Chapter 12: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s 12

Su Dakui might still hesitate over other kinds of investments, but the moment buying houses came up, his heart immediately grew hot with excitement.

“My daughter’s the smart one. That’s right, once you’ve got money, nothing beats buying property. City houses go up in price every year. The courtyard¹ we’re living in now cost two thousand last year, but this year you couldn’t buy it for less than twenty-five hundred.”

Wasn’t that the truth. If they had waited until this year to buy a courtyard, it would have cost at least two thousand more. Based on what Su Dakui had paid before, that was basically the price of an entire extra courtyard thrown away.

But this time, where should they buy?

“Across the river. Aren’t there a lot of self-built houses² near those factories over there? Dad, buy those. Right now, those factories may all look like they’re on the decline, but what if business picks up again? And even if the factories really do fail, the state won’t just let that land go to waste. One way or another, it’ll be used for something else. Buying houses over there definitely won’t be a loss.” Su Huandan thought to herself that this wasn’t entirely just talk to fool people. After all, in 1995, several factory buildings over there would all be bought up and turned into a film and television studio complex³.

The purchase compensation for self-built houses wouldn’t be low either. Buy them now, and in two or three years the family would start seeing returns. After that, their own four houses on this side could be rebuilt into apartment buildings and rented out. Life after that would be wonderful.

Jiang Chunhua only understood that the family was going to keep buying houses, but she didn’t understand why they had to buy near the factories. Still, she had never offered opinions on major matters. If she didn’t understand, she kept quiet.

Her two older sisters were the same way.

Even though Second Sister now had ideas of her own and wanted to live in an apartment, she didn’t have the money for it at the moment. There was no way she could ask their parents for it.

What she hadn’t expected was that third child Su Huandan would dare say so much, and say it so confidently too. Whether it was right or wrong was another matter, but the fact that their father was willing to listen was already something incredible.

Su Dakui was bound to listen to his youngest daughter’s opinion. Ever since she had found that gold, he had felt that she was a lucky child. Back when she had suggested buying several more courtyards, he hadn’t hesitated, and by the next year the price of courtyards had already risen.

Really, who wouldn’t end up like him after seeing all that, convinced that his youngest daughter was blessed, or had a knack for fortune?

Su Huandan didn’t dare claim she was lucky or had great financial fortune. She had only taken advantage of being reborn. And the only opportunities she could see were the ones around Yuanyi Village. She knew nothing at all about opportunities elsewhere, or in other industries.

Early the next morning, Su Dakui went to buy houses near the factory district across the river.

There weren’t any courtyards as large as theirs over there. A small yard packed tightly with four or five rooms already counted as a big courtyard.

Prices varied according to the size of the yard, ranging from five hundred to fifteen hundred yuan. They were only this expensive because housing prices had gone up this year. Otherwise, a five-hundred-yuan courtyard could have been bought for three hundred the year before.

After setting aside enough capital to keep buying inventory, Su Dakui spent all the money he had earned in one go and bought seven courtyards of various sizes.

After he got the property deeds in hand, people over by the factory district were secretly calling Su Dakui an idiot.

“The factories around here are practically about to shut down, and some fool still comes to buy our houses. And instead of buying apartments, he buys these little courtyards. If he’s not an idiot, then what is he? This whole place will be deserted in the future. Who’s going to come here?”

Once the new year passed and Spring Festival was over, the Food Factory shut down.

Housing prices in the factory district fell again.

Jiang Chunhua held it in for several days, but in the end she couldn’t anymore and started nagging. “Your brain must be full of water too. The third girl just tossed out a few random words and you listened to her. What does a schoolkid know? And now look what’s happened. With the money we spent on those houses, we could buy ten courtyards at today’s prices. But what’s even the point of buying houses over there now? Wasn’t that just a complete waste? The factory’s shut down, nobody’s going there anymore, and those places will just turn into abandoned houses. I heard the cardboard factory and the machine repair factory are both going under too. Just look at what you father and daughter are capable of.”

