this chapter is brought to you by mio
as translator, proofreader and editor!
At the same time, the official Weibo account of the variety show ‘My Home Life‘ finally released their long-awaited trailer.
There were a total of five groups of guests, from entertainment industry artists, social elites, to ordinary individuals; but the most anticipated was undoubtedly the top star Sheng Zhou.
The show’s photographer was clearly very skilled, taking especially good care of Sheng Zhou.
In that brief trailer, the camera opened with a long shot of the door, moving into the top luxury mansion in Haicheng, with the final shot landing on Sheng Zhou’s handsome profile standing in front of the oversized floor-to-ceiling window!
In the video, Sheng Zhou opened his arms to the camera, smiling gently, “Welcome to my home; from now on, there’s wine, and there’s also me.”
A small trailer sent countless fans of Sheng Zhou into excited screams.
[My God, Sheng Zhou is really amazing; having him in the entertainment industry is our blessing!]
[I checked, the mansions in Haicheng start at one hundred million yuan; looking at the luxurious decoration in the trailer, this one must cost at least two hundred million yuan1. Sheng Zhou is really impressive to be able to afford a place like this.]
[So happy, finally got a chance to see Zhou Zhou’s mansion, but I probably couldn’t even afford a toilet in Zhou Zhou’s house, right?]
[Don’t be disheartened, dear; we ordinary people can have our own lives too. I wouldn’t even dare to fantasize about such top luxury mansions; the most painful are those with a bit of money and are neither rich nor poor, who can think and buy but have to empty their pockets.]
[Haha, I know who you’re talking about; sister, you’re really harsh, but I like it. Shh—don’t mention that certain woman who has withdrawn from the circle; it’s an insult to the comment section.]
[Sisters are meant to encourage each other; think about it this way: it would take me twenty years to buy a regular three-bedroom apartment, while that certain woman would also need to not eat or drink for twenty years to buy a mansion like Zhou Zhou’s. We’re all the same, instant psychological balance [dog head.jpg].]
The fighting spirit of Sheng Zhou’s fans is well-known across the internet; they have battled against many artists but suffered losses against Xu Yao, making her a top villain in the eyes of all Sheng Zhou’s fans. Everything had to be dragged out and stepped on.
The production team directly turned a blind eye to this, and instead, were quite pleased. The popularity of Xu Yao, who was hated all over the internet, hadn’t diminished at all these days, despite her withdrawal from the circle. And since it wasn’t their show that was causing the trouble, the situation was just right to help boost their show’s traffic and hype.
Xu Yao, who was seated in the rental collection van and planning to collect rent in the new community today, squinted her eyes: “?”
Sheng Zhou’s luxury mansion at Haicheng Shangpin2?
He bought it?
Is this how Sheng Zhou is promoting it?
Indeed, Sheng Zhou is promoting it this way, because he has discovered that his landlord is likely a very easy-going person. He doesn’t proactively pay the rent, yet the landlord doesn’t care, even letting the situation drag on as is for more than half a year, as if he hadn’t noticed anything. It seems like his landlord is the kind of top-tier big shot who doesn’t care about that little money, right? After all, to a wealthy landlord, that rental amount is just a drop in the bucket.
Sheng Zhou is quite conscious about his status; seeing that his landlord has never said anything, his team has subtly promoted the over a hundred million yuan mansion at Haicheng Shangpin as his own property.
As it turned out, the generous landlord indeed had no reaction.
Before the premiere of the variety show ‘My Home Life,’ there was such a frenzy of hype, yet the wealthy landlord hadn’t made a peep. To Sheng Zhou, this was indeed the best landlord!
Unlike Xu Yao, who only has two buildings in the urban village, yet trying to win people over with some no-threshold coupons and second-hand furniture.
Xu Yao only thought about collecting rent on time, so as long as Sheng Zhou’s fans didn’t dance in front of her, she couldn’t be bothered.
As a result, her Weibo comment section was filled with: [Rich girl, have you checked out @My Home Life? Want to see a real big house? Considering buying one?]
Xu Yao watched in admiration; indeed, the main character with issues has a group of fans with issues too.
Xu Yao snorted coldly while sitting in the professional rental collection van, her crystal-manicured fingers quickly tapping on the virtual keyboard of her phone, while Lu Ye and the others silently watched from the side.
What did these little fans provoke her for?
