Chapter 44: Beginning Preparations to Open the Shop

Turning left after exiting the residential complex, one could see this row of commercial storefronts in Sunshine City.

First was the leasing and sales center.

Further down in order were the familiar breakfast shop, the tobacco and liquor store, Tony's hair salon, and the Cainiao post station...

At the far end of the small storefronts was the former real estate sales office. Now, there was a budget-friendly Chinese restaurant and a high-end restaurant with private dining rooms.

Chen Zhou was not in a hurry to ask around at the leasing center.

After dropping Taotao off and returning, he first walked around this row of storefronts.

Two of them had no signboards and were clearly vacant. The third one was presumably the leasing center itself.

After finishing the stroll,

Chen Zhou returned to the entrance of the complex and happened to run into Xiao Liu, the security guard on the day shift.

The two of them exchanged greetings from afar.

Xiao Liu had become quite familiar with Chen Zhou, so as soon as Chen Zhou parked his electric scooter in front of him, he asked jokingly,

"Which shop has Brother Chen taken a fancy to? Let me give you some advice."

As it turned out, his guess was spot on.

"Brother, give me the full details, and I'll treat you to steamed buns tonight."

Seeing Chen Zhou adopt a modest and receptive attitude, Xiao Liu could not help but say,

"Brother, you're actually serious!"

Chen Zhou nodded. "I'm serious!"

This time, it was Xiao Liu's turn to be stunned, though on second thought, it made sense.

"That's true. With your business doing so well, Brother, you won't keep running a street stall forever. If you want to ask about it, I'll find someone reliable for you. Just wait a moment."

In fact, with Xiao Liu saying that, he himself could already be considered quite reliable.

As for the "reliable person" he had just mentioned, it was Manager Gao from the property management office.

The real estate development company and the property management company belonged to the same conglomerate, so he had some pull at the leasing center.

Before long, Manager Gao, dressed in a crisp shirt and dress trousers, walked into the security guard room.

The three of them all knew each other.

Manager Gao had even bought Chen Zhou's steamed buns before, so the introductions were skipped entirely.

However, when it came to how to address each other, Manager Gao refused to budge, insisting that Chen Zhou call him "Little Gao."

This was because he had once secretly witnessed Zihan's mother acting utterly docile and obedient in front of the steamed bun stall.

Therefore, he figured in his heart that

Chen Zhou was at least on the same level as Zihan's mother, and he did not dare to act superior in the slightest.

Not to mention, Chen Zhou was legitimately a property owner in this residential complex.

"Brother Chen, just call me Little Gao."

Chen Zhou smiled and said, "Then I'll have to trouble you, Brother Little Gao."

"Isn't our property management here precisely to solve problems for the homeowners?"

Manager Gao puffed out his chest.

With Zihan's mother not present, he still dared to say something like that to himself.

...

The two of them arrived at the leasing center.

Inside, a young woman was listlessly blowing herself with a desk fan.

Seeing Manager Gao enter the door, the two exchanged a subtle glance—their relationship was clearly out of the ordinary.

Little Gao introduced, "Brother Chen, a homeowner in our complex, wants to rent a storefront here. Tell him all about the details."

The young woman then responsibly introduced the situation regarding the available storefronts.

This matched closely with the intelligence Chen Zhou had gathered and the information he had obtained through various channels.

Coming over today, he could be considered well-prepared.

Afterwards, the woman proficiently launched into the reasoning of why renting is inferior to buying.

Although Chen Zhou disagreed in his heart, the price she offered was indeed very close to the bottom line he had learned from his intelligence—

1.15 million, with one year of property management fees waived.

Calculated according to the intelligence report, the bottom line was 1.125 million.

It seemed the leasing center was also in a rush to sell off the storefronts.

Chen Zhou confessed to her that he simply could not pull together that much money and only wanted to rent one.

