Chapter Eleven: Household Registration

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The two sisters stared at each other in disbelief for a long, long while.

Only after everyone else in the household had left did they finally feel at ease enough to begin discussing the matter.

An Songxiang lowered her voice and asked, “Sis, what are you going to do about transferring your household registration?”

“I’ll have to ask the school first,” An Songyu replied. She was not entirely sure herself.

After all, in her previous life, she had hardly ever concerned herself with such matters.

After graduating, she had followed the school’s two-way selection policy and gone straight to a large hotel in South City, starting out as a front-desk attendant.

The following year, she would start a small household with her husband in South City.

As for Shuncheng’s development over the next ten or twenty years, An Songyu did not know the details particularly well.

The demolition and relocation of Jiang Village was the turning point that would affect the fate of their entire extended family.

If not for that, even if An Songyu had been given another chance at life, she still could not have been completely certain of the exact date when the demolition would take place.

“Then you have to hurry!” An Songxiang urged her.

She had already guessed a little of what their father was thinking.

But no matter what, if Jiang Village was destined for demolition, the two sisters could each receive an additional relocation payment simply because their household registrations were still recorded in the village.

Since it was a chance to gain an advantage, An Songxiang certainly did not want to miss it.

An Songyu felt much the same way as her younger sister.

She nodded quickly. “When I get back, I’ll speak to Sister Xia and ask her to schedule my nearest possible day off.”

“Preferably tomorrow… Then we can take care of both our household registrations at the same time.” An Songxiang was filled with anticipation.

Yet she was even more afraid that something might go wrong.

After all, their father had clearly come to notify them without letting their mother know.

If they took too many days off to handle the household-registration matter, their mother might find out.

Given Bi Lizhu’s temperament, this was not a case of taking something that belonged to her son and giving it to her daughters. She ought to fight fiercely for her daughters’ interests as well.

But circumstances were unusual now, and the sisters did not dare to attract her attention at a time like this.

No matter how anxious they were, they would have to wait until An Songyu went to work that afternoon before they could deal with the matter.

So the two of them simply locked the door and left the house.

Although they could not inquire directly about the demolition, there was no harm in keeping an eye on other related developments.

While the sisters went about their separate business, An Jianping and the other two also arrived at Jiang Village.

After getting off the bus at the entrance to Jiang Village, An Jianping looked at his son and asked, “Songlin, Xiaoxuan, I need to go to the village chief’s house first. Are you coming with me, or would you rather look around somewhere else?”

An Songlin and his wife exchanged a glance and refused in unison.

“Dad/Uncle, we’d like to look around on our own first.”

An Jianping was not surprised. After nodding to them, he headed straight for the village committee office.

He had indeed come to Jiang Village today to take care of an important matter.

The village committee office stood not far from the village entrance, in a two-story building that had clearly been there for some time.

An Jianping knocked on the innermost office on the second floor.

Jiang Wenlin, the village chief, had already been waiting inside. He raised his head, and the moment he saw An Jianping, he called out warmly, “Jianping, you’re here! Come in and sit down!”

“Uncle Lin!” An Jianping greeted him politely in return.

After the two men had taken their seats and tea had been served, Jiang Wenlin finally pondered for a moment before asking, “Jianping, I seemed to hear your elder brother say that you were planning to give up the two homestead plots your family has in the village?”

An Jianping shook his head, looking somewhat embarrassed.

“Uncle Lin, I’m not thinking that way anymore. It was just that… I was in a bit of a panic at the time, so the thought occurred to me.”

Jiang Wenlin visibly relaxed and said with great solemnity, “Jianping, if we’re being honest, our two families are hardly strangers.”

“If your family truly needs money urgently, just come back to the village and say so.”

“After all, over the years, which family in the village hasn’t received your help?”

“I believe that as long as you’re willing to ask, we may not be able to give you a great deal, but every family could still scrape together a thousand or two for you.”

“No need, no need!” An Jianping hurriedly waved both hands.

After thinking for a moment, he took the opportunity to sound him out.

“By the way, Uncle Lin, I heard that quite a few of the village’s fishponds, mulberry fields, flower fields, and the like haven’t been contracted out?”

Jiang Wenlin gave An Jianping a helpless look.

He assumed that An Jianping was reluctant to mention his shortage of money and had casually brought up another topic to change the subject.

Still, this was something that virtually everyone who lived in the village knew about, so Jiang Wenlin followed An Jianping’s lead and began explaining.

“There are indeed quite a few fishponds, mulberry fields, flower fields, and the like that haven’t been contracted out.”

“But the locations that remain uncontracted aren’t particularly good.”

“You spend most of your time in the city, Jianping, so you may not know what the village is like these days.”

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“These days, most people in the village are running farm stays or specialty-picking businesses. To entertain their guests more conveniently, even those who already have land of their own would rather contract plots closer to the village entrance.”

“After all, transportation is more convenient there, and it’s easier to receive visitors.”

Before the household-contracting system was introduced, Jiang Village had become a prosperous and well-known village in the surrounding area through mulberry cultivation, silkworm raising, and cocoon harvesting.

After An Jianping graduated from vocational secondary school and was retained by the city’s silk mill because of his outstanding grades, the cocoons from Jiang Village could be supplied directly to the factory.

As a result, Jiang Village devoted even greater effort to developing its mulberry-dike fishpond system.

That system remained unchanged even after the household-contracting system was introduced.

When the village distributed its land, it adopted two different approaches.

Land suitable for growing grain and vegetables was divided directly among the individual households.

The other category consisted of low-lying areas, wasteland, and similar plots that had originally been unsuitable for cultivation. These were comprehensively developed into mulberry-dike fishponds.

Each household still supplied labor, while the land was managed collectively.

That was why the area of land belonging to the village collective had always been considerable.

Later, Jiang Village found a better direction for development, but most of the mulberry-dike fishponds remained untouched.

The land distributed to individual households, however, was gradually transformed into flower fields and orchards.

Then farm stays began to flourish.

The households in the village were already too busy to manage everything they had.

The mulberry-dike fishponds, flower fields, and other holdings that had once led the entire village toward prosperity gradually fell into disuse.

For the past two years, the village cadres had been constantly trying to find ways to put those increasingly neglected lands back to use.

But the mulberry-dike fishponds, which had been reshaped according to the terrain, were truly unsuitable for conversion into vegetable plots, orchards, or the like.

The abandoned flower fields were also located quite far from the village.

Even with the village cadres taking the lead and contracting the land themselves, it had been difficult to change the situation.

As Jiang Wenlin thought about it, he could not help sighing.

An Jianping had known something about the village’s circumstances already.

What he had not known was the attitude of the village cadres.

Now, seeing Jiang Wenlin’s expression, a certain idea in his heart began stirring once more.