When Li Lin arrived at the kitchen, Liu Ermei had already returned and was bustling with something at the clay stove.
Li Lin called out, "Mom, what delicious food are you making today? It smells so good!"
Liu Ermei replied with a smile, "I just went to the field and dug up a few sweet potatoes to cook some sweet potato porridge for you all."
Li Lin said, "That's wonderful! I'm so sick of wild vegetable porridge; I can finally have a decent meal."
Li Lianzhong scolded from the side, "You should be grateful there's food at all, you little rascal, still being picky? I should make you taste what it's like to starve!"
Liu Ermei quickly intervened, "Oh, let up on the boy a little, dear! It's our own incompetence that we can't give the kids a proper, filling meal."
For a moment, the atmosphere in the room turned somewhat heavy.
Sitting behind the clay stove, Li Lianzhong remained silent, quietly puffing away on his dry tobacco pipe with rhythmic puffs.
Liu Ermei continued, "This year's harvest isn't looking good again. These sweet potatoes are smaller than a fist! How are we going to manage the days ahead?"
Li Tong had already finished combing her hair and washing her face. She ran over and asked, "Mom, when is dinner? I'm starving to death."
As she spoke, a low rumbling sound came from her stomach.
Liu Ermei said, "Go sit down, everyone. I'll dish it out right away. I only dug up a few to whet your appetites first."
After a short while, Liu Ermei scooped up the sweet potato porridge and brought it over.
She didn't forget to urge them, "Drink slowly, blow on it first to let it cool down, and be careful not to burn your mouths!"
Li Lin and Li Tong both nodded, looking exceptionally well-behaved and obedient.
Li Lin looked into his bowl. What was called porridge was mostly just a few visible grains of brown rice floating about, with the bulk consisting of tiny, diced sweet potato pieces—you could practically count the rice grains. Still, it was already much better than the wild vegetable porridge they had to drink every single day before.
Unable to help himself, Li Lin leaned right over and took a gulp, instantly scalding his mouth and causing him to puff and blow, which drew a string of silver-bell-like laughter from Li Tong.
At this point, Li Lianzhong and Liu Ermei also came over and sat down.
Seeing this, Li Lianzhong couldn't help scolding again, "You little rascal, can't you slow down? Were you a starving ghost in your past life? Nobody's fighting you for it."
Li Lin didn't talk back, simply eating another piece of sweet potato. Then he praised, "Mom's cooking is the best! It's so delicious, and it smells amazing."
Liu Ermei's eyes instantly reddened. She picked up a few more pieces of sweet potato and put them in Li Lin's bowl, saying, "Good, if it's delicious, just eat a bit more."
Then she turned to Li Lianzhong beside her and said, "Dear, the boy is turning twelve in a few days. He's a half-grown lad now, right in the middle of a growth spurt."
Pausing for a moment, she added, "As the saying goes, 'Half-grown lads can eat their fathers out of house and home.' But our family's situation is just like this. Forget about eating meat or white flour; we even have to pinch pennies just to drink this porridge. *Sigh!*"
Li Lianzhong put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth. He sighed, "It's all my fault for not having any real skills, leaving the three of you to suffer."
Liu Ermei said, "Don't talk like that, dear. There was nothing to be done, and you had your reasons, didn't you?"
As she spoke, she affectionately stroked Li Lianzhong's injured leg.
Liu Ermei continued, "If you hadn't been discharged from the army, brought back some small silver coins, and built these few wooden rooms, who knows what things would be like? It's all fate!"
Li Lianzhong glanced around the somewhat dilapidated house and gave a bitter smile. "It's a bit better than a thatched cottage, but we're still left with four bare walls. After a dozen years of wind and rain, some parts are already starting to leak, so we just have to patch things up and make do."
Li Lin focused intently on tackling the bowl of sweet potato porridge in front of him while listening to his parents murmur back and forth.
"Whoosh, whoosh..."
"Bang!"
Suddenly.
