By his third month as a real estate agent, Lin Ye still hadn’t closed a single deal.
Clients stood him up, competitors stole his sales, and even the store manager was putting a price on him behind his back:
Whoever offered the biggest favor got to take his clients.
At last, he understood one thing:
In this city, houses weren’t the most valuable thing.
People were.
That night, he got his first taste of the “real game.”
Some people sold information, some sold connections, and some sold their principles.
And he had nothing.
So he made a decision:
He’d put himself on the table, too.
A client’s information in exchange for a useful contact.
A shady deal in exchange for a chance to turn his life around.
One test of the waters, and a woman leaned a little too close to him in the car, but didn’t pull away.
“You’re clever,” she said.
He didn’t answer. He only watched as her hand slowly slid off the steering wheel.
In that moment, he suddenly understood:
Some deals don’t need to be written into a contract.
From an exploited bottom-rung agent to a “middleman” who controlled the flow of resources,
he learned more than how to make money.
He learned how to get people to speak up first.
How to make a relationship feel “just right.”
And how to take one quiet step forward
between desire and profit.
Some called him dirty.
Some couldn’t do without him.
And some messaged him late at night, typing just three words:
“Are you free?”
Lin Ye never asked why.
He cared about only one thing:
What are you willing to give this time?
