What if I accidentally knock over the stove or a thermos and get burned?
Just as Jiang Yu left, Jiang Youliang came down from the mountain carrying a large basket on his back.
She was also carrying a large shopping bag in each hand.
Jiang Xiaoman quickly ran over, took the shopping bag and put it on the ground, and helped him unload the basket from his back.
This basket is really heavy!
Did his dad bring the whole refrigerator from home?
"I've been lucky these past few days. I don't know what's wrong with this year, but there are a lot of pheasants in the area on the eastern ridge. I set a trap and caught more than a dozen!"
"But these things look hairy and don't have much meat, so I slaughtered them all. I just passed by the school and gave a few to your Uncle Baichuan. The rest are here."
"There weren't many wild rabbits this year, I only caught one, and it wasn't very big, so I didn't bring it over. I caught two chickens from home and dug up a basket of new potatoes. I'll make a stew of potatoes and chicken for the reporters later."
As Jiang Youliang spoke, he took things out of the house. In no time, the ground was covered with all kinds of meat and vegetables that he had brought from home. Worried that city people would not like to eat potato rice, Jiang Youliang also broke off a large bag of corn cobs and dug out a bag full of sweet potatoes to bring over.
"Oh dear! What a pig-brain I am! Why did I take it out?" Looking at the fruits and vegetables scattered all over the ground, Jiang Xiaoman patted her head in annoyance and put them back.
"Dad, the stove in this house has collapsed, and there's no pot to cook with. Can you help me deliver these things to Brother Shanyan's house? I'll borrow his kitchen to cook lunch, and we'll have lunch at his house too."
Looking at the bare walls of the rented house, Jiang Youliang felt quite helpless. He could only pack his things back and deliver them to Jiang Yu's house first.
After all that back and forth, I had just sat down to catch my breath when the provincial TV station's interview vehicle arrived.
Tang Xinlan guessed correctly; the "Old House Gets a New Home" program team was indeed very interested in Jiang Xiaoman, the person seeking help.
Just as she told the program team, if this appeal for help is successful, it will not only change the living environment of one family, but the future of an entire village...
If the theme were elevated further and combined with the currently popular "rural revitalization," it might even revive the popularity of this lackluster program.
Although they never really became famous, well, at least it's still a glimmer of hope.
With this "take a gamble" mentality, An Miaomiao, the head of the program team, personally led a team to Langshan Village to scout the location, vowing to make a name for themselves this time.
As the car drove further and further off the mountain road, Miao Miao's mood grew better and better.
Is the person seeking help living in a remote mountainous area?
Very good!
The more remote the better!
Living in a remote mountainous area means that the local people probably don't have an easy life. I heard there isn't even a courier service point there. When villagers go out to work and want to send things home, they have to send them to the courier service point in town first. When family members get a call to pick up the package, they have to pay an extra storage fee... Oh dear!
If they were to successfully establish this courier service point in the village, wouldn't the entire village benefit?
I heard that the person they're asking for help with this time is a big influencer with millions of followers. They'll ask him to make a short video to promote the show and boost the ratings before the end of the year. Maybe that will help their program survive another year?
Following the navigation, we drove all the way to Langshan Village and saw a dilapidated little tile-roofed house by the roadside. The driver got out of the car to ask for directions, but unexpectedly, this turned out to be the home of the person who asked for help!
The driver was startled and couldn't help but look up again at the two dilapidated houses that looked like haunted houses. He was speechless for a moment.
Why bother renovating this dilapidated house?
Shouldn't we just tear it down and rebuild it?
An Miaomiao waited in the car for a while, and then saw the driver run back happily, saying that there was no need to go any further, as this was the home of the person she was asking for help with.
Staring at the dilapidated, crumbling house in front of them, An Miaomiao and the designer invited by the program team were speechless.
"Director An, I'm afraid this house is difficult to renovate..." Designer Yan Xuanxuan was sweating profusely.
She had been working with the program team for a long time, but this was the first time she had ever seen such a dilapidated house.
