Courtyard House: I fish in the heavens, a professional bird abuser.

Brain storage locker: put your brain away for double the comfort!

Animal cruelty equipment redemption point~

Sweet tofu pudding

Tofu pudding is boring

The author will carefully read all suggestions and comments. Thank you very much!

The female author works hard at writing, so I'm begging for a free gift, thank you so much!

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Autumn of 1962,

Beijing.

The sky was overcast, with heavy, leaden clouds pressing down, and a persistent dampness hung in the air.

The rain had just stopped, and the uneven ground of the courtyard house was filled with murky puddles, reflecting the gray eaves and window frames inside.

A tall figure stepped out of the gate, carrying a bulging net bag in his hand.

It was He Yuanchao.

He was in his early twenties, with a sturdy build and broad shoulders, which made his faded but neatly starched dark blue work clothes look sharp and angular.

The rain dampened the few stubble-like strands of short hair on his forehead, making his straight eyebrows stand out even more.

Inside the net bag were two pieces of pork belly, each weighing at least two pounds. The fat was snow-white, the lean meat was fresh and shiny, and they glistened with oil. The thick pigskin still had some ice crystals that hadn't completely melted, which were made even more noticeable by the rain.

Underneath the net bag, a small cloth bag of flour was weighed down.

"Hey! You're back from Korea?"

Uncle Yan Bugui, who was squatting at his doorstep, eating cornbread with pickled vegetables, looked up at the sound. His shrewd eyes behind his small glasses seemed to be drawn in by a magnet.

He instantly clung to the two pieces of meat, his Adam's apple bobbing involuntarily, his voice rising a few decibels, "Wow! This meat... it's really plump! Did you get it from the pigeon market? Tsk, it must have cost a fortune!" His tone was filled with undisguised envy and the instinctive heartache of someone used to being frugal when it came to "spending money."

He Yuanchao didn't stop walking, only gave a faint "hmm" in response, his face showing no extra expression.

Yan Bugui knew everything about abacus beads.

That old guy is stingy to the core. He'd rather split a penny into eight pieces. He's the kind of person who can't get enough of taking advantage of others. Talking to him is a complete waste of breath.

Just as I reached the moon gate leading from the middle courtyard to the back courtyard, a sharp, harsh voice, like sandpaper polishing sheet metal, impatiently pierced through the damp, cold air:

"Hmph! Eat, eat, eat! Eat that bastard to death! You have a few bucks to burn, huh?"

Buying so much meat, aren't you afraid it will rot in your intestines and breed maggots?

You heartless, rotten-lung bastards! You see our family members starving, but you don't even offer them a single helping hand!

He deserves to be childless and without descendants; even if he dies, no one will break a basin for him!

Without even looking, I knew it was Jia Zhangshi.

A corner of the tattered curtain of the Jia family's door was lifted, and Jia Zhangshi's mean and ungrateful face was squeezed against the door frame, her triangular eyes viciously gouging at the flesh in He Yuanchao's hand, as if that flesh had been cut off from her own body.

She wore a greasy old cotton-padded jacket, her hair was disheveled, and spittle flew everywhere with her curses.

Immediately following this, Qin Huairu's low, tearful explanation came from inside the room:

"Mom... please keep your voice down... didn't Sha Zhu just give me a lunchbox...?" Her voice was barely audible, filled with exhaustion and weakness.

"Lunchbox? Pshaw!"

Madam Jia suddenly turned around and shifted her anger to her daughter-in-law.

"That bastard Zhu! Who are you trying to fool with some leftover pig swill from the canteen?"

How dare they deliver dog feed to our house? What a jinx! A jinx that killed my son!

If you weren't so unlucky and brought bad luck to your husband, would my son be bedridden? Would our Jia family have fallen to this state?

My poor Dongxu…

As she continued cursing, she slapped her thigh and started wailing about her paralyzed son, Jia Dongxu. It was all bark and no bite; it was purely for the sake of making a scene.

Three more small heads peeked out from the door frame of the Jia family's house.

Sticky stem, small bud, locust flower.

All three children were thin, especially Banggeng, who was just over ten years old. His neck appeared long and thin, but his eyes were bright and piercing as he stared intently at the meat in He Yuanchao's net bag, greedily sniffing the air.

It was as if they wanted to inhale all the faint, meaty smell that lingered in the damp, cold air into their stomachs.

Xiao Dang and Huaihua stood timidly behind their brother, their eyes fixed on him, drool practically dripping from their mouths.

He Yuanchao didn't even bother to lift his eyelids towards the Jia family.

