The Beginning of a Courtyard House: Sixty Years of Internal Strength

We didn't get out of the mountains until nightfall, and we had no idea where we were. We had never been through this mountain range before.

Looking at the village at the foot of the mountain, which I didn't recognize at all, I had no choice but to sneak into the village at night.

They found a drunk villager, rushed over, and used acupressure to put him to sleep.

They quickly dragged him into the woods and tied him up securely.

I took out a glass of water and splashed it on him to wake him up. Just as he was about to scream, I covered his mouth.

"Don't scream. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Answer them honestly and I'll let you go."

If you yell any more, I'll stab you to death, understand? Nod if you understand.

The young man broke out in a cold sweat and quickly nodded.

Li Jianguo finally let go.

"Where is this place? Which village?"

"Hero, this is Liugezhuang, which belongs to Baocheng."

Li Jianguo shook his head helplessly. He hadn't expected him to end up in Baocheng. It seemed the detour wasn't too serious. He immediately loosened the rope around him.

"Go on, this way down the mountain will take you back to your village. If you dare to turn back, I'll shoot you dead."

After hearing this, the man ran down the mountain in a panic.

Li Jianguo returned to the woods, adjusted his direction, and ran wildly towards Beijing. After running for several hours, he finally arrived near Beijing and returned to his space after seeing the familiar road.

Upon returning to the space, he found Yao Yao was still awake. "Brother Jianguo, have you found the way?"

"Found it! We're near the city walls. I'll take the donkey cart into the city tomorrow afternoon."

"Okay, that's good."

Li Jianguo quickly washed up and started eating. After finishing his meal, he went to bed as soon as possible, since it was getting late.

The next day, Li Jianguo first set up a chicken coop specifically to raise pheasants. These pheasants could fly, making them really difficult to control.

He started skinning the tiger, planning to quickly turn it into smoked meat, otherwise it wouldn't keep for long. Li Jianguo busied himself with the task.

One of the three tigers was female. I didn't notice at first. Alas, now I'm missing a tiger penis. It was a good thing, what a pity.

They're all whole tiger skins, that's great. We can make something nice like a tiger skin coat.

Unfortunately, the longer ones were too troublesome to handle. Li Jianguo was busy from morning to afternoon, and because he had never skinned them before, it took him a whole day to clean up the three tigers.

Seeing that it was getting dark, he decided to stop working. Li Jianguo found a quiet moment, took out his donkey cart, a few chickens and some eggs, and started heading towards Beijing.

Having just entered the city, they wandered around for a while before finding a corner and putting the donkey cart away. Seeing that it was getting dark, Li Jianguo carefully released Yao Yao from his spatial dimension, and the two went to Donglaishun for a hot pot meal of mutton before returning home.

Back at No. 95 courtyard, I ran into Yan Bugui, who was guarding the gate.

"Jianguo's back, it's been four or five days already. Did you go back to your hometown again?"

Li Jianguo, seeing Yan Bugui's hesitant expression, knew he had something to say, so he quickly took two eggs from his cloth bag and handed them to him.

"Teacher Yan, has anything been happening in the department lately?"

"Oh, it's nothing, just some rumors. You should go home quickly; the house needs tidying up too."

Yan Bugui grabbed the eggs and ran off. Li Jianguo cursed, "This guy who's swindling things can't be faking it, can he?"

"Damn, they took the stuff without even explaining, that's shameless!"

Li Jianguo cursed under his breath, shook his head, and guessed that Yi Zhonghai had probably asked someone to speak ill of him. He decided to see how things went and went home with Yao Yao first.

After getting home and tidying up a bit, the two of them went to sleep.

The next day, after dinner, Li Jianguo gave Yao Yao some instructions.

"Be careful in the yard, and try not to go out. I'm going to hand in my mission first. Judging from Yan Bugui's appearance yesterday, something's probably wrong."

"Okay, Jianguo, go ahead."

Li Jianguo went to the factory to hand in his task and then hurried to the silk shop to pick up the clothes, as it would take too long to get there in the first place.

Chen Xueru saw Li Jianguo snort coldly, looking unhappy.

"Is Sister Xue Ru angry? I brought you some good stuff."

As he spoke, he shook the bundle in his hand.

"What good stuff?"

Chen Xueru got excited and pulled Li Jianguo to walk to the back, muttering to herself as they went.

"Li Jianguo, how long has it been since you came to pick up your clothes or even come to see me? You've really forgotten your sister now that you have a wife."

"Oh, it's not my fault. There's so much going on in the yard. The old lady in the backyard even got paralyzed."

Li Jianguo recounted the events.

"Does your department have so much trouble? Why don't you move in with my sister?"

"Oh well, even though there are a lot of beasts in this place, it's quite interesting. I can even beat people up when I'm bored, haha."

As he spoke, Li Jianguo opened the bundle, inside which was a tiger skin that was not yet completely dry.

"This is a good thing." Chen Xueru was no longer angry and started looking through it.

"Where did you get this? The tiger skin is so intact, without a single tear. How did you do that? Did a master shoot an arrow into the tiger's eye?"

Just as Li Jianguo was trying to figure out how to explain, Chen Xueru gave him her reason.

"That's right, I spent a lot of money to buy it, this is a special apology to Sister Xue Ru."

Chen Xueru nodded in satisfaction.

"Okay, I'll accept this as an apology. Wait a moment, I'll go make you some food."

Chen Xueru quickly went to get busy, while Li Jianguo put the tiger skin aside and poured himself a cup of tea.

Soon after, Chen Xueru brought over a few side dishes and two bottles of wine, and the two chatted and drank.

"Brother Jianguo, I have something I want to ask you. This joint venture between the companies has caused quite a stir."

People have come to advise me on this matter, do you think my sister should consider starting a joint venture company?

Li Jianguo was taken aback. He hadn't expected it to start so early. The original play was probably set in 1955, but this was only the second half of 1953. The mobilization had already begun so quickly.

"Sister Xue Ru, if you want my opinion, I'll tell you the truth: I suggest you donate the shop directly."

Chen Xueru screamed in surprise upon hearing this.

"Jianguo, you're not kidding me, are you? This is a shop that has been passed down in my family for generations. How can you just donate it like that?"

"Given the current situation, workers and peasants are now in charge of the country. Not only big capitalists, but even small business owners like you will definitely be marginalized in the future."

"Take advantage of the opportunity to donate quickly, find a factory to work as an accountant or something. With Sister Xue Ru's family background, she shouldn't be short of this little bit of money."

"Brother Jianguo, you're really joking. Your sister is desperately short of money, really short."

Chen Xueru pursed her lips speechlessly.

"Sister Xue Ru, if you're short of money, I have plenty. How about I give you 20 large yellow croakers to spend?"

Chen Xueru's hand suddenly trembled, and the wine spilled out.

"Jianguo, you're not kidding me, are you? Where did you get so many big yellow croakers?"