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

The oppressive atmosphere in the Jia family was so thick it could drip water.

The room was filled with a mixture of the smell of cheap coal smoke, herbs, and a nauseating, sour stench that was difficult to completely dispel.

Jia Zhangshi lay sprawled on the cold kang like a lump of mud, covered with a thin, greasy, blackened quilt.

Her face was sallow with a bluish tinge, her eyes were sunken, and her lips were dry and cracked. She looked as if her skeleton had been removed, leaving only a loose skin wrapped in endless resentment.

She still felt weak, cramping pains and an indescribable emptiness in her stomach from time to time, reminding her of the nightmare of "a waterfall plunging three thousand feet" that lasted for twenty-four hours.

Every slight rumbling in her intestines sent shivers down her spine, causing her to reflexively clench her legs, terrified that the terrifying "primordial power" would spiral out of control again. A certain unspeakable part of her lower body burned with pain, each friction bringing excruciating agony.

"Oh dear... what a terrible thing to do..."

With her eyes closed, she groaned weakly, her voice hoarse, "It's all that damned bastard's fault... nemesis... jinx... nothing good ever comes of him... Old Jia... open your eyes... take him away quickly... I can't take this suffering anymore..."

Vicious curses, like gnats, drifted intermittently from her chapped lips, becoming the only background noise in the deathly silent room.

Banggeng, Xiaodang, and Huaihua, the three children, huddled at the other end of the kang (a heated brick bed), far away from Jia Zhangshi.

Banggeng hugged his knees, his sallow little face full of irritability and undisguised disdain. Every now and then he would steal a glance in his grandmother's direction, his little nose wrinkled, and he would fan his nose vigorously with his hand.

Xiao Dang and Huaihua were younger and more clueless, but they instinctively felt that their grandmother smelled bad, so they stayed close to their older brother and didn't dare to get closer.

At the far end of the kang (heated brick bed), Jia Dongxu lay stiffly like a breathing mummy. His face was a deathly gray, as if he had never seen sunlight, and his eyes were cloudy and lifeless as he stared fixedly at the ceiling covered with old newspapers.

Only the occasional movement of his eyes and the faint rise and fall of his chest proved that he was still alive.

The thin cornmeal porridge that Qin Huairu fed her in the morning seemed to be nothing more than a preservative to keep the body from decaying immediately.

The oppressive resentment and faint stench in the room made his already numb nerves even more lifeless.

The curtain was lifted, and Qin Huairu walked in with her head down and heavy steps. Her face was as pale as paper, and her eyelids were red and swollen, clearly she had just had a good cry. She clutched a faded cloth bag tightly in her hand.

Upon seeing Qin Huairu enter, Jia Zhangshi's cloudy, triangular eyes snapped open a crack, flashing with a venomous light. Her voice suddenly rose several decibels, carrying a morbid excitement and displaced anger:

"You jinx! Where have you been? Dragging your feet! Are you trying to starve us? We're starving! You useless thing! You can't even get a lunchbox! What good are you?"

She seemed to want to vent all the anger, embarrassment, and diarrhea she had suffered at He Yuanchao's hands on her daughter-in-law.

Qin Huairu trembled, her lips moved, but she ultimately said nothing.

She silently walked to the rickety, broken table in the corner, put down her cloth bag, and carefully took out an aluminum lunchbox from it.

The cold touch of the lunchbox made her fingertips go cold.

Just then, Sha Zhu's signature loud voice, tinged with a hint of ingratiation and guilt, rang out from outside:

"Sister Qin? Is Sister Qin home?"

Immediately afterwards, the curtain was lifted by a burly hand, and Sha Zhu's face, bearing some bruises and showing the results of yesterday's headbutt, and full of smiles, peeked in.

He was holding three aluminum lunch boxes stacked together in his hands!

"Sister Qin! There were a lot of leftovers from the factory's meal today! I specially saved two extra dishes!"

