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

Zhou Jianguo didn't roar, but directly froze the atmosphere that had just begun to warm up.

He put his hands in his pockets and walked steadily, the soles of his shoes hitting the blue brick ground, each step feeling like stepping on Yi Zhonghai's heart.

"What a wonderful way to treat someone as one's own child! What a profound and thoughtful intention!"

Zhou Jianguo stopped two meters in front of Yi Zhonghai, looking down at the old man who was still wiping away tears.

There was no emotion in his eyes, only mockery.

"Old man, stop showing off your skills. With all that singing, recitation, acting, and acrobatics, it's a waste that you're not a leading figure in the Peking Opera world. If I didn't know you well, I would almost applaud you."

Yi Zhonghai's heart skipped a beat.

What he fears most is someone like Zhou Jianguo who doesn't play by the rules.

He forced his head up, tears still welling in his eyes, trying to appeal to people's emotions: "Jianguo, you're also childless, you should understand my suffering..."

"Stop!"

Zhou Jianguo raised his hand in a stop gesture, his eyes turning cold.

"Don't compare me to you, I find it disgusting. I don't understand your suffering, I only know one thing: facts speak louder than words."

Zhou Jianguo turned around, his gaze fixed on the wavering neighbors who had just been wavering, and his voice suddenly rose:

"Since the old man keeps saying that he treats Sha Zhu and his sister like his own children and that it's for their own good, then I'll ask a few practical questions on behalf of everyone."

"Yi Zhonghai!"

Zhou Jianguo turned around, his finger almost poking Yi Zhonghai's nose:

"You're a level eight worker in the factory, making ninety-nine yuan and fifty cents a month! Plus, with that old lady's shrewdness in budgeting, your family eats refined rice and flour every meal, and you can even have a couple of drinks in the evening. Am I exaggerating?"

The neighbors nodded subconsciously.

This is as obvious as a louse on a bald man's head.

The Yi family's lifestyle was absolutely unique among the residents of the courtyard house.

"Fine." Zhou Jianguo sneered, taking a step closer. "Then tell me, since she's your own daughter, what has He Yushui been eating at school for the past three years? Huh?"

Yi Zhonghai's eyelids twitched wildly, and his lips trembled.

Zhou Jianguo had no intention of giving him a chance to argue, and his voice rang out:

"She ate black cornbread mixed with sand and grain husks! She drank free tap water! In the past three years, He Yushui has fainted three times during morning exercises at school due to malnutrition! Three times!!"

"boom--!!!"

The crowd erupted in chaos.

Although everyone is poor these days, this is Beijing in peacetime! Fainting from hunger three times at school? That's practically torture!

"You can't handle this? There's more!"

Zhou Jianguo grabbed the tattered cotton-padded coat that Sha Zhu was hanging out to dry next to him. Although Sha Zhu wasn't there, he pointed in that direction.

"Last month, everyone should remember, right? Yi Zhonghai, your family was stewing braised pork, and the aroma wafted throughout half the alley. That day, Yushui happened to come back to collect his living expenses."

Zhou Jianguo stared at Yi Zhonghai's pale face, speaking slowly and deliberately, each word piercing to the heart:

"What did you, my dear father, give your own daughter? Did you let her come inside and eat a piece of meat? Or did you let her drink a sip of soup?"

The entire room fell silent.

Everyone pricked up their ears and held their breath.

"Nothing!"

Zhou Jianguo shouted angrily:

"You stood at the door and shoved two uncooked, unleavened buns into her hands! You didn't even let her cross the threshold! You didn't even give her a sip of hot water!"

"Let me ask you all here in the neighborhood!"

Zhou Jianguo opened his arms, facing all the neighbors in the courtyard:

"What kind of father hides inside eating braised pork while his growing daughter eats a lifeless steamed bun at the door? Is this what he calls 'treating his daughter like his own'? Is this what he means by 'treating her like his own child'?"

This barrage of questions, like a machine gun, completely shattered the fortress of pathos that Yi Zhonghai had just built.

The sympathy on Aunt Wang's face froze, then turned into incredulous anger.

The contrast is stark!

That really touched my heart!

"That's too cruel..."

The young woman in the front yard couldn't help but spit out her food: "I'd rather go without food myself than let the child go hungry, but he's taking that huge sum of money sent by the child's own father, eating and drinking like a king while the child starves?"

"This isn't a heartless act of cruelty; this is a ruthless wolf in sheep's clothing!"

"What do you mean by 'safekeeping'? This is clearly abuse! They're trying to starve people to death in a roundabout way!"

Yan Bugui's hand was trembling as he adjusted his glasses; he felt that his earlier hesitation was a disgrace.

He pointed at Yi Zhonghai, his voice shrill and distorted: "Old Yi, you...you're really going too far! Even the landlords and rich people of the old society weren't this ruthless!"

Public opinion has completely collapsed.

If some people previously thought this was an economic dispute, now, with the contrast between braised pork and black cornbread, Yi Zhonghai has been nailed to the pillar of shame.

Yi Zhonghai slumped on the bench, cold sweat streaming down his forehead and into his eyes; it hurt, but he dared not wipe it away.

He opened his mouth, wanting to argue that it was to cultivate the children's spirit of hard work and frugality, to say that it was to temper their will...

But facing the contemptuous, disgusted, and even murderous gazes of the entire courtyard, all those high-sounding nonsense got stuck in his throat, turning into a "clucking" sound that only he could hear.

It’s over.

It's completely over.

At this moment, Yi Zhonghai's moral integrity, cultivated over decades, was stripped bare by Zhou Jianguo, leaving him with nothing but his underwear, shattered into pieces!

Zhou Jianguo looked at Yi Zhonghai, whose face was ashen, and a hint of pleasure flashed in his eyes.

"Yi Zhonghai, out of ideas now?"

Zhou Jianguo dusted off non-existent dust from his cuffs, his voice regaining its despairing calm.

"However, none of that matters anymore."

He slowly turned to face the main entrance.

"Because the daughter you call your own, the one you loved so much that she almost starved to death, has come to thank you in person."

The voice just fell.

A sickeningly loud sound came from the front gate.

"rustle……"

That was the sound of worn-out cotton shoes dragging on the ground, heavy and slow, each step feeling like it was stepping on everyone's nerves.

An invisible force split the crowd, causing them to automatically move to the sides, clearing a path leading directly to the core of the courthouse.

A figure so thin it seemed a gust of wind could blow it away appeared in everyone's sight.

He Yushui's hair was disheveled, and her sallow face, which had suffered from long-term malnutrition, was now flushed.

She even lost one of her shoes while running, and was left with only one foot covered in chilblains, stepping barefoot on the cold blue brick floor.

But she seemed to have lost the ability to feel pain.

Those eyes, which were originally timid and submissive, now held only one emotion.

That was an overwhelming hatred that wanted to chew up and swallow this hypocrite, skin and bones, right in front of him!

As Yi Zhonghai watched the approaching figure, he froze, forgetting even to breathe.