It was right for Zhou Sui to leave first, because the Li family was startled when Li Baolai suddenly appeared.
"My dear grandson, what brings you back?"
The Li family had decided to wait until Li Baolai had enjoyed a few days of leisure before picking him up.
Moreover, when I called yesterday, I didn't mention that Li Baolai was going home.
"I want to come back." This was the first time in his life that he had left his parents and grandmother to stay in a strange place for a few days.
Indeed, the Zhou family was initially unfamiliar to him.
"My son?" Zhao Xiaohua ran into Old Lady Li's room, grabbed Li Baolai's shoulders, and looked him over carefully.
Then a sharp cry rang out, "Mom, look, hasn't our little one lost weight?"
Grandma Li usually hates these kinds of jarring sounds, but right now, she cares more about her grandson.
"Let me see." Li Baolai was turned to another direction. Although Old Lady Li's eyesight was poor, it was not failing.
"Damn it, my little one has really lost weight!!"
Li Baolai had only lost two or three pounds since he left, but in Old Lady Li's eyes it looked like he had lost twenty or thirty pounds.
"Xiao Bao, who did you just say brought you back?" Old Mrs. Li said angrily, ready to go out and settle accounts with the person responsible.
"Sister Zhou Sui." He initially called Zhou Sui by her full name, but after being beaten by Zhou Xu a few times, he added "sister" after her name.
Now, the first thing I instinctively call out is Sister Zhou Sui.
"Pah, that wild girl doesn't deserve to be Xiaobao's older sister."
Old Mrs. Li disliked Zhou Sui the most. She walked outside with a dark face, thinking to herself that this person knew she was being disrespectful to her little treasure and wouldn't dare to come in.
When she stood at the door and looked around, it was empty and there was no one in sight.
"Xiao Bao, did Zhou Sui really bring you back?" Old Mrs. Li now suspected that Li Bao had come back on his own, otherwise why didn't Zhou Sui go inside since she was here?
"Yes." Li Baolai nodded and pointed to a spot with tire tracks not far away. "That's where I got off the bus."
"Where is she?" Zhao Xiaohua followed her out.
"I'm going back." Zhou Sui had told him on the way here that she would see him off at the door but not go inside the Li family's gate.
Not catching her, Old Lady Li angrily cursed, "That brat, she ran away so fast! Next time I see her, I'll teach her a lesson!"
"No, I'm going to call Li Qiuju right now. How is she taking care of her nephew? He's gotten so thin."
Old Mrs. Li can't get over it without cursing, but after making a few calls, the person on the other end hung up as soon as they heard it was for Li Qiuju, and then stopped answering the phone altogether.
This infuriated Old Mrs. Li. If the phone hadn't been so expensive, she would have smashed it immediately.
"Mom, look at the clothes my eldest sister bought for Baolai. She only bought one set." While Grandma Li was on the phone, Zhao Xiaohua thoroughly searched the two bags Li Baolai was carrying.
She wanted to take advantage of the old lady's inattention to see if she could slip anything into her bag.
Zhao Xiaohua even secretly asked Li Baolai if Li Qiuju had given him any money. If she had, she would definitely want to take some for herself first.
Once these things fall into Old Lady Li's hands, they will have nothing to do with her anymore.
To her disappointment, the two bags contained only clothes. She reached into each pocket and found them all empty. Li Baolai also said that his aunt hadn't given him a single penny.
Old Mrs. Li took the clothes over and felt that the material was quite nice, but there was only one set, which made the old lady's face very unpleasant. "Let's just give it to the beggar."
“The adopted brat is dressed like a proper person, and she only buys one set of clothes for our Baolai.”
Zhao Xiaohua didn't get any benefits, so she just fanned the flames from the side, "Mom, I'm not saying this to be mean, but our family doesn't lack the money to buy Baolai that outfit. Look at what my older sister did, she went too far."
“When my nephew comes to visit, he doesn’t give me a red envelope as a greeting, and he even buys me clothes casually. He doesn’t care about our Baolai at all.”
When Li Fuyou returned home, he heard his elderly mother cursing loudly inside the house. At first, he thought she was having another argument with his wife, but when he went in, he was surprised to find his eldest son, who had been away from home for several days, there.
Upon seeing him return, Zhao Xiaohua immediately went to complain about Li Qiuju. Li Fuyou didn't care about one or two pieces of clothing; what he cared about was the money the Zhou family made from their shop.
But what he heard from Li Baolai surprised him greatly. "You really heard them say that?"
"Yes, I'm in the toilet. Zhou Sui and Zhou Xu are talking in the yard. I heard Zhou Xu say that he will pay back his grandma with the money he earns this year, and then pay back his second uncle and aunt with the money he earns next year."
"What do you mean? What money are you asking for?" Zhao Xiaohua interrupted. "Did the Zhou family borrow money?"
"Do you know how much money they said they wanted to borrow?" Li Fuyou didn't even have time to answer Zhao Xiaohua's question.
Li Baolai shook his head. "I also heard Zhou Sui say that if we don't have enough money to pay back this year, we'll have my aunt come to our house to borrow money from Grandma."
"You want to borrow money from our family?" Zhao Xiaohua suddenly raised her voice and looked at Old Lady Li.
Old Mrs. Li's expression clearly conveyed her thoughts: "If Li Qiuju dares to come, I'll break her legs." That sinister look sent a chill down Zhao Xiaohua's spine.
"That's impossible." Li Fuyou crossed his legs, his face full of disbelief. "How can you not make money when you've opened a shop? When I went there the other day, there were quite a lot of people eating in the shop."
Therefore, he believed that the Zhou family must be making money, but he didn't know how much they were making.
"What do they eat at home?" Li Fuyou asked again.
Li Baolai's chubby face instantly turned into a bitter face. "Stir-fried cabbage, cabbage soup, sweet potato rice, steamed sweet potatoes, vegetable buns, potato slices, porridge."
There wasn't a single thing he liked to eat, but he would get hungry if he didn't eat it, so in the end Li Baolai could eat three or four vegetable buns.
The three people in the room gaped open. "Your older sister and her family have such a hard life." The food they were eating was comparable to what they had in the 1980s.
Even though we don't eat meat at every meal now, we still have meat at least once every two days.
"Baolai, doesn't your aunt's family eat meat?"
“Once, we had stir-fried cabbage with sliced meat. We each took a slice of meat and that was it. Luckily, I have sharp eyes and saw a piece of meat hidden in the cabbage leaves. Why did they put it in my bowl? That time I ate two slices of meat.” Li Baolai still felt a little proud.
The expressions of the three people in the room changed instantly. "My little Bao has really suffered. Xiao Hua, go to the kitchen and make some meat for Bao Lai."
"My dear grandson, come to Grandma, Grandma will give you some fried dough twists." The mother and daughter-in-law looked at each other with affection.
Only Li Fuyou sat there, completely puzzled. How could the Zhou family, who run a shop, be so poor?
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