Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

The dilapidated woodshed in the backyard was as cold as an ice cellar.

A faint clinking sound of keys came from outside the door.

Zhao Xiaoyu, who was originally huddled in the haystack in the corner, stiffened abruptly upon hearing the sound and almost instinctively raised her head.

With a click, the door opened.

A strong, fragrant aroma, thick with steam, wafted in through the crack in the door.

Under the yellow light of a flashlight, Li Cuihua slowly walked in, carrying a large, rough porcelain bowl.

The bowl was steaming hot, and next to the steamed buns made from two kinds of dough, there were several square pieces of braised pork, with alternating layers of fat and lean meat, glistening with oil.

Zhao Xiaoyu stared blankly at the bowl of rice, her eyes suddenly widening.

She hadn't eaten for a day and a night, and was terrified. Her stomach was throbbing with hunger.

The aroma of meat wafted into her nose, and her throat instinctively tightened, while her stomach growled loudly and uncontrollably.

Li Cuihua glanced at her, unusually not with a sullen face, and put the bowl on the broken wooden block next to her. Her voice was even softer than usual.

"Get up and eat it while it's hot."

Zhao Xiaoyu didn't move, she just stared at her blankly, her eyes gradually reddening.

Li Cuihua pushed the bowl towards her, saying, "Look how thin you've become. Your face is almost deathly pale. Eat a couple of bites first, don't torture yourself."

Zhao Xiaoyu opened her mouth, her throat tightened, and her voice was so soft it was almost ethereal.

"mom……"

Tears welled in her eyes, tinged with a desperate, almost desperate hope. "You...you're not angry with me anymore? You...you're not planning on sending me away?"

Li Cuihua paused for a moment, then lowered her head, picked up her chopsticks, rummaged through the bowl, picked up the top piece of meat with alternating layers of fat and lean, and brought it to her mouth.

"Eat up, you're a piece of my flesh, I love you dearly."

Li Cuihua said gently, "Would your mother harm you?"

As soon as she said that, Zhao Xiaoyu's nose suddenly stung, and tears welled up in her eyes.

She stared at the piece of meat, then looked up at Li Cuihua's unusually calm face. The fire in her heart, which had been almost extinguished by despair, actually skipped a beat.

Mom finally softened.

Zhao Xiaoyu's lips trembled, tears streaming down her face, but she finally lowered her head and ate the piece of meat in small bites.

The meat was hot and had a fragrant, oily aroma.

She was so hungry that when she swallowed that piece of meat, it felt like a warm hand was gently cupping her stomach, and her tears fell even more fiercely.

Seeing that she was willing to eat, Li Cuihua seemed a little relieved and smiled with satisfaction.

"That's right. A woman's body is the most precious thing; how can she be so thin?"

Zhao Xiaoyu held the bowl, her hands trembling.

She lowered her head and shoveled down a couple more mouthfuls of rice, her glimmer of hope growing stronger. Finally, she couldn't resist any longer and cautiously raised her head: "Mom... I'll listen to you from now on, I'll never talk back again... Please don't lock me up, okay?"

Li Cuihua was breaking a steamed bun for her when she heard this. Without looking up, she simply replied casually, "Finish your meal first."

Hearing this, Zhao Xiaoyu took it as her mother's tacit approval, meaning she wouldn't sell her anymore.

As if grasping at a straw, she quickly held the chipped rough porcelain bowl and shoveled mouthfuls of the mixed noodles, which were simmering in rich meat gravy, into her mouth. She even carefully picked up the bits of noodles that had fallen onto her tattered coat and stuffed them into her mouth.

"Mom, this meat is so delicious..."

Zhao Xiaoyu swallowed a large piece of fatty meat with slurred speech, then raised her face, which was stained with soot and tears, and forced an extremely humble and ingratiating smile, "I haven't eaten such delicious meat in so long, Mom, the meat you stewed smells so good..."

Seeing her wolfing down her food, Li Cuihua's wrinkles deepened with a smile.

"It tastes good, right?"

Li Cuihua raised her rough hand and wiped the grease from Zhao Xiaoyu's mouth. "Listen to your mother. As long as you marry into the family quietly, you'll be able to eat this kind of good meat every day! Your mother and your third brother will benefit from your success. Our family will be counting on you for the rest of our lives."

Hearing the words "marry him over there".

Zhao Xiaoyu's chewing motion suddenly froze.

The piece of braised pork that she hadn't completely swallowed suddenly felt like a hot iron stuck in her throat, making her tremble all over.

She stared blankly at her mother's smiling face, her voice trembling uncontrollably, and the glimmer of hope that had just been ignited in her eyes was instantly replaced by fear.

"Mom...whose flesh is this?"

"Who else could it be? Of course it was your brother Lai who bought it!"

Li Cuihua patted her hand with a smile, "Look how much she cares about you! She knows you've been throwing a tantrum and getting thin from hunger these past few days, so she specially asked someone to get you some top-quality pork belly from the commune, specifically asking you to eat it to help you recover!"

