A group of men were slurping down their porridge and eating eggs. Tao Wanniang quietly found a spot next to a wood-chopping knife.
"This woman's cooking skills are excellent, regardless of anything else. These are really the eggs we eat, they're so delicious!"
"This porridge is pretty good, boss. You were brilliant! With this woman coming up the mountain, we can finally live like normal people!"
The bandits ate rather ravenously, still managing to chat occasionally. Tao Wanniang frowned in disgust at the sight of them spitting everywhere.
"Boss, I feel like I have all the energy in my body. Let's go down and do something big today. It would be great if we could get some meat!"
One of the bandits spoke up, then looked at Tao Wan's wife, "You stinking woman, do you even know how to cook meat?"
"Meat? Yes, I can!" Tao Wan's mother paused. "If it's pork, I can make soup with ribs, braise them, or make sweet and sour dishes; I can also make dishes with a good mix of lean and fatty meat; even pork hock can be made into a braised pork hock with rock sugar; and if all else fails, even pig intestines and offal can be made into delicious dishes!"
Tao Wanniang smacked her lips, saying that she herself was getting hungry.
"You woman, you wouldn't happen to be a cook, would you!"
"No, I'm a widow who has to raise my children. There are seven people in my family, and I have to support them all by myself."
Tao Wanniang sighed as she spoke, lowering her head. When she raised it again, her brows were furrowed as if she wanted to trap a mosquito.
"Brothers, I've had a really tough time. My husband died seventeen years ago, and I've been both father and mother to my two sons. Now that they've gotten married, they've forgotten their mother. But what can I do? They'll have to rely on their sons to take care of me in my old age, so I can only work hard without complaint. I get up before dawn every day to cook. It's so hard for me!"
After eating the egg and the rice porridge, the scarred man was the first to sense something was wrong, but just as he was about to speak, he collapsed onto the table.
"Boss, boss, what's wrong?"
The others were startled. They helped the scarred man up, and each of them felt weak all over and then dizzy.
"You guys..." Li Dashan, who was feeling listless from just drinking porridge, was still puzzled when he saw everyone collapsing.
"Ah!" Before he could react, Tao Wanniang's woodcutter's knife had already struck him heavily on the back.
"You wretched woman, you're asking for death!" Li Dashan cried out in pain, but his weapon was too far away for him to reach, and Tao Wanniang swung her second wood-chopping knife at him.
"You're asking for death if you try to take my food!"
Tao Wanniang said bitterly, her attack swift and ruthless, giving Li Dashan no chance to retaliate. Finally, she struck Li Dashan heavily on the temple with the hilt of her knife as he crawled to get the spiked club.
"Mother, Mother, are you alright?!"
Outside the kitchen, the tentative voices of the two sons could be heard.
"Brother, it's so early in the morning, haven't the bandits already come down the mountain? Isn't Mother making breakfast? She should be in the kitchen!"
Ling Dapeng asked in a low voice, and the two of them craned their necks to look out from the front yard.
"Get in here, all of you!"
Tao Wanniang roared, knocking Li Dashan unconscious. She was also nearly half dead, partly from nervousness and partly from acting with a fierce determination. After finishing the task, she was exhausted.
"Mother, we're here!"
Ling Dahu rushed in, and after speaking, he was stunned by the scene in the kitchen.
"Big brother, what's wrong with Mother?"
Seeing Ling Dahu standing frozen at the kitchen door, Ling Dapeng, who was a step behind, asked anxiously, worried that something had happened to Tao Wanniang.
"Luckily, we have some rope. Let's tie them all up; they won't wake up for a while."
Tao Wanniang sat on a stool, panting heavily, and gave orders to her two sons.
"And that one, it took me a lot of strength to chop him down, tie him up too. See if there are any empty bowls left, let me have some porridge first, I'm starving!"
Tao Wanniang tried to calm herself down; it had been too long since she had done something like this, and she was rusty!
The Ling brothers were dumbfounded. Eight bandits had actually been defeated by their own mother?
"Mother, is it Father appearing in spirit?"
Ling Dahu asked timidly, otherwise he really couldn't think of any other possibility!
"That bastard of a father of yours only gave me a packet of sleeping pills. Do you know how difficult it is for me to drug these people right under their noses?"
Tao Wanniang started to make up a story, "I pretended to be pitiful and cried poverty, did you think I was going to sell you off?"
"You're all tall but no brains, hurry up and tie everyone up, then call the others, and make the most of the porridge left in the pot."
Tao Wanniang instructed, "There's also a basket of eggs. Let's take that. Then we'll go and search their house. If there's anything we need, take it all!"
"They're heartless, so I'll be heartless too. They tried to steal from me, and I'm already being incredibly kind by not sending them to their deaths!"
Tao Wanniang looked at the bandits lying on the ground and said angrily.
The Ling brothers remained silent; their mother's appearance was truly shocking!
Soon, the eight bandits were tied up, and Ling Dahu went back to call the others over.
After taking back the remaining rice and flour, along with a basket of eggs (about twenty in total), and finding seven or eight taels of loose silver, Tao Wanniang also found the wood-chopping knife quite handy.
Tao Wanniang smiled with satisfaction as she looked at what she had received.
Before leaving, she lit a fire in the yard and put some damp firewood on it. When she got to the foot of the mountain and looked back, a thick plume of smoke was rising straight into the sky.
The group fled the area at an extremely fast pace. The Ling brothers were afraid that bandits would catch up with them, so they didn't dare to delay at all on the way.
"Tao Da Meizi, you're really something!"
After escaping danger, Aunt Liang couldn't help but sigh, "My heart is still pounding. Those were bandits, murderous bandits!"
"If you don't want to get killed, you have to be a little cunning."
Tao Wanniang said lightly, "Fortune favors the bold. Although I lost a little rice, I brought back much more."
"Mother, why did you set a fire? The fire won't reach the kitchen." Ling Dahu asked, puzzled.
“Damp firewood produces thick smoke. If black smoke suddenly appears on this mountain, people will definitely investigate. Maybe the government will see it too, and we can arrest those bandits.”
Tao Wanniang explained, "Even if no one finds out in the end, it will still take them several hours to escape. If we move faster, they won't be able to catch up."
"Let's avoid sparsely populated areas and head towards more populated areas. Even if those people catch up, they won't dare to cause trouble in a crowded town!"
Tao Wanniang's words were widely accepted by the Ling family.
The two daughters-in-law realized that what their mother-in-law had said before was all a lie, just to appease the bandits, and they both felt a little guilty about it.
"Mom, you are really amazing. We don't know what we would do without you."
Ling Dahu said in a simple and honest voice, looking at Tao Wan's back as she sat on the cart with a face full of admiration.
"That's right. I've eaten more salt than you've eaten rice. From now on, just listen to me. Would I ever betray you?"
Tao Wanniang said smugly, "Do you think it's easy for her to take care of this family?"
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