The Siheyuan's Most Ruthless Scheme Sends All the Vermin to Their Doom With a Smile

No System, no supernatural abilities. A spin-off novel based on the TV dramas The Dao and Love in the Courtyard. Using the Dao's designs, I torment and destroy the scoundrels in the courtyard. I give them opportunities and set fate in motion, letting their own evil lead them to ruin, where they will regret it for the rest of their lives. I strike at the heart as well as the body. In 1979, Gu Yao returns to China with a fortune worth billions and goes back to the courtyard house full of scheming.

Faced with the Jia family demanding a house, Yi Zhonghai using morality to blackmail him, and the whole courtyard leeching off him, Gu Yao doesn't flip the table. He simply smiles with refined grace.

Only the weak throw their weight around. The strong make plans.

Since you like getting something for nothing, I'll lift you all up to the heavens!

The Jia family wants a house? Take it! I'll give you the main house and the side rooms, and cover all the renovation costs, so your appetites grow even bigger!

Yi Zhonghai wants prestige? I'll give it to you! I'll put you in charge of a million-yuan fund and leave you out on a limb!

Liu Haizhong wants power? Here you go! I'll make you a specially appointed executive at a foreign company, with a hollow title, until you swell up and burst!

Yan Bugui wants profit? I'll trick you! I'll set up a fake antique scheme and make the pieces look old, until you lose everything!

The scoundrels think they've met a living bodhisattva. They gorge themselves on his generosity and laugh that he's “a rich fool.”

What they don't know is that Gu Yao is feeding them arsenic wrapped in sugar.