Shu Yan moved into Shu Jianyang's home with her two children, and Shu Jianyang moved to his friend's place. Even though they were cousins, they were both adults. It'd be awkward to live together. He was just a single man and could stay anywhere.
Ye Zhiqiang did not find her at the hotel and spent a long time looking for Shu Jianyang. As he was looking for him, he started to cool down.
"Where's Shu Yan?"
"What do you want to talk to her about?" Shu Jianyang asked as he lifted his brows.
"What was that with the pictures." Shu Yan would never had been able to accomplish all those without Shu Jianyang's help.
A stack of photos was tossed in front of Ye Zhiqiang, "That was just making an example out of her. Next time it would be you."
Ye Zhiqiang let out a sigh of relief when he saw that he could not be identified in any of the pictures. But then, his anger rose up again.
"What does Shu Yan want?"
"Simple. Get a divorce and for you walk away penniless," Shu Jianyang said as he leaned back and propped his feet up. He rocked his feet as he casually said, "If I were you, I'll accept her terms. You know the saying, you can always make more money? With your ability, you will be back to where you are now in 3-5 years' time. It's fine if you want to stall, but how long can Jiaojiao wait?"
Shu Jianyang was just saying this, but he could tell Ye Zhiqiang was seriously considering his suggestion. Was this really true love?
"Where is Shu Yan? She needs to be here for this." Ye Zhiqiang didn't trust Shu Jianyang.
The three of them met again at the tea shop. Shu Yan looked at Ye Zhiqiang and thought to herself that this was, indeed, the world of a novel after all. How else would a scum like him be willing to give up everything for true love?
"All the money in the house, the house itself, and the car will all go to you. I'll cash out my company. That will leave me more or less penniless." When Shu Yan obtained all the evidence earlier, Ye Zhiqiang had looked into all sorts of ways. He couldn't transfer his assets. He had consulted with a lawyer; that would be illegal for him to do so. He couldn't ask Shu Yan's family to interfere either.
There was a difference between the son-in-law being rich versus the daughter being rich. If the Shu's knew that they could have all his assets after the divorce, they'd only tell Shu Yan to get one faster.
He truly didn't have a lot of cash on him; all of them were tied up in his jobs. The only things of value were the few houses and the cars. He needed his company; that's his livelihood. He could borrow money or take out a loan and pay cash to Shu Yan. Once he finished his two ongoing projects, he would have made the money back already.
Shu Yan weighed her options quickly. The ball was only in her court because 1) she blind-sided Ye Zhiqiang and caught him off guard and 2) she had the backing of Shu Jianyang. He may be able to help her once or twice, but she couldn't keep on bugging him indefinitely.
Her intention from the very beginning was to get enough money to be able to get away from City Xi as far away as possible and start afresh with her children. Ye Zhiqiang's suggestion wasn't entirely unacceptable.
"Third Brother, do you think you will be able to locate someone from the assessment company?" Meaning that she had already more or less accepted Ye Zhiqiang's suggestion.
There were a total of four houses. With the exception of the one that the original owner was staying in, the other three were located in the busy area at the center of town. One of them could be used as a storefront. Shu Yan took a look at the address, Ye Zhiqiang had good eyes. The location of the shopfront and house combo would become the busiest pedestrian street in the future. The rent alone for the two floors would be in the tens of thousands.
The other two would be taken down; whether the compensation would be in money or house form, they would both work out pretty well. The car was worth around $200,000. All of these combined came out to be around $1 million. His company started just the year before last, and there was only $100,000 in the books with most of the money tied up in his projects. Once he completed the two projects, there would be another $3 million. All in all, the net worth of the company was $1.5 million and Ye Zhiqiang would be paying her in cash.
"Wait a minute." Shu Yan suddenly remembered the other house that Ye Zhiqiang had bought for his affair. "According to the letter of the law, everything after we have been married is joint properties, right? Do I have the rights to the house that he bought for his affair too?"
Ye Zhiqiang's face dropped when he heard that, "Shu Yan, don't push it."
"Am I? Those was our joint property that you used to support your affair. You want to tell me to not push it?" The agreement was he was going to leave penniless. He'd better be penniless.
Ye Zhiqiang took a deep breath. That house wasn't that expensive, but they had, however, put a lot of thought into the remodeling. Oh, whatever. They could always buy another one in the future.
"Fine," Ye Zhiqiang said through gritted teeth. "Can I pay you the cash for the company in installments? $1.5 million is a lot of money. I don't have that much cash with me."
"No," Shu Yan replied right away. "I don't trust you."
She needed to get the money and leave this town as soon as possible. The longer she stayed, the worse it was for her.
Ye Zhiqiang's face darkened even more. He gripped his fists and said, "I could only get $300,000 in cash. You won't need that much cash for the three of you for the time being. Just think of it as a loan to me, I'll pay you 2% interest."
Shu Yan just shook her head, "I don't care how you are going to do it, but this money better be in my account within 3 days. In addition, anything happened to me and my kids within the next three days, I will assume you are the culprit. I won't promise what I wouldn't do if that happens."
No kidding. She would never see a penny of that money if she agreed to his terms. That's what you'd call throwing a meat bun at a dog – you'd never seen it again.
To avoid dragging it out any longer, they went to finish up the paper work on transferring all the assets that afternoon. Shu Jianyang had someone he was familiar with to help out and everything went smoothly. The entire process took a little over one hour. When Ye Zhiqiang walked away, Shu Yan had an extra $300,000 in her account.
