Courtyard House: Starting as an eighth-grade worker, with too many wives.

Then he laughed.

"Then you'd better do it properly," he said. "Kowtowing a few more times might just get Director Li to forgive you."

Yi Zhonghai ignored him.

He walked to Li Jian's house and raised his hand. His hand hovered there for a while before he knocked.

"Come in."

He pushed open the door.

Li Jianguo sat at his desk, holding a document in his hand. He frowned slightly when he saw it was him.

"What's up?"

Yi Zhonghai did not go inside.

He stood at the door for a while, then suddenly knelt down.

The sound of his knee hitting the ground was exactly the same as Sha Zhu's last night.

Li Jianguo put down the materials in his hand.

He looked at Yi Zhonghai for a while, then suddenly laughed. It was hard to tell if the smile was mocking or something else; it was just a slight upward twitch of the corners of his mouth.

"You two are really alike," he said. "You kneel down as soon as you walk in, not even a whisper is off."

Yi Zhonghai didn't look up.

He lay prone on the ground, forehead touching the earth, and said:

"Director Li, please let this go."

Li Jianguo was stunned for a moment.

I didn't expect that.

He had assumed Yi Zhonghai had come to beg him to spare He Daqing. After all, Sha Zhu had knelt down last night precisely for this reason. He hadn't expected Yi Zhonghai to kneel down and call out Bang Geng's name.

"A stick?"

Li Jianguo leaned back in his chair, looking at Yi Zhonghai who was lying on the ground.

"What's your relationship with him?"

Yi Zhonghai remained silent.

"My business with the Jia family has nothing to do with Bang Geng," Li Jianguo said. "He stole, so he should be punished accordingly. What makes you think you can beg me?"

Yi Zhonghai remained silent.

But his position on the ground changed. His shoulders tensed up.

Li Jianguo looked at him and suddenly understood something.

"Fine," he said. "If you're not going to tell the truth, then get lost. I don't have time to waste with you."

Yi Zhonghai raised his head.

He looked at Li Jianguo, his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but then swallowed his words back. In the end, he said nothing, got up, and left.

The door closed behind him.

Li Jianguo stared at the door for a while. The birds outside the window were still chirping. They were chirping very happily.

The evening's general meeting was presided over by Second Uncle.

He stood in the middle of the courtyard, his back ramrod straight, and his voice was two decibels louder than usual.

"Let's have a big meeting today!"

Someone burst out laughing.

"Second Uncle, what kind of big meeting is this so late at night?"

"A general meeting for the entire compound!" Liu Haizhong glared at the man. "It's an old tradition in our compound! It used to be controlled by Yi Zhonghai and the deaf old woman, and they were always doing unfair things. Today, we're going to set things right!"

His children behind him clapped along.

It's sparse, but it's still a drum.

"We're here today to denounce Yi Zhonghai!" Liu Haizhong's voice rose even higher. "The shady things he's done have brought shame to our compound! How can we let someone like him act like a big shot? How can we let him stand up and speak like that?"

"cannot!"

Xu Damao was the first to shout it out.

He had been waiting for this day for a long time. In previous hospital-wide meetings, he was always the one being criticized. Yi Zhonghai was biased, and the deaf old lady sided with him; Xu Damao was the laughingstock of the entire hospital. Now, it was finally Yi Zhonghai's turn.

"This kind of person doesn't deserve to be called a master!" he shouted. "Make him get down here!"

"right!"

"Get down here!"

Shouts rose and fell.

Yi Zhonghai sat motionless in the corner. His head was down, and his expression was unreadable. People around him were shouting and cursing, but he seemed not to hear them.

Liu Haizhong walked up to him.

"Yi Zhonghai, you heard what everyone said, didn't you?"

Yi Zhonghai raised his head.

He looked at Liu Haizhong's smug face for a while, then slowly stood up.

"I heard you."

His voice was hoarse.

"I acted unfairly in the past, so I don't deserve to be the eldest uncle. From now on, Second Uncle, you will be in charge of the affairs of the compound, and I will not interfere. I will not attend any future general meetings of the compound."

After saying that, he turned and left.

"cut!"

