Li Second found himself cornered and needed a ladder handed over. Slick Li Fourth wasn’t actually feeling sorry for him—he just couldn’t bear seeing his older brother lose face, so he passed it along.
“Sister-in-law, don’t you have a clue how you usually behave? Mother often goes out complaining to the aunts because of you,” Li Fourth half-joked, half-slandered, speaking in ways designed to make people doubt Ye Xiaoxiao.
Indeed, Li Mother constantly went around tarnishing Ye Xiaoxiao’s reputation, as if the girl could drown in a flood of gossip. Anything could be made up—rumors when something happened, lies when nothing did.
Li Fourth dared speak like this because Ye Xiaoxiao had been abused for years—she wouldn’t dare air the family’s dirty laundry. He was betting she wouldn’t expose them.
Ye Xiaoxiao barely twitched a corner of her mouth. Li Fourth was still stuck in the past—these past two days, her mother and the daughters-in-law had wasted their complaints on him.
“All right, then tell me—how am I usually?” Ye Xiaoxiao countered.
The Li family really was full of talent. They could have written novels with this imagination.
“Do I even need to think? Isn’t it obvious?” Li Fourth’s silver tongue faltered; improvising on the spot would only open loopholes.
“You can’t say clearly because you know if you fabricate it, the neighbors who know the truth will stand up and slap your lies in your face. Since you won’t say it, I will. Every morning, the Li family still lingered in bed while my mother-in-law came to the small room, knocking on my door, calling me to make breakfast. My Xiao Anguo, seeing no one helping me, got up early to assist.
During the day, we went to work, came back to cook, and I washed the dishes last. I was the busiest, working the latest!” Ye Xiaoxiao spoke calmly, as if recounting someone else’s story. She didn’t fear airing the family’s shame; the embarrassment belonged to the Lis, not her. She would say anything without hesitation.
“Villagers, do you know what my children and I ate? Li Second, Li Fourth—you saw it every day but pretended not to. My children and I drank plain broth. The porridge was served, but the watery broth with barely two grains of rice was our food. Tender vegetable leaves were picked by my kids—not for eating. We could only eat old stems. If vegetables were this bad, what about meat? We didn’t even get a single speck of minced meat.
Of course, Tianyou coming back was an exception; then we could eat a bite of vegetables.
Your whole family was acting. My mother-in-law even piled vegetables in our bowls first so there’d be no space for meat. Normally, you could all eat at the table. My children and I couldn’t—we only cooked. When I put a dish on the table, it was immediately snatched clean, leaving nothing behind. If I tried to save some in the kitchen for the children, mother-in-law would swing the firewood stick, hitting me and the kids, calling us reincarnated starving ghosts. Your family makes the local landlords look humane; even landlords wouldn’t treat people this harshly.” Ye Xiaoxiao spoke plainly, like narrating someone else’s life.
The scene fell into eerie silence. Everyone’s worldview was crushed, scattered beyond repair.
No one had imagined this.
Even grown men felt choked by it.
…
Xiao Third was clever, smart enough to know he couldn’t let his mother perform a solo. Rubbing his eyes, he hugged her leg, crying: “Mom, I’m not afraid of plain broth, but Grandma said we have to wait until they’ve eaten. She says I’m a reincarnated starving ghost. Why doesn’t she just die? If she died, we’d save a meal. She even hits me, calls me despicable bones—I can’t die! Mom, I’m scared!”
Xiao Fourth finally realized the situation, though still lacking a bit of sense. She rolled up her sleeves and Xiao Third’s, saying, “Uncles, we often get beaten by Grandma, aunts, cousins. Grandma says even plain broth can fill us; we can only eat after cousins are full. If cousins need another bowl of rice water, we can only add water from the kitchen, drinking it with no rice grains. Mom, I just want half a bowl of broth—we don’t dare drink more. Half a bowl is enough. The broth has no taste of rice at all. We’re so pitiful.”
The crowd gasped. They saw the children’s arms, marked with old and new wounds. No one had imagined anyone could be this cruel.
Xiao Anguo and Xiao Second also rolled up their sleeves. Without exception, every child’s arm bore fresh wounds on top of old ones. Even grown men felt a pang of heartache.
The fickle observers finally stopped swaying. These were simple, honest rural men—they had eyes and weren’t blind.
Patched-up clothes, straw sandals exposing toes—you might say Ye Xiaoxiao and the kids were manipulative, trying to trap the Li family. But the countless wounds, old and new—surely they hadn’t inflicted them on themselves.
Li Father’s cheeks flushed red with anger. He hadn’t expected Ye Xiaoxiao to be so daring.
The villagers no longer looked at the Li family with suspicion but with disgust.
What kind of hatred, what kind of vengeance, could drive someone to treat a few children this way?
The old secretary and team leader had heard rumors but never imagined the truth was so brutal. Li Tianyou risked his life outside to earn money, which went to a house full of “good family members” who abused his wife and children, giving them plain broth, beating them frequently. Only a person with a heart of stone could be so cruel.