Chapter 9 Where Did the Grain Coupons Go?

In the hospital

"—You two, come here!"

After arranging the furniture, Jiang Anchao stood in the courtyard with a stern expression.

He put Zhizhi down from his arms and told her to go back inside first.

Sang Zhizhi knew that her father was about to "interrogate" her and didn't want her to see it, so she had no choice but to obediently walk into the house with her short legs.

She hid behind the door, quietly observing the situation in the yard.

The brothers were seen standing in a row as punishment.

The second brother looked ashamed, his stomach rumbling loudly.

The older brother stubbornly refused to admit his mistake.

"You've grown wings and learned to run away from home, huh? Who started this?"

Gan Su's voice was stubborn, "This has nothing to do with my brother. If you want to hit someone, hit me."

"Hit you? I'd hurt my hand just trying to hit you!"

Jiang Anchao's face turned cold. "If I hadn't run into you on the way, where would you have taken your younger siblings? We're almost at the train station. What? Are you planning to hitch a ride on a train south to work, or are you planning to go to the Northeast to revitalize the land?!"

The three kids had already run to the edge of the bridge. The bridge was old and in disrepair, and there were no guardrails around it. He didn't even want to think about how dangerous it would be if they were pulling and tugging at each other and fell in.

He, on the other hand, only cared about being beaten and showed no intention of admitting his mistake.

Jiang Anchao unbuckled his belt and asked him, "Do you know you're wrong?"

The eldest son didn't say a word, but simply stretched out his hand, signaling his father to stop talking nonsense and start hitting.

After finishing his meal, he still had to go to the stove to find any leftover cornbread for his younger brother.

Jiang Anchao felt a headache coming on just looking at his stubborn son, and his temper flared up as well.

"Do you think I'm being reluctant to hit you? Huh! How old are you? You run away from home at the slightest provocation. I have to give you a beating today, so get over here!"

The younger brother clung tightly to his older brother, almost crying from fright.

"elder brother... ..."

Sang Zhizhi saw everything, twisting the hem of her clothes with her little hands, her heart filled with worry.

As a child, she shouldn't stop her father from disciplining the child.

Moreover, today's events were caused by them, and if she were to come out, she would be suspected of stirring up trouble.

But Dad is in a bad mood, and it wouldn't be good if he actually started hitting him.

well!

Let's give it our all!

"dad!"

The little cub, fluffy like a ball of fur, ran over and successfully stopped its father from raising the belt.

"Mom said the food will get cold if we don't eat it now. We should eat our fill before we start hitting the dog, so we'll have the energy to hit it!"

The childish remark neither exonerated the eldest son and fueled the father's anger, nor undermined the father's authority.

Both sides were given a way out, and the conflict was successfully eased.

Jiang Anchao originally had no intention of fighting; his intentions were mostly bluff. However, this brat forced him into it.

Zhenwei hugged his brother, sobbing and wailing, "That's right, brother, let's eat first, we can't starve to death!"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Anchao nearly slipped.

In this little brat's mind, how heartless must his father be?

Could someone really beat their son to death?

He went back into the house with a livid face. "Eat! I'll settle the score with you later!"

Zhizhi quickly winked at her second brother.

Zhenwei dragged the young boss into the mess by pulling strings.

Deng Qiu had already set the table. "It'll get cold if you don't eat now. Sit down and eat."

Jiang Gansu sat down around the table, but showed no intention of touching his chopsticks.

Jiang Anchao picked up the cornbread, his tone curt, "What? Do I have to treat you?"

Zhenwei looked at the table full of hot food and almost cried with envy.

The pumpkin and millet porridge was cooked until soft, sticky, and sweet. The corn cakes were made by sticking them to the side of the pan, with a golden-brown edge. Just by looking at them, you could tell they would be chewy. There was also a fried egg on the plate, along with a small plate of pickled vegetables.

Although it was just ordinary home-cooked food, Zhenwei had never had such a sumptuous breakfast before.

