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The first weekend of December had already passed, and although there were still two or three weeks until Christmas, the festive atmosphere was already present in the Walmart Supercenter.
Areas with Christmas trees, gift boxes, and toys were surrounded by adults come to shop, hoping to bring their children a gift that would truly be a surprise on the most important holiday of the year.
After Reed and Anna finished shopping for the daily necessities needed by the Tranquility Club, he selected an encyclopedic book on pharmacy for himself.
That way, after cleaning up, he could find something to do to keep himself from getting lost in random thoughts.
Pushing the shopping cart, Reed lined up behind the queue at the checkout counter waiting to pay. Although he didn't have a job, the Tranquility Club still paid him an hourly wage of 4 US dollars for cleaning.
So, even though it wasn't much, Reed could afford the few dozen dollars for the book.
When it was his turn, and he started placing items on the counter, Reed hesitated.
Then, before Anna and the cashier could react, he dropped everything and ran.
"Reed, F*uk you! I saw you!" Aunt Rachel tried to chase after him in a hurry, but the locked barrier stopped her.
Right, the cashier standing in front of Reed was Aunt Rachel, who had always been working part-time at the only Walmart in Youngstown.
She just didn't expect to see Reed there today, and because she was busy with the checkout, she hadn't recognized him sooner.
Aunt Rachel also had mixed feelings about Reed; he should have been a good kid.
He had a respectable job working as a pharmacy assistant in a private hospital on the east side of the city.
But unfortunately, he'd gone astray, walking down the wrong path, still lost to this day.
...
On Bruce Street, Dean was tallying up the loot from the past few days.
With the autodialer software constantly at work day and night, he had already accumulated over thirty usable access codes.
Inside this batch were a few special numbers that Dean had marked with a highlighter.
The reason they were labelled as special was that, although these access codes also belonged to prepaid phone cards, they had no prepaid value, but instead accumulated time.
In other words, a 20 US dollar phone card would be void once the value was used up, rendering its corresponding access code defunct.
However, time-based cards were different; they could be reused, with the phone bill being settled monthly or quarterly.
These time-based cards are usually issued by the phone company to large businesses for their exclusive use.
Large companies with many employees and busy communications, whether internal calls or long-distance calls, have a massive demand every month.
Reimbursing phone expenses for every employee would clearly add a significant administrative burden, so a common dial-in access code greatly simplifies everything.
With it, the entire phone bill for the company can be settled once a month, which is very straightforward.
Dean eyed those marked special access codes with a gleam in his eye; he needed to make good use of them, for they were far more valuable than those prepaid cards.
Plus, having collected so many access codes, he should also consider how to cash them in.
It's best to deal with these phone cards sooner rather than later, preferably no more than a month.
"Dean, someone replied to your post," Debbie said as she returned from outside, just as Dean was pondering his money-making scheme.
"Debbie, how do you know someone replied to my post?" Dean asked in surprise.
"I checked your post in the computer lab at school; someone is asking about viewing the room, and I think they might be the person you're looking for."
Debbie's community college also offered computer courses, and of course, it had its own computer labs. Being young, they were among the first to access the internet.
Upon receiving this unexpected news, Dean decided to check the replies in his post first.
"Also, Dean, when will that website you mentioned be done? I've been doing a lot of promotion for you at school," Debbie added.
"Uh, just wait a bit longer, Debbie, you know I've been a little busy lately," Dean replied, a bit sheepishly, having just created a new folder.
But after he had handled the goods at hand, he indeed needed to put that on his to-do list. Dean estimated that the basic prototype could be completed in no more than a week.
Going upstairs to turn on the computer, Dean quickly found his post. Thanks to the numerous commenters, it was ranking quite high.
Filtering out the irrelevant comments, Dean quickly identified the information he was looking for.
Some people would directly ask about the price in the comments while others followed Dean's instructions and sent their inquiries to his email.
But many just chatted briefly and stopped responding, which led Dean to suspect they were merely looking to join in the buzz or have someone to chat with.
Because he swore, a monthly rent of 520 US dollars for a villa-style residence was definitely not expensive, even for a midsize city like Youngstown.