He was so tired of hearing that old hag's foul language.

Eight years ago, before Qin Huairu married into this courtyard house, a matchmaker wanted to marry her off to him, a "poor apprentice".

The results of it?

Qin Huairu herself looked down on him because he was poor and had no future, and didn't even want to look at him properly.

When the matchmaker's words reached him, He Yuanchao immediately scoffed and retorted.

With Qin Huairu's limited skills, she appears weak and pitiful on the surface, but is full of scheming at heart. Who is she trying to fool?

Even if He Yuanchao remains a bachelor for the rest of his life, he will never get involved with such troublesome "green tea" women.

Now? Ha.

Without looking to the side, he carried the meat straight through the moon gate and headed towards the backyard.

He Yuanchao sneered inwardly: Silly Zhu, Silly Zhu, this name is truly well-deserved.

He was completely manipulated by Qin Huairu's few tears, looking like a gullible fool who deserved to be exploited.

Jia Dongxu is paralyzed, Jia Zhangshi is lazy and gluttonous, and Qin Huairu's salary is meager.

Three teenagers, all depended on the scraps of food he smuggled back from the cafeteria.

Dream on!

Qin Huairu is keeping him hanging on, isn't it just because she's a cafeteria chef and wants to get a little something out of him?

This silly guy was still happily crowding around, the kind of guy who'd be sold out but still help count the money.

What is the old man Yi Zhonghai up to, always praising him as "righteous" and "kind"?

Isn't it just that she takes advantage of Sha Zhu's lack of parents, making him easy to manipulate, along with his cooking skills and sheer brute strength, wanting to keep him firmly by her side as a free long-term laborer and a backup plan for her old age and funeral?

This scheme smelled bad even from two miles away.

As for the second uncle, Liu Haizhong?

He Yuanchao glanced at the tightly closed door of the Liu family's house in the front yard out of the corner of his eye.

He's obsessed with officialdom. Even with the tiny power of a production team leader, he can make a mess of things, spending all his time figuring out how to flaunt his authority and bully others.

Is the third uncle Yan Bugui?

That schoolteacher used all his ink on calculating every penny, he was stingy to the extreme.

And then there's Xu Damao, the movie theater guy, a real troublemaker, always stirring up trouble and wanting nothing more than for the world to be in chaos.

Every single one of them in this courtyard, if you peel back the veil of "neighborly mutual assistance" and "respect for the elderly and care for the young," is nothing but naked selfishness, scheming, greed, and hypocrisy!

What is "Love Fills the Courtyard"?

Bah! It's clearly a "courtyard full of birds"!

He Yuanchao carried the meat and walked steadily into the backyard.

The backyard was quieter than the front and middle yards, and it also had a somewhat dilapidated and desolate feel.

He lived in a small side room on the east side of the backyard.

This was originally the only legacy left by his deceased uncle.

The house is small, only about ten square meters in total. It is low and the lighting is not very good.

But He Yuanchao lives alone, and he keeps things tidy.

Pushing open the creaking old wooden door, a unique scent of a bachelor's room, a mixture of faint soap and old wood, wafts out.

The room was simply furnished: a single wooden bed against the wall, covered with faded blue sheets;

An old square table with peeling paint, paired with an equally old-fashioned chair;

A small wooden cabinet;

A small stove was built in the corner, with some coal briquettes and kindling piled up next to it.

The wall was bare except for a yellowed propaganda poster that read "Learn from Daqing in Industry".

The only bright spot was a few lush green scallions growing stubbornly upwards in a chipped, rough porcelain bowl on the windowsill.

This is all of He Yuanchao's possessions in this special era after he traveled through time.

When he first transmigrated, his soul was attached to the body of a half-grown boy also named He Yuanchao, who was an orphan and lived with his uncle, a fitter.

Not long after, his uncle also passed away suddenly from an illness, leaving him with this small, dilapidated house and the identity of a steel mill fitter apprentice.

The game starts at hellish difficulty.

They were always hungry and cold, ordered around by their masters in the factory, and were marginalized figures who could be trampled on by anyone in the yard.

That incident involving Qin Huairu happened around that time.

Unfortunately, the abacus beads fell in the wrong place.

He Yuanchao has changed his mind; he won't buy into this anymore.

For the past six years, he has gritted his teeth and swallowed his anger.

A fitter's apprentice? Then learn until you drop!

Others train for eight hours, he trains for twelve!

The blisters on my hands layered together, forming thick calluses.

While others chatted and joked after work, he would sit under the dim light of a bulb, engrossed in borrowed technical books, studying until midnight.

