Chapter 386: How to own five buildings

"So that's why Sunnyside's marriage and fertility rates have been so high for three years in a row." Bai Liu was thoughtful, "So it's because of this [Sunshine Nursery] loan."

Mu Sicheng was horrified to hear, "A mortgage on a child? Won't these children run away if they grow up and know they're being mortgaged?"

The grandmother sighed and shook her head, "You can't get away, as long as you come to Sunnyside, there is no way to leave at all until you have paid back the loan."

"My partner and I haven't left this place in sixty years, since the day we took out a mortgage to buy a house." The old man looks out over the E block, which is blocked by tall buildings that let in only a glimpse of sunlight, and his eyes show a fleeting longing, "Sometimes I want to go outside, but as soon as I take a day off work, I don't."

"I really hope that in ten years' time, after paying off the loan, we will have some money left over to see the outside world alive."

"In Sunnyside, I've lived so long that I've never seen the whole sun."

The old man sighed and spoke softly, but before he could say anything else he covered his mouth and coughed violently, gushing blood and pus out of his mouth and nose.

The grandmother next to him took out a small handkerchief from her chest to wipe his face, while nodding shyly to Bai Liu, "I'm sorry, he and I both work on construction sites, the dust is too much, our respiratory tract is always bad, it's an old problem."

"The monthly medical bills are a big expense, when we were young we should have worn protection, we shouldn't have rushed to work for so little time." The grandmother patted the old man's back in a slightly reproachful manner and let out a long sigh, "You see now, you have to go to the doctor's, don't you?"

Tang Erda took out a bottle of water and slowly fed it to the old man who was coughing, frowning and asking, "Is this an occupational disease caused by long hours of work? Is it a serious workplace injury and your company doesn't pay for it?"

Both the old man and the grandmother were slightly confused when they heard this, "What work injury, what compensation?"

Tang Erda was about to open his mouth to explain, but remembering the bizarre systems in place, where compensation for occupational diseases is an extravagant luxury, he closed his mouth again, and finally muddled through with a stiff "nothing".

The old man slowly took two sips of water and thought about Tang Erda's words for a while. He seemed to understand what Tang Erda meant and shook his head as if he found it amusing: "Eh, young man, after decades of working on construction sites, when you reach my age, everyone has to get this kind of disease. "

"They started the company to make money not to do charity." The old man waved his hand, "Mind your medical bills for decades? Where's the good in that."

Bai Liu followed the old man's slow pace side by side: "I've noticed a lot of new citizens coming to Sunnyside, are you a native of Sunnyside or an immigrant?"

"My old partner and I are both immigrants." The old man looked to Bai Liu, "Sunnyside has seen fewer immigrants in the last few years, and more immigrants from the earlier years and my batch!"

Bai Liu went along and asked, "Why were there so many migrants in Sunnyside in the early years?"

"Because we had a loan program in that batch called [Sunshine New Home]." The old man's memory didn't seem to be too good, and he paused to recall it in a gaze of thought, "I can't remember exactly what the terms were like, anyway, it was that if you came to Sunnyside and were prepared to buy a house, and at the same time you could bring in twenty or more outsiders to buy a house in Sunnyside, then you would get almost three million in house price subsidies."

"At that time, everyone was buying almost all 30-square-foot houses, I think, at an average price of 200,000 yuan, so it was basically like a 50% discount!" The old man's face was celebratory, "Although the salary level was not high even at that time, one or two thousand a month, it was still a good deal!"

The grandmother nodded quite agreeably, "Biting the bullet and buying a house at that time was the best decision we ever made."

"We were reluctant to come over then." The grandmother couldn't help but cover her mouth in laughter as she recalled, "so desperate that she shouted out things like [cut three million for me if you're a brother] from across the street."

"Yes, because at that time, my partner and I were also coaxed by a friend to come over, because the other side needed 20 foreigners to come over and buy a house in order to enjoy this loan service here [Sunshine New Home]." The old man's head raised slightly as he recalled the past, "At that time, under my friend's strong lobbying, I was a righteous person, so I gritted my teeth and bought it, and later I also called twenty friends to come over to buy the house in order to enjoy the [Sunshine New Home] service."

