You've Gotten Better at This (Repaying a Debt)

"Do we still need to talk about owing each other favors?"

Li Ye decided to have a proper talk with Liu Muhan.

Pointing at the thirty-five-thousand-yuan house, he said, "A house really is incredibly valuable to ordinary people, but you ought to ask Uncle Liu how much money would be appropriate to measure the friendship between him and my grandfather."

"My grandfather and Grandpa Liu entrusted their lives to each other on the battlefield back then.

And now we're pushing and yielding over a house. Are you trying to 'normalize' the relationship between our two families starting with our generation? From now on, are we supposed to calculate precisely who owes whom?"

"..."

Liu Muhan stared at Li Ye in stunned silence for a long while.

She was a quick-witted girl herself, but once Li Ye invoked the "life-and-death friendship" of their elders, she could not think of a suitable word to refute him.

Li Zhongfa and Liu Zhengqing had been comrades who led a company in a blocking battle. When they saw a comrade in danger, either one would charge madly into battle against an entire squad of japanese soldiers alone for the other.

Compared to that bond forged in battle, one house was truly nothing.

"Fine! Let's go look at that ruined house first."

In the end, Liu Muhan still decided to take a look at the courtyard in Ya'er Hutong before turning Li Ye down. It would count as giving face to her honest and kind-hearted grandnephew.

But when they arrived at the courtyard in Ya'er Hutong, Liu Muhan became puzzled.

The place was indeed huge, but it was also truly dilapidated!

How dilapidated was it?

So dilapidated that more than half of its dozen-odd households could not stand it anymore and had moved away.

"The original