In the past, the people who sought help either lived in unfinished houses in the countryside where they couldn't afford to renovate, or in old houses in the city with unreasonable layouts. Apart from needing to renovate and change the house layout, the main building was actually fine.
But Jiang Xiaoman's house... it's a dilapidated building!!!
Yan Xuanxuan was afraid that while she was making changes, the house would suddenly collapse.
Whose responsibility is that?
All the worries on her mind were transformed into a surge of motivation thanks to the warm hospitality of Jiang Xiaoman's family.
It's just two brick houses in the countryside, isn't it?
If that doesn't work, we can cut down on the renovation costs. The production team can pay for two new rooms to be built for Jiang Xiaoman's house!
"Director Yan, I'm so sorry, I just rented this house. The wires inside have been chewed up by rats, so I'll just have to offer you some tea at the door." Jiang Xiaoman poured them some hot tea and then invited them to have some snacks.
On a typical rural square table, six plates were neatly arranged, containing oranges, bananas, autumn pears, glutinous rice balls, cloud cakes, and spiced peanuts that Jiang Xiaoman had bought.
"You rented this house? Can you make changes to it? Did the landlord authorize it?"
When Yan Xuanxuan heard Jiang Xiaoman say that the house was actually rented, she immediately became anxious.
Tang Xinlan didn't tell them about this.
They thought the house that needed renovation was Jiang Xiaoman's own old house.
What should we do?
The people seeking help from their program in the past, no matter how dilapidated their houses were, were still their own. The property rights were in their own hands, so of course they could change them however they wanted.
But if you make any changes to a rented house, and the landlord disagrees, wouldn't you have to sue their production team?
"Oh, it's alright. I could only rent before because I didn't have the money. But I've already talked to the village, and I'll go there in the next couple of days to complete the formalities and buy the land. It won't delay the filming of the show," Jiang Xiaoman quickly explained.
"Can you buy and sell homestead land in your village? Your family doesn't live here, right? I remember that in rural areas, each household can only have one homestead, right?" Yan Xuanxuan asked in surprise.
She has been doing this show for two years and often goes to rural towns to film, so she knows a lot about this kind of common sense.
"Ahem~ That's the rule, but there's another situation here. If a family has a son and he gets married and builds a house, and doesn't want to live with his parents, he can apply to the village for another plot of land for his home. This is commonly known as separating the family and living separately." Jiang Xiaoman rubbed his nose.
"But we don't need to film this on TV, right? Anyway, I own the land rights. If other villages see this and get upset, they might change the rules in our village too, and everyone will hate us." Jiang Xiaoman explained embarrassedly.
"Our Langshan is different from the outside world. Outside, villages have a large population but little land, and homesteads are strictly regulated. Here, sigh! You'll see when you go to the village. Eight out of ten households have empty houses. The whole family has gone out to work, and some haven't come back for years. The old houses have become weasel dens!"
“You won’t believe it, but these two tile-roofed houses only cost 1,200 yuan a year to rent. The village told me that if I wanted to buy them, they would give me the land for 15,000 yuan.”
"Fifteen thousand?" The entire production team was stunned.
Fifteen thousand yuan, in their provincial capital, let alone the main urban area, or even the suburbs, would only be enough to buy one square meter! How could it buy an entire plot of land for a house in Langshan?
Although the plot of land wasn't very big, everyone was extremely envious.
"Sigh! It's a pity that rural homesteads can't be bought and sold yet, otherwise I'd like to buy a plot of land in the village and build my own house," the driver sighed.
This price is outrageously cheap!
However, if they were to actually buy a plot of land in a place like Langshan, even for 15,000 yuan, their families probably wouldn't agree.
This place is just too remote. If I really move here after retirement, the elderly are prone to getting sick. If I get any acute illness, by the time I get to a hospital in the city, I'll probably be dead... Sigh!
No wonder the person seeking help said there wasn't even a package collection point in the village.
After sitting down and having a few sips of tea, An Miaomiao introduced Jiang Xiaoman to the designer the program team had invited to renovate their old house.