With his time-traveling focus and understanding, coupled with an indomitable spirit, he carved out a bloody path for himself in the field of fitter.

He passed all the technical level assessments with flying colors.

At the end of last year, he passed the Level 4 fitter assessment with astonishing speed and precision!

He became the youngest Level 4 worker in the history of Hongxing Steel Rolling Mill!

When the technical grade certificate with the big red seal was issued, the whole workshop was in an uproar.

Level 4 Fitter!

My monthly salary is fifty-six yuan and eighty cents!

In those days when an ordinary apprentice only earned a dozen or so yuan and a second-level worker was just over thirty, this salary was an astronomical figure for a bachelor!

He Yuanchao closed the door and casually bolted it shut.

The incessant cursing and the children's noise outside were instantly mostly blocked out by the heavy door, leaving only indistinct background noise.

He casually placed the net bag on the peeling paint on the square table. Two thick pieces of pork belly and a small bag of flour looked particularly tempting in the dim light.

He walked to the only old chair by the window, plopped down, and let out a long, slow sigh.

After a long day of tension, I finally found a moment to relax in my own little space.

My fingers unconsciously ran across the cool tabletop, feeling the rough texture of the wood.

These past six years have been incredibly tough.

From a poor apprentice who barely had enough to eat to a skilled technical worker in the factory earning 56.8 yuan a month, only he knows the hardships he has endured.

He did make money.

What does 56.8 yuan mean in this era?

This means he can eat refined grains at every meal!

This means he can eat out every few days.

Let's order a plate of braised pork slices and a bowl of noodles with soybean paste to make it a nice treat!

This means he can go to the pigeon market and pay "black prices" that are two or three times higher than those at the state-run vegetable market to buy some meat and eggs that he didn't plan to eat!

He only needs to eat his fill so the rest of the family isn't hungry.

This family lives a much more comfortable life than most of the other families in the compound who have families to support and are calculating every penny.

Thinking of the meat prices in Pigeon City, He Yuanchao's lips curled into a self-deprecating smile.

The pork supplied by state-run vegetable stores cost 78 cents a pound, but the ration was so small it wasn't even enough to fill a tooth gap.

Pigeon market? Hey, scarcity drives up prices, so it's common for prices to double or triple.

He spent more than three yuan on these two pounds of pork belly today!

That's almost ten days' worth of food for an average worker!

But so what?

He can afford it! He's happy to eat it!

That old hag Jia Zhangshi cursed him every day, saying he would "have no descendants," "eat alone," and "have no conscience."

Ha, conscience?

Who in this courtyard has the right to talk to him about conscience?

When he was starving and being scolded by his supervisor at the factory, who gave him a hot meal?

Who has ever spoken a fair word for him? When Qin Huairu looked down on him for being poor, why didn't she think about her "conscience"?

Now that he's doing well and has meat to eat, people are jumping out to accuse him of being heartless.

What about the face?

There's also an old man named Yi Zhonghai who constantly talks about "neighborhood mutual assistance" and "respecting the elderly and caring for the young," spouting nothing but benevolence and morality.

But is the Jia family really in dire straits?

Qin Huairu was hired by the factory as a replacement worker, earning a salary of 27.5 yuan; the factory provided compensation for Jia Dongxu's work injury.

The streets occasionally offer some relief.

Sha Zhu would occasionally provide him with a lunchbox.

Aside from verbal concern, Yi Zhonghai's real intentions were entirely focused on figuring out how to get Sha Zhu to support him in his old age! Hypocritical!

The more He Yuanchao thought about it, the more the suppressed anger in his heart rose.

This shitty yard, these shitty beasts!

He suddenly stood up, walked to the table, picked up the two heavy, oily pieces of pork belly, and felt the cool, slippery texture with his fingers.

eat!

Let's eat to our hearts' content today!

Those bastards are infuriating!

The instant his fingers touched the cold flesh, a sudden, cold, and emotionless thought exploded in his mind:

[Ding! The Celestial Fishing System has been successfully activated! Initiating binding...]

He Yuanchao trembled violently, as if he had been struck by an invisible electric current!

He froze on the spot, his pupils instantly shrinking to the size of pinpoints! The piece of pork belly in his hand fell back onto the table with a "thud".

What was that sound?! A hallucination?!

The mechanical voice gave him no time to think or question, continuing on its own:

[Binding progress 10%...50%...100%! Binding complete! Host: He Yuanchao.]

[The Celestial Fishing System is activated! New player bonus: Today's fishing attempts +3! Please prepare to receive the 'Celestial Fishing Rod'.]