Siheyuan: Everyone's Starving, Yet You're Feasting

I transmigrated into a Siheyuan courtyard in the 1960s, and from the start, the Jia family had me in their sights! The previous owner was a fool who signed a debt agreement, promising to give the Jia family ten thousand yuan or an equivalent amount of goods every month. It was the bitterest part of winter, he was penniless, and they were about to bleed him dry. At this desperate moment, a divination tortoiseshell appeared in He Yuzhu’s mind. Cast a lot, read the signs, and determine good or bad fortune. Predict the coming days, avoid danger and seek good luck, and find treasures with pinpoint accuracy. [Minor fortune: Tomorrow at 2 p.m., at the edge of the rice fields in Shilibao, west of the city, a plump wild rabbit will die after colliding with a dead tree stump. Go pick it up.] [Moderate fortune: Tomorrow at 3 a.m., the militia guards on the perimeter of the southern district of Nanhai Park will leave a gap during their shift change. There will be a thirty-minute blind spot in the surveillance. You can sneak in to hunt game without being spotted.] [Great fortune: Tomorrow at 7 p.m., beneath the second tree along the path to the left of the entrance to Hongxing Primary School, lies a sealed porcelain jar left behind by an imperial physician from a past dynasty. Inside is something that strengthens the body and nourishes vitality. Take it, and you’ll grow strong, with bones of steel, immune to every illness.] In the freezing cold, with supplies scarce, others gnaw on bark and scrape by on gruel. Thanks to his divination, he eats like a king, with meat and grain at every meal. Jia Zhangshi throws a tantrum? Qin Huairu tries to bleed him dry? He uses a divination to pinpoint their weaknesses, dishes out some hard face-slapping, and voids the debt agreement on the spot! And he won’t stop at turning his life around and crushing the scoundrels. He’s going to have a harem of beauties, too! Gentle Ran Qiuxue, alluring Qin Huairu, the stunning wife of Xu Damao… Every beauty in the courtyard will be his. With nothing but a tortoiseshell and a lot, he defies fate in an age of famine, dominates the Siheyuan, and lives a life of carefree bliss fit for an immortal!