Make a Fortune and Become Well-off [90] - Chapter 161

The teacher from Wuzhong, after grading the test papers from No. 1 High School, took out several papers showing excellent performance, suggesting that these students were likely to be among the top 50 in the county.

The corrections for No. 1 High School were also completed, and the teachers were anxiously awaiting to see how they had fared compared to the outstanding names from Wuzhong. Song Peifeng from Wuzhong, who had been the top pick in the previous high school entrance examination, was still performing exceptionally well, maintaining his high scores.

Even though the test was not as difficult as the college entrance examination, the examiners had increased the difficulty to match the teaching progress of each school. Despite this, Song Peifeng had managed to score exceedingly high.

The first place was undoubtedly his.

How many students from No. 1 High School would be among the top ten this time?

They were all waiting for the results from No. 2, No. 3 High School, and nearby township high schools to finalize the overall ranking.

“I wonder how our No. 1 High School did in the exam this time,” someone asked the class teacher of Class 1. “I wonder how Zhang Wenxue from your class performed. Maybe he will be in the top three.”

Zhang Wenxue was the study committee member of Class 1 and had ranked first in the grade during the midterm exams.

“Xing Hongyu from Class 2 is also quite impressive. He was also in the top ten of his grade last time he took the test. If you ask me, apart from Jiang Ning, he has the most chances among the freshmen.”

Xing Hongyu was the monitor of the second class. When he entered the school, his grade ranking was around sixty or seventy. If he could reach the top ten of his grade, ranking higher than Jiang Ning, it showed significant progress. If he could maintain that momentum, his chances of entering the top three were high.

He was older than Cheng Yufeng, who was second in rank before. If Jiang Ning hadn’t surged ahead during the midterm exam, everyone wouldn’t have focused on her and overlooked Xing Hongyu.

It could be said that if Jiang Ning hadn’t suddenly emerged, Xing Hongyu would have been the typical representative of a boy who made significant progress in high school.

Unfortunately, the male representative was overshadowed by another who advanced more quickly. Nonetheless, the teachers still acknowledged Xing Hongyu.

After seeing Song Peifeng’s score, they all shook their heads helplessly, “We don’t dare to hope for the number one spot in the county. If we don’t have anyone among the top three, then what’s the point?”

“Wasn’t Cheng Yufeng from Class 1 pretty good in the exam before? We can’t be without even one from No. 1 High School among the top three.” Looking at the names on the papers from Wuzhong, none of the teachers considered Jiang Ning.

The county joint examination was different from the smaller tests in school. During these smaller tests, students were in their own class and thus did not feel as nervous. However, taking the exam at Wuzhong, with Wuzhong teachers as invigilators, and the joint examination being held so formally, the pressure was far greater than the usual monthly and weekly exams.

Jiang Ning’s ability to rank tenth in her school and among the top twenty in the entire Wucheng ranking was a significant achievement for No. 1 High School. However, such a major test was a true measure of students’ psychological quality.

Jiang Ning was already calculating. With only ten days left for the final exam and winter vacation approaching, she planned to go to Shanghai as soon as the final exam was over. Her goal was to obtain the real estate certificate for her first house and then look for additional properties while prices were still low.

Although the two existing apartments were large, high in quality, and had high ownership value, they had a significant drawback: one couldn’t be settled there.

In 1998, the country would issue a piece of news that would shock the housing market and have a profound impact on housing prices. Starting from 1998, the allocation of welfare housing would be canceled.

As soon as that policy was announced, it hit the common people hard. Many who were waiting for welfare housing allocations from their work units found themselves forced to use their own wages to buy a house. From then on, the demand for housing in Shanghai surged. Housing prices in the city would skyrocket and continue to rise for over twenty years.

So Jiang Ning wanted to buy a house before that time came. At that time, there was no communal area. In other words, Jiang Ning bought two units of 156 square meters each, featuring four bedrooms, two living rooms, and two bathrooms. The apartments were actually 156 square meters, with a floor height of 6.2 meters. The middle partition was made of a 20-centimeter-thick floor. If it were divided into two floors, the height of each floor would be three meters, meaning she owned two large mansions of nearly 300 square meters.

Not to mention that these two apartments had water and electricity, and the property rights were valid for seventy years. Compared to commercial residences, the only differences were that they couldn’t be transferred with a blue-printed household registration, could not be settled, and did not belong to a school district. This meant that future children could not use these houses for schooling, and high second-hand transaction costs were a disadvantage.

But these drawbacks were not significant for Jiang Ning. It should be noted that the gift of blue-printed household registration when buying a house was not canceled until 2000.

Since it was only 1996 after the New Year, she had ample time to prepare.

The reason why blue-stamped household registration was so eagerly sought and could even boost the commercial housing market significantly, leading to the golden decade of Shanghai’s real estate industry, was because once a person had a blue-stamped household registration, they could take the college entrance examination in the place where their household registration was located.

In other words, if Jiang Ning could change her household registration from Wucheng to Shanghai before her college entrance examination, she could take the exam in Shanghai.

What was the difference between taking the college entrance examination in Shanghai and taking it in Wucheng?

Currently, the key universities in Wucheng had an admission rate of only one percent, while in Shanghai, it could exceed five percent. With the introduction of the 211 concept, Shanghai’s admission rate was over ten percent, directly higher than Wucheng’s eight or even more.

To put it more bluntly, if Jiang Bai could leverage Jiang Ning’s advantage and get his registered residence in Shanghai, he would most likely avoid failing the exam as he did in his previous life and wouldn’t waste several years becoming a young apprentice.

Therefore, buying a third apartment was a smart move as long as it was done before 1998.

Of course, the sooner the better. After all, in 1994, the Shanghai stock market had already introduced the policy of offering a blue-printed household registration with a house purchase. With 1995 ending and 1996 beginning, even though housing prices had not yet started to rise rapidly due to policy changes expected in 1998, it was better to buy sooner rather than later.