There Are Three Fools in the Broken Courtyard

There are three fools living in a broken courtyard.

Hu Yitong is a gambling addict who loses his last three taels of silver, then comes staggering in half-starved.

In the courtyard lies a sickly man who can barely say three sentences a day; his longest sentence is "Too lazy to move."

A gray fellow flips over the wall and says his name is Ye Hui—the Ye of leaves, the Hui of dust, and says he will buy drinks another day.

Later, the gray fellow really does come back.

Later, the people looking for the gray fellow also come.

Later, the people looking for those people also come.

The three fools gradually realize that nothing in this broken courtyard is accidental.

Those who come to collect debts are here to test them.

Those who come to stay the night are here to poison them.

Those who come to bring wine are here to take their lives.

Some want to kill them, some want to harm them, some want to sow discord between them.

But they still bicker every day, cook, lie around, and wait for people to come invite them for drinks.

Until one day, they finally learn that the laziest sick man is actually someone in the jianghu you absolutely cannot provoke.

That the foolishest gambler is hiding a twenty-year secret.

And that behind all those "accidental" events, there has been a hand reaching out for twenty years.

Three fools, one broken courtyard.

Some people want them dead, some want them alive.

They just want the porridge to taste a little less awful.

This book is the first part of the story of Hu Yitong, Ye Hui, the sick man, and the thief.