After tasting a white flour pancake for the first time, Yuan Si made a grand resolution: she would eat them every single day from now on.
But before she could even start working hard toward her goal, trouble came knocking.
One day, during the busiest part of the wheat harvest, Li Renzhong’s wife’s eyes darted around before she clutched her stomach and stood up.
“Captain, I can’t take it anymore!
I don’t know what’s wrong, but my stomach is twisting into knots.
I need to go home and use the outhouse for a bit.
I’ll be right back!” After saying her piece, she scurried off toward her house in a flash.
“That woman from the Li family…
her stomach is never right, all year round,” a young wife scoffed.
Hearing this, everyone else started to laugh too.
“Isn’t that the truth?
It wouldn’t be her if she didn’t get diarrhea a few times during the wheat or autumn harvest.”
“I just wonder if her stomach acts up when she’s in bed with her husband,” another wife chimed in.
Everyone snickered, understanding the implication.
“Alright, alright, get back to work!
Don’t be learning from people like that,” the team captain said with a frown.
There wasn’t much he could do about having someone like her in the production team.
In that whole family, only Li Renzhong was halfway reliable.
As for their son, he hadn’t even shown his face during the entire wheat harvest.
As for Li Renzhong’s wife, when she ran home, she really did go to the outhouse and squat down.
But as she was squatting there, she kept catching a faint, delicious aroma.
She couldn’t quite place what was cooking, but it smelled a bit like fish and a bit like meat.
She twitched her nose and took a couple of deeper sniffs, then nearly gagged.
This was an outhouse, after all; all she got was a lungful of stench.
She quickly pulled up her pants and, after leaving the outhouse, started sniffing around the courtyard like a dog.
“Mom, what are you doing?” Li Renzhong’s son heard the commotion outside and came to take a look, only to find his mother sniffing at the air.
Li Renzhong’s son was named Li Shitan, because his mother had given birth to him on a stony beach.
The young man was twenty years old and a total good-for-nothing.
He spent all his free time sneaking off to the county seat and was a well-known local hooligan.
“Son, come smell this.
Is that a nice aroma?” Li Renzhong’s wife wasn’t entirely sure herself, so she called her son over to get a second opinion.
Li Shitan actually went over and sniffed the air with his mother.
The two of them, noses twitching, followed the scent to the kitchen on the west side, and their eyes lit up.
The moment Li Renzhong’s wife saw the look on Li Shitan’s face, she knew what he was about to do.
She quickly grabbed him.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Mom, let go of me! Find the original chapter at g.com.
I’m going to the county to report them!
They must be hoarding grain, or maybe they stole it from the production team!
This is undermining the cause of socialism!
They must be severely punished!” Li Shitan was an expert at this sort of thing and had reported plenty of people in the county.
After all, reporting someone didn’t carry any responsibility; it was just a matter of running his mouth.
He enjoyed seeing others suffer.
He was just that kind of despicable person.
“Are you an idiot, boy?
What good would reporting them do us?
Even if people really came and arrested them all, wouldn’t they take the food away too?
What’s in it for you?” Li Renzhong’s wife rolled her eyes.
She wasn’t about to do something that harmed others without benefiting herself.
“Tch.
Mom, your thinking is all wrong.
They’re parasites on society!
We must…” Li Shitan started shaking his head, about to lecture his mother on some grand principle.
“Enough with your ‘we must’ this and ‘we must’ that!
I don’t understand any of those grand principles.
All I know is that I haven’t smelled or tasted meat in months.” Li Renzhong’s wife waved her hand dismissively, cutting her son off.
‘Why is he pulling that nonsense at home?’
Li Shitan smacked his lips.
It really had been a long time since he’d eaten anything good, and his mouth was watering.
“So what’s your plan?”
“The plan?
To make them cough up the goods, of course,” Li Renzhong’s wife said with smug confidence.
Li Shitan nodded.
That would be ideal.
“How about I pay them a visit?
A little intimidation should be enough to make them hand the food over.” He used to do this all the time, but nowadays, nobody in the county had anything good to eat, which was why he hadn’t had any meat in so long.
Li Renzhong’s wife considered it for a moment, then disagreed.
“We’re all neighbors here.
It wouldn’t look right for you to just march over there.” She had been Zuo Daya’s neighbor for decades and knew her personality well.
She was genuinely afraid that her son would not only fail to get anything but also get himself thrown out by Zuo Daya.
“What’s not right about it?
If her conscience is clear, we wouldn’t be able to pin anything on her anyway.” Li Shitan didn’t bother with such considerations.
He had always seen himself as second to none; if anyone defied him, he’d make their life miserable until they submitted.
“Let’s try something else.
I know Zuo Daya.
If you go over there without any proof, she’ll definitely turn the tables on you and throw you out.”
Li Shitan suddenly recalled the incident from a few years ago when Zuo Daya had led a group of villagers to storm her eldest daughter’s in-laws’ house.
He had tagged along to watch the spectacle.
Remembering the scene now, he did feel a shiver of apprehension.
But he wasn’t willing to let a piece of meat right under his nose just get away.
Seeing her son’s conflicted expression, Li Renzhong’s wife smiled.
“Look at you, so spineless.
Don’t worry, the meat isn’t going anywhere.
What good is Zuo Daya’s sharp tongue and cunning?
She’s not home at this hour.
We won’t go after her.
That little brat of hers is definitely home alone.
I’ll go talk to her Little Si.
You think I can’t pry open a little girl’s mouth?” Li Renzhong’s wife said smugly.
‘The Li family’s Little Si doesn’t talk much.
That old hag Zuo Daya protects her so well that the girl seems a bit daft.
She’s timid and cries at the drop of a hat.
If I go over, I can probably trick her into spilling everything with just a few words.
Then, the best-case scenario is I find where they’re hiding the meat.
Once I have her caught red-handed, no matter how capable Zuo Daya is, she’ll have to bow down to me.
As long as I have this leverage, not only can I get some meat, but I can also use it to blackmail that old hag.
We’ll see if she still dares to act all high and mighty in front of me again.’
“Hey, that’s a great idea!
Isn’t that little girl always looking at the ground, scared of everyone?
Mom, you don’t even have to go.
I’ll go over right now and catch them in the act.” Li Shitan rubbed his hands together, ready for action.
He felt no shame at all about his plan to intimidate a six-year-old child.
“No need, you stay here for now.
You think I can’t handle one little girl?
Just stay home and listen for any noise from over there.
If there’s a lot of stuff, I’ll call you to help carry it.” Li Renzhong’s wife was lost in a beautiful fantasy, already imagining all of Zuo Daya’s treasures as her own.
‘Come to think of it, Mom’s right,’ Li Shitan thought.
‘It’s just one little girl.
Mom is more than enough.
No need to use a butcher’s knife to kill a chicken.’
“Alright then.
I’ll wait in the courtyard and listen.
Just give me a loud shout if you need me.”
And just like that, the mother and son finalized their plan to rob their neighbors.