“This porridge tastes awful…”
As the saying goes, it’s easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury to frugality.
Late at night, the members of the Lao Mei Family were holding bowls of vegetable and lean meat porridge that had been “enhanced” for the evening, struggling to swallow it down.
Even Mei Qian herself found it hard to stomach.
It was supposed to taste like cilantro, but the cilantro from the interstellar era was nothing like the cilantro Mei Qian knew. Due to genetic modification and purification, its flavor had been concentrated tenfold.
Even Han Shi and Mei Shitou, who actually liked cilantro, couldn’t handle it.
“Did you pick out all the cilantro from the wild vegetables?” Grandma Mei couldn’t hold back her thoughts any longer. “This tastes terrible~”
Grandma Mei, who wasn’t a good cook herself, usually wouldn’t criticize others for their cooking, but today she couldn’t help but complain about Mei Qian.
Mei Qian: …
[Xiao Mei, did you hear that? The low-level Nutrient Solution doesn’t taste good.]
Xiao Mei: [So make more delicious food. The intermediate and high-level Nutrient Solutions taste great—Mapo Tofu, Sichuan Pepper Fish, Pickled Fish flavors, you name it.]
Mei Qian: [?????]
So these are the flavors of intermediate and high-level Nutrient Solutions?
Wow, what kind of cooking base ingredients do you interstellar folks use?
“I’ll try to make it taste better next time.”
With that, Mei Qian buried her head in her bowl and stopped talking. But then, a series of dings sounded from the System’s backend—[You have a new comment.]
Mei Qian was taken aback. She looked up and clicked on the screen that had popped up, which displayed the feedback on the food she had exchanged.
[Li Youyou (Intermediate – Post-Apocalyptic): It would be better if there were more wild vegetables~]
Mei Qian stared blankly at the four-star review, which even included a picture of the empty bowl.
[Can I also comment on the food I receive?]
Mei Qian thought about the Nutrient Solution wild vegetable porridge she was eating now.
Xiao Mei: [Yes, but only for food exchanged after the official version was launched.]
In other words, Mei Qian couldn’t comment on tonight’s super-concentrated cilantro solution.
Otherwise, Mei Qian would have politely commented that she wasn’t a fan of this flavor.
After dinner, Mei Qian followed Mei Shitou to exercise, carefully swinging a knife. Meanwhile, Madam Jiang told Grandma Mei about what Madam Zhang, the blacksmith’s wife, had said during the day.
“Those damned people! They can’t stand their own misery and want to drag our family down with them?”
If Madam Jiang hadn’t brought it up, it would have been fine. But as soon as she did, Grandma Mei’s anger flared up. “I wondered why they kept provoking us even though they knew they couldn’t gain anything. Turns out they can’t stand to see us doing well. They want to drive us out too?!”
“Mother, what should we do? Maybe… maybe I should fight them!”
Han Shi, who was listening nearby, felt as if her heart were being torn apart. She deeply regretted her earlier arrogance, which had attracted her family’s attention.
Her own mother’s actions, from start to finish, had never taken her into consideration!
Not in the past, and certainly not now.
“I think it’s more than that.”
Mei Erhu walked back in at that moment, his expression grave as he carried the cleaned pots and bowls.
“I just saw people openly stealing from others in the refugee camp outside.”
“Ah? Really? Openly?”
Han Shi’s eyes widened in shock. Hearing this, Grandma Mei glanced at her family’s situation and immediately understood what Mei Erhu meant. She guessed aloud:
“Are you saying the Han family intends to let us be abandoned by the Chen family, then take advantage of our weakened state to seize our grain?”
Just as Mei Qian and Mei Shitou sheathed their knives, they heard Grandma Mei utter these words.
Mei Qian immediately looked toward the conspicuous grain sacks on their donkey.
No wonder.
Mei Qian recalled the reason why Huang Shi had stared so intently at the sacks on their donkey when she first approached their family.
If things really were as her grandmother suspected, everything made sense.
Moreover, it seemed the Han family hadn’t been doing this for just a day or two.
“That’s possible. I was washing dishes by the river at the time, and there was quite a commotion downstream.
I crept closer and hid behind a tree to take a peek. Several burly men were robbing an orphaned mother and her child… Tsk! I think I even saw the Han family’s second son among them.”
As Mei Erhu spoke, he looked up at Han Shi and asked, “Sister-in-law, do you know your brother’s temperament?”
“I… this… this second brother of mine has always been a reckless troublemaker. He’s capable of doing such things.”
Han Shi knew a thing or two about her brother’s character—or lack thereof, having been spoiled rotten by their mother.
As she spoke, Grandma Mei’s disdain became even more apparent.
Truth be told, neither of her sons’ marriages had been to her liking.
Her second son’s wife was arranged by her late husband before he passed away, and this foolish wife of her eldest son—well, he chose her himself.
Ah!
Children are nothing but debts, debts of karma!
For no apparent reason, Mei Qian heard her grandmother sigh, then saw a flash of ruthlessness in Grandma Mei’s eyes. “We can’t let the Han family succeed!”
The opportunity to follow the Chen family’s convoy was something the Lao Mei Family had nearly paid for with their lives!
“But our family only has a few people. We’ve already scolded the Han family, and if we try to fight, they’ll just disappear into the crowd of refugees. What can we do?”
Mei Erhu scratched his head in frustration, but Mei Qian said, “It might be troublesome for our family to handle this alone, but what if we had help from others?”
“How so?”
Mei Qian’s sudden suggestion piqued Grandma Mei’s curiosity.
“However—this matter will require Auntie’s help to find out exactly what the Han family is planning.”
Mei Qian looked at Han Shi, who also seemed unsure, and spoke up.
“Huh?” Han Shi was taken aback. “Me? How do I find out?”
“If the Han family truly harbors such malice toward our family, as Grandma suspects, then we shouldn’t hold back either.”
Mei Qian gave them a warning, and seeing everyone nod in agreement, she continued slowly:
“Right now, what they’re doing to us appears on the surface to be nothing more than a feud between estranged in-laws.
But if we slightly embellish what’s happening on the periphery, some people might start thinking more deeply about it.
The principle of ‘when the lips are gone, the teeth feel the cold’—I believe some here understand it, right?
Today, we are dragged down by the Han family and driven out of the Chen family’s convoy.
Tomorrow, they could be dragged down by some Li family or Zhou family and left to fend for themselves.”
As she spoke, Mei Qian glanced toward the nearby campfires, her expression inscrutable.
Finally, her gaze returned to their own campfire, illuminating the faces of the Lao Mei Family members, and she continued:
“For now, we need to know the Han family’s specific plans and accomplices.”
If our family wants to solve the problem once and for all, then there must be others who, upon hearing about it, would take precautions in advance. They probably also want to use our family’s hands to achieve something, right?
If they intend to use us, simply standing by and watching won’t be acceptable to us.