Back to the village
To get from Nanda to Qiaodong Village, start from the East Gate, take bus No. 21 to the South Bus Station, and then take bus No. 8 to Qiaodong Village. Bus No. 21 departs from the University Town and runs frequently, but for Bus No. 8 you may have to wait for an hour before it runs. If everything goes well, you can get home in three hours. If you have to wait for a long time during the transfer, it is normal to take four hours.
Chen Jin went home once every two weeks this semester, mainly to collect rent and visit his family's orchard and store. Every time he went back, he would move some thick winter clothes. Now all that was left in the dormitory were summer clothes.
Although NDU is the best university in NCU province, its graduate employment situation is not as good as in previous years. The school cannot completely decide where students will go after graduation and is now piloting "two-way choice" employment. Moreover, after the reform and opening up, private enterprises have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. In recent years, they have been developing at a rapid pace. On the contrary, many state-owned enterprises have gone downhill. Seniors who work in their field have also revealed that the salary in private enterprises is much higher than that in state-owned enterprises.
She didn't really consider working in the private sector. Originally, there were only her and her mother in her family, although now she is the only one left. In the past, her mother always said that the income from the rental house was enough for her daily life, and it would be just right for her to find a stable job.
So, she wanted to stay in school as a teacher after graduation. It’s not easy to get into the school administration department, but you can still strive to be a counselor.
Who knows!
Just when I was feeling depressed, I looked up and saw Li Xingyi and his current girlfriend Bai Ling.
She didn't think of slapping him a few more times, but Li Xingyi wanted to go crazy. He drove the new car his father gave him and deliberately stopped in front of her. He rolled down the window and looked over Bai Ling who was sitting in the passenger seat. He asked in a pretentious manner: "Chen Jin, should I drive you home?"
Bai Ling looked at the travel bag at Chen Jin's feet, then at Chen Jin's profile turned to the side, feeling proud, "Yes, Chen Jin, it will take you several hours to take the bus home. It's not very convenient to live in the village... eh?"
"Okay." Chen Jin picked up the luggage bag and took two steps forward to open the back door. He pulled hard several times but it didn't open, so he banged on the door a few more times. With a sneer, he walked to the passenger door, bent down to look at Li Xingyi who had a grim expression in the car, and then looked at the angry Bai Ling, "You two crazy husband and wife, one cheated on you, and the other was a mistress, you are so proud of yourself, right? Just avoid me when you have nothing to do, got it? Next time you act crazy in front of me, I will slap you in the face."
He banged on the car a few more times and said, "Drive carefully, you two short-lived bastards, don't cause a car accident and hurt others."
Li Xingyi's face looked unhappy, but he obviously accepted Chen Jin's attitude well. After all, Chen Jin was like this when she was in high school. It's just that she showed her power twice in her first year of high school, and then others didn't dare to provoke her. In the next two years, she focused on studying so much that he had somewhat forgotten what she was like before.
But Bai Ling hadn’t learned her lesson yet, otherwise she wouldn’t have dared to come up today. Once at the Wanmin Shopping Mall in the city, Chen Jin caught Li Xingyi and slapped him several times. Another time, she deliberately picked the time after class to block Chen Jin, and was scolded by Chen Jin so much that she ran away crying.
Look, they were so scolded by the fierce-looking Chen Jin that they couldn't say a word. They both grew up in well-off families, so even when they were scolding people, they would do it in a roundabout way. Unlike Chen Jin, he spoke at the top of his voice and was as straightforward as possible. His catchphrase was "crazy husband and crazy wife".
"Tsk, cry, cry, why are you pretending to be innocent? You look so unlucky." Chen Jin rolled his eyes in disgust, but he had to come closer. When he couldn't win the argument, his eyes turned red and his brows frowned. It's just that she has a good temper and would just curse a few words. But Aunt Zhou next door to her would never say a word when she encounters a crazy husband and wife. She would roll up her sleeves and start slapping, scratching and clawing their faces.
