Almost the moment she opened her eyes, Liu Sisi jumped out of bed.
With a casual glance, Di Yelei was nowhere to be seen, and the scent of food wafted from the kitchen, making Liu Sisi feel exceptionally hungry.
She quickly turned to fold the quilt, and the bright red stain on the quilt cover suddenly stunned her.
Wasn’t it said that this body was already pregnant? Why would she still have her period? Could it be that she had a miscarriage last night because she exerted too much force?
Thinking about it, Liu Sisi became worried again.
But the current issue was to solve the inconvenience of her body first.
As Liu Sisi had not prepared for this beforehand, she felt at a loss. Should she use cotton or wrap wood ash in a square headscarf like she had read about before?
Suddenly, she missed the sanitary pads from her previous life.
After Liu Sisi finished tidying herself up, she quietly picked up the dirty quilt cover and slipped out of the bedroom. Once she soaked the dirty quilt cover and stood up, she almost bumped into someone standing behind her.
Di Yelei was standing not far from her, watching her.
Liu Sisi was flustered and confused, did he see the filth on the quilt cover?
She remembered hearing that some men were very particular about not seeing such filthy things and would consider it unlucky. She wondered if that was true.
Di Yelei’s eyes were deep and unfathomable, “I’ve already cooked the food, you go in to eat, I’ll wash the quilt cover for you.”
“No! I mean, it’s not necessary. Haha! That is… washing the quilt cover is a woman’s job. You go in and eat, and I’ll have it washed soon.” Liu Sisi waved her hand in refusal, stuttering.
Di Yelei’s eyes grew darker, but he didn’t say much. He just nodded silently, “Alright, I’ve placed the food on the table. When you finish washing, hurry up to eat. I caught a porcupine last night, so I might as well clean it up myself and eat it instead of taking it to the market to sell it.”
Having said that, Di Yelei turned and went into the kitchen. He soon came out with a porcupine and headed to the backyard.
It seemed that Ye Lei was upset, and Liu Sisi felt a little sad.
After washing the quilt cover, Liu Sisi went to the kitchen to eat. YingEr chatted with Liu Sisi, while she absent-mindedly responded, looking listless.
She had an intuition that she had neglected something, but she couldn’t remember what it was.
Meanwhile, breakfast started at the Di family’s old house.
Today’s breakfast was as usual – a pot of thin porridge where one could count the grains of rice at the bottom of the bowl. Paired with oil-free boiled wild vegetables, it was simply unappetizing to look at.
The most noisy one was Wang’s youngest son, Di Gao, who knew her preferences well as he had been pampered by her since childhood.
He only took one sip before angrily throwing down his chopsticks and crying, “Mom! I want to eat meat, I want to eat meat! Hurry up and get some meat from Third Uncle’s house. Third Uncle is getting stingier, and he doesn’t even give us any game to eat. They must want to starve me to death! Mom, go and get it quickly! I want to eat wild pheasant, I want to eat roasted sparrow, wu wu…”
As the child made a commotion, several other children who had been eating quietly also joined in the clamor. Before long, there was a chorus of crying.
Wang Shi, already accustomed to taking some delicious dishes from the third family branch from time to time, felt itchy and anxious in her heart as if a few cats were scratching inside.
Upon hearing the children’s wailing, her anger surged up, and she suddenly threw down her chopsticks, grabbed her little daughter Di Wei, and started beating her. “I’ll let you cry! I’ll let you howl, howling so much that it unsettles me! You’ve always known only to eat meat, and nothing else! Eat, eat, eat, eat until you die! I’ll beat you to death today…”
With the sounds of the beating and Di Wei’s screams filling the early morning air, it added a touch of “scenery” to Di Family’s old house.
Wang Shi had always favored her son, and her belly did not let her down.