Li Cuihua paused, her eyes scanning Zhao Xiaoyu's slender figure from head to toe:

"Eat a little more, don't get so thin you look emaciated. Tomorrow, Brother Lai is coming over to take a look at you in person. He likes you because you look so healthy and radiant."

In that instant.

Zhao Xiaoyu felt a loud "boom" in her head!

Zhao Xiaoyu stared blankly at the rough porcelain bowl in her hand, her stomach suddenly churning violently!

next second.

"Clang—!"

She smashed the rough porcelain bowl hard on the ground!

Soup, chunks of meat, and shards of porcelain splashed everywhere, and steam rose up, filling the entire room with a greasy, meaty aroma that made people want to vomit.

Zhao Xiaoyu seemed to have completely lost her mind; tears streamed down her face, and she pointed at Li Cuihua's nose, screaming shrilly:

"I won't marry him! I'd rather die than marry that old bachelor!"

Her eyes were bloodshot as she screamed in despair, "You're not my mother! You're not even human! You're just a beast who would sell her own daughter for money!!"

Li Cuihua was stunned for a moment, then her face turned completely black, and her features instantly became extremely ferocious.

"Who are you calling an old beast?! You dare to throw my flesh?!"

She pounced like an enraged mother wolf, grabbing Zhao Xiaoyu's hair tightly and pulling her down hard!

"ah--!"

Zhao Xiaoyu screamed in pain, and was pulled to the ground. Before she could get up, she received two solid and extremely vicious slaps to the face.

"Slap! Slap!"

"You think you're so great?!"

Li Cuihua grew increasingly frenzied, slapping, pinching, and pulling at Zhao Xiaoyu, her curses slurred and vicious: "They paid eighty yuan to buy you, kindly bought you meat to eat, and you dare to throw you?! You worthless wretch! You're going to beat you to death today!"

"We've raised you for nothing, and now it's your turn to go out and take care of things for us, and you're acting all high and mighty! If you dare cause me any more trouble, I'll slap your face to pieces!"

Zhao Xiaoyu was beaten until she curled up in a ball, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, tears and snot streaming down her face. She clutched her head tightly, her whole body trembling.

Just as Li Cuihua was about to slap her again, Zhao Xiaoyu seemed to have finally had her last layer of skin pierced through.

She suddenly raised her head, her mouth full of blood, and looked at Li Cuihua, crying out in a hoarse voice:

"I'm only finding out now—"

"Now I understand why Zhao Shanhe would rather die outside than come back home!!"

Upon hearing this, Li Cuihua abruptly stopped raising her hand.

Zhao Xiaoyu seemed to have gone completely mad, her voice trembling uncontrollably, filled with long-overdue hatred and despair.

"This isn't a home! It's a cannibalistic den of monsters!"

"If I were him... if I were him, I'd run too! What's he doing here? Waiting to be skinned alive and forced to his death one by one?!"

Li Cuihua was stunned at first, then her face contorted in pain, her eyes filled with venom and ruthlessness.

"How dare you mention that ungrateful wretch?!"

She lunged forward, grabbed Zhao Xiaoyu's hair, and pulled her face upwards: "If it weren't for him, would the family be in this state?! He beat the third son into a cripple, and now you want to be like him, don't you?!"

"I'm telling you, not a chance!"

"Even if you die, you'll die at Lai Zi's house!"

Li Cuihua was so angry that her chest heaved violently, and she raised her hand to hit him again.

But after glancing at Zhao Xiaoyu's swollen face, his hand abruptly stopped in mid-air.

She was panting heavily when she suddenly flung her hand and shoved Zhao Xiaoyu back into the corner.

She glanced down at the shattered bowl and the meat spilled everywhere on the ground, her face darkening to the point of being almost dripping with gloom.

After a long pause, she finally managed to squeeze out a sentence through gritted teeth:

"Fine. You think you're so capable? Keep arguing."

Turning to leave, Li Cuihua left without looking back as she reached the door:

"You'd better think this through tonight. If they dare to cause trouble again tomorrow—"

Li Cuihua turned around, her eyes as cold as if she were looking at a dead pig: "I'll break your legs first."

The door was slammed shut.

"Click".

The lock has fallen shut again.

The room fell into a deathly silence.

Only a few pieces of meat on the ground were still covered in vegetable soup, emitting a little bit of lingering heat.

Zhao Xiaoyu slumped to the cold ground, her hair disheveled, her face swollen, her lips cracked, and she was trembling like a leaf.

She stared blankly at the few pieces of meat on the ground that she had taken a bite of, then suddenly covered her mouth tightly, bent over, and began to gag violently.

But her stomach was so empty that she couldn't vomit anything except acid reflux.

After vomiting until the very end, she could no longer hold on and collapsed onto the ground covered in mud and bits of flesh, letting out a desperate, animalistic cry of despair.