Last time, Li found a dead green snake in the corner of the kitchen. The green snake's body smelled bad and attracted many insects and rats to eat it. It also bit through the rice and flour bag that Li had hidden in the clay jar.

Li was furious for a while and went to find a barefoot doctor in the village. He asked for a lot of Chinese wormwood, which is used to repel snakes and insects. He crushed it and spread it around the house before he gave up.

Usually, Li is the one who cooks for the Hua family. Li usually doesn't let anyone into her kitchen. There are a lot of rice, oil and noodles hidden in the kitchen. Rice is precious, and Li is reluctant to eat it. Usually, she cooks as much as she wants and doesn't let others interfere.

It has been a busy farming season recently, and Mrs. Li has no time to cook at night. Usually, the busy season ends around seven or eight in the evening. After being busy for so long, Mrs. Li doesn't want to cook, so she eats the pancakes made from the coarse grains left over from the morning.

The cake was rough and astringent, and I couldn't swallow it even with water.

But usually at this time, only Li and Hua Shi could eat the coarse cakes. Hua Shi’s scholar father couldn’t eat them, let alone his four younger brothers and sisters.

Hua Shi mentioned it to Li several times, but it was not until yesterday that she persuaded Li to let her cook in the evening.

In the kitchen, the walls were blackened by cigarette ash and were dim. Only a small window in the wall in front of the stove let in some light. The narrow threshold made the kitchen seem a little stuffy.

Hua Shi had been hungry all day and his stomach was rumbling constantly. He only drank a bowl of porridge with wild vegetables in the morning, which was all digested by noon. Now he was so hungry that his hands and feet were weak.

There was a wooden basin on the stove, with a lot of wilted wild vegetables on top. After the vegetables were separated, a little rice was placed underneath, but the rice was mostly mixed with small stones.

When there was not enough rice, Li would add stones to the rice and cook it with the stones. The rice would be more filling and filling.

Hua Shi felt a headache and her stomach was churning when she saw this.

She drank the gruel mixed with stones once, and suffered from stomach pain for several days due to indigestion.

Hua Shi no longer wants to eat porridge mixed with stones...