glanced at the customer next to her, who was paying for similar items and had rung up over a hundred yuan, while the cashier only charged her five.
When the middle-aged woman came out of the supermarket with her bag full of groceries, she looked at her haul and realized she had only spent five yuan! It was truly a great deal!
It was as if this middle-aged aunt suddenly woke up; she immediately called her neighbour, who enjoyed dancing in the square, and said urgently, “Sister Zhou, right? Are you home? Hurry, hurry, you need to come downstairs to pay the rent now!”
“Oh, and remember to take a picture of the water, electricity, and gas meters before you go! The young landlord is giving out a 100 yuan no-minimum coupon, you can buy anything at the supermarket without restrictions!”
anything can be solved with the right incentive HAHAHAHA
