Moving House

Du Le was a simple, straightforward guy without a malicious bone in his body. He just didn't seem all that bright.

His luck was pretty average, too.

His grades had always been unremarkable. He'd barely managed to get into university, only for the school to be bought out the year he graduated.

In other words, the university he'd attended ceased to exist right after stamping his graduation certificate.

The school hadn't been well known to begin with, and after the merger, it vanished without a trace.

You couldn't find even a scrap of information about it online.

As a result, his graduation certificate looked even faker than a fake one.

He'd spent years at university, only to graduate from a school that didn't exist...

His mind-boggling intelligence and luck often left me not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

When it came to moving, since Sun Qirui wasn't leaving, Du Le spent ages putting his head together with his family, and their final decision was: he wouldn't move either.

His big eyes gleamed with what he thought was shrewdness as he earnestly tried to persuade me. "Sister Feng has been in Singapore for so many years, after all. She's established here. You shouldn't move either. It's good to have someone powerful to lean on."

I rolled my eyes at him countless times. "She lied to us about being able to get high-paying jobs, scammed us out of our tuition fees, and charged us several times the market rate in rent.

She's a scammer with no conscience. What the hell good does it do us that she knows Singapore?"

The big dope remained utterly convinced that he had someone influential to cling to, and flatly refused to move.

I could have rolled my eyes until I went blind, and it still wouldn't have helped. In the end, I moved out on my own to somewhere closer to school.

Luckily, I hadn't been in Singapore long and didn't have much stuff. One suitcase was enough for the whole move.

There was one upside to Du Le staying: he got to witness every single thing I'd predicted that day come true, one after another.

(•̀͜᠈ •́)و ̑̑

The place I rented in Paya Lebar was a terraced house.

Housing in Singapore was a little different from what we were used to back home. Broadly speaking, it fell into three categories.

The first was public housing, known as HDB, similar to the apartment blocks back home, with a 99-year lease.

The flats came in different sizes, and the blocks generally had lifts.

The storage room doubled as a bomb shelter.

This type of housing was subsidized by the government.

As long as you had a job, your provident fund contributions were enough to cover the mortgage.

Even if both husband and wife worked as dishwashers, it was enough.

That ensured everyone had a home.

The second type was private condominiums, with 99-year or 999-year leases, or freehold ownership.

These condominiums were very different from the so-called apartments back home.

Back home, we called those tiny pigeonhole units with 40-year ownership rights apartments.

In Singapore, though, condominiums meant upscale housing, generally with outdoor swimming pools and other luxurious fitness facilities.

The people who could afford them were usually senior executives at major companies or business owners.

The third type was landed property, generally houses, including terraced houses, semi-detached houses, and detached houses.

Anyone who could afford those was either self-made wealthy or born into wealth.

To us back then, the people who owned the second and third types were unquestionably rich.

They belonged to a social class we could hardly hope to reach.

They stood at a summit far beyond our grasp.

They were people whose lives would never intersect with ours.

It wasn't until later, when many people around me made that leap in social class, that I realized the gap wasn't quite so impossible to cross.

I wasn't sure how many generations my landlord's family had been wealthy, because I'd never met him.

His family owned more than just this one property.

This house was only for renting out. They didn't live there, and they didn't even show up in person to collect the rent.

Perhaps they didn't need the money, so they weren't particularly concerned about how much rent they charged.

Thanks to that, I was lucky enough to get through that financially difficult period.

Once I'd finished moving, it was almost time for school to start.