There are also cornbread buns, why weren't they brought out?

"We'll eat the cornbread tomorrow morning."

"Half a bowl of porridge is enough for dinner."

Ye Yunniang felt helpless and couldn't understand why her two children were being so cautious.

“Don’t be so stingy with yourselves. There’s food at home,” Ye Yunniang explained again.

"I know there are, but my classmates,"

"Don't even mention your classmates. Besides, you're not allowed to go to school tomorrow." Ye Yunniang was really fed up with school now; she wasn't studying properly. She was always comparing who was having a miserable time.

Seeing how thin the two of them had become, with no flesh left in their faces, Ye Yunniang felt both heartache and helplessness.

“Everyone in your school is starving. I don’t believe there isn’t a single person who has eaten their fill.”

"Yes. Jin Dou and Jin Gao are eating well every day." Thinking of the meat buns that Jin Dou shared with her, she couldn't help but swallow.

"Du Cheng ate well too."

“You two are already eating terribly. Every day it’s just wilted vegetables, and the cornbread is so dry it hurts your throat. The porridge is so thin you can see your reflection. Other families have no food and have to eat like this. We have food, so why do you two want us to suffer like this?” Ye Yunniang really didn’t understand Li Pan and Li An’s thinking.

“Mother, we need to sleep at night. Eating more would be a waste,” Li An explained.

“Well, we’re asleep, so we’re not hungry anymore,” Li Pan continued.

"Not hungry, huh? Then don't eat at all." Ye Yunniang said angrily, picking up the porridge in front of the two of them and placing it on the stove. She turned around, sat down, and lowered her head to drink the porridge in her own bowl.

After finishing her drink in a few gulps, Ye Yunniang rinsed the bowl, took the hot water from the stove back to her room to wash up, ignoring her two sons sitting in the kitchen.

After washing up, I lay down to rest.

Knock, knock, knock... The sound of knocking on the door rang out.

"Mom, can we come in?" Although they asked, the two children had already entered the house.

"Mother, we were wrong," Li An apologized.

"Mother, please don't ignore us. We were wrong." Li Pan came to the bedside and held Ye Yunniang's hand.

Ye Yunniang withdrew her hand and turned to face inward.

Li Pan turned to look at Li An. What should she do?

Li An walked to the bedside, took off his shoes, rolled over, and knelt down in front of Ye Yunniang.

"mother."

Ye Yunniang didn't want to look at Li An, so she turned around and faced Li Pan, who was lying face down.

She shrank down and pulled the blanket over her head.

Li Pan and Li An exchanged a glance and then pushed their way in.

"You two get out."

Li Pan and Li An said in unison, "No, we want to sleep with Mother tonight."

"I don't want to sleep with either of you. Get out."

"We won't go out. Mother, please don't send us away."

"Mother, we were wrong. Please forgive us."

"Mother, we will listen to you from now on."

"Yes, I'll listen to Mother."

"You really will listen to me?"

"Yes, listen."

"Go out first."

"don't want."

"You just said you'd listen to me, and now you're not listening?"

Ang Lee and Pan Lee hesitated before coming out.

Ye Yunniang sat up and leaned against the headboard, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Tell me, why are you so hard on yourself?"

Li Pan and Li An exchanged a glance and began to explain the whole story.

One day on their way home from school, Xu Dalei and Xu Erlei stopped the two boys and apologized to them, saying they shouldn't have distanced themselves from them.

After all, they had been playing together for several years, and Li Pan and Li An were both a little reluctant to part ways.

He agreed to be with the Xu brothers, and consciously kept it a secret from Ye Yunniang.

Li Pan and Li An reunited with the Xu brothers, and together with the two Jin brothers, the six of them spent every day playing together and having lunch together.

The Du family school had a canteen, but due to the drought, food was unavailable, so the canteen did not provide meals.

Students bring their own lunch, and the cafeteria provides heating services.

Bringing lunches reveals the different ways each family eats.

Previously, both the Li and Jin families were willing to raise their children. The children from both families would bring their own meals, including both meat and vegetables, and share them. Everyone thought it was quite good.

I ate with the Xu brothers, noticing the sweet potatoes and cornbread in their lunchboxes. Then I listened to them talk about the meals of their classmates.

Only then did the four realize that their meal was good and somewhat conspicuous.

When they eat together, the Xu brothers eat poorly while they eat well. If they share, they're at a disadvantage. Especially since Xu Erlei is a big mouth and always talks about it to others.

When it's time to eat, other people will squeeze over and say they want to share.

Li Pan and Li An couldn't stand it; the food their mother had carefully prepared for them was snatched away by their classmates.

They told Ye Yunniang to make cornbread instead and take it to the school. At the same time, they told others that their family was running low on food.

Their actions deterred some people from staring at them. However, some shameless individuals still approached them during meals, brazenly begging and even resorting to physical force.

For this, Li Pan and Li An even got into fights. However, the teacher guarding the school stopped them and punished them by making each of them copy 50 large characters. In the words of Master Du, they had more energy for fighting than for going hungry.

Li Pan and Li An didn't dare to fight, but they were unhappy to see those shameless people still trying to freeload off their food. In the end, Li An suggested a solution: if they couldn't fight, they could join in.

They have to be poorer than others and more shameless to freeload off other people's meals.

This trick worked, and no one asked them to dine together anymore.

Some people couldn't stand the two's shamelessness and said privately that they were acting on Xu Erlei's orders.

It can't be said that he instructed them; it's just that Xu Erlei said it in front of them. The Li family runs a shop and has money, and there are only two widowed women, a mother and daughter-in-law, living in the house.

Even if you offend Li Pan and Li An, you don't need to worry about getting into trouble.

"We went to confront Xu Erlei. He initially tried to deny it, but after I told him the time and place, he admitted it." Li Pan was still a little upset as she said this. Xu Erlei was Li Pan's best friend in her memory.

"Er Lei, why do you say that?" Ye Yunniang asked, puzzled.

"They said it was revenge against us. They said we betrayed him by hanging out with Jin Dou." Li An recalled Xu Erlei's words.

"It was clearly his mother who chased us away and wouldn't let us play together." Li Pan thought of how Liang Maimiao had previously forbidden the Xu family from doing so and had spoken rudely to them. She felt wronged and aggrieved.

"Don't play with those two anymore," Ye Yunniang frowned.

“We don’t have any contact now. But they keep talking about our family,” Li Pan couldn’t continue.

"What are you talking about regarding our family?"

"They said my brother and I eat poorly every day, but there's always meat at home, and that you're being unfair to your mother."

They said they heard a man's voice in the house, implying that their mother had a lover. They also said they heard crying in the house and suspected that their grandmother was giving birth. Li An continued, recounting everything the Xu brothers had said.

"An'an, why did you tell everything?" Li Pan asked anxiously.

"How did he hear the crying?" Ye Yunniang wondered.

“When he came to play at our house before, he heard crying coming from Grandma’s room when he went to the backyard,” Li Pan explained, then added with some worry, “Mom, what if they find out about Grandma and Auntie’s relationship?”

"You don't need to worry about your grandmother's affairs," Ye Yunniang reassured the two.

"If Grandma keeps a lover and people find out, what will happen to my aunt?"