Li Aijun stormed away from the table in a huff. Still not satisfied, he went to the kitchen to poke around and saw a bowl of cornmeal porridge on the stove.
Without a second thought, he grabbed a spoon and started scooping it up to eat.
Just as Li Aiping came in carrying a bowl, she saw that her little brother had already eaten half the porridge left for their auntie.
"What are you doing? That was left for Auntie! Mom, come quick! Little Brother is stealing food again!" Li Aiping shouted.
When Li Aijun saw he'd been caught, he didn't stop right away. Instead, before his sister could come hit him, he quickly shoveled two more spoonfuls into his mouth.
"Goodness, what are you yelling about? Are you afraid the neighbors can't hear you? Aren't you embarrassed?" Li Yuan'ai heard her daughter's shouting from the other room and hurried over.
"What do I have to be embarrassed about? I'm not the one stealing food," Li Aiping said, rolling her eyes.
"You silly girl, what's all this talk about stealing food? Your brother is still little, what does he know?" Li Yuan'ai said, annoyed, and gave her daughter a light smack. Seeing her son's greedy expression, she gave him one too. "You little rascal, all you think about is eating, eating, eating. You never use that brain of yours for anything useful. If you put this much energy into your studies, your mother could finally relax and enjoy life."
It didn't hurt Li Aijun in the slightest. He finally put the spoon down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and patted his stomach. "Even Chairman Mao said it," he declared smugly. "The revolution is iron, and food is steel. How can I study and build the nation if I'm not full?"
"Stop talking nonsense. What kind of crap is that? Aren't you embarrassed? Go do your homework and stop bothering your sister." Hearing her son's ridiculous excuse, Li Yuan'ai couldn't help but laugh and swatted him on the butt.
After her brother left, Li Aiping looked at the dregs of porridge at the bottom of the bowl. "Mom, what about Auntie? This is all that's left."
Li Yuan'ai glanced into the bowl. "Go get the thermos and pour some hot water in. I figure your auntie just recovered from being sick, so she probably doesn't have much of an appetite anyway." After saying this, afraid her daughter would complain, she quickly went back into the other room.
In the end, what Yuan Si received was a bowl of porridge watered down with hot water.
Holding this bowl of watery gruel, Yuan Si was furious. 'This is my dinner?'
It was exactly the same as in her memories.
Little Li Yuansi had been sent to stay with her second older sister in the city a month ago. Though young, she was very sensitive. It didn't take her long to realize that her sister didn't like her, and neither did her brother-in-law or her niece and nephews. To curry favor with the family, the little girl tried hard to prove her worth in front of them, doing the only things she could. At her young age, she helped clean the house and cook for the family. Then, whenever it was time to eat, she would make an excuse not to join them at the table, afraid they would resent her for freeloading.
How convincing could a child's lie be? Even a blockhead like Li Aijun could probably tell it was fake. But her second sister believed it, and she believed it completely.
So, not long after she arrived, she stopped eating at the table. Instead, she would hide in the kitchen, rinse the iron pot used for porridge with hot water, and swish it around to make do with half a bowl of thin cornmeal gruel.
It was incredibly similar to the watery gruel in her hands now.
The original owner of this body could endure such treatment, even thinking it was what she deserved. But she, Yuan Si, did not think so. She was used to being dominant; not snatching food from others was already her being restrained. Faced with a bowl of watery porridge like this, it would be a miracle if she were satisfied.
In her past life, Yuan Si had always been a powerhouse. She despised both the original owner's weakness and her second sister's selfishness.
Fuming, Yuan Si tilted her head back and downed the entire bowl of thin porridge in one go. Then, she grabbed the empty bowl and stormed into the main room, radiating a murderous aura.
She could ignore verbal slights, but if anyone dared to wrong her when it came to food, she was ready to fight them to the death.
"Second Sister, I'm not full." She didn't waste any words. Seeing her sister, brother-in-law, and eldest niece all sitting on the kang bed in the main room, she slammed the empty bowl down in front of Li Yuan'ai.
'In the apocalypse, snatching someone's rations was the same as taking their life. The only reason she was calmly asking her sister for food right now instead of just starting a fight was out of consideration for the fact that this woman was the original owner's biological sister.' Of course, the weakness of her current body was also a factor. Her spiritual power was at level zero and couldn't help her body evolve, so she only had the strength of an ordinary six-year-old child.
Li Yuan'ai was stunned by her actions. She never expected her little sister to confront her directly. 'Doesn't she usually eat about the same amount as today?'
"Little Si, didn't Ai Ping tell you? You haven't eaten for days, so eating too much at once is bad for your stomach. Just bear with it for now. Tomorrow morning, I'll make you a nice, nourishing meal to help you recover," Li Yuan'ai said, forcing a smile as if coaxing a child.
And in her eyes, that's exactly what she was doing: coaxing a child.
"No. I'm hungry now. I haven't eaten in three days. If I don't eat more, I'll starve to death." Yuan Si refused to compromise. She had to be fed. 'From her perspective, she wasn't making trouble; she was demanding fair treatment. If the whole family was starving, she wouldn't complain. But they were clearly eating until they were mostly full, so why couldn't she at least get half a meal?'
'If you didn't want to feed her, you shouldn't have let the original owner move in in the first place. Since you did let her move in, that means you agreed to feed her. You can't go back on your word now.'
"Listen to you, being so dramatic. Who ever starved to death from missing one meal?" Li Yuan'ai's smile faded. She didn't know what had gotten into her little sister today, making her so bold and stubborn.
"Second Sister, it's not like there's no food in the house. Why won't you feed me?" Yuan Si asked in all seriousness.
"It's not that I won't feed you. You didn't come out when it was time to eat, and everything's gone now. I can't just conjure up more food out of thin air. All we have left is coarse corn, and who knows how long that would take to cook. Be a good girl, Little Si. Just bear with it tonight, and we'll eat tomorrow morning." Li Yuan'ai's face was now completely devoid of a smile.
"If cooking coarse corn takes too long, then just whip up a bowl of dough drop soup. You said you'd make me something nourishing tomorrow morning, right? That's easy to make. No need to wait until tomorrow," Yuan Si insisted.
"Where would we get flour, you silly girl?" Li Yuan'ai was losing her patience. "Ai Ping, take your auntie back to her room."
"There's some right in there. I've seen it several times. If you can't find it, Second Sister, I'll find it myself." Yuan Si paid her no mind, climbed onto the kang bed, and headed straight for the cabinet where Li Yuan'ai kept the grain.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing, little girl? Have you no manners?" Li Yuan'ai never thought she would just start rummaging through the cabinet and began to panic.
"Alright, alright, that's enough. If Little Si wants to eat, just make her a bowl," Li Baoceng, Yuan Si's second brother-in-law, said impatiently from the side.
His sister-in-law was practically crying and screaming for dough drop soup right in front of him. As her brother-in-law, how could he feel good about that? Of course he couldn't. He was reluctant to use their precious white flour on someone else, but he also didn't want his sister-in-law to keep making a scene. If the neighbors heard, wouldn't that be mortifying? What would people think of him?
"Oh, look at you, playing the good guy. I was saving that flour to make dumplings for the New Year," Li Yuan'ai said, telling a bare-faced lie. Her husband received a monthly ration of fine grain, and the supply would even increase during the New Year month. There was absolutely no need to start saving flour now.
"I give up, you little terror! Fine, eat, eat, eat! I'll make you your dough drop soup," Li Yuan'ai said resentfully. "Ai Ping, go to the kitchen and get an empty bowl."