Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

"You want to rent a room? Those two side rooms next to Sha Zhu?" Zhang Dabiao asked, pointing to the side rooms.

"What? You're not allowed?" Seeing Zhang Dabiao point like that, Jia Dongxu felt inexplicably flustered.

"What I mean is..." Zhang Dabiao wanted to explain that the house already had an owner.

"What do you mean? You already have two rooms, and you live alone. You're not entitled to rent a room, you know that?"

"I think……"

"I can't even think about it!"

"I……"

"Our Jia family is second on the neighborhood committee's rental list! It's bound to be our turn soon enough!" Jia Dongxu became increasingly agitated. Who knew the hardships he had endured over the years?

If I need to get something done at night, I have to wait until everyone is asleep, draw the curtain, and watch out for Zhang Ershazi next door who might occasionally shout, "The Goddess Nuwa patched up the sky!"

This is so hard for me!

"Do you think it's easy for me, with five people crammed into one small room all these years?"

"Zhang Dabiao, if you try anything funny with me about this, I'll kill you!"

"..."

"Are you fucking on steroids? Can't I even ask you a question?"

"No way, who knows what kind of crazy idea you're up to this time, Zhang Dabiao!"

The noise from the west wing drew everyone over. A neighbor, who had heard the whole commotion, advised, "Da Biao, don't take it to heart with Jia Dongxu. They've been applying for a rental for five years and finally got a spot."

"Yeah, Da Biao has a house, he definitely won't fight you for it, Jia Dongxu, what's the rush?"

"That's right, that's right."

"Da Biao, ignore him. Just go about your business and don't provoke him."

Zhang Dabiao was completely dumbfounded. What the hell did I say?

I only asked one question.

At this moment, Qin Huairu started crying again: "Da Biao, please, have some compassion and stop fighting with us for the house, okay?"

"Look, our family of five is crammed into one side room, while you alone have two side rooms. We asked you to lend us yours, but you refused..."

"That's right, Zhang Dabiao, you've gone too far! Look at how miserable the Jia family is now, and you two are even related. If you had been willing to lend them money back then, wouldn't all this trouble have been avoided?" Sha Zhu also came over to join in the fun, instinctively thinking that Zhang Dabiao was causing trouble again and bullying Sister Qin.

Zhang Dabiao was so angry he laughed: "I really only asked one question, and Jia Dongxu didn't even let me finish!"

But no one believed him, especially Sha Zhu, who, while brushing his teeth, tilted his head and asked, "Weren't you the one bullying the Jia family?"

Zhang Dabiao's facial expression became somewhat uncontrollable: "I bullied the Jia family?"

"Alright, if you think I'm bullying the Jia family—"

"Then I'm going to bully them today!"

Just then, I saw Liu Guangqi and his wife You Hongjuan walking out of the backyard, getting ready to go to work.

Zhang Dabiao roared, "Guangqi, move! Now!"

Liu Guangqi was stunned. Wasn't he supposed to move it after he got off work that night?

But he didn't hesitate and immediately started shouting, "Guangtian Guangfu, come help out at Da Biao's house!"

Everyone, especially the Jia family, panicked. What was going on?

And a bad feeling started to creep into his mind...

Is Zhang Dabiao trying to steal his house?

No way?

impossible?

As a result, the three Liu brothers and Zhang Dabiao, huffing and puffing, carried Zhang Dabiao's furniture and rushed towards the small courtyard in the side room.

"Wait! Zhang Dabiao, don't move!"

"That house belongs to the Jia family! It belongs to the Jia family!"

"I've been waiting in line for five years!"

Jia Dongxu went to block the road, while Zhang Dabiao shouted like he was herding chickens and ducks: "Hehehehe—"

"Get out of here quickly! Don't blame me if you cripple or kill someone!"

The four of them carried the largest "treasure" cabinet, which had recently become the talk of the town in the courtyard. It was from this cabinet that Zhang Dabiao had taken out all sorts of ingredients. Everyone craned their necks to look at the large cabinet; it was so heavy that it required four people to lift it—it was obvious that it contained many treasures!

