Zhao Xiaojuan indeed chimed in from time to time, but she was tongue-tied and couldn’t speak well, only managing an "um" or an "ah".
The old lady, listening, always felt that she was just humoring her.
The men didn’t like to talk about these trivial family matters, the girls were afraid of her and didn’t dare to join the conversation, and the boys were still savoring the noon meal.
Jiang Dashan had drunk a few too many glasses of wine and was now experiencing a headache, the nagging of his old wife only made it worse, "Ah, enough, stop your nagging, it’s bought, we can’t return it."
"Can’t I even complain a little?!" Zhang Guihua glared at him, but in the end, she shut her mouth, though her chest began to ache from the frustration.
As they entered the village, the villagers who had just finished their dinner and were out for a stroll, saw them returning and curiously gathered to ask questions.
"Auntie, how’s Brother Changhai’s new house? Is it big? Is it stylish?"
"Why didn’t you stay overnight in the city?"
Surrounded by so many people, Zhang Guihua’s previously depressed mood instantly lifted.
She began to boast with a beaming smile, "If it wasn’t for the work in the village tomorrow, I really would have stayed there. Oh, let me tell you, Changhai’s house, it’s really something. It’s not one of those small mud houses but a stand-alone house with blue bricks and large tiles. I heard it was where the nobility used to live. The rooms are spacious, clean, and even the toilet is inside, no need to go outside in the freezing cold."
"Really? Having a stand-alone house? That must have cost quite a bit, right?"
"A toilet inside the house? Doesn’t that stink? Doesn’t it attract flies?"
The villagers asked with a babble of voices.
"Exactly, that house was so expensive, it cost more than a thousand yuan. Their toilet is flushed with water, spotlessly clean, not a single smell, cleaner than your kitchens," Zhang Guihua exaggeratedly said.
The villagers were stunned by her description, all green with envy.
"Sigh, now that Brother Changhai has bought a house in town, he will really be a city person in the future, truly enviable."
"Yes, I’ve heard that not just anyone can buy a house in the city; it seems you need a city hukou to buy one. Aunt Guihua, how did Brother Changhai’s hukou issue get handled?"
Everyone knows that town houses aren’t something you can just buy with a bit of money; you need a city hukou to purchase one.
Even if you’re lucky enough to find a city relative to help shift your hukou, without finding a job in the city, and no land to farm, you’d starve sooner or later.
Zhang Guihua smiled proudly: "Otherwise, why would people say that the transport factory has good benefits? When Changhai went to work at the transport factory, they moved his hukou directly to the city."
"I always said my Changhai had a bright future, he was never meant to earn his keep by just brute labor, just watch, doesn’t it prove I was right?"
"Indeed, Brother Changhai never liked working in the fields, not because he was lazy on purpose, but because he wasn’t physically strong enough for such labor, but he’s smart, which means he’s meant to be a city worker."The villagers, now aware that Jiang Changhai had bought a house in the city and would become a legitimate city resident, completely altered their perception of him from a good-for-nothing loafer to a promising young man on the rise.
Sun Lixia, now hearing all this praise, no longer found it grating as before.
The main house now stood too high for her to be jealous, she had become numb to it.
Jiang Changtao had resigned himself to his fate as well.
Now, the gap between him and Eldest was too vast; he felt he would never reach Eldest’s current level in his lifetime, leaving him with nothing but admiration and longing.