“So that’s why the marriage and birth rates in Sunshine City have been so high for the past three years,” Bai Liu said thoughtfully. “It turns out it’s because of the existence of this [Sunshine Seedling] loan.”
Mu Sicheng’s hair stood on end as he listened. “Using children as collateral? When these kids grow up and realize they’ve been mortgaged, won’t they run away?”
The old grandma sighed and shook her head. “They can’t run away. Once you come to Sunshine City, there is no way to leave without paying off the loan.”
“My husband and I haven’t left this place for sixty years since the day we started paying our mortgage.” The old man looked outside District E, where the high-rise buildings blocked all but a sliver of sunlight. A fleeting longing appeared in his eyes. “Sometimes I want to go outside and take a look, but if I take even one day off, I lose my job.”
“I really hope that ten years from now, when we finish paying off the loan, we’ll have a little money left to see the outside world while we’re still alive.”
“I’ve lived to such an old age in Sunshine City, yet I’ve never seen the whole sun.”
The old man whispered softly, as if sighing. But before he even finished his sentence, he covered his mouth and began coughing violently, large mouthfuls of bloody pus surging from his mouth and nose.
The old grandma next to him, accustomed to this, took out a small handkerchief from her chest and wiped him, nodding apologetically to Bai Liu and the others. “Excuse us. We both work on construction sites. The dust is too thick, and our respiratory tracts have always been bad. It’s an old ailment.”
“Our medical expenses every month are a huge expenditure. When we were young, we really should have worn protective masks properly. We shouldn’t have rushed just to save a little time.” The old grandma patted the old man’s back with slight reproach, letting out a long sigh. “Look at us now, we’ve spent even more on medical bills, right?”
Tang Erda took out a bottle of water and slowly fed it to the dry-coughing old man, frowning as he asked, “This is an occupational disease caused by long-term work, right? It should be considered a severe work injury. Doesn’t your company provide compensation?”
The old man and grandma looked slightly confused upon hearing this. “What work injury? What compensation?”
Tang Erda was just about to explain, but then he remembered the various bizarre systems here. Under these bizarre systems, a company compensating employees for occupational diseases was simply an overly extravagant thing. So he closed his mouth and eventually just said stiffly, “It’s nothing,” brushing the topic aside.
Instead, the old man slowly took two sips of water, recovered a bit, thought about Tang Erda’s words, and seemed to understand his meaning. He shook his head as if finding it funny. “Oh, young man, after working on construction sites for decades, by my age, everyone gets this kind of illness. How could the company afford to take care of it? Medical expenses are so expensive.”
“They open companies to make money, not to do charity.” The old man waved his hand. “Taking care of your medical expenses for decades? Where would you find such a good thing.”
Bai Liu matched the old man’s slow pace, walking alongside him. “I’ve noticed there are many new citizens in Sunshine City. Are you a local or an immigrant?”
“My wife and I are both immigrants.” The old man looked at Bai Liu. “There have been fewer immigrants to Sunshine City in recent years. In the early years, when I came, there were many more!”
Bai Liu followed up and asked, “Why were there so many immigrants to Sunshine City in the early years?”
“Because for our batch, there was a loan project called [Sunshine New Home].” The old man’s memory seemed to be failing him; he stopped walking, frowning in deep thought to recall. “I can’t remember the exact terms, but basically, if you came to Sunshine City and planned to buy a house, and at the same time you could bring in twenty or more outsiders to buy houses in Sunshine City, you could get a housing subsidy of almost three million.”
“At that time, everyone bought houses around 30 square meters, with an average price of 200,000. So it was basically a 50% discount!” The old man had a look of relief. “Although the salary level wasn’t high back then, maybe one or two thousand a month, it was still a very good deal!”
The old grandma nodded in strong agreement. “Gritting our teeth and buying a house back then was the most correct decision we ever made.”
“At the time, we weren’t even willing to come over.” The old grandma covered her mouth and laughed as she recalled. “He was so anxious that he shouted things like, ‘If you’re my brother, help me slash three million off!'”
“Yes, because my wife and I were also coaxed over by friends back then. Because they needed 20 outsiders to come and buy houses in order to enjoy the [Sunshine New Home] loan service here.” The old man tilted his head up slightly, recalling the past. “Back then, under the vigorous persuasion of my friend, and because I’m a loyal person, I gritted my teeth and bought it anyway. Later, in order to enjoy the [Sunshine New Home] service myself, I also called twenty friends over to buy houses.”
