Courtyard House: Starting as an engineer, crushing a yard full of poultry

He casually picked up a watch from a stool not far away; it was a moon phase watch with a dial. He had taken it off and placed it aside before starting work.

"No, let's check the cold storage first. If there's no power, all that meat will have to be removed."

Li Xiangdong ran into the cold storage with his watch in his hand.

"Is the power really out? This meat is going to be in trouble." Li Xiangdong frowned. He habitually glanced at his watch, only to find it had stopped. He didn't think much of it, assuming it was due to the magnetic force from the lightning strike.

I grabbed a large 3-pound can of pork for hot pot. After leaving the cold storage, I wondered if I should sell some pork on the black market as soon as possible. Canned goods can still last a while.

But when I looked at the watch, it was spinning! The small second hand was small, but I could still see it spinning clearly.

"Huh, could it be that time has stopped in the warehouse?" Li Xiangdong was surprised. Since time travel had already happened, Li Xiangdong could accept anything else, no matter how strange it was.

"As expected, the flow of time stopped in the warehouse. But this only happens in the cold storage."

Li Xiangdong went to the labor protection warehouse and took out a yellow cotton overcoat and a three-piece cotton hat. It was the kind of hat worn by the exemplary figures we should all learn from.

I took two old-fashioned cotton quilts; this labor protection warehouse has everything.

"This body is really great. A young body at twenty years old, what a steal!"

Li Xiangdong placed the lunar phase eight-needle in his calligraphy livestream room. Taking this thing out in public would cause him a huge mess.

He casually picked up three very ordinary three-hand dual-calendar mechanical watches and put them in his pocket. With a single thought, he left the mysterious space.

He has hundreds of these watches, all for giveaways during his Douyin live streams. They're supposedly worth a thousand or two thousand yuan, but he actually bought them for around fifty yuan each.

I don't know what brand it is, but it's all fancy and has foreign words on it.

He returned to the three rooms of the courtyard house. Li Xiangdong hurriedly found the coal briquette tickets, then put on a cotton hat and wrapped himself in a cotton coat before going out. He closed the door behind him.

He threw the two bags into the mysterious space.

The sky was covered with dark clouds. I bought three hundred coal briquettes at a nearby coal factory. A porter with a handcart delivered them back, also bringing along a coal stove and a large lock.

When they returned to the compound, Yan Bugui was carrying a hundred cups of hot tea. He sat in the gatehouse, sipping the now colorless tea.

"Wow, you bought so many coal briquettes? You can use them all by yourself?" Yan Bugui put his teacup on the stool. "I was thinking of buying some too. Give me one to try burning. If it works..."

Yan Bugui stretched out his chicken claws as he spoke.

"Get out of here! You try touching my coal!" Li Xiangdong sneered. "Trying to take advantage of others like this? It's like finding a bug while eating sunflower seeds! There are all kinds of people like this!"

Yan Bugui's face was ashen as he glared at Li Xiangdong, whose eyes were filled with murderous intent. He shrank back, picked up his stool and teacup, and went home. But in his heart, he thought to himself, "Damn it, you just wait."

"If I don't make you cry and beg for mercy, I, Yan Bugui, will take your surname!"

Li Xiangdong went in first, carrying the coal stove. He lit some thin bamboo sticks to burn the coal briquettes. Just then, Wobo finished carrying the coal briquettes and gave him two cents to send him away.

The label on the canned pork hot pot container had long been torn off, and now it was opened and placed on the coal stove. Once it boiled, Li Xiangdong began to enjoy it.

Li Xiangdong disliked pork belly, but this body craved fatty meat.

Using two bamboo sticks as chopsticks, Li Xiangdong was thoroughly enjoying his meal. He hadn't bought any chopsticks today, and he didn't want to go back to the mysterious space to get any cutlery.

The canned pork hotpot was heated on the coal stove, and the aroma of pork combined with the fragrance of seasonings filled the entire courtyard.

The first to smell it were naturally Yan Bugui's family.

Yan Bugui's family is eating now, a large bowl of corn porridge so thick you can see your reflection in it. There's also a dish of cornbread. The side dish is pickled mustard greens.

"Tsk tsk, this is the aroma of pork, and the smell of these spices. What skill!" Yan Jiecheng couldn't help but shed tears from the corner of his mouth.

"It smells so good!" Yan Jiefang put down his chopsticks.

"Who else could it be? Of course it's that little bastard!" Yan Bugui said angrily. "Just wait, call a hospital-wide meeting right now, I'll teach him a lesson!"

"What a beast! He doesn't even offer the good food to my third uncle."

In a side room of the central courtyard, a plump woman in her fifties was eating like a pig at the table. Smelling the aroma of pork, she put down her chopsticks and looked up.

"Whose family is eating meat here? They don't even know to help us out. They deserve to be killed!"

"Qin Huairu, go and see which restaurant makes something delicious. Get some for my precious grandson to enjoy."

Chapter Three: Three Beasts Challenge Each Other

"No need to go, that's the kid who just arrived eating meat."

A handsome man with a slightly sinister air walked in: "Mom, please don't make things difficult for Huai Ru."

“You’ve elevated her to the heavens.” Jia Zhangshi’s plump cheeks trembled.

"Dongxu, sit down and eat!"

A seductive woman stood up and served food to Jia Dongxu as he entered.

"I want to eat meat! I just want to eat meat!" A seven or eight-year-old boy shouted from the side.

