She remembered that there were many men like this around that time, abandoning their wives back home to find new wives in the army. She hoped her mother would go there sooner rather than later.
I doubt her father would dare, but the problem is that if he doesn't dare, he's afraid of being taken advantage of. There are plenty of people who want something for nothing.
The old lady stood on tiptoe at her front door, looking out. From afar, she saw her third son riding his bicycle back, and a smile immediately spread across her face.
"Oh my, my granddaughter is finally back! From now on, we'll only see her once in a long while."
Qian Xiao jumped off his bicycle and helped his grandmother up: "Grandma, why did you come out? You should have waited at home. The county town is too far away. It's just right to come back once a month. Otherwise, all that time would be wasted on the road."
The old lady looked at her eldest granddaughter and said, "You've gotten so thin. Come home quickly. I made you some chicken soup, so you need to make sure you eat well. Studying is really hard on your brain."
"Hehe, I haven't lost weight. It's just that you're too kind to me. I eat my fill at every meal."
They could only eat their fill; it was impossible for them to eat anything fancy. They all brought their own food rations to school, and they couldn't show off their wealth when they were out. They ate the same coarse grains as everyone else, and the vegetables were just boiled in water with no oil at all.
Coarse grains these days can be quite harsh on the throat, and they don't taste as good as they did in later generations. But these days, being able to fill your stomach is already a good life.
"Nonsense! How could that little bit of food possibly fill you up? We told you to bring more food, but you wouldn't. Look at you, it's only been a month, and all the meat we raised has already disappeared."
Qian Xiao chuckled and didn't say anything. She had a huge appetite, but she couldn't eat as much as she wanted when she went out. She was lucky if she could eat half full at each meal. Even so, her classmates thought that feeding her was a waste of food. If she ate as much as she wanted, she might be considered a monster.
As soon as Qian Xiao entered the house, her mother brought in a large bowl of chicken soup, which also contained two chicken drumsticks: "Drink this quickly to fill your stomach."
"Thank you, Mother."
"You brat, I'm being so polite with you about going to school. I'm your mother, why should I be so polite with you?"
"Hehe, I just blurted it out. Give me both of these chicken legs, and leave the rest for the kids."
“You eat your food, and they’ll get their share. You’re the one who’s working the hardest right now. Look at Qian Wangcai, he doesn’t do any work, but he says he’s tired all day. They always give him all the good food.”
Qian Xiao's lips twitched. "Can't we use a normal person as an analogy?"
Qian Wangcai was a relative of theirs, five degrees of kinship. Qian Xiao should call him his paternal uncle. Qian Xiao didn't really know how old he was this year, but he should be around eighteen. He was thin and weak, and the only thing he could be proud of was his fair skin.
He was the youngest son in their family; his older brothers and sisters all had children, so he was considered a late-in-life child and was quite spoiled. This guy was the kind of person who was incredibly pretentious, and Qian Xiao didn't even give him a second glance.
When he was young, his parents doted on him because of his older siblings who were much older than him. As a result, he was spoiled and ended up being someone who was lazy and didn't know anything about farming.
If you're really too weak to work, no one will say anything. There are plenty of guys who can't do heavy work but can't do light work. But Qian Wangcai, he's grown up without ever lifting a finger. He's not even as good as his own five-year-old sons, Wudan and Liudan.
When he started school, things got even worse. His whole family, including his nephews and nieces, had to wait on him. All the good food had to be eaten by him if he refused it, and only then could the other children have a chance to eat it. The problem was, there was nothing he didn't want to eat.
All the other children in his family were thin, but he was the only one who was well-fed and healthy. His clothes didn't even have a single patch. Even city people didn't live as well as him.
Most importantly, if you're a really good student, that's fine too. If you do well in the future, you can help out your nephews or nieces, as a way of expressing gratitude. But this guy went to the same school as Qian Xiao, and his grades were just awful. I don't know how he even made it to high school.
Right there, his parents came out and kept praising him, as if their child was destined to be a top scholar and become an extraordinary person.
Asking for money is laughable; he's just an ignorant and lazy bum.
"Mom, can we compare her to someone else?"
"What's wrong? Your great-aunt said that their Wangcai is very promising. The teachers at school praise Wangcai all day long, saying that Wangcai will definitely get into the best university, and that all the universities are fighting to have Wangcai study there."
This is getting more and more absurd, making Qian Wangcai sound like some kind of genius. Is Qian Wangcai really going to accompany me?
"Mom, you actually believe what their family says?" The thing is, her mother actually seems to believe it!
"Qian Wangcai failed every exam. I'm embarrassed to say that I'm from the same village as him. Not only is he bad at studying, but he's also a real show-off. He acts like he's from a rich family and always goes to state-run restaurants to eat."
"Look at their nephew and niece, they hardly have any decent clothes left. How can he have the nerve to spend money so lavishly?" She wouldn't dare to be so wasteful.
Qian Xiao was really hungry and was thinking of using the big black ten in his space to improve his life, at least to eat some oily food so that he could last for another half month. Just then, he saw Qian Wangcai eating braised pork.
After that, Qian Xiao took a closer look and discovered that this person went out to eat meat every week. Good heavens, even someone as rich as her wouldn't dare to do that, how could he?
Li Guizhi was taken aback: "Oh! Is that so? No wonder their daughter-in-law looked so worried when she came out. How much money must that be? Our whole family's annual income can't even withstand that kind of spending. And they have so many children to raise."
The old lady slapped her thigh and said, "I knew it! Life has been so much better these past two years. How come their child is still so thin? Are they starving? This family isn't really supporting such a thing, is they?"
Qian Xiao nodded as she chewed on chicken: "I reckon so. Even my dad, who earns a salary, doesn't spend money as much as him. You didn't see it, but the clothes he wears are considered good even in our school, without a single patch."
“I’ve also heard from others that he boasted about his family’s wealth and that he had relatives who were government officials working in big cities. But I don’t remember anyone in his family working in the city.”
In other words, he was the only one in the village who went to high school before, and if Qian Xiao hadn't gone to high school early, he wouldn't have known about this.
"No one in his family works in the city. His whole family farms at home, and they're already struggling to make ends meet. If this kid keeps spending like this, they'll starve!"
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