Chapter 318 - 320: Agreement
An Ning finished speaking and turned to walk ahead. Behind her, Du Guijuan stood dumbfounded in the doorway, motionless for a long time.
"Juan’er, what’s wrong?"
"Who was that?"
Someone speaking from inside the house snapped Du Guijuan out of her daze. By then, An Ning was already two or three meters away.
"If you don’t start moving, we’ll be late."
An Ning’s words made Du Guijuan rush out without a second thought. When the others behind the door came out to look, they only saw Du Guijuan’s retreating back.
Du Guijuan’s daughter, An Jing, stood at the door, pouting and muttering in dissatisfaction, "So secretive."
An Jing couldn’t figure out what was going on, so she just went back inside to continue eating.
At the dinner table, she kept pestering An Xiaoming, asking him what had happened at the An family’s home.
An Xiaoming kept his head down and ate, completely ignoring An Jing’s questions. This made An Jing furious, and with a SNAP, she struck An Xiaoming with her chopsticks.
"I’m talking to you, are you deaf?!"
"What are you doing! That’s your little brother. You can’t just hit him."
An Jing’s maternal grandmother quickly stood up to stop her. After she spoke, she turned to An Xiaoming, whose eyes were red.
"And you," she said to the boy, "your sister is talking to you. You should at least say something."
An Xiaoming, his eyes red and welling with tears, huffed angrily and glared at An Jing. "You’re not my sister!"
"Everything you told me was a lie!"
"You’re a liar!"
An Xiaoming yelled out the three accusations. He wanted to throw his bowl in a tantrum, but then he remembered what An Ning had said at the An family’s home about not wasting food, so he gently set it back down.
"Big liar!"
An Xiaoming grabbed his schoolbag and ran out, taking the path furthest from An Jing.
"Slow down! You haven’t finished your food!"
"Xiaoming—"
The grandmother shouted after him a couple of times, but the grandfather grabbed her arm and stopped her.
"Stop shouting. He’ll come back to eat at noon when he gets hungry. Sit down and eat."
The grandmother had no choice but to give up. Besides shouting, there was no way she could catch up to An Xiaoming.
Soon, only the two elders and An Jing were left at the table.
An Jing picked at her food, then put her bowl down and said irritably,
"We eat pickled vegetables every day. Don’t you ever think to buy some meat?"
She stood up peevishly, her chair scraping noisily. She was rough while grabbing her schoolbag, but when she put on her new white shirt, her movements became light and gentle, as delicate as one would expect of a young lady.
The two elders said nothing about any of An Jing’s behavior.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to say anything, but that it was useless to do so.
An Jing was An Ercheng’s only daughter, and because she looked so much like Du Guijuan, she was especially favored by her mother.
The mother and daughter were both particular about their clothes and food, despite being poor.
But Du Guijuan was a bit smarter than An Jing. She knew her own limits—she could put on airs, but she also knew when to drop them.
An Jing, perhaps because she was still young, could only ever puff herself up; she never knew how to humble herself.
Perhaps she had been deceived by her own polished appearance for too long and had started to believe she really was a young lady of privilege.
So, over time, the two elders stopped trying to manage her. Their hearts had grown cold.
An Jing slung her schoolbag on her back and left the tube-style apartment building for school. She, too, was a senior in high school, about to take the college entrance exams.
「Meanwhile.」
An Ning, with Du Guijuan trailing behind her, first went to An Ercheng’s workplace.
An Ning only had to say a word, and An Ercheng quickly came out of the factory.
When he came out, he looked at An Ning dazedly and asked, "My factory director said he’s giving me time off?"
An Ning just nodded and continued to walk ahead.
"Keep up."
The couple behind her, their hearts pounding with anxiety, followed An Ning.
Why did that small person in front of them leave the two of them too scared to speak?
After walking for fifteen minutes, An Ning, still in the lead, found the person she was looking for—a broker who specialized in showing houses, recommended by An Guoming.
She brought An Ercheng and his wife along and started looking at houses with the broker.
"What sort of requirements does Mr. An have?"
"It doesn’t have to be especially large, just big enough for a family of seven."
"We’re not picky about the location or the quality of the house. The price doesn’t matter either. We just want to take a look first."
An Ning’s conditions made the broker give a strained smile. It was the first time he’d seen someone so casual about buying a house.
But the broker didn’t ask questions. He took An Ning and the other two to see all the properties he knew of.
Finally, in a place a little far from the county center, they found a small courtyard house.
The courtyard wasn’t large, a standalone residence with its own gate.
After entering through a small, single-leaf door, there was a corridor one and a half meters wide and two meters long.
Passing through the corridor led to a courtyard of about a dozen square meters. There were rooms on all four sides—some large, some small, all of different sizes.
The broker walked ahead and described the courtyard to An Ning.
"This main building is a bit bigger. If you partition it slightly, it can house three or four people, no problem. The side room on the left can also be converted into a small bedroom. There’s another side room by the entrance that could also be livable with a little tidying up. The side room on the right is the kitchen, and you can also store miscellaneous things there."
After the broker finished, he waited for An Ning’s response.
An Ning stood in the center of the courtyard, taking a full look around. She understood the layout perfectly.
She pointed to the main building and said, "This is for Second Uncle and Second Aunt. The larger side room on the left is for the two elders. The small side room is for An Xiaoming. As for An Jing, you two can figure that out."
"What do you think?"
An Ning turned to look at An Ercheng and Du Guijuan, who were standing by the entrance.
Caught off guard by An Ning’s sudden question, the two of them became anxious and flustered.
"Yes, yes, it’s very nice."
"I think it’s very nice too."
For some reason, whenever they met An Ning’s eyes, they felt a subconscious fear.
An Ning looked at the broker and finalized the deal right away.
"I’ll take the house. But I’ll need you to wait a moment. I need to have a few words with them."
"Of course, of course. I’ll wait for you at the entrance."
The broker understood and walked out. He moved a short distance from the entrance, squatted at the base of the wall, and basked in the sun.
Inside the courtyard, An Ning took a stack of papers from her schoolbag, already written on and stamped with official seals.
"Come here."
An Ercheng and Du Guijuan obediently came forward, their hands clasped in front of them, nervously waiting for An Ning to speak.
"Look at this agreement. I went to your supervisors yesterday and discussed it with them in person. They have all agreed to act as notaries for me."
An Ning unfolded the paper. On it were the official seals of both of their work units, as well as the personal seals and signatures of their direct supervisors.
"It says here that I will be lending you the money to buy the house. Starting from the moment of the loan, you will have to use one-third of your salary each month for repayment. The rest will be enough for your living expenses."
"I’ve already done the math. If you don’t agree, you don’t have to sign."
An Ercheng and Du Guijuan nodded in unison. "We agree, we agree."
The two of them had been dreaming of getting a new house.
An Ning nodded and continued, "The agreement also states that the house will temporarily be registered under my name. Once you have repaid the full amount, the ownership will be transferred to your names."
"This agreement is also guaranteed by your supervisors."
"Any questions?"