Jia Dongxu's voice came from the crowd, and it was very jarring.

"Easier said than done! They say they won't participate, but they're clearly too ashamed to!"

Madam Jia Zhang chimed in, "Exactly! After all that scum he's done, how dare he even stay in the courtyard? If you ask me, someone like that should get out of our compound!"

Yi Zhonghai paused for a moment.

It didn't stop.

He continued walking until he reached his front door, then pushed it open and went inside. The door closed, shutting out all the shouts from outside.

The people in the courtyard were still talking about it.

"That old bastard's really done for this time..."

"Serves him right, who told him to be biased..."

"That deaf old lady too, she seemed like such a nice person, who knew she was a spy..."

Li Jianguo stood at his doorstep and listened for a while.

Night fell. Lights were turned on in the courtyard, their dim yellow glow seeping through the windows of each house. Someone was cooking, the smell of cooking oil filling the air. A child was crying, wailing loudly, whether from hunger or being beaten, it was hard to tell.

He turned and went inside.

Dinner was ready. Jiang Min had left, so he was having dinner alone. He sat down at the table and had just picked up his chopsticks when he heard a noise from next door.

"You bitch!"

The voice of Jia Zhangshi.

"Ah—stop hitting me, I was wrong—"

Qin Huairu's voice.

Then came a muffled thud. Once, twice. Like the sound of fists hitting flesh. The child's cry followed, shrill and piercing.

Li Jianguo picked up a piece of food and chewed it.

Li Jianguo pressed his ear against it.

I just posted it.

Really, just once.

He didn't know what had gotten into him—maybe the corn porridge in the morning was too thin, making him feel uneasy; or maybe the shadow of the old locust tree in the yard fell on the windowsill, making him dizzy.

Anyway, he stuck it on.

Then he heard it.

Inside the Jia family's house, Jia Dongxu's voice was like a long-suppressed cesspool suddenly exploding—

"You've slept with someone old enough to be your father, and you still have the nerve to boss people around in the Jia family?!"

Li Jianguo was stunned.

The aluminum lunchbox in my hand almost fell to the ground.

"Just behave yourself as a servant! I'm giving you face, don't push your luck! Get the hell out of here!"

Then came Jia Zhangshi's voice, cursing even more harshly than Jia Dongxu, mixed with things like "jinx," "loose woman," and "you've dirtied my Jia family's land."

Then came the sound of someone being hit.

*Slap.* *Slap.* *Slap.*

Was it a slap, a stick, or a broom? Li Jianguo couldn't tell.

But he heard Qin Huairu crying.

It wasn't a loud wail, but a low, suppressed sob, like a cat's meow, like a wild cat whose tail has been stepped on on a winter night.

Li Jianguo slowly straightened up.

He didn't leave immediately; he just stood there, staring at the Jia family's peeling wooden door. Dim light shone through the crack in the door, illuminating a dead moth on the threshold.

Tsk tsk.

He returned to his table, sat down, and picked up his chopsticks.

I poked at the pickled vegetables with the tip of my chopsticks, but couldn't pick them up.

"I never expected this," he muttered to himself. "This Qin Huairu is quite something. That old bastard Yi Zhonghai... tsk tsk."

He remembered that day at the execution ground.

When Bang Geng was arrested, there was something fishy going on between the Jia family and Yi Zhonghai—I didn't pay attention at the time, but now that I think about it, damn, there were signs all along.

"Could it be the one that leaked that day?"

He finally picked up a piece of pickled vegetable with his chopsticks and chewed it with a crunching sound.

"This is big news!"

He smiled.

That kind of smile, how should I put it? It's not happiness, it's—do you know that feeling? It's like watching someone else's house catch fire, and you're standing far away, holding a teacup in your hand.

This kind of thing won't matter much in the future. At worst, we can get a divorce and go our separate ways.

But now is now.

This kind of relationship between men and women is now called "cheating." Cheating is considered a crime. People who cheat on their partners are paraded through the streets. They wear a broken shoe around their neck and a sign around their chest, and the neighbors spit on them and throw rotten vegetable leaves at them.

They didn't have a good ending.

Li Jianguo smiled again.

This time the smile was a bit deeper.