Chapter 3: 3. Chapter 3: Hungry (1)

Chapter 3: Hunger (1)

A mud-brick house with a tiled roof, a small courtyard enclosed by a fence, meals consisting of wild vegetable gruel and corn buns, and people who were scrawny, wearing dusty clothes covered in layer upon layer of patches.

Yet, little Shu Yue was fair and tender. The few sets of colorful clothes she wore—and those kept in the cabinet on the kang—though not to her personal taste, were brand new and patch-free. They clearly didn't match the overall setting of this place.

The room she currently lived in should have been occupied by an adult man as well. There were very few traces of a child’s life, as if she had only just moved in; there was no sign of their belongings encroaching on each other’s territory.

Clearly, little Shu Yue hadn't been living in that room for long. It was just unclear whether she was meant to stay here for the long haul or if she was merely being fostered here temporarily.

Shu Yue shook her head, trying to shake off the image in her mind of little Shu Yue in a young man’s arms, struggling and crying, "Bad Daddy, let me go! I want to go home and find my uncle!"

Was that young man her father?

She wanted to go home to find her uncle, not her mother.

She considered her uncle’s house to be her home, but she had been brought here by her biological father. This was her father’s home, and there was no mother here either.

So, perhaps she...

Had no mother?

Shu Yue felt uncertain, but she didn't dwell on deeper matters. She was hungry—incredibly hungry. She was so hungry that her brain lacked the strength to think, and her vision was starting to blur.

Er Ya, scrawny and sallow-skinned, was swaying before her eyes, looking strangely like a roasted suckling pig—golden-brown, glistening with oil, and looking so fragrant it made her mouth water.

Shu Yue was startled back to her senses and hurriedly gulped down two mouthfuls of water from the ladle.

Seeing that Shu Yue had finished drinking, stopped swaying, and was no longer frowning, Er Ya shoved the ladle into her arms. If she didn't run now, when would she?

What if she stayed and got pestered for sweet potatoes? What if the little sister decided to gnaw on her like a sweet potato?

Er Ya knew very well that when she had been starving in the past, dizzy and weak, she had even wanted to gnaw on her own arms.

Er Ya found a basket in the kitchen and dragged it as she ran outside. The basket scraped against the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. Shu Yue hurriedly stepped back, coughing from the grit.

Already dizzy and weak-legged from hunger, she stumbled and nearly fell. The wild vegetable gruel she had forced herself to swallow last night had been so thin she could see the bottom of the bowl; her stomach was long since empty again.

She was hungry now, incredibly hungry, and all she wanted was to eat.

Er Ya had no self-awareness of what she had just done. She reached the door and turned back.

"I'm going to the hillside to dig for wild vegetables. Don't go wandering off. There are things outside that eat children, and they especially like chubby little girls like you—tasty and oily."

Shu Yue: "..."

"Hey, wait..."

You haven't told me where the food is!

Shu Yue watched the person run off quickly, her outstretched hand falling limply. Standing in the empty kitchen, the burning, searing sensation of extreme hunger in her stomach made its presence felt every second.

She pursed her lips and dragged her body around to search.

Unfortunately, the kitchen cabinet was locked, and she couldn't see any sweet potatoes or other grains in the open baskets or crates.

Shu Yue looked down at the ladle she was holding; a small flying insect was swimming happily inside.

With a wooden expression, she pretended she hadn't just seen it, poured the water out, and scooped up another ladle from the water vat. After confirming there was nothing strange in it, she chose an angle where most people wouldn't put their mouths and gulped it down.

Whether it was psychological or something else, she actually felt a little less hungry.

A bitter smile tugged at the corners of Shu Yue’s mouth. Unexpectedly, her mind flashed back to the large half of a wild vegetable bun and the half-bowl of gruel she had left over for Er Ya yesterday at noon.

(End of chapter)