Siheyuan: At the beginning, I can integrate everything!

The laughter in the study was hearty and full of life.

It is a kind of heroic spirit that transcends birth, aging, sickness, and death, and truly takes control of one's destiny.

In stark contrast to this vibrant scene.

It was a suffocating deathly atmosphere in that dilapidated Hongxing courtyard house, more than ten kilometers away.

Intermediate People's Court.

The most magnificent main house of the Yi family in the past.

Now even the window paper has several large holes, letting in the chilly winds of early spring.

The room was filled with a strong, sour smell, a mixture of Chinese medicine residue and the stench of someone who hadn't bathed in years.

"Cough cough... cough cough cough..."

A violent cough, so loud it seemed to rip out his lungs, came from the bare earthen bed.

Yi Zhonghai lay on the kang (a heated brick bed), so thin that he was just skin and bones.

That face that was once radiant and always wore a hypocritical smile.

At this moment, it is sallow and grayish, covered with age spots like withered tree bark.

His eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, and were cloudy.

He was already very ill.

Since being demoted to a second-level worker and witnessing Liu Haizhong's death sentence with a two-year reprieve.

His body completely collapsed under the dual torment of extreme fear and intense physical labor.

After the old woman died, he became truly alone.

No apprentices came to visit him, and no neighbors came to greet him.

Only endless loneliness and illness gnawed at this aged body day and night.

"Water...give me some water..."

Yi Zhonghai turned his head with difficulty, his chapped lips moving as he let out a very faint groan.

Beside the kang (heated brick bed).

An old woman with gray hair and a slightly hunched back was listlessly poking at the nearly extinguished coal briquettes in the stove with a fire poker.

In the aluminum pot on the stove, a thin broth with barely any grains of rice was simmering.

It's Qin Huairu.

Time and hardship have mercilessly destroyed her once-proud beauty.

She looks more than ten years older than her actual age.

Hearing Yi Zhonghai's groans, Qin Huairu turned her head blankly.

There wasn't a trace of sympathy in those dead fish-like eyes.

They weren't even bothering to spare a grudge.

Ever since Banggeng became a drooling idiot, Jia Zhangshi died begging outside.

Qin Huairu's heart died completely.

She now lives like a zombie, occasionally coming to cook some thin porridge for Yi Zhonghai.

He was only after Yi Zhonghai's meager second-level worker pension so he could buy food for his foolish son.

"There's no water left, and the stove is about to go out."

Qin Huairu's voice was hoarse as she mechanically replied.

"You keep cooking it. Once the porridge is ready, just drink a sip, broth and all."

She was too lazy to even get up to pour herself a glass of cold water.

In Qin Huairu's eyes, Yi Zhonghai, lying on the kang (a heated brick bed), was no longer the "old man" who could command the wind and rain.

It was just a foul-smelling burden that could die at any moment.

Yi Zhonghai listened to Qin Huairu's indifferent words.

Cloudy tears slid down the deep furrows at the corners of her eyes.

Regret!

His whole life.

Without children, he poured all his thoughts and schemes into his life.

All of it was spent on "finding someone to take care of you in your old age".

He schemed to take advantage of He Daqing's money and Sha Zhu's youth.

They even went so far as to morally blackmail a five-year-old orphan.

He thought that as long as he kept the Jia family and Sha Zhu firmly under his control, he could have a peaceful old age.

But in the end...

Jia Dongxu is dead.

Bang Geng was dumbfounded.

Sha Zhu became a high-ranking restaurant tycoon, and he didn't even glance at him.

And the five-year-old orphan he schemed against, Zhang Huaimin.

He became a renowned minister of the state, a living god whom he was not even worthy of looking up to!

"I've been scheming my whole life... but what exactly have I been scheming about...?"

Yi Zhonghai wailed in despair in his heart.

Now, he can only be like an old dog.

Lying in this dilapidated house, waiting to be thrown out like trash by that equally heartbroken widow.

Just then.

"drop--!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Suddenly, a very loud car horn and festive firecrackers rang out from the front yard!

Immediately following was a noisy and enthusiastic commotion.

"Oh my! Secretary Wang, you've come in person!"

"Quickly! Hang this big red flower at Chairman Zhang's door!"

"The boss said this is a coming-of-age gift for Chairman Zhang on his eighteenth birthday!"

In the front yard, Yan Bugui's obsequious voice, reaching an extreme level, penetrated the many courtyard walls and clearly reached the middle courtyard.

Accompanying this was the heavy sound of boxes of precious gifts being unloaded from the vehicle.

The remaining neighbors in the compound cheered with amazement and envy.

Lively and bustling.

This glorious era belonging to Zhang Huaimin is like a series of sharp knives.

It mercilessly pierced Yi Zhonghai's heart, which was on the verge of stopping.

"Heh...heh..."

Suddenly, Yi Zhonghai let out an extremely violent panting sound.

He didn't know where the strength came from.

He suddenly propped himself up halfway off the kang (a heated brick bed)!

His cloudy, triangular eyes were fixed intently on the direction of the window.

A sliver of festive red light from the front yard shone through the crack in the window covered with tattered newspaper.

"No...this shouldn't be happening..."

Yi Zhonghai stretched out his withered, twig-like hand, trying to grasp that sliver of light.

His life flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern.

in case……

If only Zhang Dashan hadn't coveted those two east wing rooms when he died.

If he takes care of that five-year-old child like a true elder.

Based on his status as an elder, and based on Zhang Huaimin's current influential position.

Is he sitting in the main seat in the front yard right now?

Is he being toasted by his boss's secretary?

Are you enjoying the admiration and envy of everyone in the hospital, the factory, and even the whole country?!

but.

No if.

Everything was destroyed by his own ridiculous scheme!

"I was wrong... I was really wrong..."

Extreme remorse, like poison, instantly eroded Yi Zhonghai's last vestiges of life.

He felt as if his heart had been smashed to pieces with a hammer.

"puff!"

Yi Zhonghai suddenly opened his mouth wide, and a mouthful of black blood gushed out, splattering onto the tattered quilt.

His body convulsed violently.

The hands that were stretched out in mid-air fell limply to the ground.

"Bang."

Yi Zhonghai's head slammed heavily onto the kang mat.

His cloudy eyes were wide open.

He stared intently at the front yard, his eyes filled with endless resentment and regret.

In this bright and sunny early spring.

Yi Zhonghai, an arrogant and scheming old man who once lived in the Hongxing Courtyard.

Right there in this cold, smelly, dilapidated house.

In the desolate silence of being ignored, with eyes that can never be closed.

He breathed his last.

Do not look down.

Qin Huairu sat by the stove, listening to the sounds behind her.

She didn't turn around, nor did she exclaim in surprise.

He mechanically picked up the broken wooden spoon and stirred it in the pot.

There was not a ripple in those lifeless eyes.

The last scheming maniac in the courtyard has finally passed away.

This is a story filled with old-fashioned grudges, moral blackmail, and deceit.

At this moment, it came to a complete end.

The entire compound seemed to have become completely quiet because of Yi Zhonghai's death.

however.

Right here on this seemingly peaceful, even somewhat festive Earth.

In the depths of space, where ordinary people cannot reach.

A terrifying storm, capable of overturning all of humanity's understanding, is quietly approaching.

Major observatories around the world.

NASA in the United States, the space center in the Soviet Union, and the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China.

At the same time.

Those extremely sophisticated radio telescopes and radars aimed at the deep universe.

He suddenly seemed to have gone mad.

The highest level and most severe red alert has been issued!