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

All those hesitations vanished.

"good!"

He nodded, so hard that his neck almost broke.

"Don't worry, I'm here to help you!"

Yi Zhonghai breathed a sigh of relief.

Several people worked together to lift Jia Dongxu onto the tricycle. It took a lot of effort to lift him; Jia Dongxu was incredibly heavy, like a dead pig.

Sha Zhu pedaled the tricycle incredibly fast. The tricycle wobbled forward, almost tipping over.

Yi Zhonghai rode his bicycle with Jia Zhangshi on the back. Jia Zhangshi sat on the back seat, still crying, sobbing and trembling all over.

Qin Huairu rode her own bicycle behind them. She rode slowly and fell behind, as if she couldn't keep up.

After they left, those who had avoided them gathered back together. They huddled in a small group, whispering and gossiping among themselves.

"Xu Damao was really unlucky today. When that car came rushing at him, the direction he dodged was exactly the direction the car was going."

"He brought it on himself. Who told him to be so foul-mouthed? His mouth is like a loose, filthy waistband."

"Old man and Sha Zhu are also unlucky; they're bound to get swindled. They've lost a fortune this time, going bankrupt."

"Who says otherwise? I saw Jia Dongxu lying there just now, and after thinking about it, I didn't dare to go over. My legs went weak."

"Last time Banggeng got into a fight with my son, even though my son was seriously injured, I still had to pay Banggeng compensation. Two yuan! It broke my heart; that's half a month's worth of cigarettes."

……

It's all accusations.

The Jia family's popularity is truly appalling. You couldn't find another family like them on the entire street, not even with a lantern.

Xu Damao looked around and suddenly spoke.

"Everyone in the courtyard has come out. Where's the deaf old lady? With something this serious happening, how can she sit still? Isn't she deaf? How come she can't hear anything?"

An older woman scoffed.

"Was it Sha Zhu who got into trouble? If not, why is she meddling in other people's business? The deaf old woman only recognizes Sha Zhu; what does someone else's death have to do with her?"

Everyone thought about it and agreed.

The deaf old woman doesn't get involved in anything in the courtyard. She doesn't care if anyone is arguing or if anyone has a problem; she acts as if she doesn't see it at all.

But as long as it's related to Sha Zhu, she's always the first one there. She runs faster than anyone else, her hearing is no longer deaf, and her legs are nimble again.

"Shazhu treated her so well, the two of them were like family, so of course the deaf old lady sided with Shazhu."

Despite saying that, his impression of the deaf old woman worsened.

When it comes to matters of life and death, she can act as if it's none of her business. She's ruthless, truly ruthless.

in the hospital.

The lights in the emergency room were on. They were a bright, glaring red, like blood.

The doctor came out once.

"The patient's legs cannot be saved and amputation is necessary. Family members, please sign."

Qin Huairu signed the document with trembling hands. Her hand shook so badly that the characters were crooked and crooked, like earthworms crawling.

Her face was as white as paper. It was completely devoid of color, frighteningly pale.

At such a young age, with children still young, the man has become a useless person.

What should we do next?

I don't know how much time passed, but the operating room door opened.

The doctor walked out covered in blood. His white coat was splattered with blood, red and black mixed together, turning black after it dried.

Jia Zhangshi and Qin Huairu staggered over. They were running so fast that they almost fell, and they had to help each other to steady themselves.

"Doctor, how is my son (man)?"

"The surgery was relatively successful. The bleeding stopped after the amputation, but there was still excessive blood loss. Now we'll see how he recovers. Whether he pulls through depends on his own fate and whether God will take him."

Jia Dongxu was pushed out.

He was still unconscious, his face deathly pale. As pale as a dead man, like a paper effigy.

Under the blanket, there was nothing. Where there used to be legs, there was nothing left but two empty blanket tubes.

Yi Zhonghai pulled Sha Zhu aside.

"Shazhu, Jia Dongxu is injured like this, the expenses will definitely be huge. The Jia family can't afford it, but we can't be the ones to pay for it either. We have to think of a way, we can't be suckers."

Sha Zhu nodded.

"The entire hospital has to foot the bill."

"Go back and hold a hospital-wide meeting to ask everyone to donate something, even if it's just a token gesture."

Sha Zhu looked at Qin Huairu in the ward.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders shaking with sobs. She was crying so hard, so pitifully, so heartbreakingly.

Sha Zhu sighed softly.