Li Xing glared at him angrily, wanting to help his girlfriend vent her anger, but Chen Jin ran back with the luggage bag.
He couldn't breathe in or out, and was so angry that his head was buzzing with Chen Jin's voice: Crazy man and woman!
Bai Ling wanted to mock Chen Jin but failed and ended up getting angry. He turned around and took out his anger on Li Xingyi, "You just watched her scold me? Are you still thinking about being with her? Tell me, if you still miss her, why don't we just break up. It was your family who came to find you and said you were single, but your mom was lying when she said you broke up a long time ago..."
"We were indeed going to break up at that time. We should have broken up earlier, but Chen Jin's mother passed away at the end of last year. After all, we had known each other for so many years. We couldn't break up with her at that time. I'm sorry, it's my fault today. But Chen Jin is just like that. We should just stay away from her from now on."
"Why should I avoid her? Who the hell is she? Just wait for me. Doesn't she want to stay here as a counselor? I'll go back and tell my cousin why someone like her should stay in school as a counselor? Chen Jin, Chen Jin, ah!"
When the bus drove past, Chen Jin leaned out and made a face at her, saying "lolulu", which made Bai Ling so angry that she trembled all over.
The conductor saw this and shouted angrily, "Don't stick your head out of the window! Girl, what's wrong with you?"
Chen Jin sat back and apologized to the ticket seller obediently, saying that he was so excited because he saw his classmates. Even though the ticket seller sat next to her and stared at her and lectured her for half an hour, Chen Jin didn't show any impatience at all.
The passengers on the bus saw that she had a positive attitude and looked well-behaved, so they helped her speak up: "She knows she was wrong, and young people should correct their mistakes. Give her a chance."
When they arrived at the next stop, which happened to be the Medical University, more than a dozen students came up and the conductor had to move. Chen Jin's ears finally quieted down.
The university town is in the suburbs of the North City, and half of the city’s factories are located in the suburbs of the South City. Every time she goes home, it is a "cross-city operation" across Fuzhou.
There is a road in the suburbs of Nancheng District with factories on both sides. Drive further and you will reach Qiaoxi Village. The houses here are built like cement boxes stacked together. There are only a few residential plots, but every family has built a house on them. Most of the people who rent houses here are factory workers in the suburbs, as well as workers who work in the city but have low salaries.
The southern province values family. Clansmen in the same ancestral hall work together to do business. If you don't come back to worship your ancestors during the New Year, you will be criticized. Chen Jin lived with her mother, but whenever there were important events like family gatherings and ancestor worship, her grandparents who lived in Qiaoxi Village would call her to come over. They would succeed only once in ten attempts to get her over, and whenever she went back, there would be chaos at her grandparents' house.
The gossips in Qiaoxi Village privately called her "Troublemaker".
As the bus passed by, she also saw the newly tiled building where her grandparents lived.
We set out from the east gate of the school at one o'clock in the afternoon and arrived at the entrance of Qiaodong Village at half past four.
Her house is close to the entrance of the village, and it only takes three or four minutes to walk after getting off the bus.
There are only 18 households left in Qiaodong Village, and all of them are surnamed Chen.
That’s right, Chen Jin took her mother’s surname. Her child was not registered when she was born, and was only registered after her parents divorced. Her mother originally wanted to give her the character "Nian", but the staff who registered her child made a mistake and registered it as "Jin".
Otherwise, Qiaoxi Village would not have come up with such a specific flower name as "Rashijin".
When she looked up, she saw the top three floors of her two buildings were bare. They looked the same as they did when they were built. There is a yard surrounded by iron fences, and a bungalow is built in front of the yard. It is the family's small shop. Now I have my third aunt's niece Tian Miao to run the shop. She is paid 100 yuan a month, and she lives and eats at my third aunt's house.
