“Fifty thousand dollars!! Oh… that sounds a little out of my budget,” Zou Yue awkwardly mumbled. As of now he had almost fifty-seven thousand in his bank account. He silently bit his lips and glanced at the realtor. “Is it possible to reduce the price?”

“I don’t think it’s possible, young man… the old couple who own this place urgently need this money for their son’s educational expenses so the price cannot be reduced,”

“oh..” Zou Yue sadly glanced at the bank account in hand.

.

‘Fuck, why was I such an irresponsible adult ah!! If I had saved all my salary for all the ten years I worked I could have been a millionaire now… boo hoo, I have only myself to blame.’

“Don’t worry, young man. You can take a loan easily. Nowadays the banks are more than willing to lend,” the realtor tried convincing him.

But Zou Yue shook his head.

‘if I take a loan now, I can easily escape without paying the interest when the world ends but…. if my dad comes to know of this he will beat my ass.’

He sulked in the corner. ‘But he won’t have to know, right? Yeah… I can do that. I can keep it a secret from him,’

He stood up and patted his back. “Uncle, is it possible to keep this property on hold for me. I can see what I can arrange.”

He awkwardly smiled. “I’m not sure we can do that.”

Zou Yue nodded. “It’s okay….. I’ll come back later when I have the appropriate budget,” he thanked them both and took the same cab out of town.

The driver glanced back occasionally. “I’ll make sure to hold on to it for ten days…..”

“Thank you brother,”

With the building plan and other brochures in hand, he sadly went over to his house. He placed them on the table and plopped back onto the bed. “I guess I can’t afford a house now. It’s okay, as of now I’ll concentrate on buying other things for ours survival,”

He took out his phone and started ordering some vitals for the house, especially solar power sheets. Because the first thing the humans lost was electricity. At nights it will be so dark that one can’t even see their own body.

He wanted to change that, especially for his parents.

“But how do I set it up,” he sat up and downloaded all videos and information he could find regarding mechanical work of the appliances.

Night came, he ate his dinner and went to sleep without any problem.

Zou Wei opened the door a slither and glanced in. “he’s sleeping,”

“Do we sleep with him? He seems to like that a lot,” Zou Nui whispered to her husband.

“no… he looks to be deep in sleep. Let’s not disturb him,”

Hearing this, his wife went over to their room to get ready to sleep. He was about to close the door but something caught his eyes.

He slowly went in and took the papers from the table.

It was property and housing layouts. There were multiple but only one of it was marked in red. His son had even made a few notes on the brochure.

Silently he took this paper out and showed it to his wife. “Honey, I think our son was trying to buy this property,”

Zou Nui carefully looked at it. “It looks old, but I think the interior is very interesting. It’s a mixture of western and eastern culture. And I love the pond.” She mumbled to herself. She took the paper and read the small note at the end corner. “Can’t afford it. What does he mean can’t afford it? Do you think our baby is broke?”

Zou Wei nodded. “I think he must be very interested in this property…. shall we buy it for him?”

“Of course we should. We haven’t given him any kind of property since his birth. Now that we are both retiring, it’s better to give our assets to him in the form of property,”

The two secretly plotted in secret to buy the house for him.

The next day,

Zou went running around the town getting loan in whichever bank that provided him.

In total, he was able to get a loan of twenty thousand dollars, which brought up his total account balance to seventy-seven thousand dollars.

He cheerfully looked at his bank book. “Now I can afford it and as well as I can buy food and other necessities,”

Humming a song, he took a cab to the familiar town.

“Uncle, I have come for that house,” he said with a wide smile.

But the uncle just awkwardly looked at him. “Young man, you are just a few minutes late. That house was brought over by an old couple,”

“Oh….” his mood dropped, and he sadly sat on the chair. The realtor took him to visit other properties, but nothing stood out to him like that house.

Sighing, he left the town with a very sad heart. “Since the house is out of the agenda, it’s better to buy other stuffs. He ran to the nearby farmer’s market and bought few vegetable seeds with him.

He had no clue how to grow plants or any kind of vegetable, but this life he planned to rectify that. He had six more months until the outbreak before that he wanted to be good at every skill that is necessary for survival.