I'm Not Here to Give Gifts, I'm Here to Settle Accounts

"Grandpa, why did you only buy a three-bedroom apartment? Didn't Unit One over there have four-bedroom apartments?"

After hearing from his grandmother that his grandfather had moved into Qingshui River Food Company's dormitory building, Li Ye had pictured the cadre apartments and Expert Building he had seen in his previous life—advertised as one hundred square meters, but actually one hundred and eighty.

But once he stepped inside, he discovered that Comrade Li Zhongfa, a retired deputy department-level cadre and the actual controller of Qingshui County's biggest taxpayer, had only taken a three-bedroom apartment with barely more than a hundred square meters of usable space.

Yet Li Zhongfa laughed and scolded, "And you're still not satisfied with three bedrooms? Look how big this bedroom is. If we really counted it up, this place is already a little over the limit. Are you trying to make your grandpa violate regulations?"

Back in the eighties, rank came with all sorts of welfare benefits. Section-level cadres got two-bedroom apartments, while department-level cadres only got three-bedroom ones. If you wanted a big courtyard or a little Western-style house, your rank had to be higher, and your work unit had to be the right kind too.

In plenty of impoverished government offices, even department-level officials might not have had a three-bedroom apartment!

Li Ye curled his lip. "Over the limit, over the limit—how is it over the limit if you paid for it yourselves? You and Grandma too, why couldn't you tell me about something this big? I could have shown you some filial respect and bought you a larger place. Who would dare say I was over the limit? Besides, it's all our own business anyway. Why fuss over all that nonsense?"

In the early eighties, commercial housing had already appeared in major cities, but