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Chapter 33: Exposed\n“Sister, eat the chicken wings!” Yuhang broke off a roasted, fragrant pheasant leg and handed it to Bailian.\n
Bailian caught a glimpse of Yuhang’s dirt-stained, grimy hands, and calmly refused, “I’ll just eat the wings!”\n
Bailian gobbled on the chicken wing, simultaneously thinking of the young man in white clothes she had met earlier today. Inwardly, she thought that when she ate chicken wings, it looked like she was just eating, but when he had done so, the scene had simply looked like a work of art.\n
“It’s so delicious!” Yuhang happily exclaimed.\n
He felt that even if he were to die today, he would have no regrets.\n
In the past, I always thought of how great it could be if I could eat chicken legs, I didn’t expect for my wish to come true!\n
By the babbling stream, three scrawny children were sharing a roasted pheasant.\n
“Why aren’t you eating?” Bailian had noticed that her two brothers had stopped eating.\n
Although both were children and naturally had smaller appetites, the pheasant itself was quite small and would be quickly gobbled up when sharing it between three people.\n
“For Mother and Grandma to eat!” Yuhang sniffled, his hand unknowingly creeping closer to the last of the roasted pheasant.\n
“We can do that next time! If we take some back and get discovered, that Old Lady might beat up Mother and Grandma!” Bailian lightly shook her head, her tone solemn.\n
She was more than happy to supplement and fatten up the people of the Third Branch, but if her brothers brought the meat home, it would be too conspicuous. \n
And it would be easy to get criticized by outsiders. After all, they had not separated yet, so they were still part of the Li Family.\n
Therefore, she could only sneakily supplement the Third Branch’s constitution when they weren’t in the Li Residence, or secretly mix some of her spiritual spring water into their daily water source.\n
In short, she couldn’t let the Li Family get the benefits.\n
Moreover, there was still a dead hare in her space. Once she found a chance, she could easily cook up a nourishing dish to help Grandmother Ciying and Madam Zhao’s tired bodies recover.\n
\n“Grandma and Mother must have never eaten such delicious chicken..” Yuhang guiltily looked at the roasted pheasant in front of him, his eyes filled with a pitiful aura.\n
Yuyang remained quiet, silently nodding.\n
It was the first time he had ever tasted such delicious chicken. It must be the best chicken dish in the whole world.\n
“Don’t worry! Sister can always make it again. Tomorrow, we can make some for Grandma and the others to eat.” Bailian nimbly divided the rest of the warm chicken to Yuhang and Yuhang and said with a serious expression, “You should know your sister’s temper by now, remember what I said before? If I say I’ll do something, I won’t ever break my promise!”\n
“Really?” Yuhang’s eyes lit up, his body fidgeting with an uncomfortable expression, “Then…Can Yuyang and me have some tomorrow too?”\n
Yuyang’s expectant eyes barreled down into Bailian’s eyes.\n
“Of course!” Bailian boldly slapped her chest, “Hurry and eat so we can go home.”\n
“That’s great! After eating the fish from yesterday, I got to eat chicken today and I can even eat more tomorrow!” Yuhang giggled, shaking the chicken widely, a look of pure happiness plastered on his thin face.\n
Bailian looked over at Yuhang’s fit of joy, his funny dancing making the corners of her mouth raise unconsciously.\n
Maybe, this was the innocence and naivety unique to children!\n
They have suffered so much in the Li Family, but are easily satisfied with such small things.\n
Bailian didn’t specifically ask Yuhang and Yuyang to send chicken to their Father. Currently, the Third Branch was very disappointed in the Li Family, all except for the obedient and simple THird Master.\n
The more the Third Master sees their unwillingness, the easier it will be when the family separates in the future.\n
After the three scrawny children finished sharing the warm, roasted chicken among themselves, the scrambled home together.\n
It was about 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning by this time and breakfast would be served soon.\n
“Which lazy guy stole my taels?! Why don’t you just kill me instead ah?”\n
“Did you do it, you little vixen?!\n
“I have long seen that there is nothing good in your Third Branch, I just didn’t expect for your hands and feet to be dirty! What a bolt from the blue ah!”\n
“Oh! My head aches ah!”\n
“…”\n
Before Bailian stepped foot into the residence, one could already hear Matriarch Wang’s caterwauling.\n
