The first car

Chen Yuchen spent the entire morning house hunting. With 150,000 yuan in hand, he had thought he could afford a decent home, but the reality left him somewhat disappointed. Every place he saw had something unsatisfactory: it was either a west-facing unit or on a lower floor. While the advertised average prices sounded tempting, getting a unit and floor plan he truly liked would cost far more than he'd anticipated.

In the university town area, the housing prices seemed artificially high. Chen pondered to himself: rather than settling for a place he wasn't happy with here, maybe he should look a little farther out. Over in Pukou, the houses were a lot cheaper, though the area was much further away. However, a home is meant to be lived in, not just an investment. His current school was far from Pukou, and with inconvenient transportation, a two-hour commute was out of the question.

After weighing his options, Chen decided not to buy a house for now. After all, he was planning to make a lot of money in the future and would buy something better later. Why settle for something now? So after a whole morning of house hunting, he didn't end up purchasing anything, though he did spend 80 yuan on taxi rides, which made him acutely aware of the inconvenience of not owning a car.

For a man, if he doesn't have a family yet, a house isn't a necessity, but a car certainly is. In this city, if you want to live more comfortably, having a car is essential. With that in mind, Chen shifted his focus to buying a car for commuting.

He visited a dealership. The salespeople saw his young age and weren't particularly enthusiastic, merely telling him to browse at his leisure. Chen didn't mind and slowly wandered around the showroom. He eventually sat inside an Audi A4L, testing the comfort of the seats, and immediately felt satisfied with the car.

The salesperson, seeing him sitting there for a while, assumed he was just pretending for show and was about to find an excuse to dismiss him. To her surprise, Chen looked up and asked, "Do you have this model in stock?"

The salesperson was momentarily stunned but quickly recovered, smiling as she asked, "What color are you looking for?"

"White," Chen replied.

After confirming the color, the salesperson asked about the specific configuration he wanted. Chen was quite familiar with the car's specs—his first car in his past life had been an Audi—so he carefully considered and chose a mid-high configuration, with an on-the-road price of around 300,000 yuan. He planned to buy it through a loan, putting down about 60,000 yuan as a down payment and paying the rest in installments.

The salesperson became more enthusiastic now, realizing that this young man was serious about buying a car. She began passionately introducing the car's features. She had initially intended to mark up the price for extra profit, but Chen quickly negotiated it down with just a few words, impressing the salesperson. She realized he wasn't a novice at all.

After some back-and-forth negotiations, they settled on a price of about 290,000 yuan, with the dealership throwing in a free maintenance service. Chen decisively paid a 5,000-yuan deposit, and the salesperson, now smiling broadly, walked him out of the dealership. "Don't worry, bro, the car will be ready by the end of this month. Want to stay for a meal?"

"No need. I've got things to do back at school," Chen waved off the offer, politely declining.

What had originally been a plan to buy a house turned into buying a car. After paying the 5,000-yuan deposit, he still had 145,000 yuan left in hand. With military training coming up soon, and the money sitting idly in the bank not doing much for him, Chen decided to invest it all in the stock market. He thought for a moment—it was September 2010, and which stock would be the best pick right now?

He remembered the recent turmoil surrounding TX, and its stock had been heavily pressured by the market, which made it the perfect time to invest. Seizing the opportunity, Chen went to a brokerage and put all his remaining cash into TX stock.

At the brokerage, there were small ads on the machines: "10x leverage, contact 1377xxxx for margin trading." Chen was momentarily tempted, thinking that with margin financing, his 150,000 yuan could become 1.5 million. A mere 10% rise would net him 150,000 in profit. But then he thought about the risk—if the stock dropped, he could lose everything. As he hesitated, the stock price dipped slightly by one point, making him tense up. In the end, he decided to play it safe and not take on the extra risk.

After buying the stock, Chen left the brokerage and headed back to school.

By the time he returned to his dorm, it was already 2 PM. His advisor, Hu Kai, had messaged him to go to the library to pick up his military training uniform. Chen responded with a "Got it" and opened the dorm door, finding Zhang Yi and Zhang Ben still lying in bed asleep. The soy milk and fried dough sticks he had bought earlier in the morning were barely touched, except for a bit that Wang Yishu had eaten.

"You guys are something else!" Chen teased with a laugh.

Zhang Yi rubbed his eyes and asked, "Yuchen, where did you go?"

"Had some errands to run," Chen replied casually.

At that moment, Wang Yishu chimed in with a grin, "Oh, by the way, your cousin stopped by looking for you this morning."

"Huh? Who?" Chen was momentarily confused.

"Yesterday's girl…" Wang reminded him.

"Oh, Chen Siqi?" Chen suddenly remembered. He checked his phone but didn't see any messages from her, so he asked Wang, "Did she say what it was about?"

"She brought you some cantaloupe, said it's good for cooling down," Wang said, handing him a container with neatly cut pieces of cantaloupe.

Chen opened the box and saw the perfectly arranged fruit slices, smiling to himself.

"Whoa, cantaloupe! Yuchen, let me have some!" Zhang Yi immediately jumped up, excited.

"I want some too!" Zhang Ben, also eager, sat up.

Chen glanced at them and jokingly said, "Go eat it in the bathroom—same color there anyway!"