The house was priced at 70,000 yuan.
Xia Zi Yu thought the price could be negotiated down, but based on the building’s footprint, while it wasn’t worth 70,000, it should be worth at least 50,000.
Zhang Cui had originally saved over 10,000 yuan, but Zi Yu had depleted half of it. After moving from Shangdu to Beijing, it took them two to three months to understand local tastes. Without Chang Zheng’s help, her small food stall was limited in scale, with a modest daily income.
The Wang family had directly repaid 5,000 yuan to Zi Yu, covering both what she’d spent on their family and what she’d lent to Jian Hua Wang. Even if Zi Yu emptied her savings, she couldn’t afford this courtyard.
Who knew how many years it would take to save enough from a mobile food stall?
Zi Yu still wanted Zhang Cui to reopen a shop in Beijing.
As for herself, she needed to improve the tutoring class. With sufficient scale, even with low-profit margins, the accumulated annual earnings could be substantial. Now in her sophomore year, Zi Yu’s goal was to buy a similar house before her senior year!
For a poor rural family, owning property in the capital meant putting down roots.
There were courtyards in more remote areas that Zi Yu had seen – cheaper, but too dilapidated for her taste.
The houses she liked were priced at 70,000 yuan!
While Zi Yu worked toward this goal, she couldn’t understand how Xia Xiao Lan could afford 70,000 yuan for a house.
She asked Chang Zheng to describe what happened in detail.
Chang Zheng had developed a drinking habit. When drunk, his mind wasn’t clear. His former shrewdness had given way to dull resentment. He couldn’t tell who wanted to buy the house, only that he was washing his face by the well when he saw Xiao Lan enter. He rushed at her.
At that moment, Chang Zheng wanted to knock Xiao Lan into the well.
When Xiao Lan dodged, he knocked down the middle-aged man with her instead.
The owner was furious and wanted them to move out, both because Chang Zheng had ruined his business and because he’d knocked down an official:
“I think that official wanted to buy the house.”
Chang Zheng shared Zhang Cui’s view, but Zi Yu wasn’t sure. An official buying a house? Who would bring outsiders? A Huaqing University student like Xiao Lan wouldn’t run errands as a middleman. Either she was the buyer, or she had an extremely close relationship with this official.
Close enough to accompany him house-hunting – Xiao Lan wouldn’t date a middle-aged man, could he be a man Liu Fen found?
In Zi Yu’s mind, her image of Liu Fen was still from New Year’s.
Dark and thin, not poorly dressed but unable to shake off her rural air. A divorced rural woman with no charm – Zi Yu wouldn’t believe she could find a well-positioned official of suitable age in Beijing!
Zhang Cui gnashed her teeth: “Could that little wretch be buying the house herself? Where would she get the money?”
Zhang Cui knew better than anyone that when Liu Fen and Xiao Lan were driven from the Xia family, they had only 20 jin of sweet potatoes. Even if they later returned home to collect old clothes and hidden savings, how far could that go?
Acknowledging that Xiao Lan and Liu Fen now lived better than her family was too painful for Zhang Cui to accept.
“Could Yong Liu have struck it rich…”
Zi Yu shook her head, “If my uncle got rich, wouldn’t he give me tens of thousands to buy a house?”
Zhang Cui fell silent.
Even if Fu Man Zhang agreed, Lian Xiang Jiang wouldn’t! Giving tens of thousands to Zi Yu for a house – unless Fu Man Zhang had made countless “tens of thousands,” enough to give it freely to his niece for a Beijing house.
Zhang Cui understood – no matter how close she was to her maiden family, her own family came first.
Zi Yu couldn’t understand two points:
First, was Xiao Lan buying the house?
Second, if so, where did she get tens of thousands of yuan?
The sudden wealth required some means of making money.
Unable to get answers from her parents, she tried probing the owner. Still angry, Manager Wu had already declined the house. Despite Zi Yu’s many apologies, he wouldn’t let Chang Zheng and Zhang Cui stay:
“Your parents must move out tomorrow. If you try to stay, don’t blame me for forcing you out!”
Despite Zi Yu’s pleading, the owner’s anger remained. If Chang Zheng had seriously injured Manager Wu, as outside vendors they couldn’t pay compensation and might flee, leaving the owner responsible. With such tenants, the owner couldn’t let Chang Zheng stay. Who knew when a drunk man might go crazy again?
Zi Yu felt humiliated.
She bowed to Guang Ping Wang and Shu Yu Ran – her future in-laws, as she wanted to marry Jian Hua Wang and needed the Wang family’s approval!
But this person before her was nothing – just someone with inherited property in Beijing looking down on outsiders and rural people. Zi Yu swallowed her anger and probed further – it was Xiao Lan buying the house, with the official just acting as an intermediary!
Zi Yu’s current feelings were indescribably bitter.
No matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t match what Xiao Lan achieved with seemingly casual effort.
It was like this with college entrance exams!
And now in Beijing!
Zi Yu still resented Xiao Lan being in the front row of the Tiananmen ceremony honor guard.
Then, she could console herself that Huaqing’s honor guard was superficially focused on looks.
But now? Surely having tens of thousands to buy a house couldn’t be about looks?
Zi Yu nearly ground her teeth to powder. She simply couldn’t accept Xiao Lan living better than her – the mere thought disturbed her peace. The joy from the tutoring class’s success was crushed by this sudden development. After consideration, she went directly to Jian Hua Wang.
He had helped rent the house, and now with the owner evicting them, her parents needed new accommodation within a day.
Zi Yu also wanted to understand Xiao Lan’s situation.
She wanted Jian Hua Wang to stay far from Xiao Lan, but that didn’t seem safe enough now. She didn’t seek out Xiao Lan, but Xiao Lan might come to them – perhaps this was Xiao Lan’s deliberate revenge? Maybe she couldn’t afford the courtyard but, knowing her parents lived there, deliberately staged this house-buying scene to drive them out.
Zi Yu preferred to believe this last explanation, and that’s how she presented it to Jian Hua Wang!
“Xiao Lan came looking for us?”
Jian Hua Wang didn’t believe it either.
If Xiao Lan held grudges about the past, she should have come to find him.
But, after seeing each other at the Tiananmen ceremony two weeks ago, Xiao Lan had never appeared in his field of vision.
Though he wasn’t at Huaqing at Beijing Normal College, he had recently been in the newspapers and wasn’t an ordinary unknown student anymore. Was Xiao Lan’s behavior related to seeing the newspaper?
Jian Hua Wang felt he couldn’t just wait passively – he needed to understand Xiao Lan’s thoughts.
If everything was for him, he would ask Xiao Lan to stop these “acts of revenge.” Though they once had feelings for each other, they weren’t meant to be – forcing it would lead nowhere.