A loud crash startled Li Lin so badly he jumped. The wooden door that he had been abusing earlier was now lying flat on the floor, emitting a painful thud.
"Whoosh..."
Gusts of cold wind blew in from outside, creeping straight down the collars of everyone in the room.
Liu Ermei quickly got up and propped the door panel back up. Fortunately, it wasn't broken, and she wedged it back into the doorway.
Li Lin scrambled over as well, helping his mother push the wooden door back into its frame.
The wind instantly stopped.
Liu Ermei said, "Alright, let's not sit here sighing anymore; we need to think of a solution. Lin'er, hurry up and finish your meal, then take the ox out to graze. Tong'er and I are going to make a trip back to my maiden home."
Li Lianzhong immediately asked, "Why are you going back to your maiden home at a time like this?"
Liu Ermei thought for a moment and replied, "I'm going back to ask my older brother if he can find some odd job for Lin'er. He's turning twelve right away and still just herding cattle at home every day; that simply won't do. He has to learn a trade of some sort, even if it's just working as a hired hand."
Hearing this, a surge of secret excitement welled up in Li Lin's heart. He recalled how, when the villagers gathered to gossip about neighborhood matters, he seemed to have heard them talk about it.
His shiftless uncle had apparently gone to Biancheng a few years ago to sell some firewood in exchange for a bit of brown rice to get by. Along the roadside, he happened to save an unconscious old man.
Who would have thought that the man turned out to be a wealthy estate owner from the city? In the end, the owner invited him to become a steward, managing a distillery business for him, and now his life was quite comfortable.
The uncle's name was Liu Zixuan. He was literate and knew basic arithmetic, originally teaching people how to read and write in Liu Family Village, living a relatively decent life.
Even in Li Family Village, there were people who taught literacy. If you wanted to learn, you only needed to pay a small tuition fee to be taught reading and arithmetic.
After all, in this era, being able to afford a private tutor for schooling was something reserved for high-ranking officials, nobility, or immensely wealthy merchants.
Children from poor families had it tough—they couldn't even get enough to eat, let alone have spare money for schooling.
Li Lianzhong said hesitatingly, "Will your older brother agree? After all, we rarely keep in touch with them."
Liu Ermei said resolutely, "We have to try anyway. After all, he's his own biological nephew; surely my brother couldn't be that heartless?"
Even as she said this, she felt completely uncertain inside.
Li Lin had finished his porridge, stood up, and said, "Dad, Mom, I'm going out to graze the ox."
Then, like a gust of wind, he bolted out the door.
The sky outside was already quite bright, and the distant horizon was painted in brilliant swaths of red and yellow. Layer upon layer, the morning glow stretched across the heavens, looking as though a sea of torches had set the clouds ablaze.
Li Lin couldn't help reciting, "Morning clouds bring no journey; evening clouds mean a thousand miles."
"Looks like the weather might not be too good today."
Shaking his head, Li Lin didn't dwell on it further; getting the ox out to graze was the priority.
Before long, he reached the cattle shed.
"Moo... moo."
The old ox let out a few calls and snorted loudly.
It seemed to be greeting Li Lin.
He removed the horizontal wooden beams from the cattle pen one by one and set them aside—there were six in total.
Then he picked up the hemp rope hanging on the side and tied it to the ox's nose ring.
In this era, oxen were crucial production tools, and every single ox was officially registered with the government.
Official documents were even issued strictly prohibiting the slaughter or harming of cattle. Anyone caught violating this faced severe consequences.
When a cow gave birth to a calf, it also had to be registered. In the event of an accidental death, old age, or death by illness, the authorities had to be notified so officials could investigate the cause, and only after confirmation could the beef be butchered and divided.
As for the ox hide, sinews, and horns, those would be confiscated by government personnel, as they were considered strategic military supplies.
Slaughtering an ox privately was punishable by heavy penalties! After all, in this era, a single ox provided immense assistance to agricultural production.
Shaking his head, Li Lin led the ox forward, plucked a nameless blade of grass from the roadside, stuck it between his lips, and strode off into the distance.