The man's eyelids were swollen, and his eyes were bloodshot. He glared at Liu Nian and said, "What are you looking at!"
Before they could speak, the front door opened, and a woman rushed out wielding a rice shovel, her voice booming, "Wang Daguo, if you're going to act drunk, go back to your own place! What are you doing yelling and screaming like a banshee in front of our door!"
Someone came out and leaned against the doorway to watch the commotion.
Wang Daguo let out a burp, didn't say anything, and staggered away.
His house was not far ahead. He pushed the door open and, with a bang, his body crashed into his own doorway.
"Drink, drink yourself to death!" The woman picked up a rice shovel and walked back into the yard.
Liu Nian quickly took a few steps forward and called out, "Big Sister!"
She stopped, holding her rice scoop, and looked at Liu Nian and Su Xu warily, saying, "Did you call me?"
Liu Nian nodded and said, "Yes, I want to ask you about something."
"Huh?" The woman put down her rice scoop, looked them over, and said, "You're not from around here, are you?"
Liu Nian nodded and said, "Yes, we want to rent a house in this area, but we don't know if any houses nearby have any vacant rooms."
After speaking, Liu Nian and Su Xu smiled politely at her.
If you say you want to buy a courtyard house from the beginning, that's definitely not an option. But you can pretend to rent it out, get to know the place first, and then buy it once you've found a suitable property.
This woman was very kind-hearted, and worried about the pot she was cooking in, she hurriedly said, "Wait a minute, oh dear, the food is going to burn!"
She hurried home, not forgetting to turn back and say, "Wait for me! I'm going to turn off the stove."
The two stood at the door for quite a while.
In this era, with fewer migrant workers, household registration restricted the movement of some people.
Without a city household registration, there's no way to find work, and without various permits, life is incredibly difficult. Therefore, even renting a place is extremely rare.
Fortunately, the woman came out again soon and kept saying, "Nowadays, there are several people in a family, and they can't even fit themselves in their own rooms. Where can they find a place for others to stay? I'll take you to the neighborhood committee."
She led Liu Nian and the others forward, and as they passed Wang Daguo's house, she spat at him fiercely, "All you do is drink heavily, and then you beat your wife after you're done drinking. You've probably driven your wife away!"
The door happened to be open, and Liu Nian curiously peeked inside.
That house was quite impressive, even though it looked dilapidated and the yard was overgrown with weeds. But the entrance hall was spacious, the carvings on the railings were lifelike, and the courtyard was square and proper, suggesting that the ancestors at least had some wealth.
Liu Nian quickly asked her older sister, "Is he the only person in their family?"
"Yes, there's hardly anyone left in the family. And they squandered their money, in the end all they had left was this one house." The older woman pointed regretfully to the entire alley and said, "This whole row used to belong to them."
It's truly lamentable that such a once wealthy family has fallen into such a state of decline.
The older sister led them to the neighborhood committee. As soon as they entered, the auntie from the neighborhood committee looked them up and down and asked if they had a letter of introduction.
Fortunately, Liu Nian had already asked Liu Dafa to open the car for her before she arrived.
The older woman, wearing her reading glasses, looked them over carefully. Seeing that Liu Nian and Su Xu both had upright postures and didn't seem like bad people, she said, "You want to rent a place? It's a bit difficult."
"Whose house are you going to stay at? There are no vacant rooms available." The old woman frowned.
Liu Nian and Su Xu exchanged a glance, and Su Xu immediately understood what Liu Nian was thinking. He said, "When we came here, we passed by a house, and I noticed that he was the only person there."
"That won't do!" the woman slammed her hand on the table. "I'm doing this for your own good. That man isn't good enough; you'll be at a disadvantage!"
“He’s a conman who cheats and swindles every day, and he drinks heavily whenever he has a little money. Wouldn’t you be upset living with him?”
The older woman standing nearby nodded repeatedly, showing just how unpopular this person was.
Liu Nian pretended to be helpless and said, "It's only his place that has a spare room, isn't it? We'll just be more careful in the future."
Their plan is not to rent, but to buy a house.
Wang Daguo is a spendthrift; when he has money, he'll definitely think about how to spend it all, and when he runs out of money, he'll think of even more extreme ways to spend it.
For example, selling the land title.
Even if it wasn't sold to Liu Nian in the end, it would have been sold to someone else, so Liu Nian didn't feel any guilt about depriving someone of the opportunity to get rich in the future.
But to everyone's surprise, Wang Daguo made an outrageous demand, drunkenly holding up one finger and saying, "One hundred yuan a month!"
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