Chapter 1620: Terms

Translator:

Nyoi-Bo Studio

Editor:

Nyoi-Bo Studio

Li Du could understand his parents’ stance on the demolition.

He believed his parents opposed the demolition because they genuinely wanted to be with their neighbors and not because they were trying to bargain for better compensation terms.

He empathized with them even more after witnessing that ugly quarrel at the park in the villa. East or west, home was best.

Another thing was that bringing his parents with him to America or Australia was unrealistic since he was rarely home himself. At their age, his parents wanted nothing but to return to their roots to settle and had absolutely no interest in picturesque scenery or riches.

On top of that, his father had accepted his role as representative for another reason — aside from his days in the production team when he was younger, he had never been head of anything and had never had the experience of being a leader.

Now that the neighbors had chosen him to take the lead, he was also riding high.

Li Du returned to the office and sat at the table after he ended the call with his parents.

The compensation terms for the demolition were on the table. Residents would get twice the value of their current living s.p.a.ce and a hundred grand per person on top of that.

These were rather decent and honest terms for a county town demolition, but it was clear as day that the residents did not think so and wanted better terms.

Li Du did not want to be used by them, but he did not want his parents to suffer either. This put him in a difficult spot.

Initially, he had thought that getting involved with the government would put him in a bind, but he thought that it would be because he would be at a loss when it came to how much to invest or what to invest it in. He never thought he would be thinking about how to accept money from the government.

His brows were furrowed and he fell into deep thought as he looked at the community plan for the relocation area and the development plan for Cui Ji Street. The others were surrounding the secretary and clamoring for attention, crying and whining about their hards.h.i.+ps. Their voices were so loud and noisy it was almost impossible to discern their words.

The building they were living in now was an old one and had six floors tall with no elevator. The building was big — four households to one unit. There was a large plot of empty land in front of the building that could be used as a plaza or a drying yard where families could leave their sacks of grain or miscellaneous items.

This was a sort of invisible welfare that they would lose if they moved to a new community.

The new community was a high-rise with elevators, a whole 28 stories tall. The building was surrounded by other buildings on all four sides and had no plaza or garden. It was a stifling environment to live in.

Li Du had been silent from the start until now, carefully studying the plan. The secretary could not even begin to guess what the man was thinking so he purposely asked him to share his thoughts.

This was basically setting him up to offend the bunch, and there was no way Li Du would take the bait.

However, the bunch of them were staring at him so there was no way he could reject the secretary. Thinking quickly, he put to use what he had learned from Da Mao at Hpakant. He opened his mouth and said, “Moot, moot.”

“Mute?” Everyone was confused.

He had not said a single word when they were on the road, and none of them here were his neighbors. On top of that, he had not been home in a long time, so no one knew much about him.

The secretary’s face hardened instantly. How insolent was it that they brought a mute person along to speak at this meeting?

They left Li Du alone after that, engrossed in discussing the compensation terms amongst themselves. It was chaotic; the bunch was going back and forth, bargaining and playing mind games.

By the time the discussion came to an end, they had not made much progress. The secretary waved his hand impatiently, calling for someone to see them out.

Li Du lingered and waited for the other anti-demolition people to leave before smiling. “h.e.l.lo, Secretary Cui. Let’s discuss business now.”

One of the officials was puzzled. “Aren’t you mute?”

Secretary Cui rolled his eyes. Were they brainless? It was obvious that Li Du had been pretending to be mute.

Li Du laid out the demolition plan. “Here, secretary. I’ve seen the terms offered to the households in our building, and they’re not asking for much. Honestly, adding a few hundred thousand per household would suffice.”

One of the secretaries retorted angrily, “This isn’t much? We’re just a small county town, how much can a house here cost?”

Li Du smiled. “Calm down. I see that there’s an activity center in the new community? This one looks rather big, too. Why don’t we do it this way — I’ll invest in the activity center. This is a government project, yes?”

Secretary Cui nodded and Li Du continued, “Then I’ll pay for this piece of land. You guys use the leftover money to compensate the residents of our building. Of course, all of this has to be done under the table, and I give you my word that our residents won’t be running their mouths. What do you think?”

The officials were shocked. They asked, “What are you planning?”

Li Du responded, “To end this dispute as quickly as possible. Investment in this activity center will not exceed five million, right? I’ll pay that amount.”

“Just like that?” Secretary Cui asked suspiciously.

Li Du nodded with a smile. “Yes, just like this, with no strings attached. I’m just hoping we can resolve this issue as quickly as possible!”

Secretary Cui was instantly over the moon. He moved to shake Li Du’s hand vigorously and said, “The young ones know how things work.”

It was less about Li Du knowing how things worked and more about him not wanting to waste any more time on this. What worried him more was the thought of this dispute escalating and his parents being dragged into it. After all, he was about to get married soon and didn’t want to get bogged down by trifling matters.

Another thing to note was that he was spending this money to save his parents’ reputation. This was as good as his parents winning a dispute against the government, which would greatly improve their standing amongst the neighbors.

He signed the sponsors.h.i.+p agreement for the activity center with the county government, then immediately went back to briefly inform his parents. He told them that the issue had been dealt with but they had to be discreet about the project sponsors.h.i.+p.

This was as good a solution as it could get. To Li Du, an issue that could be settled with money was no issue at all, and spending money to improve his parent’s standing with the neighbors was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

After the Lantern Festival, Li Du took Sophie and the little ones back.

They ran into a little trouble after the plane took off, and had no choice but to wait since they were on a private jet.

They waited for two days, but the issue with the plane was still not resolved, so they switched to another one. They flew to Australia for the time being before making the detour back.

Sophie could not understand why they had to make a detour to Australia. Originally, they were to fly within the northern hemisphere but now that they flew down to the southern hemisphere, the journey had lengthened a considerable bit.

Li Du explained, “I’m not too sure, seems like the replacement plane sent here had originally been on the way to Melbourne to deal with some things, so we’re basically stowaways. But just as well, we can go to visit Seagull Island.”

Sophie did not mind. After they boarded the plane, she played around with the little ones.

The plane flew towards the southern half of the globe and landed in Melbourne. There, Big Ivan waited for them with a helicopter. The bunch boarded the helicopter to continue flying southeast.

After some time, Seagull Island appeared within their sight.

Seagull Island was situated in the midst of the boundless ocean, a piece of green floating in the large expanse of blue, like a green gemstone embellis.h.i.+ng the surface of the sea.

The environment on the island was preserved very well, and there was also a port, a small airport, and several houses. There was a resort villa built on the mountain from where misty smoke wafted up, a sign that there were many hot springs.

The helicopter landed, and Li Du waited until the blades stopped spinning before he opened the door. He caught Sophie as she jumped off and when her feet touched the ground, she looked up and exclaimed in shock, “Oh, my G.o.d!”