NOVPUB
Chapter 382: Chapter 372 This Is Also a Broke Guy
Since the apartment’s owner was quite busy, the transaction was scheduled for next week. Shen Yunfang didn’t have anything particular to do, so she thought about taking advantage of her free time to tidy up the courtyard house.
Of course, tidying up meant hiring someone to do it, as she herself had tried yesterday and could only clean a bit. She wasn’t capable of doing much else.
Ma Liguo was indeed capable, as soon as Shen Yunfang had made up her mind, he had already found people for the job, ready to start work anytime.
So, Shen Yunfang sent the children to the daycare center in the morning and went to open the doors of the courtyard house to watch the workers clean up the place.
Since the period was not very stable and they didn’t want to attract attention, the renovation of the courtyard house could only consist of simple tasks, such as replacing broken tiles. Some of the cracked blue bricks were left untouched as there were no suitable replacements, and Shen Yunfang didn’t instruct them to be touched.
The interior decoration was even simpler, the layout unchanged, just a coat of lime paint as there was no Dulux paint available, only lime powder.
Shen Yunfang saw that a layer of white lime wasn’t bright enough, so she had someone apply two more coats. The main focus was on the flooring.
Ma Liguo brought her several bags of cement, which wasn’t enough for plastering the walls, so in the end, Shen Yunfang had the cement used on the main house floor, creating a smooth cement surface.
Of course, these tasks couldn’t be completed in a day or two; they were to be finished gradually, one by one, over time.
After setting up the workers, Ma Liguo took Shen Yunfang to a large procurement station in the Capital Suburbs. The site was much larger than the one Shen Yunfang had substituted at, several times bigger, with the backyard divided into several sections, one of which contained a pile of wooden furniture with broken legs and cracked backs.
Ma Liguo led her there and let her pick on her own. She could move anything she liked outside, and they would settle the bill together at the end. 𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘱𝘶𝘣.𝘤𝘰𝑚
At that time, buying things from the procurement station wasn’t illegal. Many ordinary people, unable to afford new items, would go to the procurement station to scavenge for old ones, take them home, repair them, and they could be used for another twenty years.
Shen Yunfang really thrived in this environment.
The workers at the procurement station didn’t want to stand under the scorching sun like her, so after giving Shen Yunfang some instructions, they went back inside to wait.
Shen Yunfang weaved through piles of broken furniture. She didn’t recognize any precious wood (she had not found any valuable furniture at the procurement station she had managed, and of course, she didn’t recognize any), but she could tell which pieces of furniture were well-crafted. In her view, it would be a waste of the elaborate and intricate carvings if the wood was ordinary. So, she used this standard to choose.
Luckily, she was strong, and even furniture pinned underneath could be turned over by her. Because of this, she indeed found a few good items, at least in her opinion.
One was a step bed, not complete, but a step bed missing its canopy.
Shen Yunfang dug it out from the very bottom, set it upright to inspect it. The "roof" of the bed was missing, but the lower part was well preserved. Likely having been exposed to the elements for many years, the carved designs on the front railing were obscured with dirt, making it impossible to discern what was carved.
However, she knew that a step bed was a bed for ancient maidens of noble birth. Some were even crafted from the day a girl was born and were taken to the groom’s house as part of her dowry when she got married, serving as the girl’s bed for life. So, Shen Yunfang believed that the wood used to make a step bed definitely couldn’t be of poor quality.
It was just that she wasn’t sure how much it would be worth now, being only half intact.
As Shen Yunfang was moving the step bed, she spotted two cosmetic boxes underneath it, also dismembered like the bed. She picked up all four pieces, dusted them off, and saw that the carving seemed to be from the same craftsman as the bed. Matching them up, both cosmetic boxes had split at the hinges; if a skilled repairman were found, they could likely be fixed.
Shen Yunfang thought for a moment and, feeling that no one was paying attention to this area, she collected the four-piece vanity case into the space.
She spent the entire day rummaging through the bustling market and actually found a few items that caught her eye.
For smaller items, she directly stored them in her space, but for larger pieces like beds and cabinets, she set them aside, planning to discuss the price with Ma Liguo before making the purchase.
Since she bought two houses, she needed a lot of furniture, so she picked out seven beds in total, planning to place three in the townhouse and the other four in the courtyard house. She also chose three cabinets that were either intact or could be repaired—not that she didn’t want to select more, it was simply that there were no whole sets left. Additionally, there were two sets of dining tables, with twelve stools pieced together, as she tried to pick out ones in the same color scheme. There were also a few chairs she planned to place in the courtyard house, and a rocking chair that was very much to her liking.
And there were many more, a vast assortment of items she piled up quite a heap.
When Ma Liguo arrived, he exclaimed, "Goodness, this looks like a house being raided." Well, he went inside and murmured with the people at the collection station for quite a while, and in the end, Yunfang’s selection wasn’t counted by piece but by the pile and cost a total of one hundred yuan.
Yunfang’s eyes crinkled with joy at the news; it was such a bargain. Her expression happened to be caught by Liguo, who then dubbed her a ’spendthrift’ in his mind.
Because there was so much stuff, they definitely couldn’t move it all back by themselves, so Liguo went to hire a truck and found a few people to help. After several trips back and forth, they finally transported all the items to the courtyard house.
By coincidence, it was just after mealtime, and many people saw the truck making trips to the courtyard house, so everyone knew that there was a new owner at the property. They also realized that the new owner had brought back old furniture from the collection station, marking them as someone without much money—who with money wouldn’t buy new furniture when moving?
After all the hustle and bustle, Yunfang suddenly remembered she had forgotten to pick up Pangpang and Manman from daycare, which made her panic. Without waiting to speak to Liguo, she dashed towards the daycare center.
When she arrived, she found the daycare’s front gate already locked. Yunfang was startled—where were the children?
"I told you, no one would be here at this time. Let’s go home; the kids must be back by now. That’s the advantage of knowing people; my cousin must have already taken them home," Liguo said, following her at a brisk pace and wiping sweat from his brow once he caught up.
This sister-in-law was running so fast, he had to chase after her all the way.
Ah, what’s she doing, running off again?
Liguo hadn’t even caught his breath when he saw Yunfang sprinting out of sight.
When the two of them arrived at the Ma Family’s house, one after the other, they saw that Pangpang and Manman were already sitting at the table, waiting for their mother to come home and start dinner.
Seeing her children safe and sound at home, Yunfang immediately felt her legs go limp like noodles, not from exhaustion but from fright.
"See, I told you, there’s nothing to worry about; my aunt saw you didn’t come to pick them up, so she must have brought them straight home after work," Liguo said, leaning against the doorframe, panting heavily, sounding like he was ripping tape from a box.
That’s how their children had come home in the past.
Yunfang nodded vigorously, "Having big sister around is really wonderful!"
