Siheyuan: At the beginning, I can integrate everything!

"Would you dare catch it with your bare hands?"

Zhang Huaimin's childish voice echoed in the cold air, like a tiny file scraping against one's eardrums.

Yi Zhonghai's hand hung in mid-air, his five fingers stiff as withered tree branches.

He stared intently at the small notebook wrapped in red silk.

The gold-embossed national emblem on the cover, along with the bright red and glaring official seal of the Ministry of National Defense, burned like a fire, making his eyes sting.

Cold sweat trickled down Yi Zhonghai's graying temples, dripping into his collar and raising goosebumps.

Answer it? He wouldn't dare!

That's a privilege certificate that represents the highest national honor and legal protection!

In this day and age, touching a martyr's property completely changes the nature of the situation.

"Huai...Huaimin..."

Yi Zhonghai swallowed hard, his voice dry and rough like sandpaper.

He tried to pull his hand back, but his arm was too stiff to obey him.

He could only stand there awkwardly, his facial muscles twitching uncontrollably.

"This old man just... he's worried you're young and might spend money recklessly. This money... it's just sitting there anyway, why not lend it to your Uncle Dongxu for an emergency..."

"borrow?"

Zhang Huaimin chuckled and switched the roasted sweet potato in his hand to his left.

He reached out his right hand and grabbed Chen Bing's rough, thick hand.

Chen Bing took half a step forward, blocking Zhang Huaimin's side, his right thumb seemingly unintentionally resting on the holster of his sidearm at his waist.

"Click".

A slight scraping sound of leather buckles.

Yi Zhonghai was so frightened that his legs went weak and he almost knelt on the ground. He quickly pulled his hands back into his sleeves.

Zhang Huaimin raised his small face, his big eyes filled with innocence and confusion.

"Sir, do you have a bad memory? Didn't Grandma Wang and Director Zhou just say that yesterday?"

He raised his voice to make sure every neighbor in the yard who was listening to the gossip could hear him clearly.

"They said that anyone who dares to take or misappropriate even a single penny of the martyrs' pension will be charged with counter-revolutionary sabotage!"

"They're going to send them to a labor camp in Northwest China to smash stones for the rest of their lives!"

Zhang Huaimin waved the little red book in his hand.

"Grandpa, you just forced me to donate 250 yuan. Do you think the work at the steel mill is too easy and want to go to the far northwest to break rocks for me?"

"boom!"

The crowd erupted in an uproar.

Those neighbors who were initially put on the spot by Yi Zhonghai's "moral cudgel" and were reluctantly preparing to pay up have now all realized what was going on.

"Oh my god! This is illegal! How could Lao Yi dare to do that!"

Grandma Wang from the front yard slapped her thigh and exclaimed in a shrill voice, "They even dare to scheme for the money of martyrs! How utterly heartless!"

"Exactly! They were just forcing our family to pay ten yuan each. Aren't they treating us like suckers?"

Liu, the woman in the backyard, chimed in, clutching the two yuan she was about to donate back into her waistband.

Public opinion took an instant 180-degree turn.

Just moments ago, Yi Zhonghai was praising "promoting neighborly relations," but in the blink of an eye, he has become a heartless thief "scheming to seize the property of martyrs."

Qin Huairu stood at the edge of the crowd, listening to the whispers and pointing fingers around her, her face turning pale and then red.

She had originally hoped to get a big piece of the pie from Zhang Huaimin.

Now it seems that not only could I not bite into the meat, but I also broke my teeth.

"This little rascal... how can he be so clever?" She bit her lower lip, her eyes revealing a hint of resentment.

Yan Bugui stood beside the octagonal table, watching the situation unfold, a glint of shrewdness flashing in his beady eyes.

He only managed to pull out five cents because of pressure from Yi Zhonghai.

Now that they see Yi Zhonghai has angered the public, and Zhang Huaimin has the protection of the state, it's clear that Yi Zhonghai has angered the public.

How could Yan Laoxi possibly suffer such a loss?

"Oh dear, what a mess this has become!"

Yan Bugui slammed his hand on the table, feigning deep sorrow.

"Old Yi, Old Yi, this is where you're wrong!"

He strode to the octagonal table and grabbed the five-cent coin he had just slapped on it.

He quickly stuffed it into the pocket of his faded gray Zhongshan suit, and then pressed it tightly against his skin.

"Did everyone hear that? Huaimin is right! This is the country's money; we can't afford to make a mistake!"

Yan Bugui adjusted his glasses and looked at Yi Zhonghai with righteous indignation.

"My eldest son just got married, and my second son still needs to pay for his tuition. We really can't afford to eat."

"I really can't come up with that ten yuan. Huaimin didn't donate, so I can't set a bad example and make a mistake, can I?"

After saying that, he quickly retreated back into the crowd, afraid that Yi Zhonghai would snatch the money back.

With Yan Bugui taking the lead, others followed suit.

Those odds and ends of bills and coins that were just piled up on the octagonal table.

In the blink of an eye, each household took it back under various pretexts.

Even Liu Haizhong took advantage of the chaos to put the two yuan he had reluctantly taken out earlier back into his pocket.

The table was completely empty.

All that's left is Yi Zhonghai's lonely, broken gong.

Yi Zhonghai stood alone in the center of the crowd.

He was surrounded by accusatory and mocking gazes, like countless needles pricking him.

He planned the fundraising event for half a day, but didn't get a single penny.

Instead, he shattered the image of a "moral exemplar" that he had painstakingly cultivated for decades.

"You...you all..."

Yi Zhonghai pointed to the neighbors around him, his fingers trembling as if he were fluffing cotton.

He felt as if a wad of soaked, tattered cotton was stuffed in his chest, making it hard to breathe.

My vision blurred in waves, and my ears were ringing.

He turned his head and stared intently at Zhang Huaimin.

Zhang Huaimin had already put away the little red book and was slowly peeling the wrapper off a White Rabbit milk candy.

"Grandpa, please don't point at me."

Zhang Huaimin stuffed the milk candy into his mouth and mumbled something indistinctly.

"I'm doing this for your own good. If you really go to the Northwest to break rocks, it would be so pitiful for an old lady to be all alone in the yard."

"You...you little..."

Yi Zhonghai couldn't catch his breath.

His face turned from deathly pale to a purplish-red like pig liver, and the veins on his forehead throbbed.

He opened his mouth wide, panting like a dead fish thrown onto the shore.

"You, you, you..."

He pointed at Zhang Huaimin, desperately trying to utter that vicious curse.

But all that could come out of his throat was a hissing sound like a broken bellows.

Sudden.

Yi Zhonghai rolled his eyes and suddenly clutched his chest with both hands.

His body, like a piece of rotten wood that had lost its support, fell straight backward and crashed heavily onto the chair behind him with a missing leg.