Pity.

Such a beautiful woman, stuck with a useless man. How will she live the rest of her life? How will she endure the next few decades?

When will it be his turn?

They stayed at the hospital until the afternoon before returning.

Along the way, I would ask a few questions of everyone I knew. I would ask how I got hurt, how badly I was hurt, whether there was any hope for me, and whether I was about to die.

By the time they got home, the news had spread throughout the entire alley.

Jia Dongxu had both legs amputated and became a disabled person.

Li Jianguo heard the news on his way home from get off work.

He raised an eyebrow.

How come he's still alive after being hit like that?

They're incredibly lucky to be alive.

But this news made him even happier than the news of Jia Dongxu's death.

There are no filial sons at the bedside of a chronically ill patient.

Let alone taking care of a disabled person?

Jia Zhangshi?

Qin Huairu?

Who are those two? They're both incredibly shrewd, incredibly selfish, and incredibly calculating.

Can you endure hardship and serve Jia Dongxu for the rest of your life?

dream.

He has lost his legs, his job, his income, and everything else.

The family relied entirely on Qin Huairu, a single woman, to earn money. But what could she possibly do with that little bit of money? Was it enough to buy rice or flour?

That whole family are bloodsucking leeches. Banggeng is still young; he needs to go to school, eat, and wear clothes.

They'll suffer in the days to come. They'll have their moments of tears, moments of despair where no one will hear their cries for help.

But who can we blame for this?

Do not live by committing sins.

God sees things most clearly.

Those who do bad things will eventually face retribution.

It's just a matter of time, and the severity of the retribution.

Following in the footsteps of Yi Zhonghai and Sha Zhu, Jia Zhangshi shuffled into the courtyard house, her steps uneven.

The threshold was high, and she almost tripped when she lifted her leg, falling forward slightly before managing to steady herself.

The moonlight shone on her face, making it look as if someone had removed all the bones, her skin and flesh sagging loosely. Her eyes were swollen into slits, and the gaze squeezing out from those slits was so cloudy it seemed like it could be squeezed to extract bitter juice. She swayed after every few steps, her hands reaching forward as if groping for an invisible wall in the air.

Someone was chopping wood in the yard, and the sound of the axe falling stopped.

Someone was collecting clothes, and the hand on the bamboo pole was suspended in mid-air.

Someone had just come out of the outhouse, and the action of fastening their belt got stuck there.

Three pairs of eyes, five pairs of eyes, more than a dozen pairs of eyes, all fixed on Jia Zhangshi.

The woodcutter opened his mouth, as if to say something. But then he remembered how Jia Zhangshi had blocked someone's door and cursed for three days last year because of a single sentence. So he closed his mouth again.

The person collecting the clothes sighed. Before the sigh was even finished, Jia Zhangshi's swollen eyes suddenly glared at them, and the person collecting the clothes quickly turned their face away, pretending to look at the moon in the sky.

No one spoke.

The only sound in the courtyard was footsteps—thump, thump, thump, one after another, muffled like someone punching the frozen ground.

Jia Zhangshi hung her head and walked through those gazes. Those gazes were like knives, yet they dared not actually pierce her, and instead turned away halfway.

She walked to her front door, placed her hand on the door frame, and paused for a moment.

His back was turned to the people filling the courtyard; his shoulders shrugged up briefly, then slumped back down.

The door opened, and the person went in.

"Clang—"

The sound of the door slamming against the frame made the hearts of those in the yard tremble.

An older woman stood on her doorstep, clutching the door curtain in one hand and the hem of her apron in the other. She stared at the closed door, pursing her lips repeatedly, but ultimately couldn't hold her breath any longer.

"Jia Zhangshi..." She shook her head, her voice low, as if afraid the door would hear her, "She looks so pitiful."

She paused again after saying that.

The middle-aged woman next to her was still clutching a half-washed radish, water dripping onto the ground. She chimed in, "Who says otherwise?"

That's what I said.

The two looked at each other for a moment, then looked away.

They are pitiful indeed.

But what kind of person is that old woman? Everyone on this street knows the truth about her.

Inside the room, Jia Zhangshi collapsed onto the bed.

The bed creaked with a painful "crunch," as if it had been broken by a piece of flesh weighing over a hundred pounds. She lay face down on the mattress, her face buried in the pillow, her hands gripping the corners of the pillow until her knuckles turned white.

Then the crying came out.

