Courtyard House: In times of famine, my hamster became a spirit.

"Hiss...that feels good."

After finishing the meat in his bowl, Zhou Jianguo let out a long sigh of relief.

Sha Zhu stood frozen at the doorway, the words he was about to utter were swallowed back by the strange fragrance.

He's been running rampant in the canteen of Hongxing Steel Rolling Mill for so many years, what kind of meat hasn't he seen?

But this taste... it's too weird!

Sha Zhu's stomach let out a muffled groan, a sound that could be clearly heard throughout the entire courtyard.

"Zhou Jianguo!"

Sha Zhu suddenly snapped back to reality, his old face turning bright red.

He strode over the broken door, puffing out white smoke as he roared, "You just swindled this old man out of his money, and you're here eating all by yourself? Tell me, where did you steal this meat from?!"

Zhou Jianguo didn't even lift his eyelids, his voice icy cold: "Before I'm about to draw blood, pick up the door panel and get out."

"Get lost? I'm here to collect the stolen goods!"

Sha Zhu sneered, his mind filled with Qin Huairu's pitiful face.

In his view, Zhou Jianguo, who grew up eating food from many families and had no descendants, must have stolen public property to be able to eat such high-quality pork belly.

He stared at the bowl of braised pork, remembering the howling pesky gong on the kang (heated brick bed), and with a determined heart, reached out and grabbed the bowl from the table.

"This meat is of dubious origin, and I'm confiscating it on behalf of the compound! Bang Geng's leg is broken and he needs some meat, consider it interest on your payment to the Jia family!"

Sha Zhu's calloused, strong hand, brimming with the brute force of a cook, was about to touch the porcelain bowl.

In that split second, Zhou Jianguo made his move.

He neither dodged nor blocked; he simply flicked his right wrist, and the bamboo chopstick struck like a black lightning bolt, arriving before he could react.

"Knock!"

With a crisp sound, the tip of the chopsticks struck Sha Zhu's Neiguan acupoint on his wrist with precision and force.

"Awooo—!"

Sha Zhu let out a miserable scream, his voice louder than a pig being slaughtered.

He felt a soreness and numbness in half of his arm, and his entire right arm instantly lost its strength, drooping down like a dead fish.

Because he used too much force, his hand slammed directly into the broken door frame, and the pain brought tears to his eyes.

"My hand... what kind of sorcery did you use?"

Liu Haizhong, who was peeking from the corner of the backyard wall, was so startled that the coarse rice bun in his hand fell directly into the snowdrift.

In his eyes, Sha Zhu was the "God of War" of the courtyard, a man who could take on five people at once.

But now, Zhou Jianguo sat there without moving, and crippled Sha Zhu with just a chopstick?

"Dad... Zhou Jianguo, he probably practiced this week, right?" Liu Guangtian's teeth chattered and his calves cramped.

Liu Haizhong remained silent, his little scheme to seize power immediately extinguished.

Inside the room, Zhou Jianguo put down his chopsticks.

He raised his eyelids, his indifferent gaze sweeping across Sha Zhu's face.

"Silly Zhu, you're saying this meat was stolen?"

Zhou Jianguo scoffed, his eyes full of contempt: "All you've ever done in your life, besides wielding a ladle in that fly-infested cafeteria, is this all you've got. As a chef, let me teach you what real culinary skills are."

Zhou Jianguo pointed to the meat in the bowl: "Look at the heat, look at how the sauce is reduced. You, with your brain that only knows how to pour soy sauce into broth, will never understand this kind of skill, even in your next life."

"Stop pretending!"

Sha Zhu clutched his wrist and struggled to his feet. He could admit he had lost the fight, but he could not tolerate anyone humiliating him on the stove.

That was the last bit of dignity he had left in living in this courtyard!

"I'm a descendant of the Tan family cuisine! You, a nobody who's barely even cooked a few times, dare to talk to me about cooking techniques? This meat probably has some shady, contraband added to it!"

"A good-for-nothing with no ability sees everyone as a crooked path."

Zhou Jianguo snorted coldly and suddenly disappeared from the spot.

