1982: From the Start, I Had a Siheyuan

Qian Du graduated from college straight into unemployment. Before graduation, he was always complaining about being a corporate drudge. After graduation, he became one himself, risking his life at a 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. job that paid just 4,000 yuan a month.

Mortgage, car loan, carrying on the family line: the pressure was crushing.

Given another chance, he was determined to escape the three big loans and the five types of social insurance.

“Beijing in 1982: I'll snap up every courtyard house I can find, grab antiques by the armful, and make a fortune.”

It was a golden age when the bold could rise, twenty years before even the pigs caught by the winds of the millennium took off.

His previous life had been mediocre, and there was no way to change it. But in this life... Qian Du looks at the deed to his private courtyard house inside Beijing's Second Ring Road.

“Looks like I won't have to struggle in this life after all.”