Xia Juhua looked at Wang Caifeng seriously this time: "What's wrong with your brain? Why don't you have any brains at all? There are five adults and one child in our family. Is the food we earn from work points really not enough to eat or what? You are reluctant to make dry food?"

"Mother knows that you are thinking about Hongmei not having food to eat this year, but people who don't know will surely say that you, as a sister-in-law, are making things difficult for your new brother's wife. If mother had not agreed to eat porridge in the future, your brother's wife would have resented you in her heart. I'm afraid that she will be like your fourth aunt, who always gossips when she goes out."

Xia Juhua spoke with great understanding and her tone was full of disappointment towards her eldest daughter-in-law. Her words also hinted at her care for her. Anyone who heard her would say that this was a good mother-in-law who taught her daughter-in-law behind the scenes and did not let her lose face in front of her sisters-in-law.

Wang Caifeng couldn't raise her head after hearing what Xia Juhua said: "Mom, I really didn't think that much."

Xia Juhua heard that Wang Caifeng had stopped making excuses, and her tone became more distant: "Didn't Zhiquan tell you why your father-in-law died? Since you got married, I have never denied you enough to eat, nor have I allowed you to eat two meals a day with a man."

Wang Caifeng was speechless. There were families in the village where the daughters-in-law ate leftovers, and there were quite a few of them. However, the Liu family always ate the same meals, which made her forget that in the countryside at that time, the married daughters-in-law worked the most and ate the least.

Now that Xia Juhua reminded her, she thought of this fact again, her face flushed: "Mom, I know I was wrong. I will apologize to Hongmei when she comes back from the fields. We will still eat dry food for lunch tomorrow."

"No need to eat dry food." Seeing that she bowed her head sincerely, Xia Juhua's tone turned cold: "What you said is not without reason. There is one more person in the family, and the food is still the same. We have to save it. Fortunately, there is no heavy work in winter, so we can get by with porridge."

"But," Xia Juhua's face became more serious, "You have to apologize to Hongmei. Because even if we have porridge for lunch, it's not your call. I'm still the head of this family."

Anyway, Wang Caifeng was the one who caused the trouble, so Xia Juhua didn't have to be the bad guy. As for whether what she just said would make Wang Caifeng have a problem with Sun Hongmei, Xia Juhua didn't care - in her previous life, she wanted the two daughters-in-law to get along harmoniously. But they were harmonious on the surface, and their hearts were set on her.

Xia Juhua couldn't figure it out. What on earth was Wang Caifeng thinking, drinking liquid in the middle of the day? Did she forget that she was pregnant? After drinking it for a few days, she knew what was wrong.

Xia Juhua always remembered that when she first missed Liu Zhiquan, it was not long after the liberation, and the whole nation had to support the neighboring country to fight the invaders. Ping'an Village, located in the plain, had no rice left except for seeds and grains. The whole village dug wild vegetables everywhere to fill their stomachs every day, and when they were hungry, they wanted to stuff the yellow soil into their mouths.

Now Wang Caifeng is also pregnant. Not to mention that she doesn't have to take in the milk powder and other things that her grandchildren and their wives did during pregnancy, but you have to reduce the amount of rice you eat yourself. Aren't you trying to steal a chicken while losing the rice?

Wang Caifeng was shocked when she heard that she would have to eat porridge at noon. She then remembered that she was pregnant. The adults could bear to eat porridge every day, but her stomach couldn't bear it. When she was pregnant with Liu Baoguo, her mother-in-law always tried to cook something for her. She could even eat an egg every ten days or eight days. Therefore, Liu Baoguo was well-nourished in the womb and weighed six and a half kilograms when he was born.

I'm afraid that I won't be able to take good care of the baby in my belly. What can I do to make my mother-in-law calm down and stop being so cruel to me?

Unexpectedly, Xia Juhua was still cruel behind him: "Give me the key to the warehouse later, and I will prepare all the food for you to cook in the future, so that you won't say too much and she won't say too little."

Wang Caifeng was upset that her mother-in-law took the opportunity to take back the key to the warehouse, but she had no reason to refuse, so she had to hand the key to Xia Juhua in a low voice. Xia Juhua had already fried a small bowl of sugar-coated peanuts, and there was still a small bowl without sugar-coated peanuts.

"Mom, let me help you coat these with icing sugar." Wang Caifeng had never learned how to coat peanuts with icing sugar when she was at her mother's house, so she wanted to take this opportunity to learn - her mother-in-law was a good cook, and the peanuts she cooked with the same coarse grains tasted better than hers.

Unexpectedly, Xia Juhua shook her head and said, "This doesn't need to be frosted, I have other uses for it." After that, she calmly put away the key, poured the half bowl of peanuts that were almost cooled down onto the chopping board, crushed them vigorously, and then rolled them back and forth with a rolling pin.

Wang Caifeng, who believed that she was in the stage of "making up for her crime with merit", watched her mother-in-law's skillful movements, smelled the aroma of the crushed fried peanuts, swallowed hard, and then heard Liu Baoguo's crying after waking up in the house. She had to leave the kitchen and go back to serve the little ancestor.

By the time Liu Baoguo was cleaned up, Xia Juhua's place was also cleaned up. There was not a single peanut left in the kitchen except for the lingering aroma of roasted peanuts in the air.

Wang Caifeng sniffed and thought that her mother-in-law was really getting stingy. She fried so many peanuts and didn't even let her taste any of them. She said she was giving them to her cousin, but she wouldn't know how many I tasted.