Sha Zhu handed over the lunchbox like it was a treasure, his eyes sweeping over Qin Huairu's swollen eyes. His heart clenched, and he became even more anxious. "It's all good food! There's meat! Let Bang Geng and the others have something to eat!"

Qin Huairu looked at the three lunch boxes with a complicated expression.

In the past, these three lunchboxes would have been enough to move her to tears, but today...

She felt only immense irony and heaviness.

The contrast between this lunchbox stained with grease from the canteen and He Yuanchao's brand-new Forever bicycle, his commendation as a fifth-grade worker, and the banquet at Quanjude was stark!

She forced a smile that looked more like a grimace and whispered, "Zhu Zi... thank you." She reached out and took the lunchbox, her fingertips icy cold.

As soon as Banggeng saw the lunchbox, his eyes lit up instantly, and he pounced on it like a hungry wolf: "Uncle! Is there meat? I want to eat meat!" His little hands couldn't wait to grab the top lid of the lunchbox.

Qin Huairu silently placed the lunchbox on the table and opened it.

The contents of the three lunchboxes were exposed in the dim light: one lunchbox contained a clump of rice that was stuck together and had a dark color;

The lunchbox contained stewed cabbage stalks mixed with a few pieces of fatty meat, and the broth was cloudy;

The last lunchbox was slightly better; it contained half a box of oily minced meat stir-fried with pickled mustard greens. However, the minced meat was so finely ground that it was almost invisible, and the pickled mustard greens were over-pickled, giving them an overly salty taste.

"Pah! More pig slop!"

Banggeng glanced at it, and his face fell instantly, his disappointment and dissatisfaction exploding in his eyes. "It's just cabbage stalks again! Where's the meat? There's only a tiny bit of meat! Uncle idiot, you're lying!"

He plopped back down on the kang (a heated brick bed) in a huff, turned his head away, and didn't even look at the lunchbox.

Xiao Dang and Huaihua also came over to take a look, their little faces also filled with disappointment, and they timidly shrank back.

Sha Zhu's smile froze, a wave of embarrassment washing over him. He rubbed his hands together, awkwardly saying, "Bang Geng, well... there's not much left from this farewell meal... Look at this minced meat and pickled mustard greens, it's so good with rice! It smells delicious!"

He tried to explain, but even he felt his explanation was weak and ineffective. The cafeteria manager had been keeping a close eye on him lately, so getting even this out was already quite an achievement.

Madam Jia snorted coldly on the kang (heated brick bed), her triangular eyes glancing sideways at the lunchbox, and a sarcastic remark immediately came out:

"Hmph! Are you trying to fob me off like a beggar? Three lunchboxes and this is all you have? You're getting more and more stingy, you idiot!"

"Do you look down on us now that the Jia family is in trouble? This leftover food is too cowardly to even feed a dog!"

She dared not scold He Yuanchao, but she was ruthless when she scolded Sha Zhu, her "backup plan".

Sha Zhu's face turned pale and then red, and he was choked and speechless.

He was seething with anger, but he couldn't vent it in front of Qin Huairu. He could only stubbornly say in a low voice, "Aunt Zhang, what you're saying... How have I, Shazhu, treated Sister Qin and Banggeng? I swear to God!"

"Conscience? What's a conscience worth?"

Jia Zhangshi scoffed, rolled her eyes, and her stomach rumbled uncomfortably again, so she quickly tensed up.

Qin Huairu silently shoveled the food from the lunchbox into a chipped, rough porcelain bowl, then poured in the clump of cold rice, stirred it with her chopsticks, and pushed it to the center of the table. Her voice was exhausted, as if all her strength had been drained: "Let's eat."

Banggeng snorted, reluctantly moved over, picked up his chopsticks, and rummaged through the bowl, focusing on the meager amount of minced meat and pickled mustard greens, muttering, "It's awful... even pigs wouldn't eat this..."

Looking at the bowl of mixed stew and then at her daughter-in-law's half-dead appearance, Jia Zhangshi felt a surge of anger rise up again: "Who are you trying to impress with that long face?"

