Chapter Forty-Eight: A Place to Go (Second Update)

Qin Tian had not expected that Jiang Tianxiang’s secretary, Liu Li, would turn out to be a true beauty—twenty-seven years old, unmarried, without a boyfriend, and blessed with quite excellent circumstances. Qin Tian couldn’t help but wonder if there was some untold secret between Jiang Tianxiang and this Secretary Liu. After all, whenever a male boss has a female secretary, people are bound to entertain less-than-pure thoughts. And when the secretary is as stunning as a goddess, with a figure to match, those impure speculations become all the more intense.

But there was no denying Secretary Liu’s extraordinary competence. Compared to the plan she had put forth, Qin Tian realized his own proposal was nothing but trash! His face flushed with embarrassment—how foolish must he have been to come up with something so worthless?

“The horse race is the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow night, let’s go talk to Uncle and Auntie and ask them to move onto my father’s land,” Jiang Yingying suggested.

Qin Tian took a gulp of cola, marveling at how quickly time had flown. It had been more than half a month since he left the big family of the Celestial Horse Circus. Yet Old Man Kong remained missing, and there was no sign of the Big Wolf or the Big Monkey either. Whenever he had time, Qin Tian would visit the outskirts, but since he last found fresh wolf droppings, he hadn’t discovered anything new.

As for Big Tiger, it was trapped in the Royal Splendor Circus. Qin Tian had managed to sneak in and check on it; the tiger was doing reasonably well—apart from the occasional whipping, its other conditions weren’t bad, at least it wasn’t starving. If he grew stronger in the future, he’d try to get Big Tiger out.

“Let’s go home and get a good night’s sleep,” Jiang Yingying announced to everyone.

They had spent two days and nights in Jiang Tianxiang’s office, eating and sleeping there, and were starting to smell rather ripe. So, Qin Tian drove the Jiang family’s spare car, taking Jiang Yingying and Shen Xiaoqing back to the Jiang household.

There were plenty of cars at the Jiangs’, so even after two had been destroyed, there were still many left, all registered under the company’s name. With such a vast conglomerate as the Jiang Group, they naturally needed a fleet of vehicles for entertaining clients.

“By the way, Qin Tian, how old are you?” Jiang Yingying suddenly asked.

Shen Xiaoqing, who had been dozing off in the back seat, perked up at this, her curiosity piqued as she stared at Qin Tian.

“What’s wrong? Haven’t I said before?” Qin Tian replied.

“You did? Maybe you told my dad?” Jiang Yingying frowned.

“Did I? Well, I’m eighteen,” Qin Tian said.

“So you’re a junior!” Shen Xiaoqing laughed in surprise; she’d thought he was at least nineteen or twenty!

“Do you have a driver’s license?” Jiang Yingying suddenly remembered a crucial detail.

She herself had only gotten hers last winter after turning eighteen. Qin Tian had just reached eighteen—did he really have a license?

“Of course I do!” Qin Tian declared. Old Man Kong had forced him to get one as soon as he turned eighteen, and he’d passed every part of the test on the first try, getting his license in half a month.

“That’s good. I thought you were driving without a license,” Jiang Yingying sighed in relief.

“We can’t go around breaking the law, can we?” Qin Tian chuckled.

“Where are you going to college?” Jiang Yingying asked again.

“College? I never went. I stopped after middle school and have been making a living performing with my old man ever since,” Qin Tian replied.

“Just a middle school education?” Jiang Yingying’s eyes widened.

“What’s wrong with that? I still got a job at your Jiang Group, didn’t I?” Qin Tian said, a touch of annoyance in his voice at the idea of being looked down on for his education.

“No, I was just curious. With your skills, it’s hard to believe you only graduated middle school,” Jiang Yingying said.

“Exactly! It’s like you’re cheating at life! My leg was a wreck, and you just jabbed a few needles and pushed it around, and it was completely healed!” Shen Xiaoqing chimed in.

“That’s nothing. I can do massages and scrubs too—want to try?” Qin Tian grinned.

“Shameless!” Both women rolled their eyes at him.

Qin Tian beamed. Cheating? Perhaps. That “Book” Old Man Kong had given him was incredible—wasn’t it just like getting a cheat code? Qin Tian always felt that once he truly mastered everything in that book, Old Man Kong might appear again.

The three of them returned home, took long showers, and went to bed. Shen Xiaoqing shared a room with Jiang Yingying. Qin Tian had always been curious what Shen Xiaoqing’s family did—she was always staying over. Didn’t her family worry about her?

The next day, they all slept in until noon, proof enough of how exhausted they’d been after two days and nights awake. When Qin Tian got up, he showed off his “cheat code” skills again by cooking a lavish lunch for the two women.

After lunch, they rested the whole afternoon, and as dusk approached, they drove to the old district near the hospital.

When they arrived at the old shop, the owner and his wife came out beaming. But Qin Tian could see a trace of sorrow in their eyes. Some things, no matter how hard you try to hide them behind a smile, cannot be concealed.

“Everything’s ready for you. Today is our last day of business—you’ll be our final guests,” the owner said, ushering them in while his wife locked the door and hung up a “Closed” sign.

“Uncle, Auntie, actually, I’ve come up with a way so you don’t have to be separated from your neighbors,” Jiang Yingying said.

“What is it?” The owner and his wife’s eyes lit up.

“My father owns some old residences in the northern district, with a layout and atmosphere very similar to this place,” she explained. “You can all move together. The surrounding apartment complexes there are highly occupied. If you set up a commercial district in that area, it’ll be a hit! Business will be just as good as here, if not better!”

“Really?” The owner was excited but quickly regained his composure. “But the rent must be expensive, right? The surrounding buildings are full—unlike our old district, where there aren’t so many people.”

He sounded disheartened. Where there were people, land was more valuable, and more valuable meant more expensive—because where there were people, there was traffic, and where there was traffic, there was profit.

“As for rent, not only will it not go up, it’ll be half of what was in your old contract! But we’ll take a stake in the business, drawing three percent of your annual revenue,” Jiang Yingying explained.

Relocating merchants inevitably meant higher costs, especially for renovations. To avoid overwhelming them immediately, Qin Tian and the others had come up with this solution.

It meant they could open up shop first and pay rent later. It eased the burden on the merchants and gave Jiang Group a steady long-term return—a win-win for all.

“Half the rent? This…this…Old man, this is like a pie falling from the sky!” The owner’s wife was so shocked she could barely speak.

The owner, too, was dazed by this astonishing good fortune, unable to find his words.