Chapter 11: Household Registration

In the room, the two sisters stared at each other in disbelief for a long, long time.

Only after seeing that the rest of the family had left did they feel safe enough to begin their discussion.

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

"I'll have to ask the school first to find out," An Songyu replied, not being entirely sure herself.

After all, in her previous life, she had hardly ever worried about such matters.

After graduating from school, she had followed the school's placement policy and started working as a front desk clerk at a large hotel in Nanshi.

And by next year, she was set to start a small family with her husband in Nanshi.

To be honest, An Songyu's knowledge regarding the development of Shuncheng over the next one or two decades was not particularly detailed.

The only thing was the demolition of Jiang Village, which was the turning point involving the fate of their entire extended family.

Otherwise, even if An Songyu were starting over, she could not be entirely certain of the exact timing of the demolition.

"Then you have to go handle it quickly!" An Songxiang urged.

She had some suspicions regarding their father's intentions.

But regardless, if Jiang Village was destined to be demolished, the two sisters would each be entitled to an extra resettlement fee simply by having their household registrations in the village.

This was a matter of gaining an advantage, and An Songxiang certainly did not want to miss it.

An Songyu's thoughts were no different from her younger sister's.

She nodded quickly. "As soon as I get back, I'll talk to Sister Xia and ask her to try and schedule my time off as soon as possible."

"Ideally tomorrow... that way, we can handle both of our registrations together," An Songxiang said, feeling a sense of anticipation.

Yet, she was also more afraid of something going wrong.

After all, their father had clearly bypassed their mother to notify them.

If they took too much leave just to handle their household registrations, their mother might find out.

Given Bi Lizhu's temperament, if this weren't about dividing her son's interests among her daughters, she would likely fight hard to secure benefits for them.

But since this was a special situation, the sisters didn't dare to catch her eye at a time like this.

No matter how anxious they were, this matter had to wait until An Songyu went to work in the afternoon.

Thus, the two simply locked the door and left the house.

Although they couldn't go around asking about the demolition news, they could still keep an eye on other related information.

While the two sisters were busy with their own tasks, An Jianping and the other two had arrived at Jiang Village.

After getting off the bus at the entrance of the village, An Jianping looked at his son and asked

"Songlin, Xiao Xuan, I need to stop by the Captain's house first. Do you want to come with me, or go somewhere else first?"

An Songlin and his fiancée exchanged a glance and declined in unison

"Dad/Uncle, we want to just look around first!"

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

He indeed had official business to handle in Jiang Village today.

The village committee was located not far from the village entrance, in a two-story small building that showed its age.

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

Jiang Wenlin, the village captain who had been waiting inside, looked up.

Upon seeing An Jianping, he immediately greeted him, "Jianping, you've arrived! Come in and sit!"

"Uncle Lin!" An Jianping greeted him politely.

After they both sat down and tea was brewed, Jiang Wenlin pondered for a moment before asking

"Jianping, I think I heard your brother say that you were planning to give up both of the village's residential plots?"

An Jianping shook his head, looking somewhat embarrassed

"Uncle Lin, I don't have that intention anymore. It was just... I was a bit desperate at the time, so that's what crossed my mind."

Jiang Wenlin breathed a slight sigh of relief and said with great earnestness

"Jianping, our two families aren't exactly strangers."

"If your family truly has an urgent need for money, just come back to the village and say so."

"After all, in recent years, which family in this village hasn't received help from you?"

"I believe as long as you are willing to speak up, we might not have much, but we can certainly scrape together a thousand or two per family for you."

"No, no need, no need!" An Jianping waved his hands dismissively.

After a moment's thought, he decided to take this opportunity to ask tentatively

"By the way, Uncle Lin, I heard that there are many fish ponds, mulberry fields, and flower fields in the village that haven't been contracted out?"

Jiang Wenlin gave An Jianping a helpless look.

He thought An Jianping was simply using a random topic to change the subject because he was unwilling to mention his lack of money.

However, this was something that almost everyone in the village knew for a long time.

So, Jiang Wenlin followed the thread of An Jianping's question

"It's true that there are still many fish ponds, mulberry fields, and flower fields that haven't been contracted out."

"However, the locations that haven't been contracted are not particularly good."

"Jianping, you spend most of your time in the city, so you might not know the current situation in the village."

"Nowadays, most people in the village are running agritainment businesses or specialty picking farms. To better host guests, even those who own their own land prefer to contract plots closer to the village entrance."

"After all, those locations have more convenient transportation and make it easier to host guests."

Before the implementation of the household responsibility system, Jiang Village had become a fairly famous wealthy village in the vicinity due to its mulberry cultivation and silkworm rearing.

After An Jianping graduated from technical school and was retained at the city's silk weaving factory with excellent grades, the silkworm cocoons from Jiang Village could be supplied directly to the factory.

Consequently, Jiang Village even more vigorously developed the mulberry-fish pond model.

This model remained unchanged even after the implementation of the household responsibility system.

However, when the land was distributed at that time, two models were adopted.

One type, suitable for growing grain and vegetables, was distributed directly to individual households.

The other type involved the complete development of low-lying and wasteland areas that were unsuitable for crops into mulberry-fish ponds.

These were managed collectively by providing labor from various households.

Therefore, the amount of land belonging to the village collective in Jiang Village had always been quite large.

Later, as Jiang Village found better directions for development, most of the mulberry-fish ponds remained untouched.

However, the land allocated to individual households turned into patches of flower fields and orchards.

Now, with the rise of agritainment, every household in the village is overwhelmed with work.

The mulberry-fish ponds and flower fields that had originally led the entire village to prosperity had gradually fallen into disuse.

In the last two years, the village cadres had been trying to find ways to repurpose this gradually abandoned land.

However, those mulberry-fish ponds, which were modified due to the terrain, were truly not suitable to be converted into vegetable plots or orchards.

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

Even if the village cadres took the lead in contracting them, it was difficult to change the current situation in the village.

Thinking of this, Jiang Wenlin couldn't help but sigh.

An Jianping originally knew some of the village's circumstances, but he hadn't known the attitude of the village cadres.

Seeing Jiang Wenlin's expression now, a certain idea in his heart began to stir once again.

(End of Chapter)