Chapter 3

While Third Uncle Shen and his wife could go back to sleep, in the neighboring Chen family courtyard, Old Chen and his wife were already awake, having been stirred by the commotion.

Old Chen perked up his ears and listened for a while. The knocking at the door continued unabated. He got out of bed and approached the window to look outside.

Mrs. Chen, half-raising herself, asked her husband, “What’s going on?”

Old Chen squinted in the moonlight and observed, “It’s Third Shen’s nephew, Xiao An, knocking at this hour. Could something have happened in the mountains?”

Mrs. Chen also got up and joined her husband at the window. “It seems so.”

Seeing that no one from the Shen family had responded for a long time, the old lady frowned, “Third Shen’s couple is truly cruel. Their eldest nephew lost his life after being sent out to serve in the army, leaving only these two descendants. Now they’ve sent them away as well, even though they’re still so young.”

“That Sang woman claims to be their sister-in-law, but she’s only a few years older than Xiao An and An Ning. She can’t support a household at all.”

Indeed, she couldn’t support them. Old Chen remembered that the patch of vegetables given to Sang Luo, which were originally part of the allocation to the main family from the mountain, had all withered and died. There wasn’t a single thing that grew properly.

He wondered how Mrs. Li had chosen her. Sang Luo didn’t know anything about farming. With just the three of them together, how would they survive?

Mrs. Chen grabbed some clothes and began to put them on. “I’ll go out and take a look. I hope it’s not something urgent.”

Old Chen didn’t stop her.

The Chen and Shen families had settled here together nine years ago after fleeing the disaster. Before the disaster, the two families didn’t know each other. They had come together during the latter part of the journey. Furthermore, their eldest grandson had been taken away as a soldier more than two years ago and hadn’t returned yet. It was said that he was in the same battalion as Shen Lie’s child.

With one family having lost an elder brother and the other a grandson, the elderly couple couldn’t help but feel some sympathy or perhaps a sense of shared suffering.

The Shen household remained silent, but the neighboring Chen household had already unfastened their door latch.

When Shen An heard the commotion and turned to look, Mrs. Chen had opened the courtyard gate and was waving to him, “Xiao An, come over here.”

Shen An’s anger dissipated instantly. He had been prepared to wake up the whole village and pressure his uncle into giving them some life-saving food. But hearing Mrs. Chen calling him, he felt relieved.

He couldn’t afford to delay any longer with his sister-in-law in such a state.

He practically ran over, not waiting for Mrs. Chen to speak. He knelt down and bowed, “Grandma Chen, my sister-in-law is in bad shape. Do you have any food at home? Can you give me some to take back and feed her?”

Thinking of his sister-in-law, who was so weak that she hardly seemed to breathe anymore when he left, Shen An’s tears flowed freely.

With his elder brother gone and their family divided, Shen An knew that they could only rely on his sister-in-law. If she were gone too, he didn’t dare to think about what would become of him and his sister living alone in the mountains.

When Mrs. Chen heard Shen An’s words, her heart skipped a beat. She hurriedly asked, “Is she starving?”

Shen An nodded, then shook his head, “Yes, she’s starving, and it seems like she’s also sick. My sister-in-law said lying down would help, but she slept through the day and still hasn’t woken up. No matter how much we call her, she won’t wake up.”

Having survived the famine, Mrs. Chen had seen how people starved to death or died of thirst. As soon as she heard Shen An’s words, she suspected it was severe hunger.

It made sense. Sang Luo had come from a place of hardship, and her body must have been worn out during the journey.

“Wait for me. I’ll go with you into the mountains,” Mrs. Chen said without further ado before hurrying back inside to fetch some food.

Having heard the conversation between the two, Old Chen also stepped out. “I’ll take you there.”

Seeing his wife heading back inside, Old Chen thought for a moment and added, “Get some maltose.”

