The seller of Quiet Garden and the fake streetwear shoved into the corner of the wardrobe
The computer screen glowed.
Lu Chuan leaned back in his chair.
His right hand gripped the mouse.
His index finger slowly rolled the scroll wheel backward.
On the screen, pages of a major real estate website passed by one after another.
There was a lot of information.
Bold red slogans filled the screen.
"An exclusive circle, overlooking the entire city."
"Private luxury, life at the pinnacle."
"Prime assets, a mansion for generations."
The accompanying pictures all showed the same kind of model home: lavishly gilded interiors, crystal chandeliers bright enough to blind, and marble floors polished enough to reflect a person's image.
Lu Chuan looked at the words.
He looked at the glaring pictures.
He sighed inwardly.
In his previous life, he had fallen for that kind of thing.
Back then, his demolition compensation had just arrived.
Ten million yuan.
For an ordinary student fresh out of high school, that was a fortune big enough to fry his brain.
Back then, comfort hadn't even been his first consideration when house hunting.
It had been face.
It had been the label.
It had been a prop to help him hold his own in that circle.
He had wanted the gasps of admiration when others saw the name of his residence.
He had wanted a social calling card he could post on Moments.
What he had wanted wasn't a home to live in at all.
It had been a showroom for displaying his status.
And the result?
In the end, he had worn himself out in body and mind.
He had lived every day under other people's gazes.
Lu Chuan shook his head.
His finger pressed the left mouse button.
He clicked the red cross in the upper-right corner of the browser.
The page closed instantly.
He clicked an icon on the desktop.
He created a new blank document.
With both hands on the keyboard, he gazed calmly at the white screen.
Tap, tap, tap.
He typed the first requirement.
Quiet. The house had to be quiet, away from major roads. It had to be quiet.
The second line followed immediately.
Good natural light. The living room needed plenty of light; it couldn't be dark and damp.
Then came the third line.
Orderly surroundings. There couldn't be any seedy entertainment venues nearby, and relations with the neighbors had to be uncomplicated.
After typing those lines,
Lu Chuan's fingers paused on the keyboard.
A house was for living in.
It was a place where, after a busy day outside,
the moment he came home at night, turned the key, and closed the door,
he could completely unwind.
Not another model home where he had to keep acting with his nerves stretched taut.
But
the things on the major real estate platforms were simply too gaudy.
The sales copy was all about selling anxiety and social status.
Lu Chuan searched for another half hour or so.
He still found nothing.
He let go of the mouse.
He rubbed his slightly sore wrist.
After a moment's thought,
he reopened the browser.
In the search box, he entered the address of an old local community forum.
Forums like this had extremely rudimentary interfaces.
Even the layout was an antique from years ago.
There were all kinds of posts.
From secondhand appliances to local carpooling, fish and dragons were all mixed together.
Lu Chuan patiently
used the mouse to scroll through page after page.
A long time passed.
Finally,
in an inconspicuous secondhand housing section,
he spotted a plain title.
"Quiet Garden owner selling directly. Serious inquiries only."
There was no exclamation mark.
No exaggerated marketing language.
Not even a red "urgent sale" tag.
Lu Chuan moved the mouse and clicked on it.
The post itself contained just one line.
"220 square meters, four bedrooms, two living rooms, top floor."
Three or four photos with mediocre lighting were attached below.
Lu Chuan leaned forward a little.
He brought his face closer to the screen.
He opened the first picture.
And enlarged it.
The photo hadn't been professionally retouched at all.
The owner hadn't even hired a professional photographer to set up the lighting.
Yet it was precisely this image, without any deliberate staging,
that held Lu Chuan's gaze fast.
Like a detective, he scanned every detail in the picture.
The grain of the solid wood flooring had a warm, mellow look.
Instead of the sheen of cheap wood, it had a matte finish brought out by years of care.
The balcony was spacious and received excellent natural light.
Sunlight fell across the fabric sofa in the living room.
