Chapter 27: The Sham Courtyard House

Ren Bida drove a Xiali; as a partner in a real estate agency, his car was even less impressive than Elephant’s, the internet café owner—one look at the profits of running an internet café and it was obvious why. But entrepreneurs like Ren Bida were typically much more frugal than the nouveau riche types like Elephant. Zhao Zejun remembered an old man he once knew: all year round, the man wore a faded grey suit, always packed up leftovers from roadside food stalls, yet he ran a chemical factory with an annual turnover of tens of millions.

The roads in Gaogang Village were so terrible that cars couldn’t get in at all. The area was home to every kind of person, and bringing a car inside wasn’t safe—broken windows and scratched paint were everyday occurrences. So Ren Bida parked by a nearby supermarket, and the two of them continued on foot into Gaogang Village.

The houses in the village were packed tightly together, with alleys between them barely more than a meter wide, just enough for two people to walk side by side. They navigated the labyrinthine lanes for over ten minutes before reaching Ren Bida’s “old family home”: a single-story house with one bedroom and one living room.

The door was an old-fashioned double wooden one, locked with a rusty brass padlock. As Ren Bida opened the door, a wave of musty dampness hit them. The room was dim; the main hall had only one window, covered with thick layers of newspaper that let in no light at all. Only a few threads of sunlight managed to filter through the cracks in the ceiling, scattering spots of light across the packed earth floor—there wasn’t even any concrete. With the low ceiling, the place felt stifling.

Zhao Zejun glanced around. The two rooms were practically empty: just a battered bed and a coal stove that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. Together, the space barely measured twenty square meters.

Run-down as it was, the average price for such a place wasn’t cheap—on par with commercial apartments in the city. At the going rate, it was at least 1,300 per square meter.

“This ramshackle house,” Zhao Zejun shook his head with a wry smile. He’d always thought his living conditions were poor, but compared to the people of Gaogang Village, his two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor was practically a palace.

Ren Bida thought Zhao Zejun was put off by the state of the house and its price. “All the houses in Gaogang Village are like this. Mine’s actually one of the better ones. When this was built, my great-grandfather hired the best bricklayer in the village and used solid bricks. Don’t let the age fool you—it’s sturdy. It’ll stand for decades yet.”

As he spoke, he gave the wall a solid slap, and the thick wall gave a muffled thud.

He continued, proudly, “Just listen. These bricks are even sturdier than the blue stones they use in modern frame buildings—fired in a kiln. When this house was built, plenty of villagers were jealous.”

Zhao Zejun was well aware of the importance of solid bricks. Nowadays, houses were all reinforced concrete, mostly frame structures: as long as the frame was good, you could fill the walls with anything. In later years, some unscrupulous developers even used plastic, bamboo, or construction waste. When his family eventually got a resettlement house, you could poke a hole through the wall with your hand.

But decades ago, there were no frameworks—everything depended on the quality of the bricks and the skill of the craftsmen. Good bricks and good workmanship meant a solid house, and many old bricks could be reclaimed and reused after demolition.

There were quite a few such “good houses” in Gaogang Village. In his previous life, the demolition of Gaogang Village produced a massive amount of “demolition waste”—bricks, timber, and so on—which people even came to buy up. When Zhao Zejun’s family were holdouts, he’d see trucks coming into the demolition site every day, hauling out tons upon tons of material.

A sudden thought struck Zhao Zejun—this was also a way to make money. The profits from the “scrap” business were quite high, especially with Gaogang’s demolition waste. For a house to stand for decades in such harsh conditions, it had to be built of quality brick and timber. With thousands of households, the sum added up—a considerable number, no doubt.

“Boss Zhao, what are you thinking?” Ren Bida, seeing Zhao Zejun lost in thought, worried he was having second thoughts. “You’re not living here yourself, right? You’re just waiting for demolition to turn a profit. Doesn’t matter if the house is run-down, as long as it’s sturdy. If it collapses before demolition, that’s the real loss, isn’t it?”

“True,” Zhao Zejun smiled, shelving the building materials idea for now. Buying the house was the priority; after he’d signed a deal with the demolition office, he could revisit the scrap business.

The price of twenty-five thousand was above average, but Zhao Zejun knew that once demolition happened, this less-than-twenty-square-meter house could fetch at least sixty square meters of new commercial apartment. The profit margin was substantial—if he held onto it until 2016, when city property prices hit ten thousand per square meter, it’d be a many-fold return, a sure win.

“Mr. Ren, what’s back here?” he asked.

There was a back door off the main hall; opening it, he discovered a small courtyard of more than ten square meters. In the dense warren of Gaogang Village, a courtyard like this was a rare treasure.

It resembled a siheyuan, a traditional courtyard house, surrounded by four separate homes.

“Didn’t I mention my grandfather had four houses?” Ren Bida grinned, pointing at the houses around the yard. “This circle—my grandfather was a landlord, the richest in the village. During the Cultural Revolution, the houses were confiscated, and after the reforms, they were returned to us. When I was a kid, we raised chickens and ducks in this yard. It’s been abandoned for years now.”

It came back to Zhao Zejun then: the four houses passed down in the Ren family. After Ren Bida’s father and uncle died, the properties were inherited—Ren Bida received his father’s house, the one they’d just seen.

The other three surrounding the yard were inherited by Ren Bida’s cousins.

“Mr. Ren, do you know if your cousins want to sell their three houses? Could you find out for me?” Zhao Zejun asked.

He’d taken a liking to the courtyard and its layout. If he could secure all four houses, he’d have his own little enclave. Before the demolition announcement, he could even build another unit in the yard—making it five houses in all.

In fact, there was more potential than just five. With the four houses enclosing a courtyard, it was an independent zone—any additions or alterations wouldn’t affect other residents. He’d have plenty of freedom to make changes.

Ren Bida hesitated. “My cousin and I haven’t been in touch for years.”

“That’s alright. It’s just business—who’d turn down easy money? Twenty-five thousand a house isn’t exactly cheap. For three houses, that’s over seventy thousand—enough to buy a nice apartment in the city,” Zhao Zejun replied with a smile.

“That’s true,” Ren Bida chuckled. “But, Boss Zhao, you should be prepared. My cousin—well, let’s just say he’s not exactly reliable.”

“What do you mean?”

Ren Bida grimaced. “I don’t mean to speak ill of my own family, but my cousin’s a real wastrel. He does nothing serious, gambles away any money he gets, owes a mountain of debt, and his wife took their child and left him. None of the relatives want anything to do with him. If you want to buy his house, I doubt twenty-five thousand will be enough—he’ll try to gouge you.”

“A gambler? Wife and child gone?”

Memory is often triggered by context—usually, unless something brings it up, old memories stay buried. Since coming back, Zhao Zejun had recorded many memories actively, but countless passive ones remained dormant. When Ren Bida mentioned his grandfather was a local landlord persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, Zhao Zejun had felt a faint sense of familiarity. Now, hearing about gambling, a wastrel, and a wife who’d left—he suddenly recalled a notorious figure from his previous life in Gaogang Village.

He thought for a moment, then smiled, “That’s fine. He can ask for the moon; I’ll bargain him down. Take me to see him, and we’ll talk.”

“Alright, but he might not be home. Let’s have a look,” Ren Bida agreed.