The Chu family's old home was relatively close to the city center, in an old staff dormitory building from the eighties.
Nanjiang had still been very run-down before reform and opening up. Back then, the old home had been considered on the outskirts, but as the city expanded outward, ring after ring, it had ended up in the city center instead...
Chu Ge had no idea how what had once been just the XX Geological Research Institute had become something so prestigious now... Nor did he know how many of the neighbors really belonged to the geological institute and how many belonged to special departments. Maybe only his parents were special? No matter how he looked at them, there seemed to be nothing special about the gossiping older men and women around here.
This residential compound was in a rather awkward position, mainly because similar old, shabby little apartments in the city center tended to fall within desirable school catchment areas. Unfortunately for them, one street to their left was within a school catchment area, one turn to their right was too, but their compound wasn't.
It wasn't in a school catchment area, yet it hadn't been slated for demolition either...
Because it was in the city center, the rent was high, but the old, shabby little apartments were hard to rent out.
After moving out, Chu Ge had tried finding tenants for a while. Perhaps he'd been unlucky: for months, no one came to view it, and the few prospective tenants who did show up were all difficult to deal with. After wasting his writing time on several rounds of hassle, he gave up on renting it out and simply left it there.
There were quite a few similarly awkward old, shabby little apartments in Nanjiang City's urban area;