Her eldest son Di Cheng was now sixteen and was a good hand for working in the fields. He was honest and wooden in appearance and did not like to talk. Her daughter Di Min, thirteen years old, was at the age when she was blossoming into womanhood, and her once-flat body was gradually filling out, worrying Wang Shi over the marriage of her two children. Di Wei was Wang Shi’s youngest daughter, and when she was born, Wang Shi was injured and almost lost her life.
According to a fortune teller, Di Wei’s birth sign was said to be detrimental to her mother, which made Wang Shi even more unhappy with her. Now that she was six years old, Wang Shi still either hit or scolded her and often made her take the blame for her beloved Di Gao’s misdeeds.
As Wang Shi was beating her child in one room, Di Ah-bao in the other room also slammed his chopsticks in anger.
“Mom! Look at Second Sister-in-law, beating a child early in the morning. If you know, you’d think the child was disobedient, but if you don’t know, you might think she’s deliberately doing it to show her dissatisfaction with you! Where does she put you, her mother-in-law, in her eyes? And Di Yelei’s side as well. Originally, we had meat in every meal, but she deliberately stirred things up. Now, we don’t even have the meat we should be eating. From last time to now, Di Yelei only sent a few buns over, with just a tiny bit of meat inside, barely enough to fill the gaps in my teeth, let alone satisfy my appetite?”
Di Ah-bao was relentlessly adding fuel to the fire for Wang Shi. However, he forgot that the buns were actually sent by Liu Sisi for Elderly Mr. Di to eat, and he wasn’t even considered in the equation!
Elderly Mr. Di’s original name was Di Defu. His first wife, Dou Shi, gave birth to his eldest son Di Hongyuan, eldest daughter Di Xiaolan, second son Di Gaoyuan and died from massive bleeding during the birth of Di Yelei. Three years later, he remarried Zhao Shi. When Zhao Shi married him, she brought a daughter, who was named Di Ruoning. Zhao Shi was also strong-willed and gave birth to their youngest son, Di Ah-bao, in just two years.
Logically, since Di Yelei was the youngest, Zhao Shi, who had just remarried, should have loved him the most. However, Elderly Mr. Di had always felt that Di Yelei was the one who caused Dou Shi’s death, so naturally, he never treated him kindly. Zhao Shi, being a re-married woman, was naturally good at reading people’s faces and simply went along with it, treating Di Yelei unfairly even more.
At this point, the elder son, Di Hongyuan, had already reached adulthood and resented his father’s remarriage. After the three-year mourning period, he directly went to the capital to take the imperial examination and became a successful scholar all at once, being appointed County Magistrate of Fencheng City, but then disappeared without a trace ever since.
On the contrary, the second son Di Gaoyuan had a sweet mouth since childhood, and his relationship with his biological mother was not as deep since she died when he was only five years old. After Zhao Shi entered the family, she naturally took extra care of the more likeable Di Gaoyuan. Over time, their relationship became even closer than that of biological mother and son.
At this moment, when Wang Shi, Di Gaoyuan’s wife, was beating her granddaughter outside, she, as a grandmother, naturally should stop it.
However, a few days ago, because of the wild pheasant Di Yelei brought home, Wang Shi didn’t show a good face to her half-way mother-in-law, and even spoke rudely, fighting over the pheasant, which left Zhao Shi holding a grudge in her chest.
Now, hearing the commotion outside, she was secretly delighted inside, wishing she could go out and slap Wang Shi a few times to ease her resentment.
Yet, Elderly Mr. Di was sitting right there watching her intently, so she had no choice but to get up and demonstrate her magnanimity.
“Ah-Bao, don’t talk nonsense! You’ll hurt the relationship between you and your brother, who is, after all, a Prefect. It’s right to beat a child who craves food. Otherwise, if they grow up to be greedy, they won’t be able to marry, which would be a problem. You guys go ahead and eat. I’ll go out and have a look.”
Zhao Shi only mentioned Ah-Bao’s second brother being a Prefect and did not mention Wang Shi at all.