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

Yi Zhonghai and Sha Zhu walked out of the Li family courtyard gate one after the other.

The pale moonlight cast long, crooked shadows of the two people, stretching them across the ground as two distorted ghostly figures.

They walked on in silence, their footsteps sounding particularly heavy on the bluestone pavement. Only when they reached the entrance to their own house in the inner courtyard did Sha Zhu finally stop, turn around, and look at Yi Zhonghai.

"Uncle," he frowned, his face showing obvious annoyance and worry, "are you saying that Li Jianguo is going to settle down in our yard from now on? We'll be seeing each other all the time, how can we possibly have a peaceful life from now on?"

Yi Zhonghai remained silent.

He subconsciously raised his hand and touched his swollen left cheek. The moment his fingertips touched it, he gasped in pain, grimaced, and lowered his hand, his anger almost overflowing.

"Who says otherwise!" He lowered his voice, making it muffled but filled with a gnashing of hatred. "That brat Li Jianguo is a carbon copy of his short-lived father; he was never meant to be a troublemaker! With such a 'big shot' in our courtyard, things are going to get really tough from now on..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but that cold snort was more powerful than any harsh words.

Sha Zhu sighed, his eyes flickering. He didn't speak again, but his mind was churning, calculating how to remove Li Jianguo, this thorn in his side, from this courtyard. Yi Zhonghai also fell silent, his hands clenched into fists behind his back, knuckles white.

For the first time in this matter, their thoughts were aligned.

---

Behind the window in the backyard, Uncle Liu Zhonghai was squinting, peering through the crack in the glass at the activity in the front yard.

The moment Li Jianguo called for help with the move, he slipped away and went back inside. He had no interest in getting involved in the Jia family's messy affairs. Help? It would be thankless work, and might even cause him trouble. He was shrewd enough.

He just stayed in the house, watching Jia Zhangshi throw a tantrum, watching her belongings be identified one by one, and watching her make a fool of herself in front of everyone.

"Hey!" Liu Zhonghai couldn't help but laugh out loud, his face crinkling into a deep wrinkle. "This old hag has finally met her match! That's awesome! That's fucking awesome!"

He had long disliked Jia Zhangshi. She was always throwing tantrums and was ruthless when it came to taking advantage of others. Living in the same backyard, this old woman had pilfered countless things from their family—a scallion one day, a head of garlic the next—doing all sorts of shameful things. Seeing her get her comeuppance today gave Liu Zhonghai a sense of satisfaction that was more satisfying than eating a meal of meat.

But as he laughed, the smile on his face slowly faded, and his brows furrowed.

In this courtyard house, it used to be the three old men who called the shots: him, Yi Zhonghai, and Yan Bugui. Big or small matters, even at a general meeting of the whole courtyard, Liu Zhonghai would have a place, his words would be heeded, and he had plenty of face. But now, Li Jianguo has arrived, a man who doesn't take the three old men seriously at all.

This is not a good sign.

Liu Zhonghai stared at the still-lit room in the Li family's house, his expression complex. His status in this courtyard was probably going to drop.

"Tsk..." He clicked his tongue, muttered, and turned around. "I need to think of a way. If this kid keeps acting so arrogantly, who in this courtyard will listen to me, Liu Zhonghai, anymore?"

He walked back into the house with his hands behind his back, his mind racing with various thoughts.

---

The interrogation room in the police station was brightly lit.

The deaf old woman sat hunched over in the chair, looking as if she had shrunk in size. When in her life had she ever suffered like this? She was being questioned in turn by two uniformed men, one question after another, leaving her terrified and sweating profusely.

She no longer possessed the domineering, authoritarian air she had in the courtyard house. When someone asked her a question, she would answer softly, like a mosquito humming, as obedient as a child who had done something wrong.

But in her heart, it felt like a fire was burning.

The fuel for that fire was fear, but even more so, an intense, unyielding resentment. The object of that resentment was only one name—Li Jianguo.

The more she was interrogated, the more fiercely the fire in her heart burned. She lowered her eyelids, concealing the resentment and malice in her eyes that almost solidified into reality.

Just you wait, you little beast.

She repeated it to herself over and over, each word seemingly squeezed out through clenched teeth. "Just you wait. If I don't kill you in this courtyard, these past decades of my life will have been wasted! Just like Yang Zhigang's family was kicked out, you, Li Jianguo, will be kicked out in the same way! No, you'll be worse off than them!"

She began to rummage through those old, rotten, and insidious tricks in her mind, one after another, becoming more and more vicious with each thought, and a cold, sinister smile even crept onto her lips unconsciously.

---

Li Jianguo, of course, had no idea that all the "beasts" in the courtyard were racking their brains to figure out how to deal with him.

However, even if he knew, he would probably just laugh it off.

They're just a bunch of frogs in a well. Their vision, their calculations, their loves and hates are all confined to this square courtyard, fighting and arguing over trivial interests.

When someone's power and status reach a height that these people can only look up to and never reach in their lifetime, their hostility and scheming will automatically turn into flattery and fawning. At that point, what they should be thinking about is not how to drive him away, but how to curry favor with him so that they won't be purged.

Li Jianguo pulled himself out of his reverie and first examined his modified body. Power surged through his veins, and his senses were sharper than ever before; he could hear even the faintest chirping of insects at night. A satisfied smile played on his lips before he turned his attention to the house before him.

This was left to him by his parents. The three rooms had been combined into one, with a living room in the middle and a bedroom on each side. It wasn't large, but what was rare was that it faced south, so the natural light was excellent. In Beijing, having such a separate and bright living environment was something many people dreamed of.

He had seen too much along the way. In those tenement courtyards and tenement buildings, which family didn't have seven or eight people crammed into a room of just over ten square meters? There were countless married people who still slept on the same kang (a heated brick bed) with their parents.

But this house...

Li Jianguo frowned.

Although it had been washed with water, the strange smell emanating from decades-old grime stubbornly lingered. It smelled like something moldy and rotten mixed with dust, making it unpleasant to smell. The windows had to be kept open for ventilation, and the smell wouldn't dissipate for at least three to five days.

Fortunately, one of the rewards I received for checking in today was the [Cleaning Skill].

It was like a pillow delivered to someone who was sleepy.

Without hesitation, Li Jianguo used his skill the moment his mind was on it.

The next second, an invisible wave emanated from him and swept across every corner of the room.

That unpleasant smell vanished completely, as if wiped away by an invisible hand. In its place came an extremely delicate and refreshing minty aroma, lingering in the air, invigorating and refreshing the mind.

Li Jianguo took a deep breath and looked around with satisfaction. He deliberately went to the corners and behind the cabinets—the places most prone to accumulating dirt—and carefully checked them. Just like the skill description, they were spotless, without even a speck of dust.

This skill is so useful.