Chapter 134 Buying a House: Becoming a Homeowner
Once Editor-in-Chief Bei made a promise, she wouldn't go back on it. After only two weeks, Yao Xiaoyu got news about the house she had been searching for. She excitedly took Tao Xiaoxiao in a rickshaw and then a tram. The moment she saw the house, she started calculating her savings.
This house is very similar to the one she was tricked into seeing by the middleman Wang Mieyan. Both are two-story buildings surrounded by walls, but this one has electric lights and running water. The bathroom is a squat toilet, which is more to Yao Xiaoyu's liking, and there is a cellar underneath where you can store ice and vegetables.
There's no shared area now. A 200-square-meter apartment sounds ordinary, but when Yao Xiaoyu went inside and looked around, she found it was much bigger than she had imagined. So, she only had one last question left:
"Why would the previous owners sell such a nice house?"
Chinese people have a deep-seated obsession with buying land and property. They will never sell their land and houses unless they have no other choice. Wealthy families are even more particular, just like in the Dream of the Red Chamber—families like theirs have always only bought people, never sold anything.
The furniture here is quite valuable, and it's not some foreign trend, so they're clearly not at their wits' end. Yao Xiaoyu didn't want to think the worst, but she really didn't understand.
The old woman, who had shown her around the house, sighed and didn't hide anything:
"This room belongs to our young lady."
The old woman told a very cliché story: a man from a poor background willingly married into a wealthy family, and then, after his wife died, returned to his original family. His beloved daughter became a thorn in his side, forcing him to flee overseas to avoid the limelight.
"The lady's dowry is all in that damned man's hands. Universities abroad are very expensive. Selling the house will make us a little more financially secure."
As the old woman spoke, she began to sigh. They say that the net of heaven is vast and its meshes are wide, yet nothing escapes it. How come this beast hasn't been struck by lightning?
“I see you live here, and after I buy the house, you…”
While inwardly thankful that it wasn't a haunted house, Yao Xiaoyu tentatively asked, "Although the old woman's face is wrinkled like a chrysanthemum, her hearing is still quite sharp, and she's still nimble. If she has nowhere to go, Yao Xiaoyu wouldn't mind hiring her to continue working in the house. After moving here, she'll need to hire people. It's better to do what you know than what you don't know. Who does the work is what it is."
The premise is that the old woman was not lying.
“I will go with the young lady. Now that the madam is gone, I have to take care of the young lady.”
The old woman said with a smile that ever since that man took over the house, the original family members had either left or scattered. She originally felt that she was too old to be a burden on the young lady, but the young lady even bought two boat tickets. She thought that her old bones could hold on for a few more years.
What does it matter if she doesn't understand foreign languages? Foreigners are people too; they need to eat, drink, and buy things. At worst, she can pretend to be mute to make sure the young lady is comfortable with her food.
"I see... Then I wish you both peace and good fortune."
Yao Xiaoyu was surprised for a moment, but then generously offered her blessings. There were no exaggerated wishes for her to achieve great success, but they were very comforting to hear – there are many unexpected events at sea, and being safe and sound is the greatest blessing.
Both parties were eager to buy and genuinely wanted to sell, and they quickly agreed on a suitable price. Once Yao Xiaoyu had the money from her home to transfer the property, she would officially become a homeowner.
Although the house can only be moved into at the end of next year for some reasons, Yao Xiaoyu is not in a hurry. The Yao family still owes a lot of debt. If she moves in today, the creditors will come knocking tomorrow. She can move in peacefully after the debt is paid off next year.
Compared to the smooth progress of buying the house, there's still no news about penicillin. Editor-in-Chief Bei only asked Yao Xiaoyu to prepare cash, and Yao Xiaoyu didn't feel that Editor-in-Chief Bei was being perfunctory: even if it's been a long time, penicillin will still be in short supply, so asking Yao Xiaoyu to prepare the money is already a promise.
Yao Xiaoyu only regretted that she hadn't thought things through comprehensively when she was having a fit of teenage angst back then. She only remembered a bunch of things that are already available now, like refined salt, white paper, glass, and soap, but forgot to look up how to make penicillin. Now she can only buy overpriced products and can't find any substitutes... Wait a minute!
A flash of inspiration struck Yao Xiaoyu, and her eyes widened in surprise. She hurriedly said goodbye to the old woman, abandoning the big meal she had planned to have to celebrate becoming a homeowner, and jumped into a rickshaw to rush home.
"return……"
Wenrou was resting when she saw her second daughter enter. She was about to invite her to have some snacks when she felt a gust of wind pass by. She blinked and saw that the place where Yao Xiaoyu had just been standing was empty.
"Little Fish is back, right?"
She gently and tentatively asked Tao Xiaoxiao, who was outside the courtyard. Tao Xiaoxiao nodded and gently closed the door. She had seen Yao Xiaoyu in this state before. Usually, she had a lot of inspiration. She had to prepare more food for people. Writing articles was very mentally taxing.
Tao Xiaoxiao used to envy Yao Xiaoyu for earning a lot of money by writing. After she learned to read and write, she also wanted to try to pursue a literary career. Then, when she managed to squeeze out two lines of text in three hours, one of which was her pen name, she went through the whole process from trying to giving up and realized that not everyone can make a living by writing.