To the left of her house is her uncle Chen Wenqiang’s house. Originally, it only had a two-story exquisite small Western-style building, which was unique in Qiaodong Village. In March last year, I don’t know what made my uncle go crazy. He came back and demolished the small Western-style building. He rebuilt two six-story buildings and only renovated the rooms on the first floor for his family to live in.
The two buildings of her uncle's house occupy a larger area than hers, and the original garden courtyard is gone. This matter was done first and reported later. After my aunt-in-law found out, the two quarreled for two months and almost got to the point of divorce.
Her uncle persuaded her mother to add another floor, which took a lot of effort. Her family saved up 100,000 yuan for several years, and her mother planned to buy her an apartment in the city. But my uncle heard that the government might build an industrial park in Qiaoxi Village in 1993. Although Qiaodong Village could not be demolished, they could build more houses. Qiaodong Village could also take advantage of its proximity to the industrial park to build houses for rent.
There are six other households in the village who followed the trend and built new houses, all of whom had planned to build new buildings a long time ago.
The other six families built new buildings, renovated them a long time ago and started renting them out. Only Chen Jin's and Chen Wenqiang's houses are just left there and have not been renovated yet.
This is understandable. Chen Jin is the only one left at home. She has to go to school and has no time to take care of housework. As for Chen Wenqiang's family, it cost a lot of money to build the house. The final payment to the construction company was delayed, and the workers had to be paid. Without enough money, the decoration here was delayed.
Some people in the village said that the two families were wasting their money.
"Is Chen Jin on vacation?" Aunt Zhou was chatting with Tian Miao in the store. The two people, who were more than 20 years apart in age, could still have an interesting conversation.
Tian Miao stood up, took a look, called out "Third cousin", and then said, "My second aunt asked you to come to her house for dinner tonight."
"Okay, got it. I'll go back and put my things away first."
Chen Jin is ranked number 3 together with sisters from her three uncles and two aunts. Her eldest uncle has two cousins and one cousin, her second uncle has one cousin, and her third uncle has one cousin and one cousin. Her third uncle is her mother's cousin. Her third uncle's parents and her grandparents are brothers, so they are close and have a good relationship, so he is no different from her real uncle. In addition to three uncles, Chen Jin also has two aunts. The eldest aunt is her mother's sister, and the second aunt is her mother's cousin.
The entire Qiaodong Village was divided out from the same ancestor. Every family is related to each other, and those with the surname Chen are all united. At the beginning of the year, her grandfather's family wanted to move her household registration back, but her uncle had a bad temper and it almost turned into a collective fight between Qiaodong Village and Qiaoxi Village.
She has many relatives, but they are concentrated in Qiaodong Village and Qiaoxi Village. In Qiaodong Village, he is “other people’s child”, and in Qiaoxi Village, he is “troublemaker”.
Oh!
Chen Jin took out the key to the first floor of his house from his bag. There was only one meter of space between the two buildings in his house. Except for the first floor of the building on the left which was reserved for his family to live in, the others were all rented out.
Rental houses are not always fully rented out. Sometimes someone moves out and you have to wait for a while before someone else rents it. They can't spend money on advertising, and they don't have any promotional means. Most of the new tenants are introduced by old tenants.
Although their rental house is clean and tidy and the rent is cheap, the commute to work is far and so there are far fewer people renting the house than in Qiaoxi Village.
There are two doors installed on the first floor where I live. When you open the door, the kitchen is on the left and the public bathroom is on the right. The living room and dining room are integrated and are very spacious. There are four rooms in the house. Her bedroom and study are adjacent to each other. Her mother lives in the master bedroom, and the furnishings inside are still maintained as they were. There is an empty guest room, where her aunt and her family stay when they come back to stay overnight.
Everything in the house, from sofas and refrigerators to chopsticks and spoons, was purchased after discussions with her mother, and some of them have been used for several years.
I didn’t feel my home was spacious before, but now I find it’s empty everywhere.
When I entered the door, I patted the white puppy doll on the shoe cabinet at the door, and it made a sound of "I'm back, I'm back".
