“Stop bothering Sha Zhu; I’ll take you to apologize to Chen Jianye. Keep your temper in check and humble yourself.”
“With me here, he can’t do anything to you.”
Yi Zhonghai said calmly.
“I’m not going!”
“You are the First Master of our Courtyard. Are you just going to let him act wildly and refuse to be disciplined?”
Jia Zhangshi was furious.
“Heh heh, Chen Jianye has no father, no mother, no children, and is full of malice. How can I discipline him?”
“Why don’t your Jia take the lead and kill him in advance?”
Yi Zhonghai sneered.
“I’d rather go with you to apologize to him.”
“Ai, we’re neighbors. It’s just a small matter. As an elder, I’ll give in.”
Jia Zhangshi’s expression changed instantly.
Killing someone means a bullet to the head. Without deep-seated hatred, who would be willing to trade a life for a life?
“Hmph.”
Yi Zhonghai snorted, then took Jia Zhangshi out and walked towards Chen Jianye.
The reason he didn’t bring Sha Zhu was that Yi Zhonghai was worried they would fight again.
No matter if Sha Zhu or Chen Jianye ended up losing, the result would surely be that Yi Zhonghai had to clean up the mess.
He brought Jia Zhangshi to apologize.
Firstly, it cost nothing, so Yi Zhonghai didn’t have to pay anything.
Secondly, if Chen Jianye went crazy, Yi Zhonghai felt confident he could outrun Jia Zhangshi.
“Jianye.”
Yi Zhonghai came before Chen Jianye and called out with a smile.
The cleaver stopped on the whetstone. Chen Jianye looked up, saw Yi Zhonghai and Jia Zhangshi, and frowned.
Was this bringing Yi Zhonghai over to say good things to him?
Chen Jianye knew that with him sharpening his knife at the entrance, Jia Zhangshi definitely couldn't sit still.
Whoever had done something wrong to him would feel guilty.
“I brought Jia Family Sister-in-law here to apologize to you.”
“She came to me and said she spoke ill of you during the day and felt very bad about it.”
“There were many people during the day, and as an elder, she was too embarrassed to admit her mistake to you. Now that it’s just the three of us, she needs to explain herself properly.”
Yi Zhonghai finished speaking amiably, stepping aside for Jia Zhangshi.
“Heh heh.”
Chen Jianye chuckled.
Sharpening knives really works wonders.
He quite liked his current persona in the Courtyard.
A madman whose life is short, ready to violently chop people at any moment?
That’s good.
“Jianye, you know, I’ve always been straightforward, I don’t know how to say…”
Jia Zhangshi lowered her gaze meekly, and halfway through her sentence, Chen Jianye picked up the cleaver in his hand and swung it. Jia Zhangshi trembled, like a duck that had swallowed a burning hot pebble, and the words in her mouth immediately got stuck.
“I just want to know, from whose mouth did you learn that my head is diseased and incurable?”
“Only four people know about this: the Three Great Masters and Sha Zhu.”
Chen Jianye remained seated on the small stool, asking earnestly.
“I… I…”
Jia Zhangshi’s mouth was dry, and she looked at Yi Zhonghai for help.
Chen Jianye’s gaze also shifted to Yi Zhonghai.
If it was Yi Zhonghai who leaked the information, then Chen Jianye would have to make a scene.
“Don’t look at me, you two. I swear, if those things were said by me, may I be struck by lightning.”
Yi Zhonghai swore a vicious oath to prove his innocence.
In those days, everyone believed in feudal superstition.
There were two main types of the most vicious curses.
One was having sons with no backside, meaning no descendants.
The second was being struck by lightning, meaning a bad death.
Chen Jianye’s gaze returned to Jia Zhangshi.
“Sha Zhu said it, and he didn’t tell me not to tell anyone else.”
Jia Zhangshi decisively sold out her teammate.
“Heh heh, Sha Zhu.”
Chen Jianye got up, put away the small stool under his bottom and the whetstone, and walked into the house.
Sha Zhu is a poor man, there’s no oil to be squeezed from him.
He’s purely a dead pig unafraid of boiling water.
In Chen Jianye’s little notebook, he was already a dead man.
“I should be fine, right?”