With his master-level culinary skills, his control over all the muscles in his body has reached a terrifying level.

Before Sha Zhu could even catch a glimpse of his shadow, he was slammed onto the chopping board by a tremendous force.

"What are you trying to do!"

Sha Zhu's old face was pressed against the cold wood, his eyes just right on a row of raw pork belly pieces as neat as tofu blocks.

"Look carefully, each piece is two centimeters long. If it's even one millimeter longer, I'll pay with my life."

Zhou Jianguo stretched out his right hand and took the steel kitchen knife into his hand.

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

Sha Zhu felt a cold wind whistling past his ears, and he couldn't even beg for mercy.

A few seconds later, the knife stopped.

The cleaver slammed back onto the cutting board with a "thud," its tip still trembling slightly.

Sha Zhu slumped to the ground, panting heavily, his eyes glazed over.

He really felt Death breathe on his neck just now.

"Clatter".

A few soft sounds.

Sha Zhu looked down and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

The three buttons on his old cotton-padded jacket had been cut off at the base.

But his shirt underneath wasn't damaged at all, not even a single thread.

Is this even human?

"With this kind of knife skill, I'd rather not use it to cut rotten garlic like you; it would just make my knife dirty."

Zhou Jianguo turned around, looking at the door panel that had been kicked away, his eyes full of disgust:

"You kicked down the door. You coveted the meat. For that rotten seedling of the Jia family, you stormed in like a mad dog to rob them. Sha Zhu, I ask you, while you were thinking about bringing warmth to Bang Geng, where was your own sister, Yu Shui?"

Sha Zhu was stunned, as if struck by lightning.

"She's in that drafty, dark room next door, eating the moldy cornbread you smuggled from the cafeteria with cold water!"

Zhou Jianguo strode forward, his voice not loud, but it struck Sha Zhu's heart like a heavy hammer:

"You stole the child support money from Yushui to lick Qin Huairu's boots, you stole my flesh to curry favor with Banggeng. Is your brain filled with mush, or Qin Huairu's foot bath water? You keep saying you're a man, but I think you're not even as good as a dog. At least a dog knows to protect its own pups, but what about you? You're cutting off the He family's lifeline with your own hands!"

These few words silenced the entire courtyard.

Qin Huairu, hiding in the shadows, held a large porcelain basin ready to catch the meat and couldn't help but shiver.

She originally planned to wait for Sha Zhu to snatch the meat, then go up and put on a show to steal it herself.

But now, faced with that almost tangible killing intent, she didn't even dare to breathe.

The neighbors who were initially just watching the spectacle now had a different look in their eyes.

Everyone used to think that Sha Zhu was a kind-hearted person, but now that Zhou Jianguo has torn him apart like this, everyone has realized that he is using his own sister's life to fill someone else's bottomless pit!

This isn't stupid.

This is cold-blooded, this is inhuman!

"Zhou Jianguo...you..."

Sha Zhu's face turned a deep liver color.

He wanted to argue, but looking into Zhou Jianguo's cold eyes, he couldn't utter a single word.

Just then, the broken door to the side room in the backyard slowly opened.

He Yushui was wrapped in an old cotton-padded coat, but her eyes were frighteningly cold.

She ignored Sha Zhu, who was lying on the ground, and went straight to Zhou Jianguo's side, clutching the case filing document in her hand.

"Brother Jianguo, you're right."

He Yushui's voice wasn't loud, but it rang out exceptionally clearly in the deathly silent courtyard:

"From this day forward, my He family has no such brother. This document in my hand is a lawsuit against Yi Zhonghai, and also against all the accomplices who conspired to swindle me out of child support."

After she finished speaking, her gaze swept over Sha Zhu one last time.

At that moment, Sha Zhu felt as if something inside him had shattered completely.

The entire courtyard fell into a silence more terrifying than the dead of winter.

Zhou Jianguo ignored him and picked up the last piece of braised pork from his bowl, placing it into He Yushui's bowl in full view of everyone.

"Eat up. After you've eaten this piece of meat, you'll have a long life ahead of you."