[Xu Yao v replied to @Zhou Zhou’s little wife: He rents it.]
Fans: ???
Almost instantly, a new trending search term popped up—#Xu Yao hints that Sheng Zhou’s Hai Cheng Shang Pin mansion is rented#
[Rented? Xu Yao, you’re still spreading rumors! Who doesn’t know that Zhou Zhou looked at the Haicheng Shangpin mansion last year? There are even paparazzi photos of it!]
[At this point, is this even a hint? This is a direct statement, right? Xu Yao, can you just shut up and stop riding other people’s coattails?]
[Our Yao Yao didn’t say this ‘he’ is Sheng Zhou, right? Among the five groups of guests, there are indeed guests who directly said their houses are rented.]
[Xu Yao’s fans, can you stop trying to whitewash her? Xu Yao, just wait to be sued; plus, last time you spread rumours about Sheng Zhou and Liu Yingxia dating, I’ll sue you until you kneel and beg for mercy!]
Xu Yao watched as Sheng Zhou’s fans hopped furiously in her comment section, clicking her tongue twice and as she said, “Aren’t I doing well? I’m even helping Sheng Zhou create hype for the trending topic; and it’s even free of charge.”
Lu Ye and the others: “…”
Well, Miss Yao Yao is quite the good person.
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:
Xu Yao didn’t care about Sheng Zhou or the angry netizens; she closed Weibo and switched to the rental collection WeChat. She had noted each tenant as “(XX Community) Building X XX – Tenant Name,” and Xu Yao clicked into each chat box to take a look.
Several properties under her name had reached the rent collection period in the past few days, including Tai’an Community, while tomorrow, she had Haicheng Shangpin. She had been a quite busy these days.
Many tenants in Tai’an Community had already paid their rent on time, but Xu Yao noticed something strange—
“What do these tenants mean? They all refuse to pay the property management fee?”
Naturally, the urban village buildings had no property management, but proper communities and apartments did have property management. The property management is equivalent to a housekeeper, and owners are required to pay property management fees, which vary in price depending on the community’s amenities; the more upscale the community, the more expensive the property management fee.
Once a house is rented out, tenants are required to pay the property management fee just like they do for utilities.
When purchasing property, aside from considering location, school districts, house prices, and layouts, many buyers also consider property management, as excellent property management is undoubtedly a plus.
Xu Yao was quite puzzled as to why this group of tenants hadn’t paid the property management fee, so she planned to take people to Tai’an Community for an on-site inspection.
As the car drove into the underground parking lot of Tai’an Community, Xu Yao had just gotten out when she saw a puddle of water in the parking lot, clearly from a leakage. Only a few people were standing around watching the leak.
Xu Yao frowned slightly; Tai’an Community is considered a decent residence in Haicheng, and with such a leak, the property management still hadn’t sent anyone to handle it? How bad did it have to get?
Xu Yao instructed, “Lu Ye, contact the property management immediately to handle this.”
The people watching the leak turned around upon hearing this, and upon seeing a pretty young girl, they immediately smiled: “Little girl, are you here to visit a friend? What’s the use of looking for property management? They’ll just treat the symptoms, not the root cause; it will just leak again and again.”
“The property management staff are probably still busy dealing with the elevator in Building 3 and can’t keep up.”
An elderly lady with a bamboo broom was sweeping the water nearby and started chatting with the man that was next to her: “The elevator in Building 3 is broken again? It’s been under repair every day and still can’t be fixed?”
“Isn’t that right? Apparently someone was lociked in the elevator for over ten minutes again. That group of property management takes money but doesn’t do the work. I told my son that after this, we won’t pay the property management fee anymore!” The old man was cursing, clearly harbouring grievances that had been building for quite some time.
Xu Yao had a rough idea of the situation and led Lu Ye and the others to walk into the community.
The pool for the fountain in the community was completely empty, let alone the fountain itself. In the distance, there were a few stone pavilions, and outside the pavilion was a swimming pool, but it was also empty, revealing the blue tiles inside the pool, which were coated with light yellow water stains, clearly showing signs of being unused for a long time.
Seeing several mothers playing with their children in the stone pavilion, Xu Yao asked, “Isn’t the swimming pool in the community open?”
“It hasn’t been open for a long time. The property management said they were afraid of children drowning, so they locked it all up,” one mother with a boy complained, “I bought a house here just for that swimming pool; what kind of garbage property management locks it up and doesn’t let us use it?”
