The Price of a Cheap House
After ten years studying interior design overseas, I came back to my hometown to do work that mattered to the people who raised me.
I offered the full package, from site survey to soft furnishings. The materials were chosen by hand. The price was fair to the bone.
The town had just gone through a redevelopment. Everyone was getting new units. With the new family policy, every family wanted a third bedroom too. My business was good. Customers from the next county were driving in.
Then a girl just back from a city college kicked open my studio with her phone on a livestream and her neighbors at her shoulder.
"This is the dishonest one. Look at her. She has been ripping the village off."
"In the city, an eighty-square-meter unit can be done for twenty thousand dollars. She is charging eighty."
"That's a sixty-thousand-dollar margin. Sixty thousand. Right out of our pockets."
The village fell in line behind her. They demanded the difference back. When I refused, they smashed my studio. They beat me into a coma. The pile-on online killed me.
When I opened my eyes again, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
I would refund every single one of them. And then I would tear out every single thing I had installed.
Let's see what twenty thousand dollars actually buys you.