"These are egg cakes. You can eat them with a sip of milk."
Otherwise, just drinking milk without eating bread, you'll find the bread too dry later.
The two little ones finally reached out for the bread on the plate. After glancing at Yun Xiaoxiao, they lowered their heads and took a bite.
"How does it taste?"
Da Bao tentatively spoke first, "It's delicious."
They were afraid their mother might hit them later because of something they said.
"Eat up!" Yun Xiaoxiao got up and went to the kitchen. Heating the milk earlier had taken quite an effort.
Cooking over a wood stove was quite a challenge for Yun Xiaoxiao, a child of the post-1995 generation and the only child in the family. She focused on her studies and rarely cooked. Even when she did, it was usually with gas. The only time she'd seen a wood stove was when they cooked chicken over it.
This place didn't have electricity yet, so they had to boil their own water for drinking.
"Brother, Mom didn't hit us." Xiao Bao took a bite of the sweet, fragrant bread and sipped the delicious milk, whispering to Da Bao beside him.
Even Da Bao felt there was something strange about their mom today.
Why was she giving them such tasty egg cakes and letting them drink powdered milk?
How strange was that?
Was she planning to abandon them and go back to the city?
Some aunties had already told them: Your mom is going back to the city and leaving you behind.
"Let's eat quickly." Da Bao decided to set aside his worries for the moment.
Their dad wasn't home.
Not far from this tiled house stood another half-brick, half-tile house. An almost fifty-year-old woman wondered why her two grandsons hadn't come over for a meal today.
She hadn't seen her younger daughter-in-law either.
Could something have happened?
She couldn't sit still anymore, closed the door, and went to check.
She knew this daughter-in-law wanted to return to the city.
This was Da Bao's grandmother, the team leader's wife.
She went to her younger son's house and was about to knock when the door easily swung open.
Da Bao and Xiao Bao had already finished their bread and milk. Da Bao was planning to take the bowls to the kitchen to wash them.
"Da Bao, Xiao Bao..."
The two little ones heard their grandmother's voice and immediately turned to look, "Grandma..."
Mrs. Zhao saw her two grandsons holding bowls and momentarily froze, thinking they were only now eating.
She wanted to yell at her daughter-in-law but feared she might go crazy.
Yun Xiaoxiao, who was heating water in the kitchen, was surprised to hear the voices coming from the yard.
The female supporting character's mother-in-law?
No, it's now her mother-in-law in name.
Who would have thought she'd become the female supporting character?
To go out or not?
Not only did she suddenly have to be a mom but also deal with all sorts of messy relatives.
She decided not to go out and just played dead in the kitchen.
"Grandma, I'll take the bowl to the kitchen first." Da Bao's courage suddenly grew; with Grandma here, their mom wouldn't dare hit them.
They were now both full.
"Go ahead!" Mrs. Zhao looked toward the kitchen, where a shadowy figure was almost certainly her younger daughter-in-law.
Mrs. Zhao held Xiao Bao's hand, noticing little bits of dirt on his small hand and face, but there was a sweet fragrance on him. Was it the malted milk they had been given to drink?
Da Bao placed the bowl on the countertop and quickly ran out of the kitchen, fearing Yun Xiaoxiao would hit him for making a fire.
Seeing this made Yun Xiaoxiao's mouth twitch. She wasn't the female supporting character who randomly hit children for no reason.
Unless they were really troublesome kids.
"What did you eat for lunch?" Mrs. Zhao asked when Da Bao came over.
After the autumn harvest, her younger son had left. Ever since her daughter-in-law married into the Zhao Family, she rarely did any work in the fields.