The Courtyard House: Xu Damao's Aunt is the Queen of Women

The following morning, the sun shone brightly, the temperature rose, and the snow began to melt.

Ye Xi didn't go home last night. After getting up and washing up this morning, she ate the egg noodles that Liu Hao cooked and rode Ye Juan's bicycle to the Zhongguancun Institute of Computing Technology.

Liu Hao and Ye Juan walk to work and plan to buy a bicycle tomorrow.

As soon as I stepped out of the courtyard gate, I could see Xu Damao and Lou Xiao'e arguing loudly as they walked not far ahead.

Liu Hao and Ye Juan exchanged a glance and tacitly chose to take a detour.

I won't watch, I won't advise, and I won't get involved.

It wasn't that Ye Juan didn't want to persuade her, but rather that she simply couldn't.

Today, Liu Hao styled the little queen's hair into an elegant low bun.

With her hands tucked into the pockets of her black cotton coat, her outfit was rather rustic, but it couldn't hide her stunningly beautiful face and figure. Instead, it gave her a vibrant charm that seemed to have been tempered from the everyday.

Liu Hao pondered that he needed to buy the little queen a few 1960s-style down jackets from the system store, pure cashmere thermal underwear, and suede-lined leather boots as well.

This cotton coat is warm, but it's too bulky, wrinkles easily, and makes you look round and uncomfortable to move around in.

The down jackets sold in the system store come in blended fabrics, and their appearance is not much different from that of Dacron. They still look very unfashionable, but they don't give people the impression of being hedonistic or having bourgeois ideas.

The Four Cleanups and Five Antis campaigns are underway these past few years, so we should keep a low profile as much as possible.

"Honey, do you think Xu Damao might report the He family for having questionable social standing?"

Ye Juan recalled that when they were chatting in bed last night, Liu Hao told her about what happened in the backyard last night, including the reason why Xu Damao and his wife were arguing and talking about divorce.

Liu Hao nodded: "Definitely. It's not just Xu Damao, others will also report him. After all, Sha Zhu has been a tyrant in the compound for years and has offended a lot of people."

Ye Juan's lips curled up, and she laughed gleefully, "Haha, this time Sha Zhu is doomed. He's old and ugly, his class background is bad, and his reputation is rotten to the core. Let's see how he finds a wife now."

From the first day she moved into courtyard house number 95, Ye Juan loathed Sha Zhu, that lecherous, arrogant, and foul-mouthed scoundrel.

Last night, the deaf old woman came to our door, wanting to set up Sha Zhu and her older sister. Ye Juan's first reaction was the same as Liu Hao's: You can curse me, do all sorts of disgusting things to me, even throw feces in front of my door, but you can't humiliate me in such a vicious way.

So, she was overjoyed to see Sha Zhu in trouble.

Liu Hao shrugged and said with a playful tone, "He still has Sister Qin to back him up, he won't end up a lifelong bachelor."

"I think it's unlikely. Qin Huairu looked down on Sha Zhu before, and now that Sha Zhu's family background is falsified, if he is judged to be a small business owner or a petty bourgeoisie, she will look down on him even more."

After Ye Juan finished speaking, she added another sentence.

"Unless Qin Huairu doesn't care about the future of her three children."

"That's impossible. Qin Huairu isn't a good woman, but she's a good mother; she only cares about her three children!"

……

Meanwhile, at No. 95, the east wing of the central courtyard.

Yi Zhonghai walked in with a grave expression. The deaf old woman immediately asked, "Zhonghai, what's wrong?"

"Yan Fugui and Liu Haizhong promised not to report the Ma family, the Li family, the Zhang family, the Yang family, the Wang family, the Huo family... except for Xu Damao and those two little beasts Liu Hao and Ye Juan from the west courtyard, everyone in the courtyard guarantees not to report the He family for falsifying their social status."

After Yi Zhonghai finished speaking, he pulled out a stool and sat down by the stove. He took out the two remaining Daqianmen cigarettes from his cotton-padded coat pocket, took one out, and lit it with a match.

Last night, after sending Sha Zhu to Hongxing Hospital, they discussed the matter of the He family falsifying their family background and decided to go door-to-door to remind each household not to report it.

Once reported, the He family's background cannot withstand investigation. If it is found to be falsified, they will be punished with anything from writing a self-criticism and being criticized to being dismissed from their jobs.

Yi Zhonghai spent the whole morning working and came up with a total of more than 200 yuan in hush money, finally managing to get the residents in the courtyard to agree not to report him.

The problem is that Sha Zhu is too honest and straightforward in the courtyard, which makes him prone to offending people. Too many people hold a grudge against him, and there's no guarantee that someone won't secretly report him.

For example, Xu Damao and Liu Hao are two rotten, despicable people.