Bailian felt a little surprised, she hadn’t expected Matriarch Wang to find out so quickly.\n
What Bailian didn’t know was that when the Fourth Master went to steal the silver from the house yesterday, he had forgotten to close the lock on the cabinet and didn’t put it back into it’s the original spot.\n
He had left in a rush, not feeling the need to restore the crime scene, because, after all, he hadn’t gotten any silver in the first place, and the drug was soon to wear off. To escape without getting discovered, he had left the room askew and messy, anyone could tell it had been ransacked by a thief.\n
Acting as if he didn’t even come in at all.\n
The Fourth Master didn’t know that Bailian had asked Li Shu to steal all the silver, so actually, there had been silver in the cabinet.\n
Therefore, as soon as Matriarch Wang’s eyes opened this morning, the first thing she saw was her opened cabinet, the confines of it empty, not a single piece of silver in the bare box.\n
She then immediately headed to the courtyard, howling her grievances.\n
“Go call the Village Head over.” Bailian whispered in Yuhang’s ear and similarly instructed Yuyang, “Call Father back too!”\n
When Yuhang and Yuyang heard Matriarch Wang screeching and wailing like a dying cat, they became too frightened to step into the residence. After hearing their sister’s orders, they quickly calmed their nerves, developing a backbone from her trustworthy words. Quickly setting the ragweed baskets down, the two of them bolted off in different directions, one towards the village and one towards the Li’s farm fields.\n
Bailian picked up two baskets of ragweed and calmly walked towards the courtyard, seeming as if she was in no rush.\n
Around this time, thanks to Matriarch Wang’s loud howling, many villagers had gathered at the Li Family’s front door, peeking into watch the ruckus.\n
“Sorry! Excuse me!”\n
Bailian squeezed past the crowd, holding the ragweed in her small hands, looking very hardworking and diligent.\n
“Fifth Girl is so capable ah! You’ve already come back from cutting ragweed so early!”\n
“These were gathered by Yuhang and Yuyang!” Bailian chimed, then swung open the front door and set the baskets inside the courtyard. She then turned around and headed inside, as if she hadn’t heard Matriarch Wang’s sharp screaming at all.\n
“Oh, the Third Branch…” Some of the villager’s eyes became bright and lit up.\n
However, in an era where one can’t even get through to eat, people usually had no energy left to pay attention to other things.\n
Bailian walked around the corner, away from the villager’s prying eyes, and conjured a basin of clothes that she had left in her dimensional space earlier. Then, holding the basin close to her waist, she staggered back into view, looking overworked from strenuously doing chores.\n
“Wow, the Third Branch’s children are really hard working!”\n
“Yeah, I always see the Li Family’s Second Young Master and Third Young Master collecting ragweed. It’s not even light yet!”\n
‘These siblings look too thin ah! Tsk Tsk..” Someone observed Bailian’s scrawny arms and shook his head.\n
‘Children should be filial and obedient but…”\n
After hearing this, Bailian did not respond to the villager’s speculations, only smiling silently to some kind-looking people.\n
From the villager’s perspective, she looked like a quiet, well-behaved girl.\n
“Was it you who stole this old lady’s silver ah?! Hurry up and hand it over or else!” Matriarch Wang pointed a claw-like finger at Grandma Ciying, her clothes disheveled and face red with anger. She then took a broom leaning against the courtyard wall and moved to hit Grandmother Ciying, “I’ll kill you! You dare try to steal my money!”\n
Bailian hurriedly set down the basin she had been carrying, grabbing the broom from Matriarch Wang’s hands. A mere second after doing so, the broom moved sideways, hitting Bailian hard on the body.\n
In the eyes of others, Matriarch Wang had mustered up as much strength with that one hit, and Bailian had gone over to block the hit, only to get whacked and had fallen to the ground.\n
In fact, it was a matter of angle, most of the force had been redirected by Bailian’s internal energy towards the floor, so she had not actually been hurt.\n
‘Fifth!” Madam Zhao gasped, her chest heaving with exertion to get up and try to help up Bailian.\n
“Bah! This old lady tried to warn you that if you didn’t take out the silver, I would kill you on the spot!” Matriarch Wang cried out, and then fiercely swung her broom, her next target the flustered Madam Zhao.\n
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