Chapter 543: Gossip-Eating Life-Preserving System (42)

Raising funds to build public housing?

Xie Yang had never heard the factory leadership mention it.

"But I think this is a good thing."

She sipped some Moutai brewed in the seventies, squinted her eyes in happiness, and analyzed it eloquently:

"You only need to pay a portion of the construction costs, and the house will belong to you personally in the future; isn't that great? You don't have to worry about the unit taking the house back if you leave your job, and no matter how much housing prices rise in the future, it's all pure profit."

Gu Yu'an tilted his head to look at her, a smile spilling into his eyes: "Housing is tight at our bureau, and we also plan to follow this document to raise funds for construction. With you saying this, I might just go and apply."

Xie Yang rested her chin on her left hand, twirled her wine cup with her right, and looked at him with a smile: "Go ahead! Apply for a larger floor area."

Miao Lan added with a smile: "The public housing being built now is said to introduce foreign building designs. It's not the old kind of Tube Building anymore, but something called a Unit Building. Each unit has only two households per floor, and the layout of each unit is different. With Bureau Chief Gu's rank, applying for a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment is no problem. Our family would get two bedrooms and one living room at most."

Zheng Guangrong was probably a bit drunk, and he said with a chuckle: "It's fine. In the future, let Miao Miao find a public security officer as a partner so she can also live in a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment and have our son-in-law save a room for us."

"You're drunk, what kind of nonsense are you spouting!" Miao Lan said, amused and annoyed. "Aren't you afraid of people laughing if they hear you? Do you think every public security officer can be assigned a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment?"

Zheng Guangrong let out a drunken hiccup and chuckled: "Maybe they can! Our Miao Miao is so smart!"

Everyone looked simultaneously at the person in question—Zheng Miaomiao.

But they saw the young girl burying her head in gnawing on a braised bone, her cheeks bulging: "Dad, the braised bone you stewed today is just right, not too salty or too bland. I can still eat another bowl of rice."

"……"

……

Zheng Miaomiao went to the Women's Federation, and after becoming familiar with the position, she often followed the veteran staff out for mediation.

In less than a month, the gossip she had eaten was already more than everything she had heard and encountered in the entire year since she transmigrated, and her lifespan value was shooting up.

Zheng Miaomiao was tired but happy.

The Women's Federation was a good unit; the benefits in daily life were no less than those of ordinary government agencies, and they often distributed various items.

Every time they distributed good things, Zheng Miaomiao would send a portion to Xie Yang—peanut oil one month, large red dates the next. In the height of summer, she even pushed a crate of beer and a crate of soda back on her bicycle; she left the beer for her father and moved all the soda to the Xie Family.

Xie Yang was torn between laughter and tears: "Keep it and drink it slowly yourself, don't move it all to my place. My unit also distributes cold drinks."

Although the Mechanical Factory's benefits weren't as good as the Public Security Bureau or the Women's Federation, they were still decent. After summer began, they issued a Cold Drink Coupon. The coupon had thirty squares printed on it, meaning one could go to the store to collect thirty popsicles.

Families with young children had been looking forward to the Cold Drink Coupon for a long time. But the old and young in the Xie family couldn't eat such icy things, and Xie Yang and Gu Yu'an didn't have much interest in popsicles, so they simply gave the coupon to Zheng Miaomiao in exchange for the soda.

Zheng Miaomiao was overjoyed: "Then I'm the one who profited! I just love eating popsicles; soda isn't good if it's not iced."

Room-temperature soda really didn't taste as good as iced soda.

Their Dazayuan didn't have a well, and the tap water that came out in the summer was lukewarm. The water stored in the kitchen vat was a bit cooler, but there was still a huge gap compared to iced water.

Xie Yang couldn't help but think of the niter from the previous plane.

Niter and water could be used to make ice in a 1:2 ratio.

She didn't have much niter ore stockpiled, and what she did have were high-purity Niter Crystals after refinement, which was still enough to take some out to make ice.

So, while Gu Yu'an hadn't finished work yet, she tinkered with a few basins of ice in her room.

One basin was used to ice the soda, and two basins were placed in the two rooms for the family to cool off at night.

The outside of the basins was wrapped in old cotton batting; a large basin of ice wouldn't fully melt until the second half of the night.

With the ice cubes added to the oscillating fan, the air it blew was cool enough to make it easy for people to calm down and fall asleep.

The old and the young all slept soundly, and even Xiao Shitou slept until the sky was just beginning to brighten; when he woke up, his diaper was still dry.

The old lady held her grandson to help him pass a long stream of urine, then fed him a bottle of milk, and seeing him fall back into a deep sleep, she was so happy she couldn't close her mouth.

Gu Yu'an hadn't expected his partner to know about niter ice-making; he was surprised for a moment, then smiled and said he had found a treasure.

As for where the niter came from, he didn't ask; he knew it must have been scavenged from the black market.

He had seen this stuff when he was a child; the Munitions Factory where his parents worked had it. Every factory always had some thieving employees who would secretly pilfer public property to sell for personal gain.

The factory hadn't reported it stolen, so it wasn't easy for them to take the initiative to intervene; perhaps it was just waste being disposed of.

However, the black market side really needed to be strictly controlled. Food items were fine, but niter... a small amount was okay, but a large amount required attention.

Seeing him frown one moment and sink into thought the next, Xie Yang knew he was overthinking it.

But she had only taken out this small amount in total; three basins of ice were enough for her family to cool off. Once the ice melted, it could be dried and reused, and she wouldn't take out any more niter, so let him guess.

Later, she would find a way to buy a refrigerator, and in a few years when air conditioners hit the market, she would install one for the family so they wouldn't have to suffer so much in the summer.

……

Life moved forward at a steady pace.

On National Day, Xie Yang and Gu Yu'an held their wedding.

As for the marriage certificate, it had been taken by him to be registered back in mid-August, the day after Xie Yang's eighteenth birthday.

It was fortunate they registered early; if they had waited until National Day, the marriage age would have had to be executed according to the newly revised Marriage Law in September—the female side had to be at least twenty years old to register.

For this, Gu Yu'an was extremely relieved.

"Wife, it's fortunate your birthday is in early August. If it were early October, I would have had to sleep in an empty room for two more years."

Xie Yang rolled her eyes at him: "I don't believe you didn't hear any rumors."

Even she, a Technician at a Mechanical Factory, had heard some rumors in advance about the marriage registration age being pushed back; she didn't believe he hadn't received the news.

Gu Yu'an buried his face in the crook of her shoulder and chuckled deeply: "Don't expose the truth, wife."

"……"

After getting married, the two still ran to the Xie Family every day.

At their marital home, they only cooked one meal in the morning and came back to sleep at night.

When Gu Yu'an was on duty or away for meetings, Xie Yang would go back to live at her maiden home.

It was close anyway; one ride on a bicycle and she was back at her maiden home in minutes.

At most, Xie Old Lady felt a bit lonely and unaccustomed during the first few days of her granddaughter's marriage. Once the granddaughter and grandson-in-law's wedding leave ended, and they brought vegetables to her place to eat at noon and night, she felt there wasn't much difference from before, and this sense of discomfort quickly disappeared.

This made the neighbors in the Dazayuan very envious.

Especially Widow Guo; her household originally consisted only of mother and daughter, so if her daughter were to marry off, she would be left all alone at home, which felt desolate just to think about.

And so, even though Guo Lihua did not have a partner yet, she had already started to feel reluctant.

She thought that if it were like the Xie Family, finding a son-in-law who lived close by and could accompany her daughter back to her maiden home every day would truly be quite nice.