Hearing her second son's words, the middle-aged woman immediately stopped her scolding. However, she was still fuming, so she reached out and pinched the girl's waist.
"Ouch!" The young lady gasped in pain and immediately ran behind Second Brother to hide.
"Coward!" The young man laughed at her, then turned and walked towards Qin Yiling.
When the two groups met, he had already noticed that woman, which was only natural as she was the only one out of her entire group who was dressed so neatly.
The clothes on her looked like they were bought from the major provincial city, and were definitely worth a lot of money. Since she could afford such good clothes, she had to be very rich too.
The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. He swung his arms smugly and, thinking that he looked intimidating, walked to where Qin Yiling and the two others were.
"Hey you! Looks like you're really enjoying your food! My stomach's in agony just from watching you eat. Tell me, how are you going to compensate me?"
Hearing that, Qin Yiling stared in disbelief at this arrogant man who was in front of her–it was clear that she thought he was a fool. She was completely dumbfounded by what he said! She had never seen such a shameless person in her entire life. How was he able to spout such a thing? Really, too shameless.
At first, she had thought that he was just going to assert his male dominance and try to intimidate her. She didn't expect him to act like a thug in front of everyone and threaten her so openly. Did he think everyone was dead?
Qin Yiling didn't take him seriously at all. She looked at him coldly, guessing from his behavior that this was not the first time he'd acted like this.
"Little brother, we don't have much food left either. We only have this mouthful left. If you don't mind, I'll give it to you to try." The grandmother hugged her grandson tightly as they huddled together. She couldn't pretend not to notice him, and seeing that he probably didn't come in peace, she immediately knew that it was safer to comply.
It was not that she couldn't differentiate between good and evil, or that she was too timid. It was just that in the face of cruel reality, she had no choice but to compromise. With her and her grandson's physiques and ages, they would only suffer more if they tried resisting.
She had experienced too many incidents like this, because they were often weaker than the other parties.
To live well in this tumultuous world, it was important to understand the meaning of 'the survival of the fittest'–this was the era of the strong, and there was no such thing as reasoning or principles to speak of.
Besides, Miss Qin gave them her rations out of goodwill–she shouldn't have to find herself in trouble just because she tried to do something good.
In the old woman's eyes, Miss Qin was still a young girl, innocent and inexperienced. Even though she was playing with the knife, it was probably just a tactic to scare others off.
As the old woman spoke, she held out the remaining half of her compressed biscuit, hoping that this would send the bully away.
"Aunt Qian, take it back!"
Qin Yiling chided her sternly, startling the old woman, who then automatically withdrew her hands and stored the biscuit away.
"Aunt Qian, I gave that to you and your grandson, but I didn't agree to let others have it. You have no right to give my things to other people."
Although she understood that Aunt Qian was just afraid of conflict, Qin Yiling was not someone who shied away from trouble. Sure, she tended to be a little lazy and didn't like anything that was too troublesome, but that did not mean that she would just sit still and take it when being so blatantly bullied.
The man glared at her as he hadn't expected her to be so imprudent. But now that he was looking at her at close range, he suddenly realized something that he hadn't noticed before.
"Oh! Looks like this chick has quite smooth and delicate skin. Not bad, not bad!"