Chapter 91: Building a New House, and It’s Made of Red Bricks!

Night fell.

Shishui Village, Old Man Xie’s house.

When Xie Zhao placed a neat stack of bills on the table, Old Man Xie and Tian Xiufen’s eyes went wide.

It was too much.

Simply too much!

They had lived their whole lives and had never seen so much money!

“There is over seven thousand yuan here, our family’s entire savings,”

Xie Zhao said.

He pulled out a hundred-yuan bill first and handed it to Tian Xiufen. “Mom, this is for groceries. We can’t skimp on food. Muyu is recovering from childbirth, so buy a few more chickens. Little Sister is still growing, and Dad does heavy physical labor. We can’t cut corners on what we eat.”

Tian Xiufen felt both pained by the spending and overjoyed.

She grumbled about it being a waste as she took the money, but she still carefully tucked it into the small cloth pouch she carried with her.

“This is the wages for the village aunties who helped us coat the linings.”

Xie Zhao pulled out another twenty yuan and handed it to Tian Xiufen. “We can’t shortchange them on this. Otherwise, it’ll be hard to get anyone to work for us again. In business, honesty and credibility are everything.”

Tian Xiufen nodded and reached out to take it.

Next, Xie Zhao conscientiously laid out all the upcoming expenses, including the next batch of fabric, zippers, metal buckles, and so on.

The remaining money was pure profit, which they could spend without worry.

“Dad, there’s one more thing.”

Seeing Xie Youzhen about to head out, Xie Zhao quickly turned his head and called out.

Xie Youzhen, who was just pulling out his pipe to go squat by the door for a smoke, paused.

What?

Calling him?

He turned around. “What is it?”

“We’re going to build a new house.”

Xie Youzhen and Tian Xiufen both froze in shock.

Build a new house?

“Look at our current house. We only have three rooms in total. My wife and I have one, Big Brother has one, and Little Sister is still sleeping in the same room as you two. Even with a curtain separating you, it’s not convenient.”

As soon as Xie Zhao finished speaking, Xie Tian, who was clutching her schoolbooks, poked her head in and protested righteously, “That’s right! I’m grown up now! Teacher Wei said that boys and girls are different! Dad, you’re a man! I’m a girl, we can’t sleep in the same room!”

Xie Youzhen: “?”

Well!

This girl!

Tian Xiufen fell silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement upon reflection.

Their daughter was indeed growing up. She would be fourteen after the New Year. The last time Tian Xiufen helped scrub her back, she noticed the girl had filled out quite a bit. It really wasn’t convenient for her to keep sleeping in their room. After all, an old couple needed some privacy at night, didn’t they?

If they made her share a room with her big brother, that would be even more inappropriate.

Not to mention Xie Cheng was already in his twenties, and he would have to marry a wife in the future!

“We do need to build a house. There’s no place to store the family’s grain. Stacking it in the pigsty makes it damp, which isn’t a long-term solution.”

Tian Xiufen thought for a moment and added, “It would be best to build a washroom too, so my second daughter-in-law and I can bathe more conveniently.”

They weren’t like the men, after all.

In the summer, the men could just go shirtless and take a couple of laps in the river.

The women sometimes had to take a small basin and wipe themselves down in their own rooms when no one was around at night. When it got unbearably hot in the summer and they wanted to pour water over themselves to cool off, they had to wrap a cloth around themselves and carry buckets of water to wash in the pigsty.

It was truly inconvenient.

Hearing this, Xie Youzhen nodded, pinching some tobacco to stuff into his pipe.

“Mm, the eldest is also at the age to find a wife. Building a few new rooms will make it easier to bring a wife home. When they have kids in the future, there will be space for everyone. A bustling house is a happy house.”

Xie Zhao grinned.

He grabbed a pen and paper, leaned over the table, and quickly sketched a rough layout of the house.

