Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 123 Leniency for confession
Seeing her expression, Lin Chaoyang nodded, "It's indeed a lot less, but it's not like we don't make money. I'm writing novels now, and I can make at least two to three thousand yuan a year, so I can still afford to buy this house."

"But that's twelve thousand yuan after all. We only have more than two thousand yuan in our hands, and the difference is almost ten thousand yuan." Tao Yushu said somewhat discouraged.

"Didn't I just say that the landlord said that I could pay in installments?"

"The key issue is not whether we can pay in installments, but that we can't come up with so much money right now!"

"Listen to me and I'll do the math for you." Lin Chaoyang held her hand.

Tao Yushu looked at him, but his eyes lacked confidence. "Go ahead."

"Look, you have 2,500 yuan in your hand now. The Wreath Under the Mountain is about to be published as a single volume. This month, the Publishing Bureau has just issued new regulations on royalties, restoring the royalty payment based on the number of copies printed.

Given the popularity of "The Garland under the Mountain", it will be no problem to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. Conservatively speaking, I can get nearly 1,500 yuan in royalties, which is 4,000 yuan.

Besides..."

When Lin Chaoyang said this, his expression became awkward. Tao Yushu looked at his face. This expression seemed familiar. A scene from a certain day a year ago flashed through her mind.

"What else?" she asked in a cold voice.

"Well, I'm going to buy a house. I just wanted to earn some extra money from writing. I took some time off from work to write one...two novels."

"Is it one article or two?" Tao Yushu's eyes widened and his eyebrows raised.

Lin Chaoyang said honestly: "One short story and one novella."

"Good job!" Tao Yushu stood up suddenly, "How many things are you hiding from me?"

"No more, really no more, wife!" Lin Chaoyang stepped back repeatedly, "Wife, I also want to earn... earn some royalties to buy a bigger house!"

Tao Yushu glared at Lin Chaoyang with a gloomy face and remained silent, as if he was brewing a thunderous rage.

Lin Chaoyang continued, "I just wanted to buy a house to give you a surprise. Unfortunately, my writing efficiency is not high, so I only wrote two articles. I didn't expect the house to be so expensive. I originally planned to tell you after I bought the house..."

He kept making excuses out of guilt, and Tao Yushu just kept looking at him until he was almost out of words. He was at his wit's end and gave Tao Yushu a flattering smile.

"Wife, hehe!"

With a "puff", Tao Yushu's stern face blossomed into a smile like a peach blossom, and her laughter sounded like a silver bell. Her laughter made Lin Chaoyang at a loss.

"Daughter-in-law, why are you laughing?"

"I laugh at you, you big fool."

"Am I stupid?" Lin Chaoyang asked stupidly.

"Yes, you are stupid." Tao Yushu rolled his eyes at him and took out a copy of Shanghai Literature and Art from the bookshelf and opened it. "You wrote this, right?"

Lin Chaoyang glanced at the magazine and was shocked to find that the page he opened was "Qiu Ju Goes to Court".

He was surprised and asked, "How did you know?"

"Only a fool would not know. Only you can use the name of the male protagonist in a novel as a pen name." Tao Yushu said unhappily.

"That's not necessarily me. No one has stipulated that others can't use the male lead's name as a pen name." He defended himself.

"But this isn't the first time you've done this!"

Tao Yushu's words were fatal, leaving Lin Chaoyang speechless.

He asked again, "Then when did you know?"

"Do you think you're disguised well?" Tao Yushu didn't answer his question, but laughed at him instead.

Lin Chaoyang looked at him depressedly, "Just tell me when you knew it."

"Mom said that time you gave my eldest brother fifty dollars, saying it was money for TV tickets and plane tickets."

"Brother, you are too talkative." Lin Chaoyang complained.

"Stop blurring the focus." Tao Yushu's tone became stern. "Look at you, you've been told so many times, and you still refuse to change, right?"

"I just want to give you a surprise!" Lin Chaoyang used his same excuse again.

"Hmph! Surprise? There is a surprise, but where is the joy?" Tao Yushu asked with his hands folded over his chest.