The old man waved his hand with a proud expression. “Of course, they are all very grateful to me now. Otherwise, with the current housing prices, they would absolutely never be able to afford a house.”
Bai Liu’s eyes flickered slightly. “Indeed.”
No wonder there were so many new immigrants in Sunshine City. It turned out to be this pyramid scheme-style recruitment strategy.
One person coming here to buy a house and pay off a loan would bring twenty people here to buy houses and pay off loans. Twenty people buying houses would bring in four hundred people. And once you bought a house in Sunshine City and had a loan, you couldn’t leave. Wave after wave, people were thoroughly trapped within Sunshine City.
“Does this [Sunshine New Home] loan project still exist?” Bai Liu asked softly. “I see there are still quite a few immigrants coming over.”
“It’s been gone for a long time.” The old man shook his head. “Now, just the birth rate in Sunshine City alone can increase the population quite a bit each year. There’s no need to introduce an external population anymore. The immigrants coming over now are probably not well-informed and don’t know that the [Sunshine New Home] loan was canceled a long time ago. They missed the boat.”
The old grandma sighed. “These young people came too late. If they had come a little earlier during the good times, they could have bought a nice, 20-square-meter house in Sunshine City just by pulling people in.”
“Ah, housing prices are really high now. No wonder you young people are forced to live in cemetery apartments.” The old man couldn’t hide his sighs. “Living in the house you have your hands on basically means you’re dead men walking. You’re really brave, actually daring to buy it to live in.”
Bai Liu quickly caught the key word: “Cemetery apartments?”
The old man gave Bai Liu and the others a strange look, his tone rising in question: “You didn’t know? Street 18, Road 444 in District E is the Sunshine City Cemetery.”
Mu Ke paused for a moment. “But the property deed says the 18th floor. How could it be a cemetery?”
“That’s right.” The old man explained naturally, “The cemeteries here are also multi-story buildings, hollowed out and built downwards underground. The floor closest to the surface is the first floor of the cemetery, and the deeper you go, the higher the floor number. Usually, each cemetery building has 18 floors. You got the top floor, which can also be said to be the very bottom of the cemetery. It’s the worst cemetery floor.”
“The bottom floors are all large-sized cemetery units, usually able to hold the corpses of the whole family, around 3 to 5 square meters. Even after removing the shared area, they are usually over 2.7 square meters. Most of them have been bought up by wealthy first-class citizens. The ones at the top are usually only 1 or 2 square meters, and after removing the shared area, only about 1.5 square meters. They can only hold one corpse, so they aren’t very easy to sell. They’re still on sale now. Yours, at over 2.5 square meters, is considered large.”
“An 18-floor cemetery going downwards?!” Mu Sicheng felt a bit dizzy hearing this. “How the fuck is this any different from the Eighteen Levels of Hell?”
Hearing this, the old man actually thought Mu Sicheng was joking and burst out laughing. “This is a characteristic of Sunshine City. Cemeteries, like apartment buildings, are all high-rise structures. Otherwise, if one cemetery took up one plot of land, how expensive would that be? No one could afford it.”
“But you absolutely must not buy these cemetery apartments to live in.” After laughing, the old man solemnly put his hand on Bai Liu’s shoulder and offered a grave warning. “I know some young people get greedy for the cheap price of these cemetery apartments and buy them to use as bedrooms, but whatever you do, don’t live in them.”
“You can live in a haunted house, so why can’t you live here?” Bai Liu raised an eyebrow and asked.
The old man lowered his voice, leaned in close to Bai Liu’s ear, and said, “There are no elevators in the cemetery buildings. When you get off work at night and want to go back to this 18th-floor cemetery apartment to rest, you have to walk down floor by floor yourself, passing by all the cemetery apartments.”
“But this is a place for the dead. They come out and move around at night.”
“If you live in a haunted house, you’ll only encounter one ghost. But if you live in a cemetery, you’ll encounter a whole building full of ghosts. You might be able to hide from one ghost, but where can you hide from an entire building of ghosts? You wouldn’t even have time to run back up to the surface.”
The old man gave a slight, dry cough and patted Bai Liu’s shoulder earnestly. “Living in a place for the dead will truly turn you into a dead person. Young man, you’d better work hard, earn money, and strive to buy a house above ground in Sunshine City.”