Did her father or her mother die? With the family in such a state, why is she still acting like a pampered young lady?

Who do you expect to pity you? If you're so capable, why don't you learn from He Yuanchao and buy a bicycle? Become a fifth-grade worker!

"Let's treat the whole hospital to Quanjude!"

She became more and more excited as she spoke, spitting as she spoke, completely unaware that she had mentioned that taboo name.

"mom!"

Qin Huairu suddenly raised her head, her voice rising abruptly, sharp and humiliating with the pain of her secrets being exposed, "What nonsense are you spouting!"

"Am I talking nonsense?"

Madam Jia's triangular eyes widened as if she had seized upon something, and she sat up abruptly, only to slump back down due to weakness. Pointing at Qin Huairu's nose, her voice sharp and cutting.

Did I hit the nail on the head? Did I strike a nerve? You've been looking completely dejected since you got back yesterday!

The way you looked when you walked in! Are you regretting it now? Huh? Are you kicking yourself now that that good-for-nothing son is strutting around, with a bicycle, a fifth-grade worker, and even treating people to meals at restaurants?

Regret not following him? Regret marrying our Dongxu, this cripple?

"mom--!"

Qin Huairu trembled all over, her face turned from white to green, and tears welled up in her eyes. The immense grievance and humiliation almost suffocated her.

"I'm telling you, Qin Huairu!"

Madam Jia didn't give her a chance to speak at all. She slapped the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed) and spat as she spoke, "You were born a member of the Jia family, and you'll die a ghost of the Jia family! Don't you dare have any wicked thoughts about me!"

That childless man is all the rage now, why would he want to be with a widow like you who's just a burden? Why don't you take a good look at yourself in the mirror! You…”

"Enough!" A hoarse, low growl, like the scraping of a broken gong, suddenly rang out from the head of the kang (a heated brick bed).

It's Jia Dongxu!

He turned his head at some point, and his lifeless, murky eyes were now fixed on Qin Huairu's pale face with a chilling resentment and suspicion!

His chest heaved violently, and a strange "hoarse" sound came from his throat.

"You...you guessed right...didn't you?"

Jia Dongxu's voice was broken and intermittent, carrying the chilling quality unique to a dying man, "Heavens...heavens...a factory...he...he's doing so well...and you...you...you've got your eye on him? You...you slut!"

The last two words, like a poisoned ice pick, pierced Qin Huairu's heart.

boom!

Qin Huairu felt as if something had exploded in her mind!

The world is spinning! My vision is going black!

She looked at her mother-in-law's mean and vicious face, at her husband's murky eyes filled with suspicion and resentment, at her son's disgusted and dissatisfied expression, and then thought about what she had gained from working hard from dawn till dusk and enduring humiliation.

It's endless insults, suspicion, and this life that's worse than that of pigs and dogs!

Regret! Unbearable regret!

Like icy seawater, it instantly engulfed her!

If only... if only she had chosen He Yuanchao, that quiet but bright-eyed apprentice...

"I don't!"

She almost screamed, her voice shrill and desperate, tears finally streaming down her face. "I didn't! How...how could you think of me like that?! He Yuanchao...he got promoted five levels today!"

The factory's loudspeaker announced it! Tonight… tonight he's treating the entire workshop to dinner at Quanjude! Quanjude! All-you-can-eat roast duck! All-you-can-drink! How could I possibly have any thoughts? How could I possibly have any thoughts?!

She seemed to have used all her strength to shout these words. Her body swayed, and she almost fell. She barely managed to stand by holding onto the cold wall, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed uncontrollably.

……

Qin Huairu's desperate and piercing cry was like a thunderclap from a clear sky, instantly shattering the low roof of the Jia family's house and stunning Sha Zhu outside the door and Yi Zhonghai, the old man who had just stepped into the courtyard!

~~~~~~~~~~

I'm asking for some free gifts for my new book. Thank you everyone!