Siheyuan: Starting from 1958

Two of the three Yan brothers were sentenced to prison.

Bang Geng, nicknamed "the devil in the world" by the middle-aged man, was also sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

After those few rat droppings were gone, the courtyard became unusually peaceful.

Yan Fugui and Liu Haizhong, who used to put on airs in the courtyard, have become more low-key because of this incident.

After Banggeng and Kuihua stopped earning money outside, the Jia family's source of income suddenly dried up.

To make ends meet, Qin Huairu, who hadn't worked for many years, had to find a job washing dishes, earning a meager salary of thirty or forty yuan a month through hard work.

In order to make up for his pension deficit and to prove to Qin Huairu that his pension had really been emptied by the gang, Yi Zhonghai, despite being past retirement age, still found a job sweeping the streets and went to work before dawn every day.

The salary was pitifully low, less than thirty yuan.

But for Yi Zhonghai, this salary is enough.

I can use more than ten yuan as my monthly living expenses, and save ten yuan to retire when I can no longer work.

Qin Huairu originally planned to force Yi Zhonghai to hand over the house by offering him a retirement home, or at least to hand over the property certificate to her for safekeeping, otherwise she would not provide him with food in the future.

Unexpectedly, Yi Zhonghai had the courage to endure the ridicule and sarcasm of his neighbors and go outside to sweep the streets.

Although the monthly salary is not high, it is definitely enough to cover Qin Huairu's living expenses.

Under these circumstances, no matter how envious Qin Huairu is of the house she currently lives in, she has no reason to force Yi Zhonghai to hand it over immediately.

Seeing that even the once-proud Yi Zhonghai could swallow his pride and go out to sweep the streets to earn money, Yan Fugui, who was also burdened with a mountain of debt, couldn't stay idle either.

But as a former teacher, he still felt it was too shameful to go out and sweep the streets, because he might run into his former students one day at work.

So every day he would leave early and return late, going to distant streets to pick up trash.

Although it doesn't earn much, it still adds up to more than ten yuan a month.

Liu Haizhong in the backyard wasn't idle either. Through some unknown channel, he found a consulting job at the Fourth Battalion Factory outside, earning more than thirty yuan a month, which was enough for the couple to live on in the courtyard.

Faced with such an outcome, Old Wang from the front yard was overjoyed.

According to the loan and mortgage agreement he signed with Banggeng, if Banggeng cannot repay him 1,700 yuan by the end of the year, the house that the Jia family is currently living in will be transferred to him, so that his eldest son will have a house for his wedding.

Therefore, the eldest brother specially spent half a month's salary to buy a large number of gifts for Wang Dong as a token of gratitude.

If Wang Dong hadn't supported them in lending money to the Jia family and had the Jia family use their house as collateral under the witness of the neighborhood committee, the Wang family would never have gotten such a great deal.

When Banggeng borrowed money last year, the Jia family's house was worth 1,700 or 1,800 yuan.

Since it's a mortgage loan, it definitely can't be calculated based on the actual price of the house.

So they lent the Jia family 1,500 yuan.

Now, more than half a year has passed, and the value of Jia's house has skyrocketed to more than 2,300 yuan.

Based on the current price increase, the price of stones could easily rise to 2,500 yuan by the end of the year.

This means that Old Wang's family bought a house worth 2,500 yuan for 1,500 yuan, saving a full 1,000 yuan.

With such a huge windfall falling into the Wang family's lap, it was hard for them not to be overjoyed. As for whether Qin Huairu could scrape together 1,700 yuan to repay him by the end of the year, Old Wang didn't even hesitate and gave a direct negative answer.

Although Qin Huairu earns money washing dishes outside, earning more than thirty yuan a month, she still has to support herself and Jia Zhangshi.

Including the fifteen yuan living expenses that Yi Zhonghai gave him each month, the total was only about fifty yuan.

Given the current prices in Beijing, no matter how frugal Qin Huairu is, she will still spend thirty yuan a month on food, leaving her with at most twenty yuan to save.

With only five or six months left until the end of the year, Qin Huairu can at most save a little over a hundred yuan.

The 1,500 yuan that Banggeng borrowed was like a drop in the ocean.

Therefore, no matter what method Qin Huairu uses, he cannot earn 1,500 yuan before the end of the year. At the latest, there will be six months before the east wing of the central courtyard where the Jia family is currently living will belong to the Wang family.

But Qin Huairu and Jia Zhangshi didn't think of this at the moment, since they weren't present when Banggeng went to borrow money from Old Wang in the front yard with the property certificate.

…………

Because Yan's third son only had a high school education, he found a job with a monthly salary of sixty yuan in less than half a month after being released from the detention center.

According to the agreement made with Yan Fugui before his release from prison, after he started working, he would hand over all of his monthly salary to Yan Fugui, and only after he had saved enough to mortgage the house could he save money for himself.

Later, Yan Jiekuang calculated it carefully and found that it was simply impossible.

In order to raise the fine, Yan Fugui not only mortgaged his house to borrow 1,600 yuan, but also borrowed 200-300 yuan from his neighbors to compensate his sister-in-law.

With interest included, the total amount to be repaid within two years is approximately 2,200 yuan.

My current monthly salary is sixty yuan, my father's monthly pension is more than twenty yuan, and I can earn more than ten yuan by picking up garbage and collecting recyclables outside. All together, it's exactly one hundred yuan.

If they didn't eat or drink, they could indeed save more than two thousand yuan in two years, pay off all their debts, and incidentally save the house that the Yan family is currently living in.

But a family can't go without food and water.

Given the current prices in Beijing, even if three people are very frugal, they would still spend seven or eight hundred yuan on food over two years.

If anyone gets sick again in the next two years, going to the hospital for medicine will cost at least a thousand yuan.

In this way, after two years, the whole family can save up at most 1,400 or 1,500 yuan, which is still at least 700 yuan short of paying off the debt.

With housing prices in Beijing rising higher and higher, the house the Yan family lives in is also increasing in value. Wang Dong will definitely take the opportunity to take the house when the time comes.

When that time comes, Yan Jiekuang will not only lose everything, but he will even lose his house.

All the money he had worked hard to earn over two years ended up in Yan Fugui's hands.

Given Yan Fugui's stingy nature, getting the money back once it's in his hands is as difficult as climbing to the sky.

If you have no money and no house, you won't be able to find a wife in the future, and even dating will become a luxury.

At that time, his entire life would be controlled by his father, Yan Fugui.

Yan Fugui was a shrewd strategist, and his third brother, Yan Jiekuang, had lived with him the longest. Influenced by him, he too had become a calculating person and certainly didn't want his later years to be controlled by Yan Fugui, dictated to his every whim without any autonomy. (End of Chapter)