After five years working away from home, Chen Yu had seen through the city's scheming and the fickleness of human relationships. Exhausted in body and mind, he chose to cast off every burden, leave the bustle behind, and return to his hometown.
All he wanted was to look after the old house his ancestors had left him and the empty lot in front of it. He planned to work from sunrise to sunset and live out his remaining years in quiet contentment, never competing with anyone or seeking the slightest profit.
But greed knows no bounds, and neighbors can be the coldest of all!
While he was away for most of the year and no one was home, his wicked neighbor brazenly seized his family's legally registered land and poured a private concrete road across it.
For his own selfish gain, the neighbor raised the roadbed, completely blocking the Chen family's drainage channel. Whenever it rained, water flowed straight into Chen's courtyard, pooling there, soaking the walls, and blocking the gate, seriously jeopardizing his family's ability to live in peace!
When confronted, the neighbor was shameless and overbearing, twisting the facts and insisting the empty lot was wasteland, so he had every right to take it.
Villagers came in droves to guilt-trip Chen, urging him to be magnanimous, give in, and keep the peace. They wanted him to swallow the loss of his land and the harm done to him without a word!
After all he had been through, Chen Yu was no longer the timid, naive young man people could push around.
Kindness has its limits, tolerance has its boundaries, and yielding must never enable wrongdoing!
He did not argue, fight, or break any rules or cross any lines. He defended his rights lawfully and by the book from start to finish.
He built a wall right along his property line, sealed off the edge, cut off the flow of water, and redirected it back toward the neighbor. The concrete road the man had spent a fortune laying stayed flooded year-round, cracked and ruined, muddy and impassable. He had a road, but no way to travel on it!
Do evil out of greed, and you will reap what you sow. Bully the weak with your power, and you will cut off your own future!
After this, no one in the village dared covet even an inch of his family's land again.
The Honest Man Was Fired in Front of Everyone, but I Can't Hide My Top-Tier Identity
I Lent a Million Out of Kindness. Hard Times Revealed My Relatives' True Colors
The Honest Man Stops Taking It: He Tears Apart the Office's Fake Sweetheart
The Ancestral Home Must Not Be Bullied
My Bullying Neighbor Blocks My Gate, So I Teach Him a Lesson with My Fishpond
You Occupy My Mountain and Plant Walnut Trees, So I'll Make Years of Your Hard Work Go to Waste
The Rebellious Prince Begs to Marry the Marquess's Daughter
The Cunning Daughter of a Powerful Family
The Yin Token
Many people say that a close neighbor is worse than a distant relative, and that taking a step back when things go wrong will open up a whole new world. In reality, many neighborhood conflicts are not because of petty squabbles, but because honest people are too accommodating and too tolerant. The protagonist, Chen Yu, simply wants to return to his hometown and live a peaceful life.