He grabbed a tortilla and took a bite, his eyes shining as he chewed.

"Brother! There's flour in there!"

He had just swallowed when he remembered that his older brother hadn't eaten in a long time either, and that his brother had shared half of his cornbread with him last night.

Zhenwei quickly handed the cornbread to his brother.

"Brother, eat up, it smells delicious!"

Jiang Gansu turned his head away; he would never eat the food this woman cooked!

Sigh, my older brother has such a bad temper.

They're so hard to coax...

Sang Zhizhi deliberately provoked him, "Big brother, if you don't want to eat, then don't. Anyway, it's using your family's food coupons. If you save it and don't eat it, then I'll eat it all! I'll eat up all your family's food!"

As she spoke, she immediately snatched the tortilla from Zhenwei's hand and pounced on it like an evil fleece tiger.

Jiang Zhenwei pouted, looking aggrieved. "...That was for my brother."

The second son is a complete idiot. Even Jiang Gansu could see through the provocation, but he was still babbling on and on.

Jiang Gansu was initially reluctant to take the bait, but Zhizhi ate faster and faster, and it looked like she was about to grab a second cornbread.

The eldest son, feeling sorry for the family's food supplies, forgot about his anger and grabbed the cornbread from the basket, wolfing it down. When he found it too dry, he ate the millet porridge instead.

He was afraid that if he ate too slowly, the mother and daughter would benefit from it.

Before long, he finished off two or three cornbreads and a whole bowl of porridge.

Seeing this, Jiang Anchao couldn't help but ask, "Are you starving? Haven't you ever had a full meal?"

He asked his neighbor, Sister Liu Qing, to take care of the two brothers. She gave them a lot of food coupons and wages every month, so why were they still so hungry?

"It's no wonder the kids eat so much; we've even run out of cornmeal at home."

Deng Qiu cooked this morning, and it was only with great difficulty that she found these ingredients. "I'll go to the supply and marketing cooperative later and buy some more."

"I gave Sister Liu fifty catties of grain coupons, and she ate them all?"

Zhenwei swallowed the last bite of the pancake and said carelessly, "She said that one pound of flour can only make half a pound of cornbread. My brother and I each only have one cornbread for dinner. When we're hungry, we can only drink cold water. We still don't have anything to eat by the end of the month."

As he spoke, he placed a fried egg on his older brother's plate.

"Brother, try this, it's delicious!"

Aunt Liu usually doesn't give them eggs, but this is very nutritious. My brother will definitely be able to take a beating after eating it!

Zhizhi counted on her fingers for a long time, then tilted her head and asked her stepmother, "How can a pound of flour only amount to half a pound of cornbread? Aunt Liu, did you never go to school and can't count?"

The child's innocent question only made Jiang Anchao's expression more serious.

Suddenly, Jiang Gansu coughed violently, and uncontrollably vomited the egg he was eating onto the table.

But the egg pieces that came out were stained with blood.

This sudden turn of events terrified everyone. Deng Qiu quickly stood up and stepped forward, "What happened? Quick, vomit it up so Auntie can see!"

The eldest brother, his face contorted in pain, reached into his throat and quickly pulled half a bloody needle from his mouth!

Out of instinct, Sang Zhizhi reached out her little hand and pressed Jiang Gansu's head down.

"Don't tilt your head back, you might choke!"

As she spoke, she picked up the water glass on the table and rinsed Gan Su's mouth until all the food residue was cleaned out before letting him put a towel in his mouth.

Deng Qiu was extremely anxious. "Where is the nearest clinic? We need to take the child there right away!"

Jiang Gansu suddenly pushed her away, his eyes turning unusually fierce as he glared at Deng Qiu.

Standing there dumbfounded, Zhenwei saw the needle tip, and a long-forgotten fear surged back into his heart.

He stood in front of his elder brother and roared at Deng Qiu, "You wicked woman! No wonder my brother wanted to get rid of you! You even used needles to harm us!"