She carried the luggage bag into the bedroom, then went to her mother's room and fumbled around in the bottom layer of the closet for a while before she found a mechanism that she could press down. The wooden board at the bottom popped open, revealing a rectangular iron box inside.
The iron box contained her family assets, including her household registration booklet, real estate certificate, two homestead certificates, and two passbooks. One of the passbooks had money deposited into it in the first half of this year, and now had 15,000 yuan in it. The other passbook had only money deposited into it but never withdrawn. She started depositing money into it in 1982 and stopped in November last year. Over the past ten years, she had saved 23,000 yuan.
Thirty-eight thousand was all she had available.
The extra six floors cannot be renovated completely with 38,000 yuan, and there is still no news about the demolition of Qiaoxi Village. She is afraid that there will not be so many tenants after the renovation.
After tidying up the house and changing the bed sheets, Chen Jin went to the store to reconcile the accounts with Tian Miao and to restock the out-of-stock items.
Usually, Tian Miao would go to Chen Jinsan's aunt's house to get food and bring it to the store to eat, and would not go back until eight o'clock in the evening after closing the store. Today Chen Jin asked her to close the store early and come back after dinner.
"The tenant who lives in 301 in Building 2 asked when the new building will be renovated. He has a few friends who want to rent a house here. Third cousin, when will the new house be renovated?"
"I don't have any money, so let's put it aside for now." Chen Jin said, turning back and saying, "Miao Miao, you speak with a Northeastern accent now."
Tian Miao sighed and glanced at the direction of Building 1 with resentment. "There is a couple from Northeast China living in 204 of Building 1. After work, they come out to the store to chat after dinner. They led me astray a little."
"Tsk tsk, there are now three households from the Northeast living in Building No. 1." She couldn't even imagine that if these people got together after get off work, Building No. 1 would become "Northeastern-style."
I went to Aunt Zhou’s fruit and vegetable store next door and bought a big watermelon. After walking along the spacious village road for five minutes, I arrived at my third cousin’s house. My third uncle’s homestead is small, so he only built one building, which was built to the sixth floor two years ago. So my eldest uncle wanted to encourage my third uncle to continue building houses, but he had nowhere to go.
My third aunt was cooking in the kitchen, and my cousin Chen Yongan was playing the Subor video game console in the room. When he heard the sound, he looked up and waved excitedly, "Third sister, come quickly!"
This Subor game console belongs to Chen Jin. Her mother bought it for her because she didn't like watching TV. But she didn't like to play it, so Chen Yongan got it.
"You play with Miaomiao, I'll go to the kitchen to help." After putting the big watermelon in the refrigerator, Chen Jin squeezed into the kitchen.
The third aunt didn't let her do it, saying it would be healed soon.
"I just saw my third uncle carrying a hoe and going out. What was he doing?"
"Look at his peach trees. What else? I don't know what your uncle thinks."
Well, another person was fooled by his uncle into planting peach trees.
"Those pieces of vacant land are close to Qiaoxi Village, but how could the demolition of Qiaoxi Village extend to that end?" Thinking of following Qiaoxi Village to get some of the benefits? It's a waste of effort for her to say it.
"By the way, when will you start decorating the new house?" Third aunt worked with her head down, talking non-stop. "If you don't have enough money, our family can lend you some. Now that it's already been built, it can't just sit there empty, wasting money. Luckily you don't have to go to class this semester, right? You can still stay at home and watch over it. But if you have other things to do, just let us know in advance so we can help you out when the time comes."
"Oh, by the way, your grandfather called and said there's a village meeting and asked you to go back for dinner and meet some people."
"I don't have the same last name as them, so I won't go."
Third aunt glared at her and said, "Why don't you go? Recently, word has been circulating that the demolition notice for Qiaoxi Village is going to come down. Your surname isn't Liu, but your father's is. If there's a demolition, you'll have to be included in it." It seems that Qiaoxi Village is really going to be demolished.
Chen Jin smiled and said, "Is that so? Then I'll go."
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