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Chapter 434
As Wanqing had imagined, when Pei Jing found out that his beloved daughter had returned home, he hurried back the very next day.
Su Ying was eager to move into her new home, so she urged Zhi Xia to hurry up with the renovations.
Although they didn't need to do any of the work themselves, they still had to decide ahead of time on how everything should be designed and decorated, and would have to drop by every now and then to supervise, for fear that something might go wrong.
An ZhiXian, on the other hand, was quite free and easy about it all. After settling on a decor style, he simply handed the house over to Zhi Xia while only occasionally stopping by himself to check on the progress of the construction work.
The original plan was to renovate all three houses at the same time, which was already very busy work. But then An Zhiren asked them to do his place up too so that it would be all ready for him to move into when he returned.
So the two ladies ended up becoming armchair supervisors while poor Zhi Xia raced around like crazy, wishing that she could magically split herself into several people at once to get everything done.
After staying home for five days, Pei Jing left again. The day after he departed, An Zhiqing arrived back home.
That very evening, An ZhiXian and Su Ying were both summoned over to the An family residence, but notably, Zhi Xia was not called.
She found this rather odd at the time. Under normal circumstances, when there were no conflicts, it would be strange for a family gathering to exclude her specifically.
Unless, that is, the An family had some private affairs that she didn't need to be involved in.
And indeed, later that night at half past eleven, Su Ying came knocking on their already closed front gate.
As soon as Zhi Xia opened the door, she heard Su Ying hastily say, "Zhi Xia, something big has happened in our family. My parents said they want to split up the family property. I guess big brother came back this time because of this whole thing..."
"But didn't they already divide things up a few years ago?" When grandfather was still alive a couple years back, the family assets and property had already been allocated. If anything was left undivided, it would have just been these two houses, which were co-owned family assets.
What Su Ying wanted to talk about was exactly this—the two family houses were also going to be split up now. One had been given to big brother and second brother, while the one she was currently living in would be jointly owned by her and third brother.
Furthermore, when they were leaving, third brother An ZhiXian said that his parents and grandparents wanted to live in this house. So he was thinking of buying out Su Ying's half of the property with his own money, after which the house would fully belong to him.
Naturally, Su Ying had no reason to disagree. Not only was An ZhiXian willing to buy out her family's share, but even if he didn't, when her in-laws said they wanted to live here, she definitely wouldn't object anyway.
Su Ying was simply excited for the news and eager to share it with Zhi Xia immediately.
After all, even though she hadn't voiced it aloud, as both daughter-in-laws, she was also unhappy with Liu Ling's long-term freeloading.
She and Zheng Suchun felt the same way—they believed Liu Ling had taken advantage of too many benefits, yet in the end still managed to push the blame onto others, which was quite unfair.
This splitting up of family property could also be considered a good thing. No matter who the house on the other side eventually went to, at least her in-laws would no longer show favouritism to Liu Ling anymore. Everyone would receive equal treatment, so Liu Ling shouldn't have anything to complain about losing out on, right?
Frankly put, some people were simply too greedy, always wanting to take all the benefits for themselves without considering if others agreed or not.
For the most part, Zhi Xia just listened as Su Ying chattered away. This was actually the first time she had seen her be so long-winded. It truly revealed how much simmering displeasure Su Ying held toward Liu Ling.
At the An family residence, Liu Ling asked An Zhiqing, "Why have you come back at this time? I was thinking of going over in a couple days when the kids are on summer vacation. That way I could take advantage of the time off. But with you suddenly returning now, haven't you wasted our precious vacation time?"
Every year when school was out, Liu Ling would go over, and An Zhiqing would schedule his leave to overlap with this period. That allowed them to maximize their time together as a family.
Rather than answering her question, An Zhiqing asked back, "What do you think about mom and dad's decision? Should we keep this house for our family, or give it to second brother instead?"
"Second brother isn't even in Jincheng. What use would he have for a house here? Besides, with you away, the kids and I still need a place of our own to live." Liu Ling didn't really want the family assets split up. But An Jingzhi had stated his stance very clearly. Now that their children were grown, they no longer needed someone to look after them like before. So Liu Ling couldn't refute his logic for dividing the family property either. She had wanted to coax her mother-in-law into letting her stay, but this time, An Jingzhi hadn't said a single conciliatory word to her. He had dominated the entire discussion with his sons instead.
An Jingzhi never consulted his daughters-in-law when making family decisions. He would talk directly to his sons and didn't give the daughters-in-law any chance to interrupt.
Only when it came to fourth brother not being present did he ask Su Ying if she had any objections after settling the arrangements. Naturally, Su Ying said she didn't.
"If that's the case, then let's take the house. I'll tell second brother that we're willing to buy out his share," said An Zhiqing.
Hesitantly, Liu Ling nodded before asking him, "Then how much money do you think is reasonable for us to offer?"
"I'll go out tomorrow to check real estate prices around here, then decide," replied An Zhiqing. "Right, how much money does our family currently have saved up?"
