Chapter 447: This Is Probably What I Want to Do

Chapter 447 This Is Probably What I Want to Do

Su Taotao caught every word. She pointed outside:

"What's her deal?"

Fu Yuanhang shook his head: "No idea. When we arrived, she was already there poking around, asking nonstop if the house was ours, why no one lived there, and whether she could borrow it or rent it cheaply.

I told her it wasn’t ours, just that we were looking after it, and she immediately flipped out, saying she wanted to move in."

Su Taotao let out a bitter laugh: "The world’s full of weirdos."

Zhou Linglan was also annoyed. Su Taotao was at a crucial time—she had come for a nice meal and a break, only to run into this headache.

"Never mind her. Let’s eat first. Afterward, rest up so you’re refreshed for the exam this afternoon."

Su Taotao didn’t give it another thought either.

Zhou Linglan simmered the chicken soup with extra ginger slices and red dates. On a freezing winter day, the whole family gathered around to sip piping hot chicken soup—there was no better way to spend the day.

"How do you have time today?" Su Taotao asked Fu Zhengtu.

Fu Zhengtu picked up a piece of chicken leg and placed it in Su Taotao’s bowl, smiling: "Gotta eat lunch."

From his office to here, driving took at least two hours. This lunch was a real gas-guzzling trip.

Su Taotao also picked out a piece of meat and put it in Fu Zhengtu’s bowl: "It’s just two days. Don’t bother coming tomorrow."

Fu Zhengtu nodded: "Mm, just came today to give you a pep talk."

Chenchen lifted his head from a bowl bigger than his face: "Dad, go back to work. We'll root for Mom even harder!"

Zhou Linglan smiled and ladled another bowl of soup for her good boy: "Chenchen's right. The whole family will root for Mom."

...

The weather held up, and the college entrance exam finally ended under the warm winter sun.

Su Taotao tested for two and a half days, including the optional English exam on the third day.

She had applied for an unexpected major as her first choice—architecture.

Her second choice was a foreign language major.

She figured that even if something went wrong and she didn't get into her first choice, she still had English to fall back on. Back when the college entrance exams were first reinstated, it was said that just passing English could get you into a program related to the language, and she felt confident about her English skills.

Even Fu Yuanhang couldn’t help asking Su Taotao: "Sis, why did you choose architecture?"

Su Taotao smiled and said, "When everything’s starting from scratch, we’ve got to build from the ground up.

Do you remember what that woman who knocked on Mr. Tang’s door the other day said?

Eight people stuffed into one room—and there are plenty of families like hers in the city.

Now, the educated youth returning from the countryside are coming back to the cities little by little. We need to solve their basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. But housing in the city is already in short supply—housing is the biggest problem."

In the economic boom over the next few decades, real estate would become a key driver.

Most early tycoons got rich by cashing in on real estate.

In fact, most of the first batch of daring and hardworking entrepreneurs who ventured into business during the 1980s and 1990s struck it rich.

Su Taotao was never someone to stick to a conventional nine-to-five routine; previous environmental constraints had simply left her with no choice.

As the saying goes, even a pig can fly when catching the right wind.

Now she stood at the sweet spot of opportunity, and there was no reason not to catch this rising tide—especially since it also meant genuinely contributing to societal development. Why not?

However, her immediate goal was to quickly earn her first bucket of gold during her four years in university—and she had already thought through potential partners.

But there was no rush. From the start of reform and opening-up to the point where individuals were allowed to invest in real estate, there was at least a decade-long gap.

She had plenty of time to accumulate her first bucket of gold.

Fu Yuanhang was quick on the uptake—once Su Taotao explained, everything clicked for him immediately.

He nodded, looking at her with determination. "Sister-in-law, when it's time for my college entrance exams, I’ll apply for a major related to architecture."

Su Taotao was both amused and exasperated. "Ah Hang, my considerations are different from yours. Your interests should come before your career choices. Whatever you love doing, I’ll support you—you don’t have to follow in my footsteps."

Fu Yuanhang shook his head. "Sister-in-law, I used to be unsure about what I wanted to do in life. Writing books, painting—these could all be hobbies. But if I made painting my career, I’d feel unsatisfied, like something was missing.

Then you mentioned raising skyscrapers from empty lots, and suddenly, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. With my artistic skills, I could not only design houses but also parks, squares, hospitals, libraries, basketball courts, museums…

I could take the city as my canvas, mapping out every necessary structure that supports development, watching them rise from the ground, transforming old cities into new ones, creating homes by the thousands where people can find shelter from life’s storms.

Sister-in-law, this is what I’m meant to do."

...