Chapter 1620 Terms (1/2)

Li Du could understand his parents' stance on the demolition.

He believed his parents opposed the demolition because they genuinely wanted to be with their neighbors and not because they were trying to bargain for better compensation terms.

He empathized with them even more after witnessing that ugly quarrel at the park in the villa. East or west, home was best.

Another thing was that bringing his parents with him to America or Australia was unrealistic since he was rarely home himself. At their age, his parents wanted nothing but to return to their roots to settle and had absolutely no interest in picturesque scenery or riches.

On top of that, his father had accepted his role as representative for another reason — aside from his days in the production team when he was younger, he had never been head of anything and had never had the experience of being a leader.

Now that the neighbors had chosen him to take the lead, he was also riding high.

Li Du returned to the office and sat at the table after he ended the call with his parents.

The compensation terms for the demolition were on the table. Residents would get twice the value of their current living space and a hundred grand per person on top of that.

These were rather decent and honest terms for a county town demolition, but it was clear as day that the residents did not think so and wanted better terms.

Li Du did not want to be used by them, but he did not want his parents to suffer either. This put him in a difficult spot.

Initially, he had thought that getting involved with the government would put him in a bind, but he thought that it would be because he would be at a loss when it came to how much to invest or what to invest it in. He never thought he would be thinking about how to accept money from the government.

His brows were furrowed and he fell into deep thought as he looked at the community plan for the relocation area and the development plan for Cui Ji Street. The others were surrounding the secretary and clamoring for attention, crying and whining about their hardships. Their voices were so loud and noisy it was almost impossible to discern their words.

The building they were living in now was an old one and had six floors tall with no elevator. The building was big — four households to one unit. There was a large plot of empty land in front of the building that could be used as a plaza or a drying yard where families could leave their sacks of grain or miscellaneous items.

This was a sort of invisible welfare that they would lose if they moved to a new community.

The new community was a high-rise with elevators, a whole 28 stories tall. The building was surrounded by other buildings on all four sides and had no plaza or garden. It was a stifling environment to live in.

Li Du had been silent from the start until now, carefully studying the plan. The secretary could not even begin to guess what the man was thinking so he purposely asked him to share his thoughts.

This was basically setting him up to offend the bunch, and there was no way Li Du would take the bait.

However, the bunch of them were staring at him so there was no way he could reject the secretary. Thinking quickly, he put to use what he had learned from Da Mao at Hpakant. He opened his mouth and said, ”Moot, moot.”

”Mute?” Everyone was confused.

He had not said a single word when they were on the road, and none of them here were his neighbors. On top of that, he had not been home in a long time, so no one knew much about him.

The secretary's face hardened instantly. How insolent was it that they brought a mute person along to speak at this meeting?

They left Li Du alone after that, engrossed in discussing the compensation terms amongst themselves. It was chaotic; the bunch was going back and forth, bargaining and playing mind games.

By the time the discussion came to an end, they had not made much progress. The secretary waved his hand impatiently, calling for someone to see them out.

Li Du lingered and waited for the other anti-demolition people to leave before smiling. ”Hello, Secretary Cui. Let's discuss business now.”

One of the officials was puzzled. ”Aren't you mute?”