One side of their house was connected to Xie Youshun and Wang Jinhua’s home. In other words, if they wanted to expand the courtyard, they could only do so to the left and to the back.

To the left was a vegetable garden. This was a private plot cleared by Xie Youzhen and Tian Xiufen themselves, so it was their own property. No one could complain if they used it to build a new house.

Behind them lay the barren hills.

Although the hills weren’t far, there was still plenty of space to build a courtyard.

“We’ll expand the courtyard and shift it to the left. We can use the vegetable garden to build three rooms, leave a walkway in the middle, and build another three rooms behind them. Then we’ll renovate the area next to the pigsty to use as a warehouse. That’ll do it!”

Tearing down the old house to rebuild was out of the question.

They needed a place to live in the meantime, and besides, Xie Youzhen would never agree to it.

People of his generation always held a special attachment to their old homes.

Xie Youzhen and Tian Xiufen looked over Xie Zhao’s sketch and liked what they saw. With new rooms built on the left and back, the eldest and second sons could move into their own spaces, leaving plenty of room for when they had children.

The old house would be more than enough for him, his wife, and their daughter.

But still.

That was six rooms!

The thought of the cost made his heart ache.

“If we use blue bricks for all of this, it’ll cost…”

Xie Youzhen frowned, but before he could finish his sentence, Xie Zhao turned to interrupt him.

“Blue bricks?”

Xie Zhao shook his head and carefully folded the sketch in front of him. “If we’re going to build, we’re using red bricks! Those are sturdy and comfortable!”

What?

Red bricks?

Xie Youzhen choked, forgetting all about his pipe.

“How much would that cost?”

He stared with wide, shocked eyes. “The brickyard in Xiangyang Town sells red bricks for two point four cents each. For six rooms, including labor and materials, it’ll easily cost several thousand yuan!”

Heavens!

It was bad enough that the money they just received hadn’t even warmed up in their pockets yet, but what if it wasn’t enough and they had to dip into their own pockets?

Xie Zhao smiled. “Dad, it’s two point four cents if we buy them ourselves. But if we go to the village chief, get a certificate, and buy them in the name of the village collective, it’ll only be one point seven cents. That’ll save us a lot!”

“Don’t worry, we definitely have enough money. When the time comes, we’ll boil some red eggs and hand them out to every household in our production team. No one will complain.”

Xie Zhao had planned this all along.

Furthermore, what he didn’t mention was that once the new rooms were built, he also planned to give the old house where Xie Youzhen and Tian Xiufen currently lived a proper renovation.

He would plaster the walls, level the floors, and pour concrete.

If there was any money left over, he would also give the kitchen a thorough makeover.

Otherwise, the drafty mud house would let in the wind from all sides, raining inside when it poured outside. Dishes would go cold the moment they were served, which was truly frustrating to live with.

“Besides, our river snail business brings in nearly a thousand yuan a day now, and the bags from the tailor shop are selling well too. We’ll only make more and more money. Dad, don’t worry about this.”

Xie Zhao looked at him seriously. “You and Mom are getting older. Making money is my responsibility now.”

Xie Youzhen sighed a few times, ultimately saying nothing more.

It was true.

He was getting old; it was time to let his sons make the decisions.

Seeing that the plans to build the house were settled, Xie Cheng stood up and said, “I’ll go put away the river snails, then ask Zhao Erhu and the others if they have time so we can set a date to start construction.”

With that, he got up and walked out.

Xie Youzhen also let out a sigh of relief and reached to put his pipe in his mouth. But to his surprise, Xie Zhao stopped him again.

“Dad, there’s one more thing…”

Xie Youzhen: “?”

Good grief!

Could he not just say everything all at once?!

“What is it now?!”

Xie Youzhen pulled a long face, looking rather displeased.

He hadn’t even managed to take a single puff of his pipe yet!

“It’s about Big Brother’s marriage.”

Xie Zhao spoke unhurriedly. The moment the words left his mouth, Xie Youzhen froze again, his eyes widening.