"Well..." Lin Chaoyang understood and touched his pocket, and took out only a few Mao bills. Then he lowered his head to turn over the sole of his shoe, took out four big unity bills folded into small squares, unfolded them, smoothed them, and handed them to Tao Yushu.

The bills that she had just pulled out from the soles of her shoes smelled of salty hairtail, and she pinched them with disdain.

"That's all? This is your surprise for me?"

"This is the payment for the last article. The other payment has not yet arrived. This article is long, 120,000 words. It will be published in Harvest this month. At least one thousand yuan will be paid."

Lin Chaoyang smiled a little flatteringly, and added: "I didn't spend the royalties recklessly, I just used it to improve my food occasionally. The money for big brother's TV tickets and plane tickets, gifts for you, and inviting family members to watch performances and buy things all came from here. After a year, there is still so much left!"

"I should praise you for being thrifty, right?" Tao Yushu asked sarcastically.

"No, no, no matter how frugal I am, I can't be as frugal as you, my wife! I think it's more reassuring for a man to have some money in his pocket when he goes out."

"Oh~ Are you complaining that I didn't pay you enough?" Tao Yushu continued in a sarcastic tone.

"No, no, absolutely not. All I have is..."

"Okay!"

Tao Yushu interrupted Lin Chaoyang's nonsense, shook his head and sighed, "You, your cunning mind is not even one tenth of your talent in writing novels."

Lin Chaoyang was speechless. I felt like I was being praised, but also like I was being scolded.

"You won't do this kind of thing again, right?" Tao Yushu asked with narrowed eyes.

Lin Chaoyang shook his head like a rattle, "Wife, I did this all to surprise you!"

Tao Yushu snorted coldly, "Stop feeding me with such love potions."

She added, "The ten dollars will be gone in the future." "Ah? Don't!" Lin Chaoyang was shocked.

His little piggy bank is gone, and his pocket money is gone too. How can he survive?

Tao Yushu looked at his bereaved expression and suppressed a smile.

"Here's twenty bucks!"

In a moment, Lin Chaoyang experienced a reverse bungee jumping journey from hell to heaven.

He had a look of having survived a disaster on his face, "Wife, can you please stop panting when we talk?"

"you deserve it!"

Seeing the ice and snow in her expression melt away, Lin Chaoyang continued the previous topic and said, "With this one thousand yuan, we will have five thousand yuan."

Returning to the previous topic, Tao Yushu's originally relaxed expression became tangled again.

“But it’s still a long way off!”

"Think about it, how much money did we have at this time last year?

Du Feng said the owner wanted to sell the house quickly, so we could go take a look and negotiate the price! If we could get it down to 10,000, wouldn't that only leave 5,000 short?
Next year I will try to write more novels and try to fill this hole as soon as possible."

How much cheaper can you get by bargaining?

As for her husband's wish to write more novels, she had even less hope.

It is not easy to write a novel. Many writers may not be able to write a novel in a year or two.

Tao Yushu didn't say this out loud. Seeing how hard her husband worked for their small family, she couldn't bear to shatter his dream.

"Then let's go and take a look!" Tao Yushu said, gritting his teeth. At worst, he could just take advantage of the situation.

That weekend, Du Feng arrived at Yanda early in the morning, but did not enter the Tao family. Instead, he waited by the Langrun Lake Apartment.

After a while, Lin Chaoyang and Tao Yushu came down from upstairs. The three of them gathered together and rode their bicycles towards the gate of Yan University.

The concept of the three-ring road in Yanjing was proposed in the 1965s, but it was built in sections at the time. It was not until that it took shape and was still called a ring road.

In the "Yanjing Tour Map" published in the 1960s, the North Third Ring Road was divided into North Ring West Road and North Ring East Road, the East Third Ring Road was divided into East Ring North Road and East Ring South Road, and South Ring East Road appeared in the South Third Ring Road. This was the first time that the word "ring road" appeared in Yanjing's history. At that time, the Second Ring Road had not yet been marked.

Huayuan Village Overseas Chinese Apartments is located next to Huayuan Bridge on the West Third Ring Road. In the "A Brief Account of the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" written in the Ming Dynasty, it is said that "Ten miles south of Fuchengmen is Huayuan Village, the ancient Huayuan, and the village behind it is now Pingchou".

