Next door, Chen Erni was licking her fingers to clean off the residual food.
But eating a pancake the size of a palm made from cornmeal felt no different from not eating anything. Her stomach still ached from hunger.
With tears in her eyes, she said in a desolate tone, "Mom, I'm so hungry."
Although Zhao Mei was heartbroken, she could only say, "Go to sleep. When you wake up tomorrow morning, we'll have food."
Erni licked the corners of her mouth, full of expectation, and asked, "Mom, we didn't finish the wild boar meat, did we?"
With a sense of helplessness, Zhao Mei replied, "It's all gone. However, when I cook tomorrow morning, I'll make the sweet potato pancakes denser and give you a little more congee."
Though the bowls for the congee were all the same size, there was a layer of coarse rice at the bottom of the pot. If scooped before stirring, the congee would be thicker. This was how Zhou Zhaodi and Li Chunhua usually did it.