However, today's reply was a bit more interesting: the person didn't ask about the rental price right away.
Instead, his first question was whether Dean would mind accepting rent vouchers as payment for the rent.
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Housing vouchers are something some landlords like and some don't.
It's a rental subsidy policy implemented by the federal government targeted at low-income families, essentially understood as a housing discount voucher.
Since the amendment of the provisions in 1987, allowing housing voucher holders to use them in any area of metropolitan regions, it has gradually become widespread.
After landlords receive the housing vouchers from tenants, they can exchange them for cash in full at the welfare building downtown, without any loss.
So why do many landlords still avoid housing vouchers? It's because they want to avoid the additional building standard requirements and complicated administrative procedures.
Indeed, landlords can't just casually get the government subsidy in cash with housing vouchers.
First of all, the house must meet the housing authority's safety and quality requirements, such as having necessary facilities like water heaters and heating systems, which are regularly checked by inspectors.
In addition, landlords must also participate in the "Landlord Training Courses" held by the housing authority at the welfare building, and only when all these are met will the federal government exchange the vouchers for them.
Clearly, most properties on the rental market can't even pass the first requirement. Whether it's cracks in the walls or substandard heating equipment, if landlords want to save money and not repair timely, tenants can even call the housing authority to report.
Once such an incident occurs, not only is the current month's rent down the drain, but landlords also face the housing authority's demands for rectification, which is why many steer clear of housing vouchers.
In most states in America, landlords are not compelled to accept housing vouchers, thus even though they are nationally accepted, not many landlords are willing to take them.
However, there are always exceptions; better-conditioned apartments are very willing to accept housing vouchers.
Because with housing vouchers, tenants actually pay very little out of pocket each month, so they are also more likely to accept relatively higher rents.
Furthermore, the rental market's disdain for housing vouchers further causes tenants with vouchers to continually raise their expected rental price.
Usually, the rent for properties that use housing vouchers is about 100 to 300 US dollars higher than similar apartments.
Strictly speaking, it's the landlords taking advantage of tenants' mentality of "it's not my money anyway" to skim off taxpayers.
So, when he saw the term "housing voucher," Dean Grant's eyes lit up. He was fully confident that his own Charlotte Street property would pass the housing authority's inspection.
If he could get an extra couple hundred dollars, wouldn't that make his monthly mortgage negligible?
This was a business opportunity worth taking; Dean rapidly typed on the keyboard.
Soon after, he received a reply to his email.
Right after subtly finding out through the recent chat that the person on the other end was also white, he immediately set up a time to view the house.
The Charlotte Street property might not be needed by Dean in the future, but at least his dad did.
Renting it out was the best choice before he had sufficient financial capabilities.
Having sorted another matter, Dean left the house in a good mood, with those codes written on paper, ready to repackage them.
...
On the East City He Xi Street, in front of a printing shop, Dean was having an engaging conversation with the owner.
"We can design a variety of patterns for you that will definitely make it eye-catching and unique, unforgettable at a glance."
The printing shop owner, who also dabbled in various advertising and business card designs, boasted to Dean about how stunning and classy his designed cards were.
"How much for the ones with patterns?" Dean asked casually.
"Fifteen cents each, with a discount for larger quantities."
"And the ones without patterns?"
"What?"
"I mean the blank ones, original flavor."
"Eight cents each, no discount."
"Give me thirty, and remember to print these numbers on them. They must be clear, durable, not too soft, not too thin..."
"..." said the printing shop owner.
Five minutes later, Dean left the printing shop with a satisfied look, under the owner's disdainful gaze.
Yeah, not bad, at least they felt substantially right.
The cards in Dean's hand were the same size as an MCI phone card, and even the color was brown, except the logo on them was MCL instead.
Then the whole card just had the card number and promotional code in two lines of text, each followed by a series of numbers.
That made things much more convenient, straightforward, with no traceable information.
Full of gains, Dean returned to Bruce Street and immediately ran into his Aunt Rachel, who had a serious expression.
"Dean, I ran into Reed today."