The brief conversation downstairs went unnoticed by Yao Xiaoyu. In the damp, cold air, she grabbed her pen and began to scribble furiously, capturing the fleeting inspiration perfectly. Then, she temporarily inserted the ideas she had come up with that day into Yang Shunxin's outline—life-saving things should naturally be placed as early as possible.
"The production method of allicin... its applications..."
As Yao Xiaoyu muttered to herself, she wrote with swift, flowing strokes. She didn't know how penicillin was made, but she remembered the production process of allicin, which was equally useful. Allicin had many drawbacks and a short shelf life, but its ability to serve as a substitute for penicillin was enough to outweigh all its shortcomings.
First, solve the problem of whether it's available, then the problem of whether it's good or not. Yao Xiaoyu quickly wove a matching scenario in her mind, and then mentally highlighted the matter of buying garlic. Whether she could buy penicillin, and how much she could buy, were all unknowns. She was really not at ease without having some raw materials for allicin on hand.
Hmm, I'll need to get a set of processing equipment later, but she's learning the ethanol extraction method, which requires an alcohol concentration of at least 60%. Do we have any available now...?
I think I've had food kept warm with an alcohol lamp before. I'll ask Tao Xiaoxiao if she remembers, ask the shop owner, and then look for Tao Jingu and Maria...
Yao Xiaoyu was busy networking, and her typing speed gradually slowed down. Fortunately, the most crucial production process was already written. Now, all that was left was to legally incorporate allicin into Yang Shunxin's story. Looking at the several full pages of paper and the revised outline, Yao Xiaoyu decided to replenish her energy first.
What's that saying again? You need to be well-fed to have the energy to create.
"Xiaoxiao, let's go...you bought so much food!"
Yao Xiaoyu was halfway through her sentence when she naturally sat down at the table and started picking and choosing, not forgetting to stuff a zongzi candy into her mouth. Eating really consumes a lot of energy, and her stomach was already empty.
Tao Xiaoxiao bought food from street vendors, common but with a wide variety. Yao Xiaoyu picked out a plate of duck liver rice and a bamboo tube of spiced tofu. The soup inside was piping hot, and Yao Xiaoyu was already imagining how it would taste when poured over the rice.
We also need some real meat. Yao Xiaoyu hesitated between braised pork and braised beef, but finally chose the stewed beef that was stewed until tender. We also need some drinks. Plum juice was confiscated. Watermelon, the fruit for dessert, needs to be chilled for a while to taste good, so Yao Xiaoyu grabbed two peeled sweet olives to make do.
Finally, I'll grab a tea egg... Is this a meat zongzi? It seems she was the one who suggested the vendor develop a new product. I'll take two, take two! Ever since that vendor got his stall, he's been a star right from the start. He sells out all his zongzi every day. Yao Xiaoyu goes there ten times, and at least eight times she can't buy any!
Yao Xiaoyu considered the food she had chosen and made sure it would not only satisfy her dinner needs but also last her through the night. Then she left a few silver dollars, carried a bunch of things upstairs, and went upstairs: it was hot and there were mosquitoes downstairs, nowhere was it as comfortable as eating in the cool room with the kerosene lamp lit!
She wasn't worried about not having enough money. Tao Xiaoxiao bought food from the stalls, which was plentiful, varied, and delicious, but not expensive. She had enough silver dollars to buy the whole table and still have some left over.
After eating and drinking her fill, Yao Xiaoyu should have continued writing, but for some reason, she felt there were many things to do—the ice basin needed to be replaced, the trash needed to be thrown away, the room hadn't been cleaned in a long time, the manuscript needed to be organized… In short, everything that she used to find boring was much more interesting than writing.
Busy Ms. Yao procrastinated again and again, finally slapping herself in the face, and forced herself to sit down at her desk and painfully continue typing. She wrote a hundred words, two hundred words... and finally returned to the world of words, allowing Yang Shunxin's story to flow smoothly.
Soon, the Novel Daily published the story of Yang Shunxin using allicin to treat a patient's bacterial infection, but like the previous tidbits of knowledge, it didn't cause much of a stir.
Oh, there are some. A little fish's hater published an article in the newspaper saying that the little fish is becoming more and more good at making things up.
Yao Xiaoyu accepted these words well and sincerely hoped that this not-so-valued concept would continue for a while longer. Ordinary people's lives are already difficult enough, and there is no need to make survival even more difficult.
...
Ye Mansion.
Ye Junshu carefully tightened the last screw, skillfully plugged in the plug, and pressed the button on the handle. Hot air blew out of the hair dryer with a loud noise, but Ye Junshu showed no joy. He simply placed the still-running hair dryer on the table and waited patiently in a corner.
One minute, two minutes... By the fifth minute, the hair dryer stopped working. Ye Junshu unplugged it and smelled a burnt smell.
Knowing where the problem lies makes it easier to solve. Ye Junshu quickly disassembled the hair dryer back into its parts and buried himself in making his fifty-seventh modification.
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