Although Chen Hongjun had kept wanting to stay low-key and avoid making a big deal of it, plenty of people still found out he was moving.
There was no hiding it-if Chen Hongjun moved into the Big Courtyard, he would have to give up his work-unit housing. Moving over the weekend would be a little difficult for his family, but taking leave to move was something he couldn't bring himself to do.
He simply called a few colleagues over to help.
Northern Xinjiang had plenty of land and few people. Although housing was tight in those days, it wasn't like some places in Inland China, where seven or eight people were crammed into a room of barely fifteen or twenty square meters.
But information didn't travel freely back then, and people compared themselves with those around them. Chen Hongjun's family of four lived in two rooms totaling over twenty square meters, with a storage room besides. In terms of space per person, it wasn't all that little.
Compared with people living in courtyard houses, though, it was naturally much worse.
So to Li Long, their living conditions seemed rather hard.
But compared with the young people at the work unit waiting for housing allocations before they could marry, they were truly fortunate. Some people at the factory were already married and still hadn't been allocated homes of their own. They could only live outside the work unit with their families, which was quite uncomfortable.
So the moment Chen Hongjun bought the courtyard house, word got out. He didn't hide it either, reporting directly to his work unit that he planned to move that Sunday and then hand over the keys.
What surprised Chen Hongjun was that someone arrived early Sunday morning, just after breakfast, before they had finished packing everything