Mrs. Chen nodded. If they were truly starving, a solution of salt and sugar dissolved in water could help. She turned to Shen An and asked, “Do you have salt at home?”

Shen An nodded eagerly, “Yes, we do.”

“Alright then.”

Mrs. Chen entered the house, measured out a couple of pounds of rice from the rice bin, and then, remembering how her eldest grandson used to follow Shen Lie around, tears welled up in her eyes. She gritted her teeth, measured out an extra pound of rice, closed the rice bin, and then quickly took two pieces of maltose from the cabinet before rushing out.

Old Chen grabbed a bamboo stick used for beating grass, while he took a stick for himself. After closing the courtyard gate, the three of them headed quickly into the mountains.

As they walked,Mrs. Chen asked Shen An about the situation at his home. The more she heard, the more she worried about the two siblings. With Shen Lie gone and Sang Luo unable to manage, she couldn’t help but fret about how the three of them would survive.

Meanwhile, in the grass hut on the mountain, Shen Ning was feeding her elder sister-in-law spoonfuls of hot water.

As Sang Luo drank, she couldn’t help but worry. However, her concern wasn’t about how they would survive in the future, but rather how she would manage to find food for them at this moment.

There was no hope of finding anything nearby their mountain home. Unless she resorted to eating tree leaves… Hmm, there were indeed some tree leaves in the nearby mountains that could be turned into food, but she couldn’t remember where she had seen them in her past life.

And there was no point in relying on their uncle and aunt. Even if they could borrow some grain in the middle of the night, it would likely only be enough to keep them alive for a short while, considering Mrs. Li’s past behavior.

She needed to gather strength as quickly as possible so she could go out and search for food. Otherwise, if they continued to endure meal after meal like this, their bodies would surely be ruined.

She couldn’t afford to have another episode where they were too weak to even walk, especially if all three of them were in that condition… Sang Luo felt that she might not be lucky enough to survive again. To be able to cross over, to have a kind-hearted little girl sneak out in the middle of the night to gather wild fruits for her under the moonlight, and to have a little boy go to the village to borrow food to save her.

Sang Luo thought about this and lowered her eyes, not daring to meet Shen Ning’s gaze.

Because the person the two siblings wanted to save was no longer there. She was just lucky to have taken over the original body and continue to live.

As she lowered her eyes, urgent footsteps could be heard outside the grass hut, and a voice preceded the person, “An Ning, I’ve borrowed some food!”

The door was pushed open, and a skinny little boy dashed in like a cannonball.

After all, this was the hut where a young wife lived, and it was the middle of the night.Old Chen did not enter but stood outside, while Mrs. Chen followed Shen An into the hut.

With just one glance, Mrs. Chen cursed Third Uncle Shen in her heart again.

Could this be called a house? Even beggars living in a dilapidated temple had better conditions, right?

Apart from a stool and a bed made of planks against the wall, there was nothing else in the house. The hearth was made of stacked stones, and a broken clay pot and three pairs of chopsticks were placed on a slightly larger stone that the bowls were balanced on. This was the only way to avoid putting them directly on the ground.

As for Sang Luo, who Shen An had said was on the verge of collapse, she was indeed not doing well. She was sitting on the ground against the wall, relying on Shen Ning to feed her even water.

Mrs. Chen naturally did not think that Sang Luo had chosen to sit on the ground while there was a bed. She had experienced a severe drought and famine before, so she could guess the situation just by looking at it.

Without delay, she put down the sack of rice, glanced at the little remaining hot water in the clay pot, quickly threw in a piece of maltose, and then put the remaining piece in an empty bowl. She noticed a small jar with a lid by the side, opened it, and found a small jar about the size of a child’s palm, with only a little salt left at the bottom.

She pinched a little and dissolved it in the water in the clay pot, called Shen Ning over, and poured the salt-sugar water from the clay pot into the bowl that Shen Ning was holding. “Go feed it to your sister-in-law.”