Chapter 22 Forgot the Sugar

"Your mother... she didn't come home..." Hongji faced Daya's expectant eyes, and he too felt so upset that he stopped the work in his hands.

"Wuu... Mom didn't come back..." Er Ya cried, standing blankly at the doorway.

"Wuu wuu... Why isn't Mom coming back? Doesn't she want Sanya anymore?" Sanya also began to cry.

"What's all this crying for? Bad omens, you've cried away all the fortune in this house... Mrs. Li went out to work, got a taste for the outside world, and doesn't want to come back to help with chores," Mrs. Lai's scolding voice came from inside the room.

The scolding from Mrs. Lai slightly subdued the crying of the children who had just learned their mother wasn't coming home, but their weeping continued incessantly.

The children were missing their mother, and after a month of anticipation, they received the news that she would not be returning, sparking their tearful sorrow.

"Mother, why are you scolding the children again? You definitely shouldn't speak ill of my wife like that." Hongji felt sad too; just like the children, he missed his wife dearly and couldn't tolerate his mother speaking badly of her in front of them.

"If you make them stop crying, I won't scold them. Their sobbing is driving me mad!" Mrs. Lai's voice of compromise emanated from the room.

"There, there," Shiqi took out some candy from her hand, trying to comfort her elder sisters. Their crying had made her feel so heartbroken; it was as if she, being so young, needed her mother even more!

"Candy, sister, how do you have candy?" Daya, with tears still on her cheeks and eyes, stopped crying at the sight of the candy.

"Candy, little sister has candy, hehe," Sanya smiled upon seeing the candy, her combination of tears and laughter seemed to suggest that she had forgotten about their mother at the sight of sweets.

"Little sister, you have candy. Did Mom bring it back?" Er Ya looked steadily at the candy in Shiqi's hand, sharing her sister's doubt but not trying to grab the candy from her little sister's hand.

"Elder sister, Second Sister, Third Sister, I have candy too." Siwa had forgotten about her candy due to her crying, but now she also took out the piece she had been reluctant to eat from her pocket.

"Candy!" Daya and the other sisters brightened up, splitting the candy brought out by their two younger sisters into tiny pieces, so each of them could have a small piece. They also felt that Qing was too young and should have more candy, so they handed two small pieces to Shiqi.

Shiqi watched her elder sisters pop the candy into their mouths. In her former affluent home, she wouldn't have cared for such sweets at all, but ever since she crossed over into the body of this child in the book, having had nothing but saltless rice gruel every day, she longed for some flavor.

Like her elder sisters, she placed a small piece of candy in her mouth and chewed gently, breaking another piece into smaller parts. "There, there," she offered the pieces of candy to her elder sisters gathered around her.

"Little sister is so good," Daya was the first to kiss Shiqi's little face, and then the other sisters followed Daya's lead.

Shiqi kept trying to dodge her sisters' kisses with a look that showed her disgust. They were all eating candy; it was so sticky and dirty!

"Haha, the little sister is shy," Daya laughed, thinking that was the reason.

"Hahaha," the other children joined in the laughter.

Hongji, whose heart had been heavy with the children's earlier crying, now felt it lighten slightly as he heard their laughter. The children could cry loudly for their missing mother, but he couldn't cry; he could only feel depressed inside.

As the children laughed, he felt they truly were unaware of sorrow. As they were happy, he knew he had to shoulder the burden for them.

Mrs. Lai found the children's loud voices grating, thinking that the granddaughters were laughing at her. Her face reddened with bottled-up anger, and she started to curse:

"What are you laughing at? Get out here and cook, already! Do you expect me to wait on you freeloaders?"

Upon hearing Mrs. Lai's scolding, the laughter of the children in the room stopped. Daya called Er Ya, and together they went to the kitchen to cook, leaving Sanya in the room to look after their younger sisters.

Hongji had felt a bit happier, but his mother's scolding made him frown and feel a surge of pressure. This family made him feel suffocated.

Seeing his own children go to the kitchen to cook while his wife and two younger daughters stayed in the room, he felt a kind of gloom in his heart.

"Dad, the busy farming season is upon us again, and my wife is not at home, we can't just let the children do the farm work."

"Of course, once we men finish our current tasks, we will join in on the farm work during the busy season. Let the children spread out the rice grains to dry in the fields! And have your mother and two younger sisters also go work in the fields."

Upon hearing his son's suggestion, Hongji's father recalled that in the past, only he and his son and daughter-in-law would work, while his wife and two daughters stayed at home to dry the rice grains.

For the past couple of months, it was always the children working outside, and the two daughters and wife did some chores at home while still complaining. He could feel that his son had opinions about this and sensed a slight estrangement between his children and the older generation.

Daya and Er Ya made watery porridge, also frying Mrs. Li's pickled vegetables and dried radishes. Now, close to the busy farming period, there wasn't much rice left at home to eat, nor was there an abundance of other grains.

The men of the house had to do carpentry and other strenuous work, so the density of their porridge was a bit higher than what the women ate.

All the rice-laden porridge was poured into two big bowls, prepared for the two men of the house.

The children and women of the house could only eat watery rice soup, akin to watered-down congee.

Mrs. Lai, who had just had a little bit of pastry, didn't feel hungry—having the watery congee was just right for her thirst.

Upon seeing such a meal, Ye Shuzhen pursed her lips. But as she had eaten a piece of pastry and candy, and hadn't done any farm work, she didn't feel hungry. After eating the candy, she felt thirsty, so the watery congee suited her well.

Ye Shuzhi was in a similar situation, looking to lose weight. She had not gone out to work that day and stayed at home, plump and white, worried she wouldn't fit into her beautiful clothes in the future.

Daya and Er Ya always thought of their younger sisters first. They brought the watery rice soup into the room, feeding their youngest sister first.

Siya, who was a bit older, could eat on her own, drinking the congee just like her elder sisters, feeling hungry but not daring to speak a word.

She also didn't dare to cry, for fear of being scolded or beaten.

"Sigh," Ye Shiqi sighed in her heart, "When will this kind of life end?"

She had been in this world from the book for three months, and only at the beginning was there milk to drink. Now, let alone eating meat again, there wasn't even enough rice to satisfy her hunger.

As far as she knew, for a family in the village considered well-off, the father and son could earn a little bit of hard-earned money through carpentry and support the family without trouble.

The fault lay with her grandparents, who were too greedy and stingy, always taking and never giving, and with her father, who had no say in the household.

This foolish filial piety, it was akin to letting his wife and children starve while doing nothing.

Thankfully he could still speak up for his daughters. When their mother wasn't around, he could play both the father and mother's role, never neglecting his daughters.

During the meal, at the dinner table, Hongji's father paused while eating and brought up his son's suggestion.

"Old woman, Hongji said we need to harvest the grain in the field. Once we finish our work here in the next two days, all the adults in our household should go out to the fields to cut the rice."

"Dad, I'm definitely not going. I'm not yet of age; I'm not yet 15, so I don't count as an adult."

Ye Shuzhen was the first to oppose this decision. Since she was young, she had never worked in the fields. With an elder brother and sister-in-law around, how nice it was to stay at home!