Several hundred years ago during the Jin and Yuan dynasties, this place was a private garden for dignitaries, but later it became a flat countryside.

After the founding of New China, the construction of Overseas Chinese Apartments changed the situation here.

Du Feng and Lin Chaoyang arrived at the gate of the courtyard. After the security guard asked them about their purpose, he asked them to register, then picked up the phone in the security room and made a call, apparently to notify the landlord.

Du Feng whispered to Lin Chaoyang, "Did you see it? It's like being admitted to a government agency, but it costs money."

Overseas Chinese Apartment is the first residential community in Yanjing to provide property management, with each household paying eight yuan per month.

"You three, please come in!"

The three of them entered the courtyard and walked towards the door of Building No. 2. Tao Yushu whispered to Lin Chaoyang, "This courtyard is really nice."

Huaqiao Apartment consists of two four-story buildings in the north and south. In the front, back and middle of the building, there are large areas of green plants except for the road. The environment is clean and elegant. Unfortunately, it is winter now, and the flowers, plants and trees in the yard are all withered.

If it were in later times, if such a large yard were to be used to build multi-story residential buildings, at least seven or eight buildings would be needed.

However, there are only two buildings in the courtyard of the Overseas Chinese Apartment. If it is summer, it must be shaded by green trees, and it must be a simple, elegant and quiet place.

Tao Yushu grew up in Yanjing University and liked this quiet environment.

The designer of Overseas Chinese Apartment is Hua Lanhong, a well-known architectural master in my country.

When he was young, he studied in France and furthered his studies at the Department of Architecture of the French National School of Fine Arts. After graduation, he obtained the national architect diploma, which very few people had at that time.

He could have enjoyed a life of ease and comfort and a higher social status than ordinary people in France, but in 1951 he resolutely returned to the then impoverished New China.

Hua Lanhong brought his modernist architectural ideas from France and tried his best to integrate them with Chinese traditions and reality.

Between 1952 and 1957, he designed the Yenching Children's Hospital, which was listed as a classic of Chinese modernism in the s in Fletcher's History of Architecture. He also designed the Xingfu Village residential area in Chongwen District, the Jianguomen Interchange with separate lanes for cars and bicycles, the Guanting Reservoir Reception Building, the Yenching Friendship Store and other iconic buildings in Yenching.

The facade of the Overseas Chinese Apartment is gray, with square lines, giving it a simple beauty and a very modern feel. Just looking at the facade, it is completely different from the Soviet-style residences that can be seen in Yanjing today.

From the outside, every household has a large terrace, which looks very lively.

When they walked to the door of the unit in Building No. 2, they saw a young man with a broad forehead, high cheekbones and dark skin standing there.

"Fugui!"

Du Feng greeted the young man and said, "This is my brother-in-law and sister, and this is Lin Fugui. My brother-in-law's surname is also Lin, and you were a family five hundred years ago."

After a few pleasantries, Lin Chaoyang learned that the young man's name was Lin Fugui. He was the third generation of Malaysian Chinese who came from Fujian and moved to Southeast Asia. The apartment here was bought by his father to support national construction.

Lin Fugui is currently studying abroad at the Foreign Languages ​​College. This house was originally given to him by his father for his residence, but Lin Fugui has always lived in the school and has never stayed here for even a few days.

Last year, the country began its reform and opening up, but the atmosphere in Yanjing has not changed much.

During the summer vacation this year, Lin Fugui visited Guangdong and found that the ducks there were the first to know when the water in the river warmed in spring, and that a pilot project of full-price sales of commercial housing had been implemented in Guangzhou.

These changes made Lin Fugui see opportunities for China's economic development. Referring to the experience of several Asian economies that took off after World War II, he set his sights on China's real estate market, so he planned to sell this house and buy two courtyard houses in Yanjing.

Lin Fugui is an enthusiastic and cheerful young man. His Chinese is good, but not authentic. He does not shy away from talking to Lin Chaoyang and others, and talks freely about his views on China's reform and opening up and economic development.

Lin Chaoyang listened to him for a while and felt that this guy really had something up his sleeve.

But he mainly came to see the house today, so Lin Fugui led the three of them upstairs.

(End of this chapter)