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

She reached into her inner pocket, fumbled around for a while, and pulled out a cloth bag wrapped in several layers of handkerchief. She pulled out a few crumpled small bills and large bills. One yuan, two yuan, three yuan. She counted them three times before handing them in as if cutting off a piece of her flesh, receiving a dry receipt in return.

Three yuan! That's three yuan!

In a courtyard house, that's enough for an average family to buy coarse grains for more than half a month!

She walked back to the infusion room clutching the receipt. Looking at Yan Bugui, who lay on the hospital bed, eyes vacant and half-dead, hooked up to an IV drip, she felt a surge of anger.

Yang Ruihua dragged a round stool to sit on the edge of the bed and began to calculate the final accounts in a low voice.

"Old Yan, you've really got a lot of money to burn. This shabby feast today cost 12.64 yuan for vegetables and meat; hiring Sha Zhu to cook took out another 4.2 yuan; and now, in the middle of the night, you're at the hospital getting your stomach pumped, another 3 yuan gone. All this time, 20 yuan is practically gone!"

She stretched out her finger and forcefully poked Yan Bugui's deflated belly.

"You went through all that trouble, stuffing meat into your stomach with all your might, what was the point? Did you want to come to the hospital in the middle of the night and have tubes shoved down your throat? Did you want to vomit the whole thing into a bucket for the nurses to see? You didn't leave a single trace of meat or fat in your intestines, and you even lost three yuan on medical bills! You call that getting a good deal? You lost so much you're practically penniless!"

Yan Bugui was already barely clinging to life. Hearing the heart-wrenching words, "twenty yuan" and "lost everything, not even his underwear left," his chest heaved violently, and his breathing became rapid. The IV drip tube swayed with his movements.

He laboriously stretched out his withered, claw-like fingers, pointing shakily at the ceiling, a sawing sound like a leaky bellows coming from his throat.

"What a terrible thing to do... What kind of terrible thing has this person done..."

He hated himself. He hated himself for being greedy for those two pieces of dead meat. He hated himself for putting on a show in the yard. He hated even more Zhang Dabiao and his gang of bastards for ganging up on him at the Xidan vegetable market.

If it weren't for those brats stirring things up, would I have spent twelve yuan to buy such good meat and vegetables? If I hadn't bought so many fancy dishes, would I have risked my life to stuff them into my stomach?

One scheme leads to another. All that scheming and plotting, and in the end, he found himself in a hospital bed! A complete loss!

Yan Jiecheng sat on the bench outside the door, yawning, completely ignoring the old couple's lawsuit. He had a clear understanding of the situation. Although he and his wife, Yu Li, had worked up a sweat tonight, they had eaten their fill and kept the money they had given as gifts for the elderly couple.

Although it's still unclear where the money belongs, at least it's on my side, so I'll keep it for now.

As for the three yuan in medical expenses, that was his parents' life savings, none of Yan Jie's business. This is what they call minding one's own business.

Outside the ward, the sky was already beginning to lighten.

Yan Bugui stared intently at the medicine in the IV drip bottle, his mind filled with the half-bucket of braised pork with peanuts that had been drained from his stomach. A surge of pent-up frustration rose in his chest, his eyes rolled back, and he fainted from sheer rage.

Yang Ruihua exclaimed in alarm, "Old man! Doctor! Doctor, come quickly! My old man is so angry he's rolling his eyes!"

The emergency room was in chaos again.

That night, the Yan family paid a heavy price, losing both their wife and their army. Meanwhile, the instigators of all this—the neighbors in the courtyard who had taken advantage of them—were lying in their warm beds, having sweet dreams.

------------

The news that Yan Bugui had been carried to the hospital for stomach pumping in the middle of the night spread like wildfire throughout the entire courtyard the next morning.

Zhang Dabiao was brushing his teeth when he listened to Hu Zi excitedly recounting the events of the previous night, and he almost forgot to spit out the toothpaste foam in his mouth.

He rinsed his mouth, leaned against the doorframe of the cabin, closed his eyes, and wore a faint smile on his face.

"Penny wise, pound foolish; the ancients were right."

Mu Wanqing came out of the vegetable garden in the east courtyard carrying a basin of freshly washed vegetables. She had come to pick some fresh vegetables to take to her mother, as she was going to school with Zhang Dabiao later. Hearing this, she couldn't help but whisper, "Teacher Yan is quite pitiful too, so don't gloat."

Zhang Dabiao opened his eyes, looked at Mu Wanqing's kind face, and shook his head with a smile: "There's always a reason why someone is pitiful. If he hadn't been so greedy and insisted on forcing Da Mao to treat everyone, would we have encouraged him to confidently declare that he would host a banquet?"

Besides, watching these chaotic fellows in the yard get into trouble was one of Zhang Dabiao's few sources of amusement.

Watching these vibrant reality shows every day is more interesting than listening to storytelling on the radio.

He even had a slight regret.

Why just give your stomach a lavage? If you ate something that caused acute appendicitis or cholecystitis and required surgery, that would be a real disaster.

What a pity, what a pity.

……

------------

The hospital smelled strongly of disinfectant.

Yan Bugui lay lifelessly on the hospital bed like a salted fish with its tendons pulled out, staring blankly at the spider web on the ceiling.

The ward door was pushed open, and Xu Damao walked in with a net bag in his hand and a beaming smile.

Inside the net bag were four or five somewhat shriveled apples. Even so, these were among the few good things to be had these days—fruit!

The fruit stood out starkly in the drab hospital room.

"Oh dear, Teacher Yan!" Xu Damao slammed the apple down on the bedside table with a loud thud, his face full of "concerned" smiles. "Why did you do this? It's just a meal, why did you have to end up in the hospital? Look at your face, it's as white as my wall."

He picked up an apple, wiped it on his clothes, and held it to Yan Bugui's mouth.

"Here, Teacher Yan, have an apple to replenish your nutrients. I specially went to the supply and marketing cooperative to pick it out for you; it's 80 cents a pound, quite expensive! But it's crisp and sweet!"

Yan Bugui looked at the apple so close to his face, then at Xu Damao's gloating face, and almost fainted on the spot.

Is he here to visit someone who is sick?

He's here to take my life!

"Da Mao, what are you doing..." Yang Ruihua's eyelids twitched as she watched from the side. She quickly stepped forward and pushed Xu Da Mao out. "Our Lao Yan just had his stomach pumped and is still weak. He can't eat raw or cold food. We appreciate your kindness, but where's the fruit? You should go back now."

Xu Damao was pushed to the door, not forgetting to turn back and add insult to injury: "Fine, fine, I'm leaving, I'm leaving. Teacher Yan, you should take a good rest! When my Lou Xiao'e gives birth and we have her full-month celebration, please take it easy and don't push yourself so hard!"

"By the way, if your Yu Li gives birth, are you still going to treat us?"

After saying that, he turned and left, his suppressed laughter echoing down the corridor.

"puff--"

Yan Bugui felt a mouthful of blood rise to his throat, but he managed to swallow it back down.

If you spit it out, it's all your own blood; it's a loss.

Seeing the old man's half-dead state, Yang Ruihua quickly tried to pat him on the back, cursing, "That Xu Damao, he's a real scoundrel! Like a weasel offering New Year's greetings to a chicken, he's up to no good!"

Just as they were cursing, Yan Jiecheng and Yu Li arrived.

"Dad, Lily and I have come to see you!"