It was sharp and piercing, like the sound of the first knife being plunged into a pig during slaughter. The sound squeezed out from the cracks in the door and seeped out from the cracks in the window, swirling and rising in the courtyard. Each sound was louder and louder than the last, each one more chilling than the last.

As she cried, her whole body began to tremble. Her shoulders shook, her back shook, even the bed beneath her was shaking. Her fingers dug into the mattress, her fingernails peeling back, revealing a white patch, but she felt no pain.

I don't know how much time has passed.

The crying subsided, turning into sobs. The sobs subsided further, becoming gasps for breath.

Jia Zhangshi lay face down on the bed, her face still buried in the pillow, her shoulders occasionally shrugging.

Suddenly, she abruptly raised her head.

The veins on his neck were bulging, his face was a deep purplish-red, and his swollen eyes were no longer swollen—they had been staring so wide that they had stretched the swelling out.

She stared intently in the direction of Li Jian's house next door.

If that look could be turned into a knife, it could pierce that wall into a sieve.

"Li Jianguo..."

She gritted her teeth, forcing out each word one by one, the sound scraping out from her throat, giving people goosebumps.

"That little beast..."

"Why doesn't he just die?"

"Why is he my son?"

She covered her face and started crying again, but then suddenly looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot, the whites of her eyes were full of veins, and she looked like she wanted to eat someone alive.

"It's all his fault!"

"If it weren't for that bastard, would Dongxu have had anyone kicked out of the factory?"

"If we don't kick them out, how can they find work?"

"If you don't find work, will you let a car crash and cripple you?"

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became, and the more she felt that the blame should be placed on Li Jianguo.

If it weren't for this person, Jia Dongxu would still be working at the factory. He'd get paid on the 15th of each month, Banggeng would cause some minor trouble at school, Qin Huairu would come home from work and cook, and she'd sit in the doorway basking in the sun and cursing the gossips. Life was tough, but that was life.

What now?

Jia Dongxu lost both legs and is still lying in the hospital, it's unknown whether he's awake or not.

Bang Geng is in a juvenile detention center, and it's unclear when he'll be released.

Only she, Qin Huairu, and those two young girls remained at home.

She suddenly tilted her head back and yelled at the roof.

"God, you're blind!"

The sound was sharp and long, like a needle piercing the roof, piercing the air in the yard, and piercing everyone's ears.

Outside, Yi Zhonghai was not idle.

As soon as he entered the courtyard, he started making arrangements, calling Sha Zhu over and having him knock on every door—a meeting for the entire courtyard.

Li Jianguo was reading a book inside the house.

The book was provided by the system; it was about Shanghai during the Republican era. He leaned back in his chair, clutching the book in his hand, his feet propped up on the stove, on which sat a kettle of water, bubbling away, almost boiling.

There was a knock on the door.

"Director Li, may I come in?"

Xu Damao stood at the door, his head halfway in, his body still outside. His attitude was far more polite than before.

Li Jianguo put down the book and walked out of the study.

"What's up?"

"An old man wants to notify the whole hospital to hold a meeting," Xu Damao said, pursing his lips as if he had just eaten a sour apricot. "You're part of our hospital now, so you have to attend."

Li Jianguo looked at him and laughed.

"Judging from your tone, you look down on this event?"

Xu Damao chuckled.

"This lousy meeting?"

He took a step inside, then realized it wasn't appropriate, pulled his foot back, and spoke from outside the threshold.

"Those old guys always pull these kinds of stunts, holding one every now and then. They call it a hospital-wide meeting, but it's really just a denunciation meeting. Whoever doesn't listen gets criticized, whoever has more money gets criticized, whoever is easy to bully gets criticized."

No wonder he looked down on it.

He's been the one being criticized in eight out of ten of these denunciation meetings that have been held for so many years.

"Why are you opening today?"

After asking the question, Li Jianguo's mind flashed to the image of the Jia family next door. Jia Dongxu was ruined, and he had just seen Jia Zhangshi through the window; she was crying like someone had died.

"For the Jia family, right?" Xu Damao nodded. "Probably."

He curled his lip, looking completely unconvinced.

"That good-for-nothing Jia Dongxu, his family is lucky if they have a penny to their name. Now that he's completely ruined, we need to know what will happen to him. You know Uncle Yi, he's a really nice guy, he'll definitely have to help out."

Speaking of this, Xu Damao gets angry.