“Guess how many chickens we sold by May 1st this year?” Liao Tao asked while typing on the computer.
“One thousand, you’ve said it several times.” Zhuang Jie answered while looking at the passers-by on the street.
“If there are many tourists on this National Day, it is estimated that the number will exceed 3,000. In the future, if we can earn enough for you three to each have your own place, Uncle He and I will be satisfied!”
“Don’t count me in on this. I don’t plan to come back.” Zhuang Jie laughed and called to her mother in the other room, “Mom, come look quickly, the wig on that person’s head caught on a hook! Hahahaha.”
Liao Tao pulled her back towards the house, and said, “Don’t be heartless all day long. Is Shanghai that nice? It’s so far away from us, and you have to suffer by yourself when you get bullied? It doesn’t sound good. Well, people in big cities are all snobbish, can they even take a fancy to our small family? You will be 30 soon, so don’t make it hard for you by being too easy or difficult to approach.”
Zhuang Jie was about to answer when Liao Tao raised her chin towards the east side of the street, “I went to see the apartment with your Uncle He last month, and I booked two apartments in the same building. I need to prepare for your brother and sister. Whether you stay here or not is your business, but as a parent, I am doing the best I can. I will buy it for NiaoNiao, so she will have it in the future. The community here is unbiased and it will be easier for you to live here in the future.”
Zhuang Jie sat on the stool, peeled a banana and said, “It’s fine. I have some money in my account, and I’ll transfer it to you later.”
“Keep it to yourself. I’ve saved all the money you transferred over the years, and it was almost enough to pay for a down payment.”
“Are the houses in the town okay? Didn’t they say that there were cracks in the walls?” Zhuang Jie asked, casually.
“Don’t believe that. The houses I saw were invested and built by a pharmaceutical factory, and the employees in it have discounted pricing. The environment and supporting facilities are the best, and it will be easy to sell in the future. The listed price was $ 5,000 for the public, the price for employees only $ 3,000. It’s also close to the high-speed rail, and some city folks will come back to buy it.”
“They only came back to buy after they got stuck in a rut. If I spend money every day riding motorcycles, it doesn’t mean I am going to die.” Zhuang Jie said succinctly: “I’m okay living by myself, so it is just a wasted investment.”
Liao Tao didn’t like to hear these words, “I can only buy a house for you here in town. I’m not well off enough to buy you a house in the city.”
Seeing that Liao Tao was about to get angry, Zhuang Jie put her arms around her shoulders and said, “Okay, this is a trivial matter. In the future, we will all live in the same building, and you will live in the house you like.”
“It’s strange to live with you.” Liao Tao pushed her and said, “Go take a walk for a bit, let me finish my work.”
Zhuang Jie went out to walk down the street. Her home is located in the center of Nanping Town, which is considered the most lively and prosperous location. Nanping Town governs 18 administrative villages and 26 natural villages, with a total population of about 190,000. There are pharmaceutical factories and large electric appliance factories in town. The town government also supports tourism, aquaculture and farming. The power of employment and taxation brought by a single listed company cannot be underestimated.
Despite this, the gap between rich and poor in the town is still huge. The first group of people in the town to get rich did so via dividends from the pharmaceutical factory and electrical appliance factory in the early years. When they invested in the construction, they became shareholders. Zhuang Jie’s family is not considered rich, but they were well-off.
In addition to the resort, the town also developed two food courts and an Internet celebrity, attracting wave after wave of other Internet celebrities to check in. There are mixed reviews on the Internet. Some applaud Nanping, others say that the town is now too commercialized, and is no longer the small town far away from the hustle and bustle.
Zhuang Jie turned around, bored. It was indeed a bit commercialized, but there is no such thing as “away from the hustle and bustle”. Only those who are always in the hustle and bustle can emphasize what it is to be “away from the hustle and bustle.”.
Suddenly a bit hungry and ready to go back, she turned around and saw a woman selling wonton stew on the street corner. She was busy cooking wonton stew for the diners, but the child next to her was crying while grabbing her clothes, asking her to buy a toy. The woman scolded him a few words, stretched out her hand and dragged him aside before serving wonton stew to the diners. She looked up at Zhuang Jie.
The woman was taken aback for a moment, then quickly turned her eyes away, trying to pretend not to recognize her.
On the way back, she sent a WeChat message to her friend, Wang Xixia, saying who she saw on the street, but that she had pretended not to recognize her. It was so subtle that she was at a loss for words.
They had been best friends in junior high, and she had still kept in touch with her all the way to university. She forgot about her when she didn’t contact her anymore, until she saw her. The two of them didn’t have any conflicts, they simply had nothing to talk about. The circle of acquaintances gradually changed, and so their relationship, naturally, grew further apart.
Wang Xixia responded that this had happened to her, as well. It doesn’t matter how good we got along with them. In their mind, if we stay in a big city, it means we are well off. She added that there were few students from our junior class that went to college. Who in the village actually produces a student that is able to go to college? Back then, most of the students went to work right after graduating from high school.
Now more than ten years have passed, and the classmates who graduated from high school are still working at the grassroots level. Since they have no college degree, they cannot get a better job. These days, there are waves upon waves of college graduates, and the development is too advanced. Those classmates would eventually be eliminated by society anyway..
Zhuang Jie agreed, even the batch of interns her company recruited recently all had a master’s degree or above, and she only took the master’s degree exam the year before last. She felt that this group of young people were too aggressive, and she was about to be overwhelmed.
Wang Xixia replied, saying that if she doesn’t get promoted before the age of thirty-five, her career will basically be useless. The company has dismissed several women over the age of 40 this year alone.
The two had a rare, sentimental chat about the fate of those students in the town who did not go to college. While chatting, they also talked about Chen Maidong. Zhuang Jie mentioned that she saw him today, and that he had changed so much that in the suit and leather shoes she almost didn’t recognize him.
Wang Xixia and Chen Maidong knew each other, so she knows more about him. She replied that during the year of the college entrance examination, he got into a fight with someone and hurt them. So, he was sent to the juvenile detention center for a year. After getting out, he wandered around here and there for another year. Eventually he went to Changsha to retake the exam and ended up studying in the funeral industry. He is a mortuary cosmetologist.
Zhuang Jie was dumbfounded, and asked her: A mortuary cosmetologist? He also went to juvenile detention?