Courtyard House: In times of famine, my hamster became a spirit.

"Old Yi! Wake up! Don't scare me!"

An old woman's wailing, choked with sobs, pierced the early morning air of the courtyard.

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't move!"

Uncle Liu Haizhong's bulky body blocked the neighbor who wanted to help.

He gripped the stack of remittance slips tightly in one hand, while waving the other in the air, issuing commands with an air of official authority:

"This is a key witness! And a major suspect! No one is allowed to take him away! What if he wakes up and runs away? Guangtian, Guangfu! Block up the front and back doors! No one is allowed to go out and report this!"

His adrenaline surged in his bangs, and steam rose from his forehead.

Yi Zhonghai's dizziness was not an illness, but rather a sign of fear of punishment!

"This...this ground is cold, if I get sick from the cold..." The old woman cried, tears streaming down her face.

"Cool? Isn't Sha Zhu cold in the police station? Isn't He Yushui cold when she's starving?" Zhou Jianguo stood on the outskirts of the crowd, his hands tucked into his padded jacket sleeves, and coldly added, "Auntie, what has your husband done? Are you really unaware, or are you pretending not to know?"

These words left the middle-aged woman stunned. She opened her mouth, but seeing the scrutinizing gazes of her neighbors, she didn't dare to utter a single word in rebuttal.

Just then, Yi Zhonghai's eyelids twitched violently a few times.

Actually, he had been awake for a while.

That dizziness just now was for tactical evasion.

He racked his brains in the darkness, searching for a way out of the predicament.

Pretending to be dead won't work now; that idiot Liu Haizhong actually wants to nail him to this spot.

"Cough cough..."

Yi Zhonghai coughed weakly a few times and slowly opened his cloudy old eyes.

As soon as my gaze focused, it met the large face hidden in the bangs.

There was no concern on that face, only greed and excitement.

"Old Yi, you're awake?" Liu Haizhong waved the stack of remittance slips in front of him with a forced smile, the papers rustling. "Since you're awake, tell everyone what happened. How did this seven hundred-plus yuan, the money He Daqing sent to Sha Zhu, end up in your pocket, Yi Zhonghai? This is the hard-earned money of the working class!"

Yi Zhonghai struggled to sit up, and an older woman quickly went to help him.

He pushed away the older woman's hand, stood up shakily, and scanned his surroundings.

Those neighbors who usually treated him with great respect now looked at him with cold eyes, even with hostility.

Even Qin Huairu, holding her child, kept her distance, as if he were some kind of plague god.

It’s over.

But Yi Zhonghai is Yi Zhonghai after all. Having controlled the courtyard house for so many years, his mental fortitude is far beyond that of ordinary people.

His cloudy eyes instantly filled with tears, and his face revealed a look of grief and indignation at being wronged.

"Old Liu, and everyone else..." Yi Zhonghai's voice was hoarse and trembling, "What...what kind of person do you think I am?"

He straightened his back, and although his posture was somewhat hunched, his uprightness was forcefully restored.

"I did embezzle this money! That's right!" Yi Zhonghai loudly admitted, his voice filled with sorrow. "But I, Yi Zhonghai, swear to God, I didn't touch a single penny of this money! It's all locked in that iron box at home! The serial numbers on it all match!"

The entire audience erupted in uproar.

No movement?

Liu Haizhong was taken aback, not expecting Yi Zhonghai to recognize him so readily, yet deny it so confidently: "Since you didn't touch it, why didn't you give it to Sha Zhu?"

"Give it to him?" Yi Zhonghai gave a bitter laugh, pointing to the empty courtyard gate. "Don't you know what kind of reckless person Sha Zhu is? He's like a firecracker! He'll ignite at the slightest provocation! He Daqing ran off with that widow Bai, abandoning the two siblings. If I give this money to Sha Zhu, given his temper, wouldn't he immediately take the money and go to Baoding to fight He Daqing? Or wouldn't he be tricked out of it again by that old bastard He Daqing with a few sweet words?"

