358: Time is money

"What a dramatic turn of events!"

After reading the first Level 7 intelligence report refreshed by the system, Ye Su felt like his emotions had just gone on a roller coaster ride.

"First, let's see what's actually going on with this so-called haunted house."

As he spoke, Ye Su opened the [Details Page] attached to the intelligence report and found that it listed in detail how the original owner had passed away and why the house was being auctioned.

"Did the original owner really die in such a bizarre way..."

The [Details Page] mentioned that the original owner's cause of death was actually because he had hired a [private tutor] for home lessons, only to suffer a sudden cardiac arrest midway through the class due to an acute attack of coronary atherosclerotic heart disease...

"Good lord, that [private tutor] was really unlucky to have a client die right in the middle of a lesson. That must have left a massive psychological scar!"

Ye Su took out his phone and, following the URL in the [Details Page], found the house currently up for auction.

Because the owner had died at home in such a manner, this house had already failed to sell at auction twice in a row.

It made sense when he thought about it. With the current real estate market downturn, even normal houses were hard to sell, let alone a house stacked with both the [haunted house] and [foreclosure] debuffs.

After two failed auctions, the starting price this time was only 70% of the initial starting price.

If it failed to sell again this time, they would have to issue a liquidation notice, allowing anyone to place bids freely during the liquidation period.

"Xingyue Community, Building 15, Apartment 1502. Built-up area of 110 square meters, actual usable area of 98 square meters, with a starting price of 2.2 million yuan.

The bidding period is one day, ending at 5:00 PM today. Each bid increment must be at least 10,000 yuan, and the current bid is already at 2.3 million yuan."

Ye Su checked the location and housing prices of Xingyue Community and found that because the house was near the Line 5 subway station, normal housing prices there were basically between 35,000 and 40,000 yuan per square meter.

However, compared to the peak housing prices of a few years ago, the price per square meter in this community had also dropped by about 10,000 yuan.

"No wonder someone started bidding this time when the starting price was set at 2.2 million yuan."

For a house originally worth over 30,000 yuan per square meter, the starting price was now only 20,000 yuan per square meter. A haunted house was clearly acceptable at this price.

"With 6,000 grams of gold bars as a safety net, buying this house is more than affordable."

Once he got the gold bars and sold them to the [System Gold Shop], it would not only cover the cost of the house but likely leave him with around two million yuan to spare. There was no need for Ye Su to hesitate.

Fortunately, Guangzhou had lifted its home purchase restrictions last year, eliminating the need to verify household registration, social security, and individual income tax payment records, which saved Ye Su a lot of trouble.

After paying a deposit of 220,000 yuan, he directly raised the bid to 2.4 million yuan.

Although he raised it by 100,000 yuan in one go, the intelligence report mentioned that the estimated final transaction price for this house should be around 70% of the price of the same layout in the same community.

Even calculating at 35,000 yuan per square meter, a 110-square-meter house at a 30% discount would still be nearly 2.7 million yuan.

Therefore, Ye Su knew that others would definitely continue to bid later on.

"That's enough for now. I'll continue raising the price when I wake up in the morning."

After setting alarms for 4:57 PM and 4:58 PM, Ye Su finally put down his phone and continued looking at the intelligence [Details Page].

"My goodness, is this family's life really this dramatic?"

It turned out that besides hiring [nationwide fly-in escorts], this owner also kept another mistress on the side.

For this reason, he had long planned to divorce his wife and had transferred their marital assets in advance, converting them into gold bars and hiding them at home. He had finally successfully divorced his wife at the beginning of the year.

But right after the divorce, while his mistress was away from Guangzhou, he immediately contacted another [private tutor] online, only to end up dying right on top of her.

Yet, to his dying day, this man never knew that his wife actually played even wilder than him, and that even his son and daughter weren't his biological children...

"Good thing he's already dead. If he found out about this, it would've literally killed him!"

After observing three seconds of silence for the original owner of the haunted house, Ye Su switched to the next piece of intelligence.

[This Week's Intelligence (Level 6): The Richard Mille watch that Yan Ran gave to the Host is actually a Mysterious Surprise Item. The Host can now activate the watch's Hidden Attribute]

[hidden easter egg (Attribute Reward): After successfully activating the Hidden Attribute of the [Mysterious Surprise Item - watch], the Host can obtain a reward of 5 [Strength] points]

"The watch Sister Ran gave me is a [Mysterious Surprise Item], and it actually popped up as a Level 6 intelligence report!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Ye Su immediately got up, went to the guest bedroom, and took out the watch Yan Ran had given him.

"Spend 99 yuan to activate the Hidden Attribute of the [Mysterious Surprise Item - watch]!"

[[Watch - Hidden Attribute] activating, please wait, Host...]

Under Ye Su's expectant gaze, a prompt popped up from the system.

[Activation successful!]

[Congratulations to the Host for obtaining the Mysterious Surprise Item: wealth-attracting watch!]

[wealth-attracting watch skill: An Inch of Time is an Inch of Gold!]

[Skill Description: Every time the second hand of the wealth-attracting watch ticks, you accumulate one yuan!]

[Note 1: The Host must not modify the [wealth-attracting watch] to speed up the second hand, otherwise the money watch skill will become invalid]

[Note 2: You must ensure that the wealth-attracting watch keeps running. Once the wealth-attracting watch stops running, the [An Inch of Time is an Inch of Gold] skill will also stop activating!]

"Holy crap, one yuan per second!"

In the time it took Ye Su to say this, a number had already appeared on the watch, ticking to [3], and as the second hand moved, it began changing to 4, 5, 6...

"There are 86,400 seconds in a day, so wouldn't that be 86,400 yuan!"

Since Ye Su was a computer science major, he naturally remembered how many seconds there were in 24 hours. Without even needing to calculate, he directly figured out the daily earnings of the [An Inch of Time is an Inch of Gold] skill.

"Good lord, the daily earnings of the [wealth-attracting watch] are more than the [Working Cat] and the [Book of Wealth] combined. No wonder the system classified it as Level 6 intelligence!"

After watching the numbers on the watch tick a few times, Ye Su finally turned off the display for the [An Inch of Time is an Inch of Gold] skill.

"I'll have to wear this watch more often from now on. If it stops self-winding one day, I'll lose big time!"

If it didn't wind, he would lose eighty-six thousand yuan a day. Just thinking about it made Ye Su's heart ache.

[Congratulations to the Host for successfully activating the Hidden Attribute of the [Mysterious Surprise Item - watch] and receiving a reward of 5 [Strength] points. Would you like to claim it?]

"Claim."

[Claimed successfully!]

[The Host's current [Strength] attribute is 70 points, with a rating of — Mighty and Powerful]

"My [Strength] attribute is already at 70 points!"

Ye Su didn't have a habit of working out, so his original physical strength was just at the level of a normal young man, at most slightly stronger.

However, with the [hidden easter egg] rewarding him with [Strength] attributes twice before, plus the boost from his current 86 points in [Physique], Ye Su's [Strength] attribute had reached 70 points.

"No wonder it was so easy when I picked up Chen Xinyi and Sister Ran."