章 2: Chapter 2 Full after Eating
Bai Xiao pulled open the door, and just by taking a few simple steps to the room, opening the door caused her to break out in a cold sweat.
No wonder, in this family, because she went to school, she would frequently be scolded by Grandma and her younger uncle as a freeloader, not allowed to eat at the table during meals, and could only stay in the kitchen, eating leftovers. And of course, more often than not, she got what was left at the bottom of the pot.
There really wasn't much left over. Whenever there was some tasty dry food or the like, Bai Mei, Bai Zhuang, and Bai Shan would never leave anything for her, at most she might get a few bites of cornmeal mush, and even then, there wouldn't be enough to fill a bowl.
Each time, she would just add some cold water to the leftovers in the basin, pour it back into the pot, and scrape down the remnants stuck to the edges. It was almost the same as washing the pots, and with that, she would blow and slurp up a bowl.
Sometimes there might be half a cornmeal bun left over, but of course, she wouldn't get any refined flour or rice. Being left with a couple of pickled vegetables was already considered giving her a lot of face.
She also thought she was foolish, as, in her previous life, she was always the only one busy cooking in the kitchen.
Grandma and her younger aunt did not want to trouble themselves in the smoky, blazing kitchen. After supervising her several times and finding she was always well-behaved and did not steal or take anything, no one even bothered to give her another glance.
Yet she still managed to behave well each time, neither stealing food nor taking anything extra; otherwise, her frail body wouldn't have become so thin that a gust of wind could knock her over.
How stupid could she be?
Looking at her miserable end in her previous life, she couldn't blame others. With insufficient intelligence and too little cunning, if it wasn't she who died, who else would it be?
Now it must have been that she had been lying here for a day already, with no possibility of someone bringing her food.
It was only natural for her to break out in a cold sweat now.
First things first, fill up the stomach.
Bai Xiao staggered out of the room—she didn't need to close the door behind her. This short, small, foul, and broken house would attract no one to search for anything; everyone else lived in clean mud-brick houses with bright glass windows, clean and spacious, definitely without any dirty smells.
As soon as she left the house and walked towards the stove, she ran into Bai Mei. Bai Mei was the same age as her, just one month older.
But standing together, the comparison made her look like a 14 or 15-year-old girl, underdeveloped, dark, thin, short, and petite.
Bai Mei was different, she never had to work in the fields, and was raised well-fed and plump, tall and with a slightly budding chest, a fully developed 18-year-old young woman.
When Bai Mei saw Bai Xiao, she curled her lip in disdain, "Grandma only hit you a couple of times, and look at you acting dead, half-dead and half-alive. Do you want the entire village to point fingers at your family's backbone? Let me remind you, you eat and drink from us, and the fact we haven't starved you to death already shows how benevolent my parents are. Remember, you and our family have no relation.
Don't you see it's already midday? Hurry up and go cook. If Grandma comes back from the fields and sees you haven't finished cooking, she might just give you another beating."
In fact, Bai Xiao had been hit so severely that she had passed out for a whole day. Li Chunhua had even checked on her in the morning, knowing that she had been quite harsh.
She instructed her granddaughter, Bai Mei, to cook at home today. But the corn gruel that Bai Mei cooked in the morning was so badly burnt that it choked anyone who ate it, and the pickled vegetable strips, which should have been finely cut, were as wide as a finger. After getting scolded by Grandma and Dad for a good half day, seeing Bai Xiao finally climbing up, Bai Mei of course felt that cooking was this dead girl's responsibility.
Now she could finally return to the room and lie down for a while to catch her breath.
She had been chastised enough by the whole family this morning, and Bai Mei had finally found a scapegoat.
Back in the room, Bai Mei collapsed onto the kang to rest. Her grandmother had stirred her up too early in the morning; now was the perfect time to catch up on some sleep.
Bai Xiao glanced at Bai Mei's retreating figure. In this family, she was an invisible person. No one liked her, and even less cared for her. Whether she ate or starved to death seemed to concern no one. According to Li Chunhua's words, she deserved to suffer, deserved not to have enough to eat, for she was nothing but a burden that the Bai Family reluctantly supported. She didn't understand why in her previous life.
It was not until her uncle blurted out that she realized she was not the Bai's child. She was born to those labeled as capitalist roaders and rightists. For some unknown reason, she was later entrusted to her parents, namely Bai Jianshe, the eldest of the Bai Family, who seemed to have died. Bai Jianshe owed someone a favor, as his mother had saved Bai Jianshe's life back then. So, Bai Jianshe and his wife raised her as their own daughter.
The eldest brother and the two sisters also knew, but they had never failed to take care of her as their real sister, except for the Bai Family's matriarch and the younger uncle Bai Jianguo, who despised her, wishing to treat her like a slave. If not for her, her elder brother and sisters wouldn't send money back home every month.
Her elder brother sent fifteen yuan to grandma each month, and the two sisters' family would send two yuan back. This was 1985, five years since her parents had passed away, and it was her elder brother and sisters who had supported her with this monthly amount of nineteen yuan, which back in 1980 was a substantial sum for living expenses.
Regrettably, they didn't know what kind of life their sister was leading, still thinking that at least the grandmother would take care of her for the sake of the money.
When the elder brother and sisters came back, grandma would clean her up properly, and her clothes were always washed clean. Patched clothes were normal during that era, so it was not unusual. As for where they stayed, they couldn't live with grandma and the younger uncle because there wasn't enough space.
Moreover, she acted like a fool. For years, she stayed silent, not wanting to trouble her brother and sisters, trying to avoid causing them any inconvenience. Thus, she inadvertently aided Li Chunhua and the younger uncle Bai Jianguo in keeping their treatment of her a secret, fearing that her siblings would confront their grandma because of her.
Actually, she was truly foolish. If only she knew that grandma and the younger uncle feared even more that her elder brother Bai Song and her sisters would find out about these things. They were afraid that if the truth came out, they would stop receiving money.
Inadvertently, she was helping these villains.
If they still wished to enslave her this time, they would have to see if she was still willing to be so foolish.
In her last life, she had been a fool for a lifetime, but in this one, she wouldn't let herself be bullied, no matter what.
In her previous life, she always thought that backing down would lead to a boundless world, but why should it always be her to retreat?
This time, she was determined to pay back those who bullied her, to repay kindness and harbor grudges.
Heading straight to the kitchen, Bai Xiao didn't hold back! The food and drink at home were all controlled by grandma, but she knew every nook and cranny where things were stored.
She cooked herself a pot of noodle soup, poached a couple of plump eggs in it, added some pickled cabbage, and topped it with fragrant green onions fried in oil—a hearty bowl of white noodle soup.
Bai Xiao ate her fill in one go, and suddenly felt strength returning to her body, her vision no longer blurred.
It seems true that people are iron and food is steel.
From now on, she would never let herself go hungry or mistreat herself for the sake of others.
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