CHAPTER 411: CHAPTER 411: ACQUIRING PROPERTY

Eating the hot meals and sitting on the warm kang, Gong Tao and the others all breathed a deep sigh.

"Home is really the best; even the baths feel so comfortable." Zhao Gang felt truly uncomfortable staying out for a few days this time.

"Yeah, I wonder if we can still have such comfortable baths once we get to Beijing." Here, we use firewood for bathing, and as long as you’re not lazy, you can gather firewood from the mountains. But in the city, it’s not possible; you have to use coal, which not only costs money but is rationed.

Talking about Beijing led to many things that they needed to handle.

Hua Miaozhu had been considering this issue, "Once we get to Beijing, what do we do? You guys can stay in dorms, but what about us?"

With six kids and one elder, renting a house isn’t feasible, especially with two young couples coming back. The rent for a year is no small expense,

and if we buy a house, the cost is also significant. In any case, these are all problems.

"Buying a house in Beijing is a good investment." Zhao Gang had this in mind for a while, even though he wasn’t sure where he would be assigned to work after graduating from university, having a house in Beijing is beneficial.

"Once we have a house, we can register our residence in Beijing." Zhao Gang, who lost his relatives early on, felt that home was where the family was, especially since the kids’ residence was registered in Northeastern Rural, which troubled him.

As long as there’s a chance to move Zhao Xuran’s residence to the city, it would fulfill a wish of his.

The thought of settling in Beijing intrigued Gong Tao. Previously, he wasn’t in favor of buying property in Beijing due to the high prices there.

Although they had earned some money, there would be plenty of expenses in the future. However, if the kids’ residence could be transferred to Beijing, it was better than Ni Zi and the others having theirs back in the hometown.

Though their communication with their hometown wasn’t frequent, they knew some things, especially about Gong Zhuang’s thriving black fungus business. They heard bits and pieces like Gong Qiang and Dong Li getting divorced, Dong Li marrying a man in some position, and paying back the money owed to the Gong family.

It wasn’t out of the goodness of the Dong family but because they couldn’t withstand Gong Qiang and Gong Xiaoyu causing disturbances daily, making life unbearable for the Dong family. They had no choice but to have the man Dong Li later married pay it off as a bride price; otherwise, they couldn’t keep their house.

More importantly, Dong Li couldn’t have a glamorous wedding leaving the Dong family. So the money was split between the three brothers, and Gong Qiang’s previous notion of finding a so-called virgin girl was dashed.

Gong Xiaoyu, on the other hand, was messing around everywhere, doing nothing good.

Thinking about what Gong Zhuang wrote regarding the Gong family, Gong Tao felt displeased, "We’ll continue being neighbors."

Gong Zhuang was really worried that if he brought up migrating Ni Zi’s residence back to the hometown, who knows what trouble Gong Qiang might cause.

Gong Ruini, though asking Cai Meina about her exam, perked up upon hearing Zhao Gang talking about buying a house and settling down, knowing that settling down wasn’t too hard these past few years. But gradually, the residence issue was becoming serious.

Especially the Beijing residence, which was highly prestigious nationwide—excluding, of course, certain ethnic minorities.

"Dad, let’s buy a house in Beijing, get a big courtyard, and we can grow black fungus in it." Gong Ruini knew that most of their black fungus was currently being sold to Gong Zhuang.

Their family made a lot, but so did Gong Zhuang. For such a profitable business, Gong Ruini thought, why not continue it? After all, it’s money and could cover living expenses.

Getting a big courtyard to continue growing black fungus was a great idea. Gong Tao’s eyes lit up. Previously, he was worried about how to manage the expenses of such a large family once they moved to Beijing.

Even though the government would provide some living allowance, that wouldn’t be much. Now, with an additional source of income, although not huge, it would at least cover the living expenses.

"We should buy a bigger courtyard, then I can make furniture on weekends." Gong Tao mentioned that over the past few years in the Northeast, he had brushed up on his carpentry skills, which could be a source of income in Beijing.

"We could plant some fruit trees, saving on fruit expenses, and grow some vegetables too." Over the past two years, Hua Miaozhu had become more grounded, less high and mighty. As Gong Ruini described it, she had become more down-to-earth.

Talking about farming and carpentry, Gong Ruini actually thought about continuing to sell black fungus to Gong Zhuang or bringing it to Beijing, which would be nice income. But on second thought, forget it.

They might consider it opportunistic and refuse to do it, so let them take their time making money.

"Dad, what about the rice we have?" Zhao Xuran was worried about how to deal with the rice; there was no way they could transport so much grain to Beijing—it would draw too much attention.

"That’ll be handled." Before, they always thought having grain at home meant security; now, dealing with its transportation was indeed a concern.

Zhan Jing never asked Zhao Xuran how to handle it, knowing it wasn’t just a matter of a few pounds but at least a thousand pounds of grain.

"I’ve already arranged it, and we’ll transport it directly to the grain station, convert some of it to grain coupons, so that we can eat once we’re in Beijing."

"Some of it will be converted to cash." Zhao Gang regretted a bit, "If I’d known we were leaving, we should’ve planted some grain at the beginning of the year."

Previously they thought growing medicinal herbs was enough to earn money, now thinking back, it was a bit regrettable.

"Even if you planted, you wouldn’t have time to tend to it." Zhan Jing didn’t think they’d have the time for the harvest, "We were so busy this autumn; would you still have time at night?"

Well, that made sense, so Zhao Gang could only stay quiet on this topic, "I wonder when the results will be out; once they’re out, Taozi and I can go to Beijing to look for houses."

"Actually, if the exams are harder, it’s better." Zhao Gang was somewhat regretful about the exams being too easy; if they had been tougher, a lot more people might’ve been weeded out.

This way, they could definitely ensure getting into university, but now with this difficulty, there’d be many who’d score well.

This is human nature—endless greed. Before the exam, they worried about it being too difficult for good scores. After the exam, they wished it were harder to create a clearer score divide.

But that’s not the main point—the main point is once the scores are out, they can go to Beijing, which really excited Gong Ruini.

Gong Ruini was thrilled about the idea of going to Beijing, wondering if she might have a chance to tour around the junkyard there. Even though she knew there might not be much good stuff, it’d still be better than the ones here.