Hua Li turned around belatedly and muttered, "It's none of your business anyway..."
Hua Shi didn't miss his dissatisfied tone.
A cold wind blew in her face, making her shiver. Her eyes fell on a set of footprints on the snow in the yard.
The traces of the footprints were largely obscured by the fine snow, but it was clear that they were heading out of the courtyard gate...
With a little thought, she knew that these footprints must have been left by Hua Xiao.
“Gugu, gugu…”
A hollow cry of hunger came from the side.
Hua Shi looked down and saw Hua Li squatting on the ground, curled up with her body, her ears red and her head buried. She seemed to be too embarrassed to look up because of the sudden growling of her stomach.
In the yard, fine snowflakes were still falling...
A hint of understanding flashed across Hua Shi's eyes. He rubbed his frozen hands, stamped his feet, turned around and walked back to his room.
Half a month ago, when the weather started to get colder, Li stopped cooking for them. Until now, Li only cooks for herself and Hua's father...
Including her, the five younger generations had no food to eat. If they wanted to fill their stomachs, they could only go out to find food by themselves, otherwise they would starve.
Before this, she had never imagined that Li would be so ruthless as to not even give them a single bite to eat, including… thick clothes, quilts, and even charcoal fire for the winter…
None of these were available. She had initially thought that no matter how hard-hearted Li was, she would at least provide some basic food...
Hua Shi walked into the room without stopping. In the empty room, except for the kang bed which still had some warmth, the rest of the room was ice-cold and frozen hard.
She tightened the worn, thick clothes she was wearing and sighed mistily. Her cheeks were red from the cold and her lips were a little purple.
In the past month, she had saved more than a hundred coins, but by today, she had spent all of them, not a penny left.
She had bought the worn-out thick quilt and the worn-out thick cotton-padded jacket with money from people in the village. She also used some fabric from her old clothes to mend them, and only then did she have the clothes to wear and the worn-out thick cotton-padded jacket to cover herself with.
Even so, after today's first snowfall, it's so cold inside that ice chips are falling off. If this continues, there's no way we'll survive this winter...
Since she encountered the mountain monsters last time she went into the mountains, she has inquired a lot about Lin Haishan in the village.
Not only are there rumors about mountain spirits in the mountains, there are also many rumors about Linhai Mountain, saying that Linhai Mountain is the place where spirits live, such as Xie Bao, snake demon, blue-faced ghost, skeleton spirit... and so on, saying that only the mountain god can control them.
If an outsider enters without the mountain god's permission and disturbs the spirits, they will be cursed by the spirits, and bad luck will befall the whole family...
Although Hua Shi did not believe most of the rumors, after thinking it over, she no longer dared to go into the mountains easily.
After that, she wandered around the outskirts of the mountain several times but didn't catch any wild animals.
So now I have no income and am penniless...
"Meow……"
The sudden cry of a cat from under the quilt on the kang bed interrupted her thoughts.
Hua Shi took off her thin cloth shoes, climbed onto the bed, and curled up in the quilt.
The black cat curled up in the quilt came over, jumped over, and lay lazily in her arms, warming her hands with its hot belly.
Hua Shi hugged the cat, feeling the warmth from the fluffy touch, and her frozen hands slowly warmed up.
"Meow……?"
The black cat tilted its head and looked at her, its long tail wrapped around her wrist, and meowed.
Hua Shi turned around and took out something wrapped in cloth from under the pillow. He turned out the dry noodles inside, broke off a small piece and fed it to the black cat.
The little guy leaned on her hand and nibbled the dry bread in small bites. In a short while, he had eaten half of it.
Hua Shi fed it some spring water, and it calmed down, lying obediently in her arms, snoring lazily.
Hua Shi finished the remaining half of the dry noodles in three or two bites, but her stomach was still empty and she didn't feel anything.
This amount of food can't fill my stomach at all...
"well……"
This was already the nth time she had sighed, but it wasn't what she wanted.
Although she didn't believe the rumors in the village, she still wanted to find out what was going on so that she could prepare for hunting in the mountains. So she went to find Xie Mingchi...
As luck would have it, Xie Mingchi seemed to have had a conflict with his family and was not in the village. He went to work in Taohua Village, more than 20 miles away from the village, and said he would not be back for two months.
She searched twice but came up empty-handed, telling her that the mountain was not peaceful. The mountain spirits were gone, and she had no way of knowing anything more. The rain and fog in the mountains that day were too strange and eerie. She was still frightened and didn't go into the mountains again...
In addition, she spent the past half month getting familiar with the village and asked several aunts to exchange clothes with her before she was able to get the thick clothes and quilt she was wearing.
I finally managed to get these together before the weather turned completely cold...
"well……"
Hua Shi sighed and pulled the warm hair under his hand.
"Meow--"
The black cat collapsed into a cat pancake and fell limply on her legs. A large clump of its fur was pulled out, and it let out a long cry.
When Hua Shi lowered her head, she met its round, cat-like eyes.
"Ha... sorry, your cat is so nice to touch."
Hua Shi looked at the cat hair she had pulled out in her hand, clapped her hands and laughed out loud.
"Meow……"
The black cat lay back down again, its tail wagging unhappily behind it.
His thoughts were interrupted for a moment, and Hua Shi thought of another thing...
It's not like she hadn't considered making something else to earn some money, but... she didn't know how to do anything by hand, and her shoddy needlework couldn't even make a piece of clothing, let alone embroidery...
She thought about making cakes or other snacks to sell, but she didn't even have the basic start-up capital. To make food to sell, she also needed money to buy ingredients, and she had nothing now.
Moreover, selling food in the village would definitely not work. Not to mention that not many people in the village had the spare money to buy these snacks, from her observation along the way, most villagers couldn't even afford to eat and clothe themselves, so they would spend every penny they had...
Therefore, if she really wanted to make snacks to sell, she could only go to Taohua Town, which was a hundred miles away. Although she had never been there, she heard that the round trip would take two days and one night on a donkey cart, so you can imagine how far it was.
Due to various restrictions, her newly emerged idea was quickly extinguished...
Hua Shi rubbed his forehead with a headache.
She thought, if it really didn't work out, she would go into the mountains even if it was dangerous...
At this moment, there was a sudden sound of small footsteps at the door...
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