Manager Gao stepped in at the right moment, asking the young woman to offer a friendly price and telling her to stop haggling back and forth.

The young woman could only roll her eyes at him, then said helplessly to Chen Zhou,

"Fifty thousand.

That's the absolute bottom line I can offer. If you want it any cheaper, you'll have to wait for my manager to come over and talk to her face-to-face. How about I take you to take a look at those two storefronts first? Their layout is similar to this one."

...Rental costs amounting to tens of thousands were completely different from buying groceries at a wet market.

A look of difficulty appeared on Chen Zhou's face. "I'll go back and discuss it with my wife."

Regardless of whether it was true or false, the existence of a wife always served as a great shield whenever money matters were involved.

The young woman left her contact information with Chen Zhou, arranging to meet her manager next time and take a look inside those two storefronts.

Manager Gao exchanged a few teasing remarks with her and left together with Chen Zhou.

Once outside, he said,

"Brother Chen, to be honest, this price isn't particularly cheap, because the remaining two storefronts only have a base coat of white wall paint, and you'll still have to spend money on renovations later."

Manager Gao was quite down-to-earth, and with him around, it certainly saved Chen Zhou a lot of effort in bargaining with the young woman.

However, the only problem was... Chen Zhou looked at him and asked,

"Manager Gao, just now I heard that young woman say, why is there a property management fee even for storefronts facing the street?"

Manager Gao said with a troubled expression,

"Look, Brother Chen, you're calling me Manager Gao again. This property management fee thing isn't something I set..."

Between homeowners and property management,

there might exist a natural and irreconcilable contradiction.

Chen Zhou still chose to deal with the matter objectively rather than taking it out on the person. "Alright, Little Gao, what time do you get off work tonight? Come over and take a couple of steamed buns home."

...

During the evening stall setup, Chen Zhou also briefly conducted some customer research.

The primary target audience consisted of those diners who were already willing to chat for a moment in front of the steamed bun stall.

The research topics were unstructured, generally revolving around the topic of opening a shop in the future. Chen Zhou spoke little and listened more—

Tony:

"I'm really looking forward to being able to eat your steamed buns in the morning, Brother. What time do you plan to stay open until? I don't open my shop until nine in the morning; will I still be able to get any?"

Not a foodie:

"The last time I bought some and took them home, they were completely wiped out in one meal at night. They couldn't last until the next day at all. When there were long lines a few days ago, it had me so anxious."

The female neighbor in the wind-resistant sun-protection jacket:

"If you open a shop, I'll definitely support you~~"

Passerby:

"I don't know, I just saw there were lots of people so I came over. The buns look pretty good!"

...

The next day,

the intelligence report indicated that the proprietress of the breakfast shop would come to his steamed bun stall today.

Chen Zhou therefore planned to go take a look at her shop first.

So that morning, he had his wife rest for a day, intending to take the mother and daughter out to the breakfast shop for breakfast.

"We'll just eat something casually over there. Mainly, I want to go check out the customer traffic at their shop. When the time comes to choose a location for our shop, it's best to stay as far away from them as possible."

Ms. Lin expressed her agreement.

"When two shops are right next to each other, there's too much drama." She was never good at conflicts, and then she asked, "How did your storefront viewing go yesterday?"

"It feels like the price hasn't reached the bottom line yet. I said I'd go back and discuss it with you, and I left a contact number..."

Chen Chen Taotao was certainly not at the age to worry about such things.

Upon hearing the news of eating out, she looked exceptionally happy and said she wanted to eat fried dough sticks and tofu pudding, and also wanted a sip of soy milk.

"Daddy, I'll just drink one tiny sip, and you can have the rest."

"Thank you, Taotao!"

Chen Zhou looked at his daughter and could not help shaking his head with a smile.

In reality, you can't even finish a whole fried dough stick by yourself, and you love eating the savory gravy on top of the tofu pudding—how could that not be salty, and how could you not end up drinking the soy milk?