Most importantly,
an old purple clay teapot sat on the coffee table.
There was even a rattan chair casually set beside it.
This definitely wasn't a model home that someone had paid to stage temporarily in order to fetch a high price.
This was a home that had been treated with care.
Everywhere, it gave off an authentic, relaxed sense of daily life.
Lu Chuan glanced again at the last four Chinese characters of the post's title.
Serious inquiries only.
He understood.
Together with the extremely spare sales listing and the completely unembellished photos,
it showed that the owner wasn't in any hurry to sell.
That unhurried manner
made it clear that the owner was choosing a buyer by his own standards.
He would sell only to someone who knew their stuff and struck him as agreeable.
If someone didn't strike him as agreeable, he probably wouldn't bother with them even if they had the full payment in hand.
At the very bottom of the post,
a mobile number had been left.
Lu Chuan picked up his phone from the desk.
His fingertip tapped the screen.
He dialed the number.
A ringing tone sounded through the earpiece.
After two rings,
the call connected.
"Hello."
A middle-aged man's voice came through the earpiece.
His words were clear, with the unhurried composure of someone who had long held a high position and weathered great storms.
"Hello."
Lu Chuan spoke evenly.
The other man's voice didn't make him ill at ease.
"I saw the post about the home in Quiet Garden."
"Could I ask if it's still available to view?"
The man didn't answer immediately.
Only faint breathing came through the earpiece.
Lu Chuan didn't press him.
He simply waited quietly.
Two seconds later,
"From your voice,"
the man finally said,
"you don't sound very old."
"Just graduated?"
Lu Chuan gave an affirmative hum.
"Eighteen."
"I just graduated from high school."
A longer silence fell over the other end of the line.
Homes in Quiet Garden were expensive; this one cost a full twenty-two million yuan.
Eighteen years old.
There was an almost unbridgeable gulf between someone that age and a property with that kind of price tag.
"Did your family ask you to make this call?"
A trace of scrutiny entered the man's voice.
There was even a hint that he was preparing to hang up.
"No."
Lu Chuan looked at the photos on the computer screen.
"I want to buy it myself."
The man fell silent again.
Lu Chuan could clearly sense the dismissiveness coming from the other end of the line.
An eighteen-year-old prospective college student
saying he wanted to buy a spacious top-floor apartment of more than two hundred square meters himself.
It sounded
like a prank call from a kid bored at home.
"This house..."
The other person's voice grew slightly colder.
"It doesn't seem like the kind someone your age would like."
Lu Chuan didn't rush to explain.
If he immediately announced that he had just received ten million yuan in demolition compensation to prove he had money,
the other person would only think
he was a kid who had a little money in his pocket and suddenly thought the sky was the limit.
He might even hang up on him.
When dealing with an owner like this, who was clearly not short of money and cared about whether someone felt right to him,
throwing money at him was the least useful strategy.
He had to talk about what lay at the heart of things.
Find common ground in how they saw things.
"It really doesn't seem like it."
Lu Chuan leaned back in his chair.
His tone remained steady.
"But I looked at the photos you posted."
"It's different from the other houses on the market."
Lu Chuan paused.
He gave the other person time to react.
"It doesn't have all those messy social-circle labels."
"It feels very comfortable."
"Most importantly,"
"it can put your mind at peace."
On the other end of the line,
the seller, who had already pulled the phone away from his ear and was about to hang up,
paused.
A mind at peace.
Those words
struck precisely at his original purpose in pouring so much effort into renovating the house.
That was also the house's defining quality.
Many people who came to view it asked about nothing but its floor area, potential for appreciation, and feng shui.
Not one of them could see that side of it.
And now,
an eighteen-year-old boy
had seen through to the soul of the house at a glance, based on nothing but a few photos taken in mediocre light.
The seller's attitude changed.
His casual, perfunctory manner vanished without a trace in an instant.
"Bring all your documents."
The seller's voice regained its steady, businesslike tone.
"Four o'clock this afternoon."
