Siheyuan: Starting from 1958

Wang Dong has money and a house now, so there's absolutely no need for him to cause trouble for a few thousand yuan.

If I were Wang Dong, I wouldn't pick up this hot potato either.

But he really can't think of any other way to break the deadlock right now.

In the huge courtyard house, most of the wealthy neighbors had moved away, and those who hadn't moved had bought apartments elsewhere and could leave at any time. Only Wang Dong, this nouveau riche, had the means to help him.

He quickly explained, "Dongzi..."

“I can leave a will for Jie Cheng and his family, so that they will understand why they sold the house to you and guarantee that they won’t cause you any trouble after I pass away.”

"They have only themselves to blame. Who told them to ignore their own parents?"

"We have no food to eat, so we have to sell our houses."

"If they continue to cause trouble, they will be the ones who embarrass themselves in the end."

"If they still have any sense of shame, they won't dare to continue arguing with you."

"Besides, as a big boss like you, if you really wanted to deal with those unfilial sons, it should be a piece of cake."

"If you're willing, just talking should be enough; you don't need to do it yourself."

Just then, his father-in-law suddenly spoke up: "Dongzi..."

“We’re all old neighbors in the same courtyard, so we should help each other out if we can. We can’t just stand by and watch Teacher Yan and his wife go hungry in our courtyard…”

"As for the three brothers Jie..."

"If they can't even afford to support their own parents, they'll have nowhere to live in the future, and that's their own fault."

“If they dare to come to your house and cause trouble, all the old neighbors in the yard could drown them with their spit. I guarantee these three brothers won’t dare to cause trouble in the yard.”

Wang Dong was no longer worried about the Yan brothers causing trouble for him. Seeing that his father-in-law had spoken, he immediately agreed without hesitation: "Okay..."

"I'll buy your house..."

"I won't let you lose too much... Six thousand five hundred yuan, we'll go to the neighborhood committee to transfer the property tomorrow..."

"We'll collect the house after you all pass away..."

“Regardless of whether the three Yan brothers had a place to stay in Beijing at that time, they had to leave, otherwise I would definitely take some measures to make them leave.”

"If anything happens, it has nothing to do with me."

…………

The west wing of the middle courtyard.

Yi Zhonghai has been having a particularly bad time lately.

Two months ago, I tripped over something and fell to the ground when I went out to use the restroom in the dark.

Yi Zhonghai could feel a stick sweeping towards his calf, but when his neighbors in the yard heard his cries for help and rushed over, they didn't see the long stick that had tripped him, except for a few broken stones at his feet.

As I get older, my bones become very brittle, and this fall resulted in a fracture. I have to stay home to rest and take medication every day.

Yi Zhonghai was so anxious that his hair turned quite a bit white.

I saved up several hundred yuan by sweeping floors a few years ago, but prices in Beijing are just too high now.

If you have no income and live off your savings, your meager savings might not even last two or three years.

But it takes a hundred days to recover from a broken bone, and given his advanced age, no matter how anxious he was, he could only stay at home and endure the days in agony.

Two months have passed, but the fracture in his leg hasn't healed. Instead, it's become swollen and red, and even the slightest touch causes excruciating pain. Initially, Yi Zhonghai didn't take it seriously, thinking that as long as his leg injury healed within three months, some pain during the recovery process was normal.

After all, I've been taking medication during this period.

In addition, each hospital check-up costs a lot of money, and his dwindling wallet could no longer afford to spend it all at the hospital, so he just endured it.

He just couldn't take it anymore lately.

When he went to the hospital for a checkup, he discovered that the wound on his leg was not only not healing, but was getting worse, and surgery was necessary to improve it.

Yi Zhonghai was completely baffled.

Since I fractured my bone, I've done whatever the doctor told me to do and took whatever medicine he told me to take. So why is my condition getting worse?

Little did he know that most of the medicine he took every day was secretly replaced by Bang Geng.

Most of those medications were anti-inflammatory drugs to prevent the wound from becoming infected.

After the bark was replaced with calcium tablets, the anti-inflammatory effect was lost, which caused Yi Zhonghai's wounds to become more and more swollen and painful, even affecting his bones, forcing him to undergo surgery again.

However, this matter is destined to remain a mystery for Yi Zhonghai.

But Yi Zhonghai hesitated when faced with the hospital's suggestion to perform surgery again.

Because the cost of this surgery is higher than the cost of the first surgery, if I agree to it, all the savings I've worked so hard to accumulate will be gone.

However, if surgery is not performed and conservative treatment is used, even if the swelling of the wound subsides and the fractured bone heals in the future, the person will still become lame.

Faced with this difficult choice, not only Yi Zhonghai hesitated, but Bang Geng also hesitated.

Yi Zhonghai's fracture was caused by Bang Geng. The wound not only failed to heal but also worsened, which was also Bang Geng's doing. His goal was to cause an accident for Yi Zhonghai as soon as possible.

As a result, Yi Zhonghai was like an unkillable cockroach, managing to survive his own attacks.

However, these two things were not entirely fruitless for Bang Geng.

Qin Huairu had previously told him that Yi Zhonghai had saved up a lot of money in his pocket. Although Bang Geng believed him, he didn't think that the amount of money was that much.

After these two unexpected events, he realized that he had underestimated Yi Zhonghai's wealth.

The first surgery cost over 300 yuan, which I paid out easily without even blinking an eye.

The second surgery would cost about five hundred yuan. Although he didn't immediately agree, the struggle and hesitation on Yi Zhonghai's face showed that he had the money but was just reluctant to take it out.

Bang Geng has been out of prison for two years. He has worked on several construction sites and has only managed to save less than 500 yuan a day by working himself to the bone.

If I could get my hands on the money in Yi Zhonghai's pocket, my savings would immediately double.

However, if Yi Zhonghai goes to the hospital for a second surgery, then the 500 yuan surgery fee will be lost.

In addition, Bang Geng has always coveted Yi Zhonghai's house and wanted to get it for his own use when he got married. Bang Geng decided to take another drastic step against Yi Zhonghai.

Perhaps because he had made two moves against Yi Zhonghai before without arousing any suspicion or causing any accidents, Bang Geng's concerns about doing these things became less and less, without any burden or guilt.

…………

A week later, when Wang Dong returned to the courtyard house, Yi Zhonghai had already been buried.

The official story was that Yi Zhonghai had no money for medical treatment and was afraid of burdening Qin Huairu and the others, so he secretly drank rat poison at night and was dead when he woke up the next morning.

The funeral was very simple, and the body was taken outside the city and buried the next day.

Then Banggeng and Qin Huairu ransacked the house, trying to find Yi Zhonghai's property deed so they could transfer the ownership of the west wing of the central courtyard to Banggeng, giving him a house to get married. (End of Chapter)