At this point, Yi Zhonghai slapped his thigh in anguish, "I was afraid he'd squander it! I was afraid he'd ruin the He family's foundation! I was saving up money for him to get married! For Sha Zhu, for this family, I've endured the criticism to save the money. What's wrong with that? I'm doing this to preserve the He family line!"

Despite the outpouring of emotion and tears, the logic of this performance hadn't completely collapsed.

A commotion began to break out in the crowd.

"That seems... to make some sense?" an elderly woman muttered. "Shazhu really does have big hands and big feet; he can't save money."

"Yes, the old man is usually very nice to Sha Zhu, and I haven't seen the Yi family buy any big items."

"Is it really for Sha Zhu's own good?"

Seeing that the wind direction was a bit off, Liu Haizhong suddenly panicked: "Hey, no, Lao Yi, you..." He was tongue-tied and couldn't find the words to refute this sophistry that occupied the moral high ground.

Seeing this, Yi Zhonghai secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh."

A chilling laugh, sharp and penetrating, interrupted Yi Zhonghai's performance.

Zhou Jianguo stepped out from the crowd.

"What a clever way to preserve the family line, what a clever way to save up for him."

Zhou Jianguo stood three meters in front of Yi Zhonghai, looking at him as if he were a clown.

"Uncle, since you're so noble, then I'd like to ask you something." Zhou Jianguo raised the fire hook in his hand and pointed to the half-sack of cornmeal on the ground beside him. "You're holding onto Sha Zhu's seven hundred-plus yuan fortune. So last week, when Sha Zhu was starving and had no other choice but to steal soy sauce from the canteen to mix with his rice, where were you protecting him?"

Yi Zhonghai's face stiffened, and his lips moved: "I..."

"Don't rush, it's not over yet." Zhou Jianguo didn't give him a chance to speak, his speech suddenly accelerating, "The winter before last, Shazhu's feet were covered in chilblains, and the soles of his shoes were worn through. It was a snowy day! He left bloody footprints with every step he took in the snow! At that time, you had several hundred yuan of his money. Could you have even taken out five yuan to buy him a pair of cotton shoes? You didn't! You were still saving it for him!"

The way the neighbors looked at him changed.

Yes.

If it's understandable to be afraid of wasting money, then what kind of protection is it to watch the person under guardianship suffer from cold and hunger?

Zhou Jianguo turned to face the crowd, his voice rising: "Just yesterday! Just as Sha Zhu was taken away by the security department! What was his charge? It was because he didn't have the money to compensate for the damaged public property! It was because he couldn't pay the fine!"

He pointed at Yi Zhonghai's nose and shouted angrily, "Back then, you, Yi Zhonghai, had seven hundred yuan that belonged to Sha Zhu! You could have used it to help him settle things and save him from jail! But what did you do? You held a hospital-wide meeting! You forced us poor neighbors, who only earned twenty yuan a month and couldn't even afford to eat, to donate money!"

"Is this what you mean by 'for his own good'? For his own good, you sent him to jail? For his own good, you made him live like a beggar?"

boom--!

These words struck like a thunderbolt, shattering the moral defenses that Yi Zhonghai had just built up.

The neighbors' expressions shifted from confusion to anger, a sense of humiliation at being fooled welling up inside them.

"That's outrageous! Sha Zhu has seven hundred yuan, and he wants us to donate?"

"So, all this frugality is to save money for Yi Zhonghai?"

"Is this something a human being would do? Sha Zhu's in jail while you're out counting his money?"

Liu Haizhong was filled with fervor, slapping his thigh: "That's right! Zhou Jianguo is absolutely right! This isn't safekeeping, it's murder for money!"

Yi Zhonghai was covered in cold sweat; the shirt under his cotton-padded jacket was soaked through and clung tightly to his back, chilling him to the bone.

He waved his hands frantically, "No...no...I wanted to wait for him to come out before giving it to...me..."

"Still making excuses."

Zhou Jianguo shook his head, his eyes growing even colder.

He knew that talking about Sha Zhu wasn't enough to deal with an old fox like Yi Zhonghai, because Sha Zhu was, after all, a grown man with thick skin.

To completely tear off Yi Zhonghai's mask, we need to find the most innocent victim.