Siheyuan: Silly Zhu, Listen, It's Not Your Fault

"Country mutts have one traditional virtue: they never die at home. Just like Silly Zhu, who is nicknamed an 'advanced, high-level simp.' Silly Zhu is very self-aware..."

Silly Zhu is the sort who needs to be beaten into submission before he'll willingly reform, while Banggeng is the type who needs to be taught a lesson and sent to the firing squad.

The protagonist, A Liang, is recommended from a small mountain village to work at a steel mill. He gets along with people on all sides at the factory, establishes himself in the courtyard, and, against the backdrop of that era, turns the isolated village into an idyllic retreat fit for retirement.

He has a tiny little cheat: incense-offering sprites that can accumulate karmic merit.

A Liang says, "What the hell do I need that for? I want the kind that pays off in this life."

Unlike stories that start with crude toilet humor and people fighting to the death, from the start A Liang and Lou Bancheng are locked in a struggle over their destiny.

[No System, no pocket dimension, no cultivation, but with a tiny bit of supernatural folklore. The hostility gradually rises from mild to moderate. It can be read as a gentle everyday story set in a Beijing courtyard during that era.]