"This is Ms. Yan Xuanxuan, our program's go-to designer. Ms. Yan is particularly skilled at renovating old rural houses, and the people who sought help in the previous episodes were all very satisfied..."
"Xiaoman, Teacher Yan's revisions are excellent. I've watched several of her programs!" Jiang Youliang never expected that the TV station would send Yan Xuanxuan to his home. She was the star designer for the program.
"And who is this?" An Miaomiao looked at Jiang Youliang sitting next to her.
"Oh, this is my dad. I forgot to mention, my dad is a loyal viewer of your program. He watches every episode." Jiang Xiaoman smiled and pushed her dad forward.
"Oh my! No wonder Uncle knows our Teacher Yan. Teacher Yan is our program's star designer." An Miaomiao's smile unconsciously became more sincere.
After all, for their incredibly unpopular show, every loyal viewer who watches the premiere is a treasure!
When Yan Xuanxuan heard that the father of the person seeking help also appreciated her design work, her smile became even brighter.
She was from a rural area, but she was one of the luckier girls in the countryside. Her parents didn't favor boys over girls. Her brother saw that his sister was doing better than him in school, and since he didn't like studying, he simply dropped out of school to work. The whole family saved money to send her to university.
Because of this, her brother didn't get married until he was almost thirty. All the family's savings, including the money she had saved after graduation, were used to pay for the down payment on the house in their hometown. They still didn't have the money to repair the house.
At that time, Yan Xuanxuan's biggest motivation was to become the highest-earning designer in the company and personally build the most magnificent villa in the whole village for her family!
A few years ago, Yan Xuanxuan finally saved enough money to build a small villa for her family. Perhaps because of this background, she is particularly good at renovating old houses for people in rural areas who need help.
As a designer from a farming family, Yan Xuanxuan knows better than anyone what kind of "luxury house" rural people want most.
She is very good at finding a balance between rustic and stylish design. The final product not only satisfied the person who asked for help, but also surprised the audience, who exclaimed that they never expected that a rural house could be decorated like this.
To her surprise, because of this TV show, many wealthy people from various towns and villages have specifically contacted the company, asking her to design their mansions...
An Miaomiao waited two extra days for this trip to Langshan, just to make sure Yan Xuanxuan's schedule was available.
Because among the designers currently working with the program team, she is the most skilled at renovating rural residences.
Chapter 113
After finishing their tea, Jiang Xiaoman led An Miaomiao and the others on a tour of the interior.
The interior layout of the two dilapidated houses was also extremely shabby.
The room on the east side is a bedroom. After the original owner passed away, according to their local custom, the bed that the elderly slept in after their death was also chopped up and burned, so the room is now empty.
There were two windows, old-fashioned wooden windows, the glass of which had long since shattered, leaving only the rotten window frames. When the wind blew, they creaked and groaned, which sounded rather eerie.
The room on the right was divided into two sections by a pile of firewood. The inner room was probably used to store grain and farm tools, while the outer room was a kitchen. The mud-brick stove was half collapsed, and the iron pot on the stove had disappeared without a trace...
Everyone was speechless with emotion.
Looking up again, I saw that many of the roof tiles were broken, and a sliver of sunlight shone down, making the room seem even more gloomy.
Stomping your feet causes dust to fall from the wall in a flurry. The electrical wires that run up the wall have long been chewed into pieces by rats and are covered with cobwebs.
"Well... I think we should just tear this house down and rebuild it. Renovating it would be too difficult!"
Yan Xuanxuan secretly swallowed.
Putting aside the suffocating interior layout, the most fatal flaw is actually the main structure.
This is a dangerous building!
From the outside it looks like a brick house, but once you go inside you realize that only the lower half of the house is made of red bricks.
It's likely that they ran out of money halfway through building the house, or perhaps they were trying to save money by making the upper half of the house out of mud bricks. Forget about knocking down walls to change the layout, it would probably collapse if you pushed it even slightly.
"Teacher Yan, could you please help me calculate how much the demolition and reconstruction project would cost?"