Ever since their marriage, other than keeping enough daily living expenses for himself every month, he would directly send the rest of his military stipend payments over to Liu Ling for safekeeping. The management of their family finances had always been in Liu Ling's hands too.
Upon hearing his question now, Liu Ling took out the bank passbook. "Added all together, there's about over 10 thousand Yuan. In the year before last, my second brother opened up a shop and borrowed 600 Yuan from me that hasn't been paid back yet."
Liu Ling had deposited all of An Zhiqing's stipend money. She also had her own income and had enough to cover daily expenses for herself and the children.
An Zhiqing told her to put the passbook away for now, since they wouldn't need to use that money yet.
As they were sleeping that night, Liu Ling weighed again and again in hesitation before finally speaking up, "Even if the house here now belongs to our family, is it really necessary for mom and grandma to move out immediately? The other side went to third and fourth brother, but you're still the eldest son. Shouldn't mom and dad live with us according to proper order and seniority customs? Otherwise, other people might say our family is unfilial."
Currently, her mother-in-law handled all the housework and cooking at home. Whenever Liu Ling got off work and returned, there would be a meal ready for her. Aside from the question of three meals a day, just keeping the huge residence clean and maintained would be a troublesome task without Zhou Nan's grandmother around.
"It's not like the olden days anymore where custom dictated that parents had to live with their eldest son for sure. And third brother is currently renovating his house at Lakeview Gardens into a detached property that mom and dad will have all to themselves. That's not so much them living with anyone, right?" said An Zhiqing.
Upon mention of Lakeview Gardens, Liu Ling finally asked the question she had been wondering about for a long time, "With ZhiXian only making 200-300 Yuan a month right now at the hospital, where is he suddenly getting 500 thousand Yuan to splash out? During the ancestral division of assets, didn't our family receive quite a large sum of money as well?"
She wanted to make clear just how much money the family precisely had—not that she intended to spend it recklessly.
But even a 5 million Yuan house was unbelievable to her. She truly couldn't understand how such an absurdly high price had come out.
The family's current house wasn't too shabby of a place. Although it hadn't been renovated into an apartment complex, the land and plot size were already quite spacious, with both front and back yards. In Liu Ling's opinion, at most the property would probably only be valued at 70-80 thousand. Only those who were too rich and had nothing better to spend money on would take out 500 thousand to buy a house, in her view.
Similarly, even though the commodity housing Zhi Xia sold publicly two years ago was perfectly fine and not exorbitantly priced, for some reason she still insisted on creating some luxury high-class district that, as Liu Ling speculated, probably had unsold units now. And her own brother-in-law had ended up buying into her sales target.
Su Ying was so close and intimate with Zhi Xia too. It wouldn't be surprising if the pair had privately gained some unfair advantages out of the situation. On top of that, with third brother having no wife yet and clearly favoring his little sister as well, even second brother and sister-in-law who weren't in Jincheng had decided they wanted to buy a house there. This was what truly astonished Liu Ling the most.
"If that's how you see it, then we just won't buy any new place. I only suggested it because I was afraid you'd feel inferior seeing everyone else move into nice houses while we remain living in an old home. But since you disagree, it works out for the better that we save the money," An Zhiqing sighed.
Only after hearing him say this did Liu Ling finally breathe out in relief. She continued with her probing, "Does our family really have 5 million or even more? Where have you hid it all away? We've been married for so many years now, and Wenqing is nearly old enough to get his own wife. Yet you're still guarding secrets from me like preventing against a thief! I never sensed you were this kind of person before—how did I not realize it earlier back when we first got married?"
Recalling how she had happily felt back then that she had married well when handing the money over to the new groom for safekeeping, Liu Ling now lamented at how wrongly she had judged.
Feelings at that time were given to oneself money, it was simply something that other person had looked down upon from the very beginning.
For this kind of probing words, Liu Ling had already tried to probe countless times, An Zhiqing's answer had always been the same every time.
There was some family property, it was given by the elders, not earned by themselves, and the money they earned was enough to spend, so there was no need to use those things. The things that grandfather had left behind with great pains should be well preserved and passed down to future generations even more.
Regarding not telling Liu Ling the specifics, An Zhiqing didn't feel there was any problem either.
Her mom had worked hard for this family for most of her life, and still didn’t know the specifics of the An family’s assets, only the things that grandma had given her belonged to her, it was still seeing her hard work for most of her life.
Liu Ling was not someone who could keep things safe, An Zhiqing had to admit that her maternal uncle and aunt were both good people, but no matter how good one was, not everything could be shared.
She felt close and shared her things casually, including the little snacks her sister-in-law had made for Wen Qing’s siblings before.
An Zhiqing had benefited, so she knew how extraordinary those things were, and she also understood why Zhi Xia was later unwilling to give them to her.
It was only natural for the aunt to cherish her nephew, but at the very least she should be able to distinguish what should be given and what should not be given.