Jia Zhangshi swallowed several times, her mouth extremely dry.
“You’re fine, but Chen Jianye definitely resents Sha Zhu now.”
Yi Zhonghai said testily.
“Tsk.”
Jia Zhangshi snorted disdainfully and walked towards Jia, swinging her arms.
Did she care about Sha Zhu’s life or death?
Yi Zhonghai watched Jia Zhangshi leave and sighed.
What a damn useless teammate.
She usually seemed clever, but at critical moments, she was like a pig.
She didn’t know to say she guessed it or just blurted it out, she just had to expose Sha Zhu.
With Sha Zhu and Chen Jianye’s old grudges rekindled and new hatred added, could the Courtyard ever be peaceful again?
Yi Zhonghai returned home, holding an enamel mug, still sighing.
“I saw Chen Jianye went back. Isn’t Jia Family Sister-in-law’s matter resolved?”
“Why are you still sighing?”
First Aunt asked gently.
“I’m worried the Courtyard won’t be manageable in the future, and something big will happen.”
Yi Zhonghai said worriedly.
“What can be done about that? We’ll just have to take it one step at a time.”
“Go rest. You have to work tomorrow.”
First Aunt stood behind Yi Zhonghai, massaging his shoulders.
Yi Zhonghai, however, looked in the direction of Chen Family, his brows tightly furrowed.
He truly had no solution for Chen Jianye.
It wasn’t Yi Zhonghai’s lack of ability that was to blame.
Throughout history, young, strong men like Chen Jianye, without parents or children, have always been extremely unstable factors.
In times of peace, their troublemaking was limited to their living areas.
Once in troubled times, a flood or a drought, these people were always the first to rise up.
How to properly settle such people was a major headache for the management class.
Even in later generations with rapid economic development, how to settle single young people and make them willingly integrate into society’s operations without going to extremes is also a very tricky problem.
No matter how capable Yi Zhonghai was, he couldn’t solve the problem of Chen Jianye.
“How about we introduce a match for Chen Jianye? Once he gets married, his temper will soften.”
First Aunt proactively offered advice to help Yi Zhonghai with his worries.
“If Jia Zhangshi hadn’t spread the news about Chen Jianye, it might have been possible.”
“Now everyone knows Chen Jianye has a problem with his head, what girl would be willing to marry him?”
“And this morning when I tried to mediate with him, I pointed out a path for him, but he didn’t follow the path I set for him; he chose to go down a dead end himself.”
“Even if we introduce someone to him, I don’t think he’ll agree.”
Yi Zhonghai’s eyes were filled with gloom.
“Ai, Old Chen and Chen Family’s Aunt left too hastily.”
“Chen Family’s first two children died young. Chen Jianye turning out like this is just fate.”
First Aunt sighed.
Night fell.
Around eight o’clock, there were still some faint sounds of couples spanking their children or making love.
As time passed, the Courtyard fell silent.
Apart from the occasional chirping of insects and birds, there was no other sound.
After an unknown period, Chen Jianye opened his eyes, put on his clothes, and stepped out to check the sky.
The sky was a dull gray.
Based on the moonlight and his body’s biological clock, Chen Jianye determined it was roughly two in the morning.
He decisively picked up his cloth bag and locked the door.
Upon reaching the Siheyuan (Courtyard) main gate, Chen Jianye leaped upwards, his hand grasping the wall, and directly jumped over the enclosure.
Afterward, he followed the memory in his mind, walking towards the Black Market.
The Black Market is an underground trading place.
It’s not literally built in an underground tunnel, but rather refers to something that cannot see the light of day.
The official trading place is the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, where one needs tickets and money to buy things, and the official government uniformly sets price standards based on factory production and market demand.
Some scarce goods cannot meet the living needs of the masses.
Or there are mismatches.
For example, one place has a lot of pork, another a lot of rice, or many eggs.
The government prohibits private transactions, but it cannot completely cut off the living needs of the general public with one stroke.
The Black Market naturally came into being.
The biggest advantage of the Black Market is that you can buy things with money.
Similarly, prices for goods in the Black Market are generally more than double those at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative.
During holidays, prices for meat and fish could be three or four times higher than at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative.
It truly represents market regulation.
