The 1980s: I Can Hear Everything, and My Beloved Wife and I Strike It Rich

Tan Zhaoye, the top good-for-nothing on Funing East Street, coasts on the job thanks to the factory's only university graduate, slacking off on the clock every day.

Cen Tingxue, the number-one "villainess" on Funing West Street, flips the table at blind dates and curses out every mama's boy. Matchmakers take a detour whenever they see her.

Everyone on the street says, "If those two nuisances ever got together, their cooking pots would rust away!"

Who knew they'd bump into each other at a blind-date dinner?

"I hear you hate housework." "Funny, I can barely be bothered to get out of bed."

"Then let's make do with each other and get married to keep our families happy?" "Deal!"

After they married, the neighbors craned their necks, eager to watch them go broke.

But then:

Tan Zhaoye touched an old radio, and its parts spoke up to tell him what was wrong. He went on to repair it, then designed a hit household appliance and started raking in money every day!

Cen Tingxue spent her days slumped over her desk, yawning, but at night her pen flew across the page. Her hit novels earned her a fortune in royalties!

The neighbors were baffled. "Weren't they supposed to be dirt-poor? How come they were the first to get a color TV and a big motorcycle?!"

When greedy relatives came around to mooch off them, Tan Zhaoye laid a hand on their watches. His ability to hear the whispers of all things kicked in, and secrets about stolen money and swapped goods came tumbling out on the spot. He turned around and sent the lot of them off to prison!

While everyone else was still scrambling to become a ten-thousand-yuan household, the two lazybones sipped soda and went over their accounts:

Oh no, they'd bought up all the courtyard houses in the capital, and they were almost collecting more rent than they could manage from that whole street of shops on Hong Kong Island!