……

This is pure summer nonsense!

This is a solid wood cabinet, 2 meters high, 1.5 meters wide with double doors, and drawers underneath, 0.6 meters deep...

Thief, you're really something!

As for what's inside...

Zhang Dabiao must be crazy to put everything together and move it; it would have been stored in his "little nest" long ago.

The four men, huffing and puffing, bumped into Jia Dongxu and knocked him to the side. Without even glancing at him, they moved him to the fence next to their ear.

At Zhang Dabiao's request, a fence has been erected around the small courtyard next to the side room, turning it into a small yard. A chimney has also been built into the side room on the left, as Zhang Dabiao plans to turn it into a kitchen.

The four men kept carrying things over there, while Jia Dongxu rushed over and blocked the wooden gate to the courtyard—"Zhang Dabiao!"

"You've gone too far! This is the Jia family's house! What right do you have to seize it?"

Sha Zhu and the others also gathered around, along with Liu Pangpang, Xu Damao, Xu Fugui, and others, all crowding into the central courtyard. Yi Zhonghai, leaning on his cane, moved to the front door. Liu Cuilan simply brought him a chair to sit on and then ignored everything else.

Xu Damao, Yan Jiecheng, and others also advised Zhang Dabiao, "You can be angry with Jia Dongxu, even if you make him die, it's fine, but we can't take the house. That's really going too far."

"Zhang Dabiao, you're forcibly seizing someone else's house, that's illegal!" Yi Zhonghai was also furious. This Zhang Dabiao isn't even putting on an act anymore, he's just bullying the Jia family, this is like riding on someone's neck!

Do you really think I, your master and godfather, don't exist?

"The Jia family's house?"

"Will it respond if you call its name?"

Zhang Dabiao leaned against the large wooden cabinet, looking at Jia Dongxu with a half-smile.

Jia Dongxu panicked and argued, "Our Jia family has been applying for five years, and we're currently in second place. Everyone knows that!"

"Even if we're in line, it's already our Jia family's turn. You can't just say, 'Zhang Dabiao, you're ahead of me, can you? Why are you renting a place when you own one?"

"Even if you need to rent a place, you're still at the back of the line!"

"It's a house, not a person. How could we possibly agree to that? Aren't you just being unreasonable?"

Everyone nodded in agreement. That was true. Apart from the housing allocated by the work unit, everyone else had to queue up to rent a house through the neighborhood office. And everyone knew that this side room was not under the factory's name.

Previously, the neighborhood committee didn't have the money to repair it, but now that it's been repaired, it's in preparation for renting it out.

Since no one has moved in recently, the family that was definitely first in line has already been accommodated, so it should be the Jia family's turn now.

That's the rule.

Even if it's not the Jia family's turn yet, it has nothing to do with you, Zhang Dabiao, right?

What are you doing here?

Forcible occupation?

Didn't you see Yi Zhonghai and his group dare not? Otherwise, they would have occupied it already!

Of course, it's also possible they didn't like the side rooms and didn't want to pay for repairs. But now that they saw it had been enclosed to a courtyard, with a dedicated handwashing basin and a slightly wider eave for rain protection and coal storage, the practicality of the small courtyard increased, and the Jia family was tempted. Apart from the poor lighting, everything else was quite good.

No wonder Jia Dongxu was so nervous.

Zhang Dabiao chuckled: "You, Jia Dongxu, call it and it won't answer, but when I, Zhang Dabiao, call it, hey—"

"Guess what?"

Zhang Dabiao pulled out a bunch of keys, waved them in front of everyone, and then opened the wooden gate to the courtyard!

Is it open?

"It has to agree! Because of this side room and courtyard—"

"His surname is Zhang!"

Everyone was stunned. How did Zhang Dabiao get the key to this small courtyard?

But Zhang Dabiao and the three Liu brothers didn't care about any of that. They quickly moved things inside, and Zhang Dabiao even used a key to open the door to the side room in front of everyone.

Does he have all the keys to the courtyard and the side rooms?

Is this house really his?