A little girl huddled tightly to one side.

"If you keep messing around like this, I'll slap you!"

Jia Dongxu slammed his hand on the table, silencing Bang Geng. Bang Geng was chubby with a watermelon-shaped haircut. His eyes, however, were mostly white with little black, making you want to slap him. This guy just looked like he deserved a beating.

"That damned man, he makes delicious food but doesn't even offer it to me as a token of his respect..." Jia Zhangshi muttered.

"Mom, never mind, I'll go to the market early tomorrow morning and buy some meat to make dumplings," Jia Dongxu said. "Tomorrow's Sunday, I have time. Oh, and there's a hospital-wide meeting later. Let's eat quickly!"

Qin Huairu frowned, her lips moved but she didn't speak.

"By the way, I told my master about the house. There will be a meeting later to discuss it!"

"Yeah, yeah, that little bastard, how come he lives in three rooms? He should trade with our family!"

The Jia family only had one side room, about thirty square meters. It was divided in two, and Jia Zhangshi lived in the outer room with Bang Geng.

Cooking took place in a small shed set up on the side.

Li Xiangdong had just finished eating and was thinking about bringing some dried noodles out of the mysterious space later. At that moment, the half-closed door was pushed open.

A man in his early twenties was standing at the door.

"Who are you? Don't you know how to knock?" Li Xiangdong frowned.

"Uh, I'm Yan Jiecheng! There's a hospital-wide meeting! Head to the Intermediate Court." Yan Jiecheng was startled by Li Xiangdong's gaze.

However, Yan Jiecheng's gaze was fixed on the white metal box, which was still steaming and emitting a mouthwatering aroma.

"I'll be there right away."

Li Xiangdong snorted coldly, and Yan Jiecheng hurriedly ran away.

"Tsk tsk, let's go see what kind of monsters and demons are at this hospital-wide meeting." Li Xiangdong wrapped himself in a cotton-padded coat and put on a locomotive hat. He then locked the main gate and went to the central courtyard.

At that moment, a gas lamp was lit on a bamboo pole in the middle courtyard, illuminating the courtyard brightly.

There were nearly a hundred people here, and children were running around and playing happily in the crowd. A cacophony of chatter filled the air.

Li Xiangdong stopped on the outskirts of the crowd and saw a table under the gas lamp. Yi Zhonghai was sitting at the table, facing the crowd, with Liu Haizhong and Yan Bugui to his side.

"Bang bang!"

Yi Zhonghai slammed his hand on the table twice, immediately stopping his voice. Looking at the scene before him, Yi Zhonghai felt a surge of pride; this was his prestige!

"The first item on the agenda today is to welcome our new family. Um... Li Xiangdong, right? Come forward." Yi Zhonghai said with a smile, "Please introduce yourself. From now on, everyone is..."

How could Li Xiangdong, a soul from a later era, bear to watch Yi Zhonghai speak to him so condescendingly?

In his eyes, Yi Zhonghai was just a worker, why was he acting so important!

Li Xiangdong walked to the table and said to Yi Zhonghai, "Master Yi, you're talking nonsense. We're just neighbors, and we don't even know each other. How can you call us a big family?"

"Are you trying to become a feudal patriarch?"

Yi Zhonghai, who had been all smiles, suddenly turned pale. He knew that if this accusation were leveled against him, he would be in serious trouble, if not dead!

"No, no! That's not what I meant." Yi Zhonghai hurriedly explained, "What I meant was that we all live in the same compound and should love each other like a family."

"I don't want to be some kind of patriarch!"

Seeing Yi Zhonghai's pale face and the cold sweat pouring down his face, Li Xiangdong felt an immense sense of satisfaction!

While watching "The Courtyard of Birds," Li Xiangdong's biggest urge was to punch that old bastard Yi Zhonghai. Now that he'd been provoked, Li Xiangdong was naturally not going to hold back.

"You can't be one even if you want to. You're just an old worker. As for being a volunteer coordinator or something, that's nothing to you." Li Xiangdong smiled contemptuously, then turned around and said to everyone, "Hello everyone, I'm Li Xiangdong, orphaned and all alone! I was just transferred to Hongxing Steel Rolling Mill! I..."

Li Xiangdong didn't need to turn around to know that Yi Zhonghai's face must have turned a deep purple.

Before Li Xiangdong could finish his sentence, a burly man jumped up. His face was pockmarked with deep wrinkles, and his tattered cotton-padded jacket gleamed with grease.

That face looked to be around forty years old.

"Li Xiangdong, how dare you speak to an old man like that? I, Sha Zhu, am going to teach you a lesson today!"

Sha Zhu raised his fist as he spoke: "You alone..."

"Want to fight? Try touching me and see what happens! I think you want to spend the New Year in jail!" Li Xiangdong sneered.

Sha Zhu was stunned for a moment; he was about to call the police.

"Alright, Sha Zhu, stop making things worse. Let's move on to the next thing." Yi Zhonghai took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

Li Xiangdong stood to the side with his arms crossed, watching to see what tricks this guy would pull. Li Xiangdong also knew that most people were looking at him with surprise.

The residents of the compound were all surprised by Li Xiangdong's assertiveness. They were also quite intrigued; who were these three old men? They were just two workers and a primary school teacher. How did they become so powerful in the compound?

“This matter will be handled by Uncle Yan, the Third Master,” Yi Zhonghai said, taking a sip of his tea.