Taking a deep drag of his cigarette, Yi Zhonghai said, "Madam, too many people will talk too much. To be on the safe side, I think you should go talk to Director Wang about this..."

The deaf old woman raised her hand to touch her still throbbing right cheek and cursed viciously, "That damned little beast."

A hint of mockery flashed in Yi Zhonghai's eyes. "Didn't you get beaten up because you brought it on yourself?"

What kind of person is Sha Zhu? How could he be worthy of Sister Ye Juan?

Putting aside the fact that Ye Xi is a top student who graduated from Harbin Institute of Technology and a scientist at the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, just in terms of appearance, Sha Zhu is not a good match for her.

Is she unable to get married, or is she blind to choose a fool like Zhu?

"Grandma, the method we came up with a few days ago is no longer useful. Liu Hao doesn't even like Qin Huairu. He feels uncomfortable even talking to her. Let's think of another way."

The deaf old woman was very upset about this, because she initially thought that Yi Zhonghai's method would not work.

Although Liu Hao was a bad guy, she had to admit that he was very handsome. In all her years of life and countless encounters with people, she had never seen anyone more handsome than Liu Hao.

Moreover, Liu Hao married Ye Juan, and Ye Juan's looks speak for themselves.

In 1928, she saw a great beauty named Hu Die from afar. She was also known as the Movie Queen, and even the Kuomintang's boss, Dai, liked her very much.

She is indeed very pretty, but not as pretty as Ye Juan; she's far inferior.

With a wife as beautiful as an angel at home, Liu Hao would never have looked at the widow Qin who had given birth to three children if he had any sense. It would be like carrying a gold ingot while picking up trash.

"I'll go find Mingfen first! I'll ask her for advice. We can't keep those two troublemakers, Liu Hao and Ye Juan, in the yard any longer."

……

The Third Steel Rolling Mill

Liu Hao and Ye Juan arrived at the factory right on time. They had just sat down in the office when the work bell rang.

"Brother Hao, these are steamed buns I brought for you. My mom made them, and they're still warm."

He Xiaomeng opened the aluminum lunchbox and handed it to Liu Hao.

Liu Hao took the lunchbox, reached out and touched the still-warm buns, and asked in confusion, "Where do you live?"

"Hepingli!"

Is it a tenement building?

Liu Hao knew that some cadres from the Third Steel Rolling Mill also lived in the dormitory buildings in Hepingli, which was not far from the steel rolling mill.

These days, tenement buildings sound fancy, but the living conditions are actually quite basic. The rooms are cramped, the kitchen and bathroom are shared, and the corridors are dark, messy, and smoky.

Only department or bureau-level cadres are qualified to live in individual units or small villas, and will not be crammed into long corridor tenement buildings.

Liu Hao picked up a thin-skinned, generously filled cabbage and pork bun, took a bite, and asked curiously, "What level are your parents?"

He Xiaomeng didn't hide anything and whispered, "My dad is the director of the office of the Labor Department of the Ministry of Forestry, and my mom is the deputy director of the publicity department."

Wow, they're at the level of a full-fledged division chief or deputy division chief!

No wonder He Xiaomeng's temperament and dress are unlike those of ordinary people's children.

"Logically, you should have gone to the Ministry of Forestry after graduation, so why did you end up at the steel rolling mill?"

"Chen Ruihua, the son of Vice Minister Chen, wanted to marry me and even used his power to coerce me, so my father made me come to the Third Steel Rolling Mill."

"..."

Liu Hao was slightly taken aback, but after thinking about it, he understood perfectly. This was the trouble of being beautiful!

"Xiao Liu, we have work to do: reconcile the accounts!"

Zhong Chunli walked into the office, followed by Yu Lanfen and Zhang Qin, each carrying two large stacks of account books.

Liu Hao stuffed half a steamed bun into his mouth, got up, took Yu Lanfen's account book, and placed it on the table.

Zhong Chunli patted the ledgers piled up to her chest, leaned over and whispered, "First check the ledgers, then check the physical ledgers, and then find someone to check them. I've been checking this year's general ledger for half a month, and I suspect there's a problem."

Good heavens, did Yang Xingguo and Li Huaide embezzle funds?

Go ask Li Huaide later. If Li Huaide is innocent, then investigate with confidence. As long as he finds evidence, send that bastard Yang Xingguo to jail.

During the height of the Four Cleanups Movement, any cadre who embezzled, misappropriated, or took more than their share, even if it was just a needle or a piece of cloth from public funds, would be dragged out and criticized.

At best, they will be dismissed and required to write a self-criticism; at worst, they will be labeled as degenerates or class enemies, implicating their entire family's social standing.

Li Huaide will be happy to become the factory director, and he will definitely become the head of the finance department next year.

"Okay, leave it to me. I guarantee it will be perfectly clear!"