Shu Yan was very glad that she was in the 90s. If this was 2019, she would never be able to get Ye Zhiqiang to walk out penniless. If he has thicker skin, she wouldn't even be able to threaten him.
When Li Jiaojiao saw Ye Zhiqiang's dark look, she was a little intimidated and asked in a soft voice, "What's the matter, hubby?"
"Nothing much. I am getting my divorce tomorrow. Are you happy?" Ye Zhiqiang asked as he wrapped his arm around her and smiled.
"She finally agreed to getting a divorce?" Li Jiaojiao's eyes beamed. She rubbed her tummy subconsciously and asked tenderly, "She didn't threaten you some more?"
Ye Zhiqiang's face dropped and he said, "She wanted all the houses and cars."
"She is out of her mind!" Li Jiaojiao shrieked.
"What can do we?" Ye Zhiqiang sighed. "It won't be good for us to go to court either." Ye Zhiqiang decided against telling Li Jiaojiao the truth.
The next day, Shu Yan had another house under her name. Shu Yan let out a sigh of relief. This was her first victory since her transmigration.
On their way back, Shu Yan handed over the car and the car key. She had directly put it under his name when they were transferring the title the day before. He just needed to finish up the paperwork.
"What do you do that for?"
"Third Brother, let me finish before you decline, okay? I trust that you have an idea what kind of person Ye Zhiqiang is. I am sure he will look for revenge after this incident. And you know how my family is as well. Once they found out that there's money on me, they'd never leave me alone. My plan is to sell all the properties, move to a new city, and start over with my children. I can't drive and it's a waste to let it go to waste. Third Brother can be nice and drive it for me from time to time so it won't rust." If it wasn't for Shu Jianyang's help, she wouldn't be able to get anything from Ye Zhiqiang.
"What are you talking about? This car is in great condition and it's worth at least ten of thousands. This is too expensive of a gift. I can't accept it."
"It belonged to Ye Zhiqiang. What's the problem with taking it?" Shu Yan shoved the key into his hand and wouldn't take no for an answer.
Losing that battle with Shu Yan, Shu Jianyang finally accepted the car.
Truth be told, Shu Yan liked the houses a lot. All she needed to do was to leave them there and their value would grow exponentially in the next few years, way better than any investments that she could get into. Unfortunately, she got these from Ye Zhiqiang, there were too many strings attached.
She must sever all ties with him, so it's best to sell them all. Honestly, all house prices were really low in the country right now. Once she settled down in a new city, she could randomly buy some houses and they'd still go up in value steadily in the next 10 to 20 years.
"Third Brother, please help me sell all of these houses." After a little hesitation, Shu Yan added, "I don't know how much money you have been making lately, but if you have some savings, you should buy one of them. Ye Zhiqiang has got good eyes. All of these were centrally located. Especially shop-front-house, I have no idea how he came across it. I heard words that this area would be turned into a pedestrian street. It's only now that you can buy this if you have money.
If I wasn't trying to avoid further hassle with Ye Zhiqiang, I'd never sell this. I know Third Brother is nice to me, so I need to give you some genuine advice as well. Don't stay in your current business for too long. Who knows when the government is going to crack down again. Just look at Ye Zhiqiang; he has never been to school either and now he's a business owner. You can only do better than him, Third Brother. And you have all your men under you. If you go into the construction business, you have both the resources and manpower, it wouldn't take much to be successful."
They said back in the 90s, there were gold on the ground for everyone to pick up. Shu Jianyang was a smart man. If he decided to go straight, he just might be even more successful than Ye Zhiqiang in the future.
Shu Jianyang felt very tempted after hearing Shu Yan's words. As he got older, he started to think about getting married and having kids. Once he had that idea, he started to want to settle down. Unfortunately, his trade was very dangerous. One never knew when one would die; how do one get married and have kids? Just like his cousin said, he's smart, he has money and resources, why couldn't he go into construction like Ye Zhiqiang?
Or, he could be even bolder and just buy land and build the houses himself.
Shu Yan had no idea yet exactly how bold her cousin was.
"Let me think about it. House? My dad wanted me to go home and build a house there," Shu Jianyang said, troubled.
If he wanted to start his own business, he must allocate some money toward that. That would leave him with money only enough for one of the houses. And if he needed to build a house back home, then he wouldn't even have enough for that.
"You only go back for a few days every year around new year time, what was the point of building a house there? Of course it makes more sense to buy one in the city. It's not easy to buy a house in the city that's nicely located, but you can build a house back home any time." Shu Yan knew that the older generation always had the idea to return to one's root. There was no concept to invest in real estate back in these days.
Shu Jianyang was a fearless person; otherwise, he wouldn't be so successful today. He felt that Shu Yan's suggestion was feasible so he decided to follow through with it. He immediately registered for a company and started it right on the second floor of that shop-front-house.
He listened to Shu Yan's suggestion and bought the house from her. It cost $300,000, and he paid for it without even blinking an eye.
It looked like her cousin had made quite a few bucks the last few years, being able to whip out $300,000 just like that. No wonder so many people joined the gang; surely it was a quick way to riches.
Shu Jianyang's brothers bought two more of the remaining four houses. They couldn't resist after Shu Jianyang gloated to them about his purchase. Twenty years from now, they would get together, think about this day and be happy about their decisiveness today.
All Shu Yan has left now was to sell the house that original owner was staying in plus the one that belonged to Li Jiaojiao, then she'd be able to take the money, leave City Xi with her children, and start afresh in a city where nobody knew them.