Jiang Chunhua said things like that for a whole year. Any time Su Huandan did anything even slightly wrong, her mother would bring it up and mutter a few more lines, her temper blazing all year long.

But Su Dakui paid no attention to his wife’s nagging. He had discovered that other people were buying houses just like he was, and the houses in the factory district were actually quite sought after now.

He had made a fair amount of money these past two years as well, and whenever he earned some, he went across the river to buy more property. By now, he had bought twenty-four courtyards.

By the time Su Huandan reached her third year of high school, it was already 1994. In her memory, this was the year Su Dakui made a huge fortune. He had originally gone with others to Northeast China to sell cloth, but competition got so fierce that in the end, Su Dakui and the others gritted their teeth and took the goods to Russia⁴ instead.

After eight months, good lord, buying low in one place and selling high in another, they made eighty to ninety thousand yuan.

This time, when Su Dakui came home, he wasn’t planning to go out again anytime soon, and he wasn’t planning to buy more houses either. He wanted to renovate the family’s four courtyards.

His eldest daughter had found a boyfriend. He wasn’t a local, but he was a cook, and the only family he had left was an Old Grandma. Su Dakui was ten thousand times satisfied with this son-in-law. Once the boy’s grandmother passed away, how would he be any different from a live-in son-in-law?

The son-in-law was handsome and tall. The only flaw was that he was poor, but even so, he was far better than those street loafers who wandered around doing nothing.

A cook, after all. Open a restaurant whenever he liked, and he wouldn’t have to worry for the rest of his life.

This was a good son-in-law.

So Su Dakui wanted to hurry up and rebuild all the courtyards at home, so his eldest daughter could get married in style.

The eldest daughter and her boyfriend had already been together for two years, and the young man wasn’t exactly young anymore. He was already twenty-six. It really couldn’t be delayed any longer.

The moment he got home, he could smell food from outside the main gate. With that aroma, it had to be his future eldest son-in-law’s cooking.

Sure enough, when he pushed open the door and went in, Sun Jianbin was at the stove in the courtyard stir-frying pork intestines over high heat.

The moment Sun Jianbin saw that his father-in-law, who had been out hauling goods, was back, he immediately smiled and turned toward the house to shout, “Huanzhu your dad’s back.”

At that shout, the mother and four daughters inside, all waiting to eat a ready-made meal, came running out together.

Su Dakui looked at his wife and daughters, then at the son-in-law who seemed tailor-made by heaven for their family, and broke into a huge grin.

“I’m back, I’m back. This time, now that I’m home, I won’t be going out again for a while.” No matter how long Su Dakui had been away, in the Su family, he was always the pillar holding everything together.

After a reunion meal, once they had finished eating, Su Dakui brought up the matter of rebuilding the house.

Su Huandan immediately started waggling her brows at her eldest sister, embarrassing her so badly that her face flushed.

Sun Jianbin turned bright red too. He didn’t even dare look at anyone, just stared at the concrete floor.

“Dad, how are you planning to build the house?” Her eldest sister’s marriage was settled now. In this life, the person she was going to marry was the first love she had missed in her previous life, so at least that regret had finally been made up for.

In her previous life, Sun Jianbin had really gone places. Relying on the Film and Television City, he started out selling boxed meals and ended up becoming a boss. Later, when he learned that she was sick, he had even gone to find her eldest sister and offered her a sum of money, but her eldest sister couldn’t accept it and refused.

Now that her eldest sister’s marriage had been settled, it was time to talk about building the houses.

If you asked Su Huandan, they should build two houses first, take out a loan, and finish everything in one go. They could turn the one their family lived in now into an inn, and rebuild her eldest sister’s courtyard into a restaurant that could host banquets.

As for her second sister’s courtyard and her own, they could deal with those later when they had more money.

Translator’s Notes