"Meet me at Quiet Garden's south gate."
"Okay."
Lu Chuan acknowledged him.
The call ended.
That afternoon,
Lu Chuan got ready to go out.
He stood in front of his bedroom wardrobe.
He reached out and pulled the doors open.
His gaze swept over the rows of hanging clothes.
In the most prominent spot
hung several fake designer T-shirts and jackets printed with exaggerated, oversized logos.
They had been his favorite battle gear in his previous life.
He had always thought that wearing those brands
would put him a cut above everyone else when he walked down the street.
That they would prove he was no longer an ordinary person.
Lu Chuan looked at the clothes
and gave a self-mocking smile.
He raised his hand
and pushed all the clothes with logos into the farthest corner of the wardrobe.
Then,
from the innermost compartment,
he took out a plain light gray T-shirt with no patterns or branding.
He paired it with loose-fitting khaki trousers with a clean cut.
After changing,
he walked over to the full-length mirror and looked at himself.
Clean.
Comfortable.
Not conspicuous at all.
That was enough.
He silently reminded himself.
Today, he was going to buy a house where he would truly live and stay for the long term.
He was going to meet a seller who cared about whether someone felt right to him.
He wasn't going to play some family's rich young master.
Still less did he need a few pieces of clothing to make a show of himself.
Lu Chuan gathered the relevant documents and put them in a minimalist shoulder bag.
He left early.
At three thirty in the afternoon,
Lu Chuan was already at Quiet Garden's south gate.
He had arrived half an hour early.
That was time he had deliberately set aside to observe the place.
He didn't rush to contact the seller.
Instead, he slowly walked a circuit along the path outside the residential complex.
The surroundings in person
were even better than they had looked in the forum photos.
There were none of the ostentatious gilded gates found at newly built upscale residential complexes.
Nor were there any exaggerated Roman columns.
The walls were built of understated, substantial gray brick.
The trees on either side had been there for some years.
Their trunks were thick, and their crowns were enormous.
Their lush branches and leaves cast a broad stretch of shade over the street.
Sunlight filtered through gaps in the leaves, dappling the ground with light and shadow.
Vehicles passed occasionally.
They all drove slowly.
There was no noisy commercial street nearby, and the area was quiet.
The security guard in the booth at the gate stood straight.
When he saw a stranger pass by, he merely watched vigilantly, without any excessive fawning or heavy-handed attempts to stop him.
This showed that the complex's property management was well run, and that the makeup of its residents was uncomplicated.
What was more, it wasn't far from Jiang University, where he would soon be reporting.
The comfort of this foundation for daily life
was simply perfect.
Lu Chuan walked back to the south gate.
He stood quietly beneath the shade of a large tree by the road and waited.
Four o'clock drew near.
In the distance,
a black Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan drove toward him.
It moved at an unhurried pace.
The car pulled over and stopped by the road at Quiet Garden's south gate,
about ten meters from Lu Chuan.
Click.
The driver's door swung open.
A leg clad in dark dress pants stepped out, a leather shoe landing on the ground.
Immediately afterward,
a man straightened up.
He was around fifty.
His hair was meticulously groomed.
He wore a dark Zhongshan suit of excellent quality, tailored to fit him closely.
His whole bearing exuded a steady, weighty presence that could not be ignored.
The middle-aged man reached back and closed the car door.
He turned his head.
His gaze fell directly on Lu Chuan, standing in the shade.
He looked him up and down.
This young man
was dressed simply.
He wasn't covered in logos.
He showed none of the impetuousness or superficiality typical of an eighteen-year-old.
He stood there with his hands resting naturally at his sides.
Under the man's scrutiny, he displayed a composure and calm beyond his years.
The middle-aged man set off
and walked slowly over.
He came to a stop in front of Lu Chuan.
He didn't extend a hand in greeting.
Nor did he waste any words on pleasantries.
His gaze wasn't forceful, but it was piercing as he looked into Lu Chuan's eyes.
Then,
he spoke.
"You really came?"