Having just fallen asleep only to be called up again, An Songxiang was really irritated.
But seeing that she wasn’t the only one sitting in the living room, she could only temporarily rein in her temper.
An Songyu took two deep breaths, forced herself to calm down, and then looked at the rest of her family.
Her parents, brother, and sister—all faces at least twenty years younger than those in her memories—overlapped with what she remembered.
For a brief moment, An Songyu felt dazed.
“Xiaoyu, Xiaoyu…” An Jianping’s steady voice called out, pulling An Songyu back to her senses.
She rallied herself and looked at everyone again.
But the way she had just been had already made An Jianping and his wife start forming some thoughts.
Seeing that An Songyu still hadn’t spoken after quite a while, An Jianping hurriedly tried to reassure her:
“Xiaoyu, don’t overthink your brother buying a house.”
“Although our family is indeed emptying our savings this time, once we sell the land back in our hometown, it should basically be enough.”
“There won’t be any outside debt. Your mom and I are both still working, and your brother will help out a bit later too.”
“As long as you wait a little, your dowry definitely won’t be small.”
For reasons she herself couldn’t explain, An Songyu’s nose suddenly stung.
Holding back her tears, she softly called out,
“Dad…”
Yes—back in her previous life, even after suffering such a blow, her father had still managed to do all of this.
Seeing the softening in their daughter’s attitude, An Jianping and his wife both let out a sigh of relief.
Bi Lizhu spoke up, half joking and half reproachful:
“Xiaoyu, honestly!”
“Your dad and I only have the three of you—how could we not do our very best to prepare things properly for you?”
“And for this, you even called a family meeting?”
The soreness in An Songyu’s eyes eased a little.
Looking at the faint reproach on her mother’s face, she pressed her lips together slightly.
As the saying goes, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.
In her mother’s heart, not to mention An Songyu herself—even if she and her sister were combined, they still couldn’t compare to their only brother.
But if you were to say her mother was someone who valued sons over daughters—
That wasn’t entirely accurate either. She was just… a rather traditional woman.
She believed that a son was the one who could support his parents in their old age.
And in her previous life, her brother had indeed done so all along.
Thinking of this, An Songyu suddenly felt a bit more at ease.
After all, when she woke up just now, she was already about the same age her mother was at present.
And back then, when her mother was still alive, aside from occasionally helping the two sisters, she truly followed her long-held belief and let her son take full responsibility for supporting the two elders.
With that thought, An Songyu no longer delayed. She looked seriously at her family and asked,
“Dad, do you know about the demolition that’s planned near our hometown?”
Hearing his daughter bring this up, An Jianping first nodded, then asked,
“It’s still half a village away. Why did you suddenly ask about it?”
An Songyu didn’t answer her father’s question and instead continued,
“Do you know what the demolished land is going to be used for?”
“The land after demolition? I heard it’s going to be turned into a new district. Right now it’s all factories—mainly clothing factories, I think?” An Jianping said uncertainly, looking toward his wife beside him.
Bi Lizhu also nodded. Over the past few years, the prosperity of the garment industry in South City had been remarkable.
Setting other things aside, even her sister-in-law back home who did wholesale had been making so much money her hands were practically sore from counting it.
“Then, Dad, have you or Mom gone to take a look near there?” An Songyu took a deep breath, looked at her father, and asked the most crucial question:
“Once those factories are built, will there be enough space for transporting goods?”
The rest of the An family all looked at one another, puzzled.
Seeing their expressions, An Songyu bit her lip slightly before speaking:
“Dad, Mom, Brother, Songxiang!”
“A couple of days ago at work, I overheard a piece of news in the hotel—no idea if it’s true or not.”
“What news?” The other family members weren’t stupid.
Thinking of the questions An Songyu had just asked, they couldn’t help clenching their fists slightly as they spoke.
“I heard that near that large factory area, the government seems to be planning a logistics distribution center,” An Songyu said without the slightest hesitation, relying on memories from her previous life.
“What?” The rest of the family exclaimed in disbelief.
Thankfully, the neighboring household still had My Fair Princess blaring away on the television.
Otherwise, someone might have noticed how unusually loud this family was being.
“Xiaoyu… is what you’re saying really true?” Bi Lizhu stood up in a fluster, pacing in place for two circles before licking her lips.
In a somewhat disordered manner—half explaining, half questioning—she continued:
“Something this important—if it could really be heard just like that in a hotel—”
“I didn’t just hear it casually!” An Songyu quickly shook her head in denial, her mind spinning.
Linking it to her current internship, inspiration struck:
“It was a very imposing man who came to check in at the hotel but left his ID card at the front desk.”
“He hadn’t gone far yet, so our supervisor had me take the ID to chase after him.”
“When I caught up, he had already gotten into the elevator.”
“I saw which floor he pressed and followed him up.”
“That’s when I realized he was staying on the top floor of our hotel.”
“When I reached him, I happened to overhear him on the phone, talking about a newly approved garment factory that was almost finished, and saying that logistics was no longer something to worry about.”
“He said the government intended to build another logistics distribution center nearby.”
“But a garment factory doesn’t necessarily mean it’s near our hometown…” Bi Lizhu instinctively added.
Yet she saw that the other three family members all looked deep in thought.
Bi Lizhu frowned. If before this she had about a thirty percent belief in what her second daughter had happened to overhear, then now, in an instant, it dropped to zero.
But before she could speak again, An Jianping suddenly said,
“A few days ago, I called back to the village, planning to have your eldest uncle help me ask about the price of residential plots.”
“But your younger uncle called me that very evening, asking if I urgently needed money.”
“If it was just that, he said he was willing to lend me some.”
“And he also said that his family had recently been preparing to build on the residential plot near the fish ponds, and asked whether we were planning to tear down and rebuild the old, run-down house on our old plot too.”
“If we were going to build, he said we could negotiate building material prices together!”
Her younger uncle?
An Songyu’s heart stirred slightly. If one were to talk about the most capable person in the An family as a whole, before her younger uncle’s fruit chain stores spread across all of Shuncheng, that person had definitely been her father.
But in the years that followed, her younger uncle didn’t just catch up— his business grew bigger and bigger.
Even so, he was always very modest, saying he was just doing fruit retail and wholesale, earning nothing but hard-earned money.
Besides that, her younger uncle also owned a large orchard back in their hometown.
And in the first half of this year, he would gradually take on contracts for fish ponds, flower fields, and mulberry groves.
He even built new houses—one on another residential plot applied for in his daughter’s name, and another on his parents’ old homestead.
(End of this chapter)