The situation is much better than in previous years. But all this money came from Qin Huairu selling her daughter. Qin Huairu also knows that given her current situation, using ordinary methods will be useless if she wants to live a good life.

Even if you farm your whole life, you can only barely make ends meet. Not to mention you have cancer; if you don't seek treatment, who knows how much longer you have left?

Seeing her cousin Qin Jingru's current state made Qin Huairu extremely jealous.

But he couldn't even go back to Qin Family Village. If he stayed in the village for even a little while, the villagers would kick him out. Even his own parents didn't want him.

Qin Huairu made a decision in her heart: she would make those who looked down on her look at her with new eyes. Thinking about this, Qin Huairu felt that even the New Year's Eve dinner didn't taste so good anymore.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Qin Huairu began to think of ways to improve her life. Since the people of Qin Family Village looked down on her, she decided to look for ways elsewhere.

Thinking of the vegetables she grew in the countryside, Qin Huairu came up with a solution. Vegetables from the countryside weren't worth much, but they would become valuable once they were transported to the city.

Now that she was in this state, Qin Huairu didn't care about speculation anymore. The most important thing now was to improve her living conditions. If she ran out of money, who knew if her cancer cells would continue to spread? She hadn't taken her cancer medication for a long time. Even knowing she might die, or that she might die, Qin Huairu still wanted to take the risk.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, Qin Huairu began to take action. She obtained some vegetables from other villages and made something resembling a sled. She then dragged dozens of kilograms of vegetables towards the city.

Since it was her first time, Qin Huairu didn't dare to do too much, and given her physical condition, she couldn't allow herself to do too much either.

After dragging the radishes and cabbages into the black market, Qin Huairu squatted in a corner. At this time of year, ordinary families only had radishes, cabbages, and pickled vegetables.

City dwellers don't stock up on as many vegetables as people in the countryside. Now that they can find vegetables, many people buy some.

Dozens of kilograms of vegetables were gone in just over ten minutes. This gave Qin Huairu hope. Although dozens of kilograms of vegetables only cost a little over one yuan, after deducting costs, she probably didn't even make fifty cents. But she shouldn't forget that she only sold them for over ten minutes. What if she brought more next time? The money she earned wouldn't be worse than going to work.

The next day, Qin Huairu brought back over a hundred pounds of vegetables. To make things easier in the future, she also brought back a calf from the neighboring village on her way back the following day. She also found a carpenter to make her a small cart.

From then on, Qin Huairu embarked on a completely different path. She secretly developed her skills and resources on the mountain all by herself.

The courtyard house became much quieter without Qin Huairu and Yi Zhonghai. Everyone was working hard to make a living.

The relationships between neighbors are not what they used to be. Except for the Yan family, who are still scheming for a pittance every day, everyone else is working hard.

After everyone else started work, Liu Haizhong and his son also went out to look for jobs. Unable to find formal employment, Liu Haizhong could only work in small workshops.

Even Liu Guangqi started learning a trade from others. Although Liu Guangqi was a bookworm, he had a considerable amount of theoretical knowledge. Although his learning speed was a bit slow, at least he could still learn it.

Fortunately, Liu Haizhong had a skill. The work of a blacksmith and a forge is similar, so Liu Haizhong started working in the blacksmith shop, making farm tools for everyone.

Of all the families in the courtyard, only the Yan family's life remained largely unchanged. All the pressures of the Yan family's life fell on Yan Jiecheng's shoulders.

In an effort to change this situation, the entire Yan family approached Yan Jiefang.

“Jiefang, you’ve seen our family’s situation now. If you don’t work harder, our Yan family will have no hope. Your younger siblings are still young and won’t be able to go out to work for at least another five or six years.”

"You know your older brother's situation. He made a mistake at the steel mill and will be a laborer for life. You're almost 20 now. If you don't work hard, what will you do in the future? Do you still want to get married and have children?"