The old man waved his hand with a proud look on his face, "Of course, they are all grateful to me now, otherwise they would never have been able to afford a house at the current prices."

Bai Liu's eyes twitched slightly, "Yes."

No wonder there are so many new immigrants in this sunny city, it turns out to be this pyramid scheme to pull people in.

Once a person comes here to buy a house and pay off the loan, it will drive twenty people to come here to buy a house and pay off the loan, and twenty people buying a house will drive four hundred people over, and once a house is bought here in Sunshine City, with a loan people can't leave, so one wave after another, people will be completely trapped in Sunshine City.

"Is this [Sunshine New Home] loan program still available?" Bai Liu enquired softly, "I see there are still quite a few migrants coming through."

"Long gone." The old man shook his head, "Now Sunshine City's population can rise quite a lot in a year just by giving birth, there is no need for foreign population to be brought in, the immigrants coming over now are probably not well-informed enough, they don't know yet that [Sunshine New Home], a loan, was cancelled long ago, they didn't catch the trip."

The grandmother sighed: "This group of young people came too late, if they had come earlier to catch a good time, they would have been able to buy a nice, 20-ish square foot house in Sunnyside just by pulling people in."

"Eh, property prices are really high nowadays, it's no wonder you young people are being forced to live in cemetery houses." The old man could not hide his sigh, "You basically have a dead man living in this house in your hands, and you guys are really bold to buy it and live in it."

Bai Liu quickly caught the key words, "Cemetery room?"

The old man gave Bai Liu and the others a wry look and questioned in an upward tone, "Didn't you know that Road 444, Route 18, in Zone E is the Sunnyside cemetery?"

Muke paused for a moment: "But the property deed says 18th floor, how can it be a cemetery?"

"Right." The old man explained naturally, "Our cemeteries here are also buildings, hollowed out underground and built downwards, with the one close to the ground as the ground floor of the cemetery, the further down the floor the higher the floor, usually each tomb has 18 floors, what you got is the top floor, which can also be said to be the bottom cemetery, the worst cemetery floor."

"The bottom floor is all large cemeteries, usually able to put Quan family bodies, there are 3-5 square meters, after the average spread is usually more than 2.7 square meters, most of them are bought by rich first class citizens, the top one is usually only 1, 2 square meters, after the average spread is only about 1.5 square meters, can only put one body, not very good to sell. It's all still for sale, and your 2.5 sq. ft. plus is considered big."

"Down to the 18th floor of the cemetery?!" Mu Sicheng got a little giddy hearing that, "What's the difference between this nonsense and the 18th level of hell."

The old man really thought Mu Sicheng was joking when he heard this, instead he even laughed out loud, "This is a characteristic of Sunshine City, the cemetery is a high-rise building just like the buildings, otherwise a cemetery would take up a piece of land, how expensive it would be, people can't afford it."

"But don't buy this cemetery house to live in." The old man laughed and then seriously hitched a ride with Bai Liu's saying, solemnly admonishing, "I know some young people are greedy for the cheapness of this cemetery house and buy it as a living room, but don't live in it."

"If you can live in a murder house, why can't you live here?" Bai Liu asked rhetorically, raising an eyebrow.

This old man lowered his voice, leaned over and said in Bai Liu's ear, "There is no lift in the cemetery building, so if you want to go back to the cemetery room on the 18th floor to rest at night after work, you will have to walk down by yourself, floor by floor, passing all the cemetery rooms."

"But it's a place for dead people, they come out at night."

"You live in a murder house, you will only encounter one ghost, but you live in a cemetery, you will encounter a ghost on the ground floor, one ghost you can still hide from, where do you hide from a ghost on the ground floor? It's too late to even run up to the ground."

The old man gave a slight choking cough and patted Bai Liu's shoulder in a serious manner, "Living in a place where dead people live will really turn dead, young man, it's better to work hard to earn money and try to buy a house in Sunnyside on the ground."