Shen Jie and the other contestants chose three petite girls and went back to the room to fill out the bed application. There were seven people, five of whom were girls, so they could have four bunk beds. The last bunk could be left empty to store things or for people to sit on.
Living here for a month, I guess we'll still have to cook and eat. Chen Jie actually wanted to omit the table, since there are so many things to apply for now, what if we don't have enough space later? And with a lottery every day, it seems like the production team is trying to cram in all one thousand people.
Shen Jie shook her head. The production team was really too daring. How could they possibly squeeze that in? If they could actually squeeze it in, it would be a world record.
The bed board size can be requested to be smaller, so that if other people are drawn later, there will still be space. If no one is drawn and more people are added, it is also good to have more room to move around.
Dong Jun, Tang Wei, and Lin Feng looked at the information Shen Jie filled out, then at their own, and finally chose to use Shen Jie's. The 90-centimeter bed was fine to sleep on. Dong Jun and Lin Feng thought about it and realized that if they won, they would get a huge bonus. Anyway, it was only a month, so they could just bear with it. At worst, they could just stick their feet out of the bunk bed to sleep at night.
The bed application was quickly approved, and they had to move the unassembled bed frame themselves.
As Shen Jie struggled to move the items, she watched as the other rooms were still frantically filling out application forms in the courtyard. The whole courtyard was in a chaotic mess, giving her a feeling of having returned to the past.
Moreover, when she passed through the front yard earlier, she had already heard people arguing. It seemed that because there were too many people, there was a discrepancy in the bed allocation; some people wanted to sleep on two tiers of a large dormitory, one tier for boys and one tier for girls.
However, since there was no other place to stay in the room, and everyone had just met, no one wanted to share a bed with someone else. So another person suggested that it would be better to have individual bunk beds. In the end, when there were more people, they could be put together to form a large dormitory, but with a dividing line so that everyone could have some boundaries.
Both sides stuck to their own versions of events, arguing fiercely. Shen Jie, assembling a four-poster bed in the courtyard, listened with great interest. These contestants were quite the debaters. However, she quickly remembered something else: this courtyard, with its outer, middle, and back courtyards, had a total of twenty-five rooms but only one kitchen!
Cooking is such a big problem! Her eyes flickered as she looked at the large courtyard in the middle of the building, wondering if she could build a stove there.
After thinking about it, Shen Jie went to the program team. After receiving a negative reply, she was still not giving up and asked if she could apply for a small stove.
After receiving a positive reply, Shen Jie originally wanted to apply immediately, but thinking that she still had teammates, she could only hurry back to tell them.
Han Dong, who was handing in his application form, was startled by Shen Jie's question. He had completely forgotten about this! The kitchen was indeed a big problem! The toilet was alright, there was a public toilet outside the yard.
However, he soon discovered that the public toilet required all the rooms in the courtyard to take turns cleaning for 30 days a month, and all the participants had to take turns cleaning, with the specific schedule to be discussed by themselves.
Of course, if you can't keep going, you can withdraw from the competition at any time. If a single contestant withdraws, there will be a replacement if there are still unselected contestants. However, if there are no replacements, then everyone in the room will be eliminated.
[Wow?! That's so cruel?! Does the production team really want to cram a thousand people into this courtyard?! One lottery a day, what's the point of drawing lots after everyone else has already done that?!]
[You're all thinking way too far ahead. Right now, I feel like the people in the second room in the front yard are about to disband right now. This argument has been going on for ages, and nobody's convinced of anyone else. We might as well just draw lots.]
Haha, it's true, the houses in this backyard don't seem very big at all! Only the houses in the middle yard seem larger, and the kitchen is also closer to the middle yard.
[Tsk tsk tsk, this is truly chilling! So many people living in that space, it's even more cramped than a pigeon coop!]
It's not that exaggerated. I still live in one of these places. You get used to it, it's alright.
【Huh?! You haven't moved out yet?!】
No, not yet. Don't let the crowded location fool you; it's a prime location. We probably won't get any demolition compensation soon. If we don't get it, we don't have the money to buy a house, and we can't get out. It's a vicious cycle.
【I thought you all lived quite comfortably there?! This is so much smaller than our countryside! How can people fit in here?!】
[We just live there. My grandma, my parents, my wife, my child, and I—six of us—are still living there. It's really inconvenient, but we don't have the money. What can we do? We keep running into people who talk about how great the people here are, and they're all so envious. But most people in this compound are just ordinary people. No matter how good the location is or how high the property prices are, it has nothing to do with us.]
【Huh?! I'm stunned! So this is the tenement courtyard from the novel? I always get so confused reading novels, wondering how there could be so many people, and you're telling me it's even more complicated than this?!】
Of course! My parents inherited this house. My uncles and aunts were separated from the family years ago, and their area was later demolished and developed into a famous commercial district. They've all moved into several new houses, while our family is still stuck here.
[Could it be that shopping district?! Demolition compensation is that profitable?!]
That's all in the past. It's gone now. And who would have thought that back then, nobody wanted to go to that area? It was so depressing to even think about. Then it was demolished for redevelopment. You can't even mention it. I bet my parents regret it a lot. They thought they'd get a house because they were the eldest son, but in the end, all they have left is this one house.
That's alright, at least your neighborhood is good, and you don't need to buy a house.
I thought courtyard houses were like the ones shown on TV, but I didn't expect them to be like this! The difference is huge!
So, honestly, when I read novels where the protagonist goes back in time to buy a courtyard house or live in a crowded tenement, I genuinely can't relate. Anyone who's lived in a tenement knows how unpleasant it is. Showering is inconvenient, using the toilet is inconvenient, parking is a nightmare, it's unbearably hot in summer and cold in winter because everyone in the courtyard has expanded, and ventilation is terrible. You can't even move the trees in the yard. It's unbearable from every angle. I usually go out whenever I can; I don't like staying home.
[Haha, I'm guessing you're a big fan of rural life stories.]
No, not really. I still really like the house in the courtyard. Of course, now I'd be happy with any place with a proper toilet and shower. But I doubt it. With the current housing prices, my generation probably has no hope. Our courtyard has been listed as a historical building, so demolition is unlikely. We can't leave; our roots are here. If we stay, the whole family will just have to squeeze together like this. That's life.
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