Several new educated youths said they wanted to rent single rooms, especially since there were two people sharing a room in the backyard. That would only cost one yuan a month, which would add up to ten or twenty yuan a year.
Some of the educated youth from relatively well-off families were tempted, since the conditions of a single room seemed much better than that of a dormitory.
First, let's talk about the walls. Although the dormitory-style house was newly built, I don't know if it was because of the rush or something.
The walls of that room weren't even whitewashed. Although whitewash would leave you covered in white paint if you touched it, it still looked much brighter than those mud walls.
The opaque window paper, combined with the rough, earthy-yellow walls, made the whole room appear pitch black.
Coupled with the extremely simple earthen stove without even a pot and the earthen kang (heated brick bed) without even a mat, it was practically an abandoned house, making these educated young people from big cities feel their hair stand on end.
Compared to the single room in the backyard, this house is like heaven and earth.
Putting aside the room that Tian Mi and Zhang Tingting lived in, Tian Mi was very clean. Although the walls in the room were painted white, Tian Mi disliked that if she leaned against the white wall, she would get covered in white paint.
So we bought a lot of white paper to paste on the walls. I remember it was Gao Hongyu and Wang Zhi who spent most of the day pasting it.
There were also windows, because Tian Mi initially disliked the fact that the windows covered with paper were not bright enough, and most importantly, the visibility was poor.
It was inconvenient to monitor Gao Hongyuan and Gu Xinyi at that time because their relationship was not yet clear and they often talked in the yard to avoid suspicion.
So Tian Mi paid out of her own pocket to replace the glass window. Because of this window, when Zhang Tingting decided not to renew the lease, she even wanted to take the window to the front yard.
However, because Tian Mi had casually given the original windows to the workers when they were being replaced, the team leader allowed them to take the glass windows away after the windows were replaced with their original ones.
Zhang Tingting went to the house where the windows had been replaced to ask for the old window that Tian Mi had given her back, but she was not only refused, but also scolded by the house's wife.
Having not only failed to get the window back but also left feeling very angry, Zhang Tingting had no choice but to give up in the end.
It was precisely because of this house with glass windows that the two people who came to view the house in the backyard got into a fight.
Sui Yuanchao was not one to defer to women. You know, there was a woman on the train who wanted to rent a room, but he didn't let her.
So, with his long legs and quick reflexes, when Shen Baogen pointed out which two rooms were available, he was the first to react and rushed to the room with the glass window, indicating that he wanted to rent that room.
It's important to know that glass windows are far superior to paper windows in terms of both light transmission and heat retention.
Meng Xiaohui naturally wanted that room too, but unfortunately, she wasn't as quick to react as the other person.
In the end, he had no choice but to swallow his pride and ask Sui Yuanchao if he could give him that room.
But if Sui Yuanchao were willing to give way, he wouldn't have snatched it in the first place, so naturally he was unwilling.
Not only did he not agree, he also made sarcastic remarks about Meng Xiaohui, such as saying that she was shameless and liked to take advantage of others.
Meng Xiaohui's eyes immediately welled up with tears, partly from anger and partly from being serious, she wanted to stay in the room with the glass window.
Meng Xiaohui went directly to the brigade leader and rented the room with the glass window for an extra 50 cents a month.
It was this little incident that gave Shen Baogen a hint, prompting him to contact the other educated youths who wanted to rent single rooms to confirm.
Shen Baogen did not build the single rooms for rent blindly, but according to needs. If three educated youth wanted to rent, he would build three rooms; if five people wanted to rent, he would build five rooms.
Anyway, the new educated youth arrive every year in August, so if they need it, we can build it in time.
The houses built later were no longer of a uniform style; instead, they were built according to the tenants' requests, and each one was a normal mud-brick house with paper-covered windows.
They also built two mud-brick houses with glass windows, but the rent for the latter type of house was 50 cents more per month.
During this period, some of the new educated youth asked Chen Shuning and Zhong Lingling why they lived in brick houses and inquired about the monthly rent for such houses.
The reason Chen Shuning and his group were able to build their house was because Shen Baogen hadn't figured it out at the beginning.
After thinking it through and tasting the benefits of collecting rent, Shen Baogen began to regret his initial promise to Chen Shuning and the others to build houses in the educated youth compound.
Especially this year, so many educated youth have come all at once, and quite a few of them do need to rent single rooms.
Imagine how much more rent the village would earn each year if they paid for houses in such a large area.
So when the new educated youth asked about building their own houses, Shen Baogen said that land was scarce at the educated youth settlement, and it was not impossible for them to build their own houses. However, if they really wanted to build, they would have to build outside the educated youth settlement's courtyard.
That way, nobody would be willing.
The educated youth were all unfamiliar with the area and had no desire to build houses outside. Besides, building a house would cost a lot of money, and even if they spent the money, the house would not be their own. These conditions made Zhou Jihong, who initially planned to build her own house, give up immediately.
The reason Zhou Jihong planned to build a house instead of even renting one was because she knew that by going against her mother and stepfather's wishes, she would lose that home.
Therefore, she left no room for maneuver in what she did before going to the countryside.
She brought everything she could with her, and sold everything she couldn't. In addition, she contacted her father's former superiors and the local community.
She exposed her mother and stepfather's attempt to arrange a marriage against her will, and asked the organization for help in getting back the house that belonged to her father and the job that her mother had taken over after her father's death.
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