Thinking this way, Liu Baoguo was still hungry, so she had to make some rice porridge for him. Taking out the rice porridge, Wang Caifeng couldn't help but think of the benefits of Xia Juhua. Nowadays, every family is short of food and drink. When other people's children grow up to one year old, they eat three meals with the adults. Liu Baoguo doesn't have special rice porridge to eat.

This rice porridge is made by grinding the white flour distributed by my mother-in-law from the rice obtained by digging holes in the house and stealing, and then stir-frying it over low heat until it is fragrant. Whenever Liu Baoguo feels hungry before mealtime, he just boils some water and pours it over it. It is convenient and the children love it.

When Wang Caifeng first received the rice porridge, she thought her mother-in-law was making a big deal out of nothing - no one in the village would take care of their children as carefully as her mother-in-law did. After she talked to Liu Zhiquan, she found out the reason: since her father-in-law passed away because he had nothing to eat, her mother-in-law had paid close attention to the family's food. Even though she had just separated from the old Liu family, her mother-in-law would rather not make new clothes for the family for a few years, but she would try her best to fill the family's stomachs with rice porridge.

Wang Caifeng often compared this with other daughters-in-law who were raising children, and received many envious looks. Now she prepared rice porridge for Liu Baoguo, and thinking of her mother-in-law's kindness, Wang Caifeng's face was smiling again.

Seeing her bring in the rice porridge, Xia Juhua let Liu Baoguo play on the kang, and she took out the finely ground peanuts that she had just ground from the cupboard, scooped half a spoonful of it into the rice porridge. The aroma of the rice porridge was mixed with the familiar aroma of peanuts. Liu Baoguo was already drooling and kept calling grandma.

"Mom, your idea is really good." Wang Caifeng sincerely admired her mother-in-law. Xia Juhua pretended not to hear, handed the bowl back to her and asked her to feed Liu Baoguo, and then started to make the rest of the quilt.

When Liu Zhiquan and his brother came back from the grain-carrying team, it was already dark, and the whole family was waiting for them to have dinner. Liu Zhiquan said in a naive voice, "Mom, don't wait for us tomorrow. Uncle San said that we can come back on time today. If the task is heavy in the future, we may not be able to come back at any time."

That's true, but Xia Juhua herself wouldn't say that. Liu Zhishuang looked at the porridge on the table and wondered, "Mom, why are you just drinking porridge?"

Sun Hongmei was very happy to hear this, and she spoke faster: "My sister-in-law said that she wanted to save food for the family. During the winter, we had porridge three times a day."

Liu Zhishuang looked at Wang Caifeng, then at Liu Zhiquan who had already picked up the bowl, and after thinking about it, he also picked up the bowl and said, "Mom, let's eat."

Xia Juhua just couldn't stand Sun Hongmei's smug look. Besides, she had already taught Wang Caifeng a lesson in the afternoon, and Wang Caifeng apologized to Sun Hongmei as soon as she got off work. But she was still so persistent. Xia Juhua felt that Sun Hongmei's illness from her previous life had recurred.

"Caifeng made lunch herself. I didn't know about it at first. But later I felt that what she said made sense. When the production team distributed rations, Hongmei hadn't come home yet, so she didn't get any rations. With one more person to feed at home, we naturally had to save on what we should save."

"I also asked Hongmei at that time, and she thought it was good to eat like this. But don't worry, you will do the heavy work tomorrow morning, so you can eat cakes. We at home can just drink the porridge." Don't pick yourself so clean, everyone at home has to eat sparingly because of you.

Liu Zhiquan glared at Wang Caifeng fiercely and said, "Mom, don't listen to her nonsense. She is just a shallow-minded person." Then he yelled at Wang Caifeng, "Mom is the head of the family. You have to eat whatever she says. Why are you making the decision?"

Xia Juhua was very happy when she heard this. In her previous life, her eldest son always thought that his wife was perfect and everything she said was right, and he never spoke in favor of his mother. Today, he even directly said that Wang Caifeng was shallow, and Xia Juhua thought it made sense.

Wang Caifeng was exposed by Sun Hongmei in person, her face was red as if covered with a piece of red cloth, and she whispered to Liu Zhishuang: "Second brother, sister-in-law didn't think too much, just felt that the work in the production team is not hard, we can just make do at home, and the dry food will be given to you who do the hard work."

Liu Zhishuang wanted to say that his family not only had this year's food, but his mother should have some food saved from previous years. But it was also true that Sun Hongmei did not bring any food with her, and it was not wrong for Wang Caifeng to want to save some food, but she should not have replaced the dry food with porridge without her mother's permission. In addition, Liu Zhiquan had already scolded Wang Caifeng, so Liu Zhishuang could not argue with her.

Liu Zhishuang was a good talker. He neither said that it was wrong for his sister-in-law to expose the truth nor that his mother should not worry. He only said, "Don't worry, mother. We will go to the grain station to carry the food bags. Maybe we can get acquainted with the people there and buy some food."

Xia Juhua thought this was a good idea, so she asked her two sons how many food packages they carried in a day, whether they were paid by the piece or by the day, what kind of food they carried, and whether the grain in the grain station could be sold to the people in the grain-carrying team...

Questions were asked one after another and the meal was over. Neither Wang Caifeng, who was being scolded, nor Sun Hongmei, who felt that she had not vented her anger, had a chance to interrupt. The first quarrel between the two sisters-in-law seemed to have ended in vain.

Can it really be solved so peacefully? Xia Juhua looked at her two daughters-in-law and felt that it was not that simple.