The landlord has multiple personalities and wants everyone to pay him.

The New Year these days is losing its festive spirit.

Aside from the loudspeakers blaring "Great news! Spend 200 and get 100 free during the Spring Festival!" and the Spring Festival couplets pasted on the doors of various shops, it seemed like there wasn't much else to see.

For many people nowadays, the Spring Festival is probably just about families gathering together from all over the world, busily preparing a big table of dishes, chatting about recent events and bragging while eating, listening to the background music of the Spring Festival Gala, and then the year is over.

Ye Shu carried large and small bags of New Year's goods, walking on the crunching snow. Breathing in the dry, cold air, she felt that something was missing from this New Year.

There were fewer crackling sounds and the smell of gunpowder.

However, there's nothing we can do about it. As both Xiong Da and Xiong Er have said, protecting the environment is the responsibility of every bear.

This illustrates the principle that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

When Ye Shu returned to her own courtyard, she felt like her fingers were almost not her own. The plastic bag was so heavy that it cut her fingers so much that they couldn't even bleed.

By putting some frozen goods in the outdoor shed, we can save the need for a refrigerator.

Let me explain: a shed is a simple little warehouse built in the yard. It's cold in winter and hot in summer, and it's just a place to store some tools and sundries.

Ye Shu put the bag down, looked at her hands, and saw several marks on her knuckles and her fingers were a little purple.

But then I looked at my dad, who was carrying just as much as I was, but he looked completely unaffected.

Ye Shu wiggled his fingers as he walked out of the shed and stood in the small courtyard. Only then did he take a serious look around.

I got back late last night and didn't look closely. Now, standing in the yard, the sunlight is so bright that it's dazzling on the snowdrifts next to me.

The small house, facing south, had its windows completely sealed with transparent plastic sheeting. Narrow wooden strips were nailed around the window frames, and two metal cans used for eight-treasure porridge were used to prop them up, creating a makeshift insulation layer.

The door was still the same old-fashioned one, covered with a layer of sheet metal and studded with rows of rivets, requiring a lot of force to open each time.

Especially in winter, sometimes the door freezes shut, and if you pull hard, it makes a loud clattering sound, which shows how solid it is.

Everything in this little courtyard is exactly the same as I remember from my childhood, even the position of the big broom standing in the corner and the missing corner of the windowsill are unchanged.

Seeing the gap, Ye Shu almost laughed.

This gap can be said to have witnessed the rise and fall of a top domestic craftsman.

Ye Shu's grandfather was a well-known carpenter in this small county town, at least in the surrounding area.

The old man was skilled and honest. Anyone who needed a cabinet made, a table or chair nailed, or a door or window repaired would come to him. The courtyard was always filled with the smell of wood shavings and various paints.

Growing up surrounded by chisels, axes, and saws, Ye Shu naturally developed the idea that he wanted to be a carpenter too!

However, his ambitions far surpass those of his grandfather.

His vision extends beyond the tables and chairs in front of him, but it also doesn't encompass poetry or distant horizons.

He's destined to become the King of Carpenters!

Back then, there was a TV channel called Star TV. Every day around dinner time, that channel would show anime and stuff.

Anime like One Piece, Naruto, and Inuyasha were Ye Shu's gateway into anime.

One day, he saw Gundam for the first time.

Wow! What a cool design! What sturdy lines! These robots are easily ten or twenty meters tall!

Mechs! Those are mechs!

Tell me, which child could resist the temptation of operating a robot?

Ye Shu was thrilled; his dream was ignited!

So he combined his dream of becoming the King of Carpenters with his dream of piloting a Gundam, and he wanted to build his own Gundam by hand!

Of course, it's meant to be a toy.

When we were in school, our teachers always taught us that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and that we should do things right away.

Ye Shu decided to start by practicing the basics, and the first basic skill of a carpenter is definitely the proficiency in using tools.

To do a good job, one must first have the right tools, and more importantly, use them well.

One afternoon, Grandpa was planening a wooden board in the yard when Ye Shu seized the opportunity and, when Grandpa wasn't looking, secretly took the claw hammer.

He weighed the hammer in his hand and began looking around for a place to practice his skills.

Just as there are wooden dummy drills for boxing, one naturally needs a suitable sparring partner to practice weaponry.

So he set his sights on that cement windowsill.

He aimed at the windowsill, focused his energy, and then raised the hammer and struck.

With a muffled thud, the image of a hammer striking cement and sparks flying, followed by the scene of Ye Shu shirtless, covered in sweat, unmoved even as sparks flew onto his body, did not materialize.

Instead, a large chunk of cement fell off the windowsill the moment the hammer struck it, revealing the bricks underneath.

Ye Shu stood there, hammer in hand, stunned and bewildered.

This...this is not what I imagined? Is cement really that brittle?

Before he could even recover from his thoughts of the hardened cement and hammer, he felt a gust of wind behind him, and then he was kicked solidly in the buttocks.

"You little brat, what are you doing?! You're just making a scene!"

Dad's so angry he looks like a Gundam.

Grandpa also came over, looked at the chipped windowsill, then at his grandson, and sighed.

"Alright, let's just smash it. This windowsill isn't sturdy anyway."

Ye Shu smashed a corner of the windowsill and also got kicked by his own father.

With one corner exchanged for one foot, a rising master craftsman, determined to handcraft Gundams, fell from grace.

The gap in the windowsill has remained there ever since.

I don't know if Grandpa and Dad forgot to fix it, or if they wanted to keep it as a memento, but it was preserved like that. Year after year, they watched Ye Shu grow from a little calf who could only reach the windowsill to a half-grown boy, and then leave home to study in another place.

Now, standing in front of this gap again, Ye Shu seems to still feel the kick he received on the butt back then.

"Why are you just standing here staring if you're not going inside?"

Ye Shu's father's voice suddenly came from behind, interrupting his reminiscence.

Ye Shu also took a small step forward as if by reflex, slightly turned her body to the side, and used her hand to block behind her.

"It's nothing, just taking a look."

Ye Guoqiang, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, glanced at his son, who looked ready to be kicked, but said nothing.

Ye Shu reached out and pulled open the heavy door, lifting the cotton curtain, and a warm breeze rushed in.

He had just stepped across the threshold when he heard a very familiar voice:

"elder brother!"