Xu Yao nodded and continued walking forward with Lu Ye and the others. She curiously asked, “Lu Ye, didn’t you know about the internal situation of the community before?”
Lu Ye was silent for a moment. The Xu family had too many properties; aside from those that were vacant and not rented out, for the many rented properties, they only cared about collecting the money and didn’t bother managing the internal environment of the community, nor could they manage it.
Because the Xu family owned too many properties, they often forgot to remind tenants to pay rent, with tenants reminding them instead.
Lu Ye followed Xu Yao closely behind, bowing deeply as he said, “My apologies, Miss Yao Yao. This is indeed my oversight, we will definitely improve this in the future.” This was the first time Lu Ye faced a work-related crisis.
Xu Yao nodded, speaking earnestly, “Since I enjoy the benefits, I must also fulfil my obligations. The tenants have spent real money to rent my house, and I hope they won’t regret it.”
Xu Yao had experienced 999 quick transmigrations, many of which she had started off in poverty. She had also rented houses before, so she could empathise with the struggles involved.
Lu Ye stared at Xu Yao for a while, letting out a heavy ‘hm‘ from his nostrils.
After inspecting the area, Xu Yao felt she had a general understanding and led Lu Ye and the others back.
Xu Yao responded to one of the tenants in the Tai’an community: [I went to the community today to check things out. I will handle the property management issues.]
Little 6 felt pained: [You’ve worked hard, host, running around every day to collect rent.]
The tenant was actually feeling uneasy. After all, the landlord has handed the responsibility of paying the property management fees over to them. They said they wouldn’t pay, yet the landlord wasn’t angry but instead said they would help solve the problem?
How would they solve it? The property management was already like this; they wouldn’t just change the property management company, would they?
The tenant had a belly full of questions but didn’t dare to ask Xu Yao directly, only saying a simple thank you on WeChat.
“Tomorrow is the rent collection period for Haicheng Shangpin, right?” Xu Yao casually asked as she picked up the rent collection tablet. “Pull up the tenant information for Haicheng Shangpin first; I want to see the situation.”
Haicheng Shangpin was one of the top luxury residential communities in Haicheng, with property management fees reaching twenty yuan per square meter per month. The service level was excellent and ranked among the best in the country.
Xu Yao glanced at the electronic records and was pleased to see that the tenants had not complained about the property management at Haicheng Shangpin—after all, it was a wealthy area.
Xu Yao remembered Sheng Zhou, who had blocked her on WeChat. The rent collection period was tomorrow, and he still hadn’t unblocked her or added her back. She could only say, “Pull up Sheng Zhou’s information and find his phone number.”
After all, it isn’t embarrassing for a landlord to call asking for rent.
Previously, she had added Sheng Zhou on WeChat in a period that hadn’t been during the rent collection period, so it had felt inappropriate to call him—as if she were a clingy person demanding rent. But now it was different; it was already the agreed-upon rent collection period, so it was reasonable for her to call him.
Lu Ye typed ‘Sheng Zhou’ into the rent collection tablet and pulled up his rental information.
Xu Yao glanced at it, noting Sheng Zhou’s name, age, and a copy of his ID.
Xu Yao remarked with a sense of amusement, “Sheng Zhou’s ID photo is truly a nightmare; his makeup artist must be well-paid. His fans would probably cry if they saw this photo, haha.”
As Xu Yao continued to scroll down, her gaze suddenly froze for a moment, and she quickly stopped laughing.
Wait… wait a minute.
Sheng Zhou had rented a luxury apartment worth over a hundred million at Haicheng Shangpin for more than a year, but the key point was—
Xu Yao’s pupils dilated in shock as she exclaimed, “Sheng Zhou hasn’t paid rent for half a year??”
Lu Ye, who usually maintained a calm demeanour, finally had a change in facial expression: “……”
It’s over; is he going to be laid off early?
the next chapter is over 10k words — i almost thought i was translating two chapters, so the next update after these two chapters are released will be in two weeks!
this whole story glorifies landlords to a certain degree, but best believe xu yao is one of the more conscientious landlords (she does address everyone eventually owning their own house later on as well)
- approx 28 million usd ↩︎
- previously translated as ‘Top Quality Haicheng’ but sounds awkward. essentially just ‘top tier’ apartment complex/condo in Haicheng ↩︎
