Courtyard House: Starting by inheriting the tradition and suppressing the barbarians.

With the arrival of the coldest time of winter, schools have started their winter break.

The atmosphere inside the courtyard house had also dropped to freezing point.

The Jia family in the middle courtyard, in particular, lived a miserable and wretched life.

Although Jia Dongxu was bailed out by Yi Zhonghai at a high price and spared from imprisonment.

But he can't escape the factory's disciplinary action.

The attempted hiring of an assailant to injure someone has had an extremely negative impact!

The factory gave him a two-year probationary period and reduced his salary to that of an apprentice.

I only get 18.5 yuan a month, and they deduct the previous absence fees.

In addition, he had been in jail for several days and caught a chill, which made him very weak.

He's been sickly ever since he came back, and he's been taking medicine constantly.

As a result, the Jia family's savings were depleted, and even eating became a problem.

Dinner time.

On the Jia family's dining table was a bowl of wild vegetable porridge, mixed with a large amount of cornbread, which was dark and looked very harsh on the throat.

"I won't eat it! This is pig feed!"

"I want to eat white flour steamed buns! I want to eat meat!"

Banggeng took a bite, then smashed the bowl on the ground and started wailing and rolling around in a rage.

"My dear grandson! Don't drop it! This is all food!"

Jia Zhangshi lay on the ground with heartache, grabbing handfuls of the paste and stuffing them into her mouth.

While stuffing the food in his mouth, he cursed, "Qin Huairu! You useless jinx!"

"You're feeding this to my precious grandson?"

"Do you want to starve the only son of the Jia family?"

Qin Huairu sat on a small stool, silently shedding tears, her cheeks terribly thin.

"Mom, Dongxu hasn't received his salary yet, and we've already run out of the little bit of flour we have at home."

"Even this cornbread was borrowed from my parents' home. What could I do?"

"No way? Think about it!"

Jia Dongxu, leaning back in his recliner, coughed twice suddenly with a gloomy face.

He stared at Qin Huairu with a sinister look in his eyes, "Aren't you good at seducing people?"

"Where's that idiot Sha Zhu? Let him help out!"

"Silly Zhu..." Qin Huairu gave a bitter smile.

Since the last time she jumped into the cesspool and took the blame, Sha Zhu still fawned over her, but Yi Zhonghai kept a close eye on her.

In addition, Sha Zhu himself is broke, and Xu Damao has been reporting the leftover food from the cafeteria, so he hasn't been able to bring back any money lately.

"Useless! All of you are useless!"

Enraged, Jia Dongxu smashed his teacup on the ground. "How could I have married such a useless woman!"

He turned to look out the window and saw the lights on in Li Xuan's house in the backyard, along with the faint aroma of rice wafting from there.

The aroma was like an invisible hand, slapping the Jia family in the face.

"The Li family...that little bastard's family must have grain!"

Jia Dongxu gritted his teeth, "I heard from the third uncle in the front yard that Li Xuan has recently made a fortune."

"They're eating fish and meat every day, and they've even moved several bags of stuff into the cellar; they look like flour and rice!"

"What? Several bags of flour?"

Jia Zhangshi's eyes lit up instantly. "This little beast, can he finish all that food by himself?"

"This is capitalist behavior! It must be used to help us poor and lower-middle peasants!"

"Huai Ru!"

Jia Dongxu looked at Qin Huairu with a coercive and vicious look in his eyes, "Tonight, you go to the backyard."

"Go...go where?"

Qin Huairu's heart skipped a beat; she had a bad feeling.

"What else can we do? Borrow grain!"

Jia Dongxu sneered, "Li Xuan's cellar is right under the back wall, and it's usually just locked with a broken lock."

"Go and get some cornmeal or cabbage when no one's around in the middle of the night!"

"Even a sweet potato will do!"

"This...this is theft!"

Qin Huairu turned pale with fright and shook her head repeatedly, "No! Dongxu, if we get caught, I'm finished!"

"Our family already has a bad reputation..."

"Snapped!"

Jia Dongxu raised his hand and slapped Qin Huairu hard across the face.

"What do you mean by stealing? That was borrowing!"

"What kind of theft is it if neighbors share what they have?"

"Don't you even see how hungry the Korean hamsters are?"

"And you're carrying the child of the Jia family!"

How can you be so heartless as a mother?

"I'm telling you, Qin Huairu, if you don't bring back food tonight, I'm divorcing you tomorrow!"

"Go back to the countryside and gnaw on tree bark!"

"Huai Ru, you should go."

Madam Jia Zhang also chimed in ominously, "That Li boy sleeps like a log, and the cellar is far from the main house, so he can't hear you."

"If you're quick enough, grab the stuff and run, who'll know it's you?"

"For the sake of the children, for the sake of this family, what's wrong with making a sacrifice?"

