Ye Zhiguo looked at Grandma Ye and said helplessly, "Mom, please cook more meat dishes in the future. Lan'er and Xiaohua are my children now, and they should be treated the same as Qingqing and Xiaotong. Our family is not so poor that we can't afford to eat meat."

Grandma Ye snorted and glared at Ye Lan and her brother, but she didn't object anymore.

She was good at assessing the situation and knew that Ye Zhiguo was already angry. If she continued to make trouble and angered her son, Ye Zhiguo might send her back to the countryside. Humph... there would be plenty of opportunities to deal with that slut's family in the future!

"You won't get poor from eating or dressing, but you'll be poor if you don't save money. Life isn't that easy. Even Zhou the Rich Man in our village couldn't eat meat every day. He could only eat meat on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month and on holidays..."

Although the old lady compromised, she was still unwilling to give up. She kept muttering to herself and occasionally glared at Ye Lan and her brother.

Zhou the Rich Man was the richest man in Ye Zhiguo's hometown, and he was also a figure that the old lady often mentioned, because whenever the old lady talked about making a living, she would always use Zhou the Rich Man as an analogy.

It's said that Zhou the Rich Man's family would eat a piece of fermented bean curd for a week, and that on his birthday he would only have a plate of stir-fried eggs with chives. Even at sixty, he still had to work in the fields himself, even though half of the land in the whole village belonged to Zhou the Rich Man.

In short... in the old lady's eyes, Zhou the Rich Man was the epitome of self-made success, hard work, diligence, and thrift, and also the old lady's lifelong idol.

The three Ye brothers had heard the most about this Zhou the Rich Man since they were young. He was also the idol that the old lady forced upon them, telling them to learn from Zhou the Rich Man.

However, Ye Zhiguo had a clear disagreement with the old lady on this point.

He thought Zhou the rich was incredibly stupid. He had amassed so much wealth, yet he lived a life of poverty, even reluctant to eat meat. In the end, he couldn't leave any land to his descendants; it was all distributed to the villagers. Zhou the rich himself could only sleep in the cattle pen, and his descendants couldn't even find wives.

Therefore... Ye Zhiguo believes that money must be earned, and enjoyment is also necessary.

"Mom, when Zhou the Rich was rich, he didn't eat. Later, when he wanted to eat, he couldn't afford it and couldn't even fill his stomach. His descendants haven't turned their lives around yet. Do you think he lived a miserable life?" Ye Zhiguo retorted with a smile.

The old lady was stunned for a long time, her face flushed with embarrassment, and she said angrily, "That wasn't back then...who knew there would be a land reform."

"Who can predict the future? If Zhou the Rich had been eating meat and wearing gold and silver every day back then, even if he had fallen on hard times, at least he would have enjoyed life, right? But what happened... all the wealth he earned by eating vegetables and tofu every day went to someone else, and my family even got two acres of land!"

Ye Zhiguo found it increasingly ridiculous. He had worked hard all his life, only to end up benefiting others. He would never do something so stupid!

The old lady choked half to death, her triangular eyes glaring incessantly. Luckily it was her son; if it had been someone else, the old lady would have scolded them so badly they wouldn't dare leave the house for three days.

After Ye Zhiguo made things easier, the atmosphere became much more relaxed. Shen Yanhong quickly stir-fried several plates of meat and vegetables and brought them out. The old lady glared at her fiercely again, her heart aching as if being torn apart, but she still gritted her teeth and didn't say anything.

Even her son was complaining, but she had to put up with it.

Although the old lady didn't say it, her actions revealed her dissatisfaction. She kept putting shredded meat from the dish into Ye Tong and Ye Qingqing's bowls and told them to eat faster.

Shen Yanhong gritted her teeth and gave Ye Lan and her brother a wink. The siblings understood immediately and reached for their chopsticks, even faster than the old lady, scrambling to eat the meat.

After several days of abstinence, not only Ye Hua, a carnivore, but even Ye Lan couldn't stand it anymore and just wanted to eat more meat.