Chapter 417: Ninety's Contrast System (20)

Spring warms, flowers bloom, and magpies build their nests.

"Oh my, the old saying goes well: when a magpie calls at the door, good news is coming! Our Zhou Family Village is about to welcome a massive piece of good news."

"What good news, Third Great-Uncle?"

"You'd never guess it, but our village is going to be relocated in its entirety!"

"Whoa! Really? When did this happen? Third Great-Uncle, don't you go pulling our legs!"

"Hahaha! Who has the time to pull your legs, you bunch of brats? This is absolutely true! My youngest son just got back from a meeting in town, and he'll be calling a village-wide meeting in a little while."

"!!!"

The old and young of Zhou Family Village ran about excitedly to spread the news.

"Relocation! Our village is going to be relocated in its entirety!"

"Just like that village south of the city?"

"Exactly, and our village has fewer people and more land than that village south of the city; each family will only get more, not less!"

"Hahahaha! We're rich, we're rich now!"

Zhou Tiehan learned of this news an hour earlier than Third Great-Uncle.

After all, he was the former Brigade Leader, and the current Brigade Leader was someone he had recommended back in the day; any internal news would be shared with him first.

Having received the good news, Zhou Tiehan quickly gathered his whole family together, tapped his pipe, and gave the younger generation a warning:

"Relocation is a major event. It's not just a major event for our family, but for our village as well. Before it is fully implemented, no one is allowed to mess around. Even if the compensation isn't as much as we imagined, you are not allowed to follow the crowd and stir up trouble.

The relocation of the entire Zhou Family Village is a plan by the city; in the future, the city's largest industrial park is to be built here. The relocation standards weren't decided privately either; they follow the provincial documents, and they won't be changed just because you make a scene.

If they get annoyed by the fuss, the government will simply change the blueprints and go relocate another village. By then, you won't even have a place to cry."

"Dad, you can rest one hundred and twenty percent assured! We're too happy about the whole-village relocation to be anything else; who would be stupid enough to make trouble?" Zhou Anguo took the lead in stating his position.

The others all nodded in unison, indicating that they would listen to the village Cadre's instructions and would never bring shame to the village.

Zhou Tiehan nodded, then glanced at Xie Yang and instructed his son and daughter-in-law: "On the household registration for those three old rooms, only Yang Yang is listed right now. When the relocation comes, no one is to be jealous of what belongs to her."

"Dad, look at what you're saying. Don't we have our own houses and land?"

"Exactly, Dad. We have our own houses and land. According to the compensation standards of that village south of the city, each of our families can get several houses. Who would be jealous of those three little Cabins of Yang Yang's?"

"It's the younger sister-in-law on the other side... Dad, do you plan to tell her? But when she moved her household registration away before the New Year, she didn't say a word to us. Even on the second day of the New Year, she just brought her husband for a hurried visit and left. She didn't reveal a single word about the He Wan Village relocation news."

Zhou Tiehan still held a grudge against his daughter and son-in-law, and he said without hesitation: "No need to tell her. Since she moved her household registration to He Wan Village, she is a person of He Wan Village. If she doesn't cherish her own biological daughter and chooses to cherish someone with no blood relation, then any suffering she faces later is of her own seeking."

Xie Yang was very satisfied with the old man's stance.

She had said it herself: someone who could become a Brigade Leader and still be respected by the village Cadres after stepping down could not possibly be muddled.

Soon, the Zhou Family Village committee gathered the villagers at the Threshing Floor for the village meeting with the highest attendance ever.

They officially announced the good news of the relocation and published the relocation compensation standards.

Seeing the villagers looking ecstatic one by one, the village Cadre solemnly reminded everyone:

"... Before it is fully implemented, I hope everyone can keep it confidential and not take the initiative to tell people from other villages. If they learn about it through other channels and come to ask our villagers, don't say too much, so as not to arouse jealousy from other villages. If trouble starts because of this, it's hard to say whether this good thing will still fall to our village."

Because of these words, those wives who had married into Zhou Family Village, who had originally wanted to return to their maiden homes to share the good news, immediately changed their minds; it wouldn't be too late to return to their maiden homes to share the news once the relocation compensation had arrived.

As a result, Zhou Ru was completely unaware of the Zhou Family Village relocation.

By the time she heard about it, the relocation of Zhou Family Village had already come to an end.

"What!!! My maiden home was relocated?"

Zhou Ru simply couldn't believe her ears.

"When did this happen? How come I didn't know? I even went back to my maiden home on the second day of the New Year; no one said anything to me."

And such an important matter, even if it happened after the second day of the New Year, they should have told her.

Zhu Meijiao was washing her hair under the eaves.

The toilet and bathtub bathroom she had been longing for hadn't been renovated yet, so when she came back on the weekend to wash her hair, she had to continue bending her waist and squatting on a square stool to do it.

Hearing Zhou Ru chatting at the courtyard gate with an acquaintance who had come to visit relatives in He Wan Village, the sourness in her heart turned into bubbles.

What?

Zhou Family Village was also relocated in its entirety?

Wouldn't that just be a bargain for Xie Yang?

She alone would enjoy the relocation compensation for three little dilapidated rooms?

She shouldn't have let her stepmother move her household registration to He Wan Village.

There had been no movement on the He Wan Village relocation yet; when would it finally start?

It was already the end of May.

Waiting until one's heart was scorched.

But the news of the relocation was true at least; she didn't think that person who looked like a Cadre was lying, it was merely a matter of time.

The Female Supporting Character Contrast System's constantly shrinking Comparison Value Energy Progress Bar was what made her the most frantic.

After Xie Yang moved back to the old house in Zhou Family Village, she thought the progress bar would rise a bit.

After all, she had seen that little dilapidated house when she was in elementary school and had even stayed there for a night. It was already broken beyond recognition back then, with ants, centipedes, stink bugs, and cockroaches crawling out of the floor cracks from time to time, and she heard there were even rats and snakes.

The wall plaster would fall off in clumps if you touched it.

The roof leaked; you could see the sky on sunny days, and it dripped incessantly on rainy days.

In such an environment, it didn't constitute a contrast? The progress bar didn't rise, but instead shrank every day; was it broken?

At this rate of shrinkage, it wouldn't be long before it fell back to the initial value of 0.

Could it be that she really needed to change the Task target?

Zhu Meijiao was both worried and annoyed.

Zhou Ru was no less so.

Upon learning that her maiden home was being demolished, Xie Yang no longer cared about washing clothes or scrubbing shoes for her stepdaughter; she grabbed her handbag and hurried to Zhou Family Village.

Every household in Zhou Family Village had been allocated several apartments, and everyone was grinning from ear to ear.

However, it would take a year or two for the Relocation Housing to be handed over; during this period, they either moved into transitional housing arranged by the government or took a subsidy to rent a place themselves.

Xie Yang chose to rent a place herself, and her reasons were already prepared:

"I want to rent a place near the city hospital. The doctor at the county hospital told me there is a specialist at the city hospital who treats my type of illness. I want to register for her clinic, and living there will make follow-up visits convenient."

Although Zhou Tiehan was worried about her, a young woman, going alone to rent a place in an unfamiliar city, he thought of how she had kept her illness hidden from the two old folks and sighed, saying:

"Alright then, I'll have your uncle accompany you to look for a place; find one close to the hospital with convenient transportation."

Thus, by the time Zhou Ru rushed to her maiden home, Xie Yang had already boarded the train to the city with her uncle.