Chapter 88 I’ll Take This Courtyard
Chapter 88: I’ll Take This House
"No way, although the courtyard is a bit run-down, it covers three hundred and fifty square meters. I won’t sell it for anything less than thirty thousand yuan."
The voice sounded somewhat hoarse, apparently that of an old person.
"Forget it, forget it, my final offer is fifteen thousand. I still have to spend thousands of yuan on repairs after buying it. Any more than that wouldn’t be worth it for me," the woman said.
"I said, I won’t sell it for less than thirty thousand!" The elder seemed to hold firm as well.
The more Mengyu listened, the more excited she became. After searching for three days, she finally heard some news of a house sale. Although this house will undergo demolition in the year 2000, one can still exchange it for another property.
She stood at the entrance of the alley, and sure enough, after a while, a tall, big, and heavyset woman came out fuming with anger.
The woman was still ranting as she walked: "Hmph, such a stubborn fool, refusing to sell the house to me! Let’s see who dares to buy it from you. Just wait until you die in here, and we’ll see if anyone still wants your courtyard!" She kept grumbling as she walked away.
Mengyu waited for the woman to walk away before turning into the house of the seller.
As soon as Mengyu entered, a cold voice came from inside: "I said, I won’t sell it for fifteen thousand!"
"What about thirty thousand yuan?" Mengyu replied.
In fact, she felt a bit heartache too. She only had a little over sixty thousand yuan in total. She had just gotten her hands on this money not long ago, and now she had to spend it like this.
"Hmm?" The person inside walked out; it was an old man of about sixty-five or sixty-six years old. He didn’t seem very robust, with a slightly hunched back and occasionally coughing.
The old man was somewhat surprised when he saw Mengyu: "You are—"
"My family name is Jiang, and I came to buy the courtyard. What’s your honorable surname, uncle?" Her legal name was Jiang Mengyu, and since Leng Xiangyu hadn’t asked her to change it, she had kept the Jiang surname.
"My surname is Chen. You want to buy the courtyard?" The old man looked Mengyu up and down without concealing his disdain: "I won’t sell this courtyard for less than thirty thousand!"
He didn’t believe that a young girl could afford his courtyard. Mengyu nodded: "I understand. May I take a look at the house first?"
"Of course, you can." Uncle Chen still welcomed Mengyu inside.
Although he did not take Mengyu as a serious buyer, she was already inside, and looking around a bit wouldn’t cause any harm.
This courtyard only had one entryway. There were three main rooms at the North, each side with a half-room attachment, east and west wing rooms had two apiece, and the South was just a wall and the main gate. There was also a kitchen and toilet between the wing rooms and the half-rooms. It was a small triple courtyard.
What pleased Mengyu was that behind the courtyard was a small garden of fifty to sixty square meters, planted with some flowers and plants. In the northeast corner, there was a patch of land cultivated with vegetables.
To make room for the garden in the back, no back house had been built, and so what should have been a Siheyuan became a triple courtyard.
But Mengyu liked this layout even better since she didn’t need that many rooms and thought having a garden in the back was preferable.
Such a large courtyard, selling only for thirty thousand yuan, Mengyu was extremely satisfied.
"Uncle Chen, I’ll buy your courtyard."
Uncle Chen thought he had heard wrong: "What did you say?"
"I said, I’ll buy your courtyard," Mengyu said loudly.
Uncle Chen still found it somewhat unbelievable, looking at Mengyu with doubtful eyes: "My courtyard costs thirty thousand, not a penny less. Are you sure you want to buy it?"
"Okay, thirty thousand then," Mengyu was very straightforward. She just wanted to buy it quickly.
Moreover, she had inquired about the market these past few days. This kind of somewhat dilapidated courtyard could sell for about one hundred yuan per square meter. And this courtyard was three hundred and fifty square meters; going by one hundred yuan per square meter, it should sell for thirty-five thousand.