Hearing his father's words, Yan Jiefang also felt a headache coming on. Everyone wants to get married, have children, and live a good life.

Even the Liu family, which is in a similar situation to the Yan family, now has hope for the future. But the Yan family's situation is getting worse and worse, and Yan Jiefang himself is getting anxious.

"Dad, don't worry! I will definitely work hard in the future. I will also learn a trade like Liu Guangqi. That way I won't have to worry about being idle in the future."

In the past, the rest of the Yan family might have been very happy, but now, everyone frowned when they heard Yan Jiefang's words.

The others weren't unaware of this principle. It's just that the Yan family was barely scraping by. If Yan Jiefang were to learn a trade, he might not have an income for several years.

Putting aside whether Yan Jiecheng can hold out for so many years, if he doesn't repay Wei Hua's money soon, the Yan family's house might even become Wei Hua's.

They initially promised to pay it off within two years, plus interest to Weihua. In those two years, my family only paid six months' interest; we didn't repay a single penny of principal.

Now, besides the 360 ​​yuan they earned from selling their job, the Yan family can't even scrape together 40 yuan. If they don't pay back the money soon, they'll lose their house in two months.

At this point, how could Yan Bugui possibly let his son learn a trade? If Yan Jiefang were to learn a trade, his whole family would be homeless.

“Jiefang, it’s not that Dad doesn’t want you to learn a trade. We have about two more months to pay back Weihua’s money.”

“You know our family’s situation. Even if we include the money I earned from selling my job, it would be difficult for us to scrape together 400 yuan. But we have to pay back the money we owe Weihua’s family. The principal plus interest is more than 500 yuan. If we don’t raise the money within the next two months, we will lose our house.”

“I don’t care what methods you use, you must raise the money within two months, otherwise my family is really finished. This matter has been witnessed by the neighborhood committee staff. There’s no way you can renege on this. If you don’t want to sleep on the streets, you must work hard to earn money.”

Upon hearing Yan Bugui's words, everyone in the Yan family frowned. In order to repay the money as soon as possible, they could only try to go out and earn more money.

As the eldest son of the Yan family, Yan Jiecheng immediately began to set an example by going out to do what he could after work. As long as it could make money, Yan Jiecheng would do it.

Seeing how hard Yan Jiecheng was working, the rest of the Yan family began to follow suit. Since the people in the neighborhood were unwilling to work with him, Yan Jiecheng had to walk seven or eight kilometers each day to work in more distant places.

Since his house was about to become someone else's, Yan Jiefang dared not scheme or plot anymore. No matter how dirty or tiring the work was, Yan Jiefang could only grit his teeth and persevere.

Yan Bugui also began to make money continuously. When there was trash to collect, he would go out and collect trash; when there was no trash to collect, he would lie on the roadside and beg.

When people saw that Yan Bugui's legs had been amputated, a small number of them would give him some alms.

This seemed to have opened up a whole new path for Yan Bugui. In his pursuit of money, Yan Bugui had absolutely no sense of shame. Every day he would dress miserably and go out to plead for help, trying to earn as much money as possible to take home.

The older woman and her two children weren't idle either. To save the house, the older woman didn't even buy medicine. Instead, she took her two children out to collect trash.

The mother and her two children could only go out to collect garbage; they couldn't do any other work. The three of them were practically the only ones who could feed the Yan family.

The famine was long over, but their lives were worse than during the famine. Their diet consisted of nothing but wild vegetables and seaweed, with less grain than pig feed in later generations.

To repay the debt, they had no choice but to leave things as they were for now, and would deal with everything else after repaying Wei Hua's 500 yuan. Even though the other people in the courtyard knew about the Yan family's situation, no one felt sorry for them; on the contrary, they looked down on the Yan family more and more.

It's not that everyone is materialistic or snobbish; after all, nobody's possessions come from thin air, and nobody can stand being taken advantage of every day. But the Yan family feels uncomfortable if they don't take advantage of others. That's why everyone in the courtyard dislikes the Yan family.