She could give her own things to them, even if she bought them with money to give to them, but the An family’s things could not be gifted casually. The things her sister-in-law made were for her own maternal nephews, not for outsiders to enjoy.
Regarding those two hairpins, An Zhiqing had already told Liu Ling, but it was not right to ask for things back once they had been given away.
Moreover, she had stubbornly said at that time, "It's just two hairpins. He is my cousin who was so nice to me before. I have quite a few of them. These things are not valuable now. What's wrong with giving them two?"
Fortunately, she didn't give them anything else afterwards, so An Zhiqing had nothing to say.
It was he who gave those things to her, at first it was to coax her to be happy. She didn't even feel heartache when she gave them away, if he said more it would only make him look petty.
It was just that there were only those few pieces of jewelry that he could give her. An Zhiqing was still not generous enough to share family property. Even real brothers could not do that.
On the day they divided the family property, the four of them agreed that money matters should be separated, so as not to affect the feelings between the brothers, let alone the second uncle.
Liu Ling thought that they could at least wait until Su Ying moved out before they could move in. Unexpectedly, they started packing up the next day, saying they wanted to move over there first to get familiar with the environment, and to give everyone some time to adapt.
After discussing with An Zhiren, An Zhiqing asked Liu Ling for 4,000 yuan when she came back. This house now completely belonged to them.
Zhi Xia was supervising the construction at Lake Blue Elegant Residence. The whole scene was messy, with dust flying everywhere. Wanqing quickly put on her mask.
Zhi Xia laughed at her, "I told you not to come but you insisted. Now you can't stand it, can you?"
She had to come because the flooring, wires and water pipes used for the renovation were all from her dimensional space. The wires also had to be laid in the walls according to her requirements. The renovation workers nowadays still didn’t quite understand, so she had to supervise the construction every day.
In case something went wrong, it would take more effort to fix it after people had moved in.
"It's just too dusty, my nose is ticklish." Wanqing complained, "Mom, you stay here to keep an eye on things, I'm going somewhere else."
Apart from the messy renovation, the environment outside was still very good. The landscaping and facilities were very well done. There was even a small park near the shaded area, with slides and the like, something Wanqing had only seen abroad before, quite rare in China.
She had to say, her mom did have business acumen. After a trip abroad, she copied everything foreigners had for children to play with.
No, it should be said to be even better, whether it was facilities or ideas.
An Zhiqing met Wanqing outside and followed her directions to find Zhi Xia.
"Eldest brother, why did you come? I was just saying that after I finish up here, I will go see you. We were working on the electricity at noon. I have to keep an eye on things here, I really can’t get away," Zhi Xia explained.
"Let's not beat around the bush, you see me as me seeing you right?" An Zhiqing had indeed found his way here from her house. He praised, "This house looks good. It's tightly enclosed outside, burglars can't get in either. It's good that you thought of it. How about it? Do you have any vacancies?"
Zhi Xia's eyes flickered slightly, "Why is eldest brother asking about this?"
It shouldn’t be what she was thinking, right? Her sister-in-law probably wouldn’t agree either.
Although there was no obvious fallout on the surface, she had been feeling indifferent from them these two years. Zhi Xia was not unaware.
"What do you mean why? You guys talked it over to live together. Don't tell me you want to exclude your big brother me?" An Zhiqing deliberately asked her with a smile.
"No way. I was originally only thinking of moving out myself. As you know, Chenye and the others are all grown up now, and it’s too crowded at home. Then sister-in-law four said she wanted to as well. Later, third brother also told second brother..."
"Alright, alright, I was just joking with you. Eldest brother knows you. But just now when I was outside looking around, this place is indeed good. Anyway, you want to sell them. Why not sell me a property too? When we siblings get old in the future, we can come back and live together again for convenience to visit each other. " An Zhiqing said.
"That's what sister-in-law four said too." Zhi Xia figured it out instantly. This house was probably bought secretly without telling her sister-in-law.
She reckoned that given the current relationship between them, who knows what her sister-in-law might be thinking, maybe she thought she was trying to cheat them out of money.
When the houses start selling after a while, they will know. The price she charged them was definitely the lowest. These houses sold to others would be at least 100,000 to 200,000 more per property.
After all, the costs were all factored in here. The landscaping here was different from other places. The trees and flowers all had the effect of refreshing spirit. Just breathing a few breaths of fresh air after entering the community, one would feel carefree and happy. Living here long-term would also be good for health.
Of course, all these things were thanks to the interplanar trading device. Ordinary rich people would not be able to buy them even if they had money.
After An Zhiqing decided on the house, he handed over the interior design to Zhi Xia. After all, Liu Ling didn't know. He could stay at home for half a month at most before leaving.
She probably wouldn't have to do anything for half a year. Just the renovation alone would take up all her time.
Fortunately, only she needed to put in a bit more effort. Once the master workers over there had finished, they would also know how to do it, so she wouldn't need to supervise so closely anymore.