That night, the two sisters squeezed together on the lower bunk. After listening to everything her younger sister had seen and heard that day, An Songyu couldn’t help clicking her tongue in amazement.
But then—
“All of it is four hundred mu?”
At that moment, An Songxiang was completely in sync with her sister’s thoughts.
The two sisters held tightly onto each other’s hands for a long while before finally comforting one another:
“We really shouldn’t be greedy. We already have houses and household registration—let’s not think too much about anything else for now.”
“But didn’t Dad have us sign loan contracts?”
“Yes… we did sign them.”
“Then the money for leasing the orchards…”
While the sisters were making these guesses, in An Jianping and his wife’s room—
Usually after dinner, Bi Lizhu would eat some fruit and watch a bit of TV.
But tonight, the moment dinner was finished, she had the two daughters clean up and then called her husband back into the room.
That afternoon, with her future daughter-in-law present, she had temporarily stopped digging deeper.
But now, she clearly had no intention of letting An Jianping escape again.
As soon as the two of them sat down, Bi Lizhu asked bluntly:
“You said you took out some loans. Exactly how much did you borrow? And how were the loans taken out?”
Looking at his wife’s expression, An Jianping knew he couldn’t keep hiding things anymore.
So he got up again and brought out several carefully preserved contracts.
Each contract was stored separately in a folder.
The first one Bi Lizhu opened was An Jianping’s loan contract and the leasing contract.
There were actually two loan contracts.
One was a loan secured by their current house.
The other was a loan taken out using the village leasing contract as collateral.
Together, the two loans amounted to a full sixty thousand yuan.
No wonder he’d sounded so bold—even just the leasing fees alone had cost over fifty thousand.
As for the leasing contract itself, there was only one.
The mulberry-fish ponds and the orchard land were written together—four hundred mu in total.
Looking at the remaining two folders, Bi Lizhu already had a rough idea of what they contained.
Sure enough, inside were leasing contracts and loan contracts signed under the names of their two daughters.
The leasing contracts themselves weren’t particularly surprising.
Just as Bi Lizhu had expected, the mulberry-fish ponds and orchards were one hundred mu each.
But the loan contracts—
Bi Lizhu stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
“What’s going on here? Can the loan amount actually be higher than the leasing fee?”
“The leasing fee is only paid for one year at a time right now,” An Jianping explained cautiously.
He even pulled out his own leasing contract so his wife could look more carefully.
The contract was for a thirty-year term.
However, apart from the first year, the subsequent leasing fees were paid in installments—every two years, three years, or five years.
This was something An Jianping had worked very hard to negotiate with the village committee.
After all, the cash he currently had on hand was extremely limited, and he truly couldn’t sink too much money into leasing fees upfront.
That was why, the moment he secured the lease, he intended to start managing the mulberry-fish ponds and orchards immediately.
This was clearly written into the leasing contract.
Of course, it was also genuinely what An Jianping wanted to do.
Nevertheless, Bi Lizhu’s brows remained tightly knit.
She truly felt that what An Jianping was doing now was far too risky.
Even though the whole family had repeatedly verified the demolition news An Songyu had heard, and believed it to be highly likely—
That verification had only happened after they already knew about the demolition rumor.
If there had been no such news,
Even if someone else had noticed the same situation as they did,
They likely wouldn’t have acted like An Jianping—
Breaking faith with his future in-laws, draining the family’s assets,
And now, not only taking out loans himself, but dragging both daughters into it as well.
Just thinking about how even their house had been mortgaged filled Bi Lizhu with anger.
She was furious at An Jianping’s audacity,
Angry that he hadn’t discussed any of this with her, his wife,
And beneath it all, an overwhelming fear was threatening to drown her.
Seeing his wife’s reaction, An Jianping began to feel regret as well.
He quickly sat beside Bi Lizhu, tightly holding her hand, and spoke earnestly:
“Lizhu, I didn’t take out these loans without any plan.”
“According to my calculations, as long as we manage the mulberry-fish ponds and orchards properly, we’ll be able to repay the loans even if there’s no demolition.”
“It’ll just mean the family works harder.”
“And the repayment period will be longer.”
“But if the demolition happens as we suspect it will…”
“Then we’ll certainly gain an unexpected windfall.”
“At the very least, the three children won’t have to struggle like this over buying houses in the future.”
“Besides, just like I said last time, I don’t plan on abandoning this direction of development even afterward.”
“It might just be less convenient if we move to another village.”
“So since we still have the chance now, I wanted to try it out.”
“To see whether I really have the ability to handle this.”
“And to see what kinds of difficulties doing this kind of work will bring.”
“Lizhu, to be honest, even though I grew up in the countryside, I’ve never actually organized anything like this myself.”
“I don’t have full confidence, either.”
“In fact, before all this, I never would’ve imagined doing something like this.”
“But this time, even though I didn’t start with completely pure intentions…”
“I’ve received a lot of recognition, expectations, and help from others.”
“Sometimes, just thinking about it makes me feel ashamed.”
“So when I took out those loans… it wasn’t that I didn’t want to discuss them with you.”
“Except for the loan using our house as collateral, the other loans were all arranged with Uncle Lin’s help.”
“I was still working at the factory then, got called over suddenly, and ended up completing the loan procedures.”
“I admit I was a bit carried away at the time.”
“And by the time I realized it, everything had already been finalized.”
“After that, I was worried you’d feel upset if you found out, so I didn’t mention it.”
“You also know that recently, everything going on in Jiang Village—aside from the youngest and Uncle Lin helping a bit—fell on me to handle.”
“Between one thing and another, I really did end up forgetting to talk about it.”
Seeing that Bi Lizhu’s expression had finally softened a little, An Jianping hurried to press on:
“Lizhu, think about it—if I really wanted to hide everything from you…”
“Wouldn’t I have found all kinds of excuses to stop you from going to Jiang Village?”
“And even after you went and we all looked at the mulberry fields, fish ponds, and orchards together, didn’t I hide anything from you?”
“So what if I didn’t stop you once?” Bi Lizhu gritted her teeth and shot him a fierce look.
Only because he had never done something like this before did she barely manage to rein in her tangled emotions.
What had already happened couldn’t be undone.
And without her knowing, An Jianping had already invested so much of the family’s assets.
From this point forward, Bi Lizhu no longer dared to let An Jianping handle things entirely on his own.
In the days that followed, whenever anyone in the An family had time off, they would go to Jiang Village.
Only An Songlin and his wife were the exception—after finding a day they could both take leave and completing the leasing procedures in An Village, they no longer had much time to go over.
The young couple’s wedding date was set for May 1st that year.
Originally, they had planned to finish all the wedding preparations in the period after the Spring Festival.
But they hadn’t expected the matters in Jiang Village to take up so much of their time.
In the limited time left in April,
They managed to take wedding photos and prepare the wedding outfits and jewelry.
Throughout the entire process, the An family was barely able to help much.
The Xu family naturally had some complaints about this.
But thanks to An Songlin and Xu Ying’s concealment,
The Xu family never discovered this before the wedding.
(End of Chapter)