Looking into her son's longing eyes, touching her burning cheeks, and listening to her husband's merciless threats.

Qin Huairu's tears had all dried up.

She bit her lip and finally nodded in despair.

"Okay...I'll go."

……

In the dead of night, the cold wind howled.

The courtyard house fell into a deathly silence.

Qin Huairu was wearing a dark, old cotton-padded coat and a scarf wrapped around her head, revealing only a pair of panicked eyes.

She carried a cloth bag in her hand and tiptoed out of the house, sneaking towards the backyard like a ghost.

Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to jump out of her throat.

With each step she took, the snow crunched under her feet, sending a shiver down her spine.

"Don't be afraid...it'll be alright..."

"Just a little bit...it's all for the children..."

She kept reassuring herself and trying to bolster her courage.

We arrived at the backyard.

The lights in Li Xuan's house had long been out, leaving it pitch black.

Qin Huairu breathed a sigh of relief, crouched down, and felt her way to the cellar entrance at the base of the wall.

Sure enough, there was a lock on the cellar door.

But as Jia Dongxu said, it was an old-fashioned padlock that was only good for honest people, and the latch had long been loose.

Qin Huairu took out a wire she had prepared beforehand from her pocket and, with trembling hands, inserted it into the hole.

This is also a "small skill" she learned in the countryside.

"Click".

With a soft click, the lock opened.

Qin Huairu was overjoyed and quickly lifted the cellar cover.

A unique, fresh aroma of vegetables and grains wafted over.

By the faint moonlight, she saw piles of cabbages and sweet potatoes in the cellar, like small mountains.

There were also several bulging burlap sacks!

"My God... so much stuff!"

Qin Huairu's eyes turned red with jealousy.

Without thinking twice, she crawled into the cellar, untied a burlap sack, and reached in to grab it.

Slippery and cool.

It's rice! Fine rice!

"We've struck it rich!"

Qin Huairu was so excited that her hands were trembling. She quickly opened the cloth bag and started to stuff it in.

however.

She had no idea that it was on the roof right above her head.

A pure white gyrfalcon stood quietly beside the chimney.

Those sharp eagle eyes gleamed coldly in the darkness, watching her every move intently.

It is the heavens!

Inside, on the warm kang (heated brick bed).

Li Xuan, who had been resting with his eyes closed, suddenly smiled slightly.

Through "Eagle Eye Sharing" and mental scanning, Qin Huairu's sneaky figure was perfectly presented in his mind.

"The Jia family, these beasts, really can't change their nature."

"Now that you've gotten your hands in here, don't blame me for chopping it off!"

Li Xuan did not rush to go out.

He is waiting.

To catch a thief, catch him red-handed; to catch an adulterer, catch them in the act.

The best time to "close the net" was when Qin Huairu had filled the bags and was about to climb out of the cellar.

In the cellar.

Qin Huairu filled a bag with rice and grabbed two cabbages, then struggled to climb up.

"With these, we'll have enough great pheasants to eat for several days..."

She leaned half her body out of the cellar entrance, took a deep breath, and showed a look of relief at surviving the ordeal.

Once we get back to the Intermediate People's Court, we'll be safe!

Just then.

"Snapped!"

A blinding beam of flashlight descended from the sky and shone directly on Qin Huairu's pale and terrified face!

The bright light was so intense that she couldn't open her eyes and instinctively raised her hand to shield them.

"Qin Huairu, instead of sleeping in the middle of the night, you're coming to my cellar to buy goods?"

A mocking voice rang out from above.

Qin Huairu's whole body stiffened, as if she had fallen into an ice cave.

She barely opened her eyes, adjusting to the bright light.

Li Xuan, wearing a military overcoat and holding a flashlight, was standing by the cellar, looking down at her.

The look in his eyes was like that of someone looking at a mouse that had fallen into a trap.

"Li...Li Xuan!"

Qin Huairu's teeth chattered. "I...I didn't, I just took the wrong turn..."

"Did you take the wrong turn and end up in my cellar?"

"Did you also grab a bag of rice?"

Li Xuan sneered, "Qin Huairu, even a stickman wouldn't believe your excuse, would he?"

"I...I..."

Qin Huairu was so frightened that tears instantly streamed down her face.

Immediately afterward, she knelt on the ground and pleaded, "Xiao Xuan! I was wrong!"

"I was just confused for a moment! Please forgive me this time!"

"Please don't call for help! I beg you!"

"Let you go?"

Li Xuan's eyes suddenly turned cold, and his voice abruptly rose, "Thief!"

"A thief has stolen something!"

That shout was full of energy and had a very strong penetrating power!

The sound instantly shattered the silence of the night, echoing throughout the entire courtyard!

"It's over...it's over..."

Qin Huairu collapsed to the ground, her face ashen...

......