Gu Youyou hadn't finished yet, and the remaining half bowl of thin porridge had also been eaten by the Huang Family, but she barely had the strength to sit up, let alone resist.
Feeling hungry while watching someone else eat was truly unbearable, Gu Youyou thought to herself, "Huang Family, as long as I, Gu Youyou, can get out of this ghostly house, and as long as I don't die, I will make sure there comes a day when you starve to the point of eating straw mats."
Indeed, she had been here for half a year, and had once been so hungry that she actually ate a straw mat.
The Huang Family took her time finishing Gu Youyou's thin porridge, then brought over a blackened medicinal decoction. Flashing a mouthful of yellow teeth, she said with a grin, "I won't be fighting over this with you, drink it and die."
Gu Youyou glared at her coldly, her eyes wide and unblinking, which genuinely frightened the Huang Family into letting out a shrill scream.
The original Gu Youyou had been locked up here for ten years, often abused by her two aunts, and the fact that she managed to survive until half a year ago was quite a feat.
Her hair was withered, her eye sockets sunken, her body without an ounce of flesh, just skin wrapped around a skeleton; in this state, she truly looked like a ghostly girl, and even her cousins called her "Ghost Sister."
"You dead girl, are you trying to scare me to death?"
Gu Youyou coldly said, "Second Aunt, just leave the medicinal decoction here, I'll drink it by myself in a while."
The Huang Family couldn't have been happier, as this ghostly girl was truly frightening, and the sight of her had given her quite the shock.
She stood up, patted her clothes, and said, "All right, drink it yourself, then. I'll come to collect the bowl at noon. Remember to finish it all, you're getting married in a few days and need to look lively."
Gu Youyou kept staring at her coldly, making her feel as if she was being watched by a ghost, which scared her enough to run away as if escaping.
She glanced at the medicine on the table, swallowed hard, and then poured it straight under the bed.
Fortunately, Third Aunt Meng Family would come in a while to bring her food.
The original Gu Youyou had started drinking this medicine at the age of seven and continued until she was seventeen, when she finally was poisoned to death six months ago, and then the modern descendant of a traditional Chinese medicine family, Gu Youyou, took her place.
She realized the next day after her arrival that there was something wrong with this medicine. It was craftily concocted; the poisoner had adjusted it just right to keep her alive but chronically ill, thereby deceiving the Gu Family and earning their complete trust.
Drinking this medicine long-term would leave her body increasingly weak, bedridden with sickness. From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, this was a case of "Yang deficiency"; to put it plainly, it meant an excess of "Yin energy."
Logically, she should have died within three years of drinking it, but somehow she had managed to drag it out much longer. The poisoner was an expert, and perhaps there was something she hadn't discovered yet.
But who would be so cruel as to harm a seven-year-old girl in this manner?
She was just a little girl from a rural area who had lost her parents; killing her would be all too easy. What made her so valuable that someone would go to such lengths to orchestrate such a long and intricate plot? To harm her and yet keep her alive?
Just then, the voices of the Second Aunt and Third Aunt came from the front courtyard. "Second Sister-in-law, did you tell Youyou about it?"
"Of course, I did. The moment I told that ghostly girl, she was so happy she sat straight up on the bed."
Gu Youyou: "..."
In fact, she had been able to sit up for a long time now, even walk a little, but she had kept it from others.
"Oh, she can sit up? Wasn't it two years ago that she couldn't sit up anymore?"
The Second Aunt from the Huang Family spat, "Exactly, that ghostly girl hasn't died after all these years. Now that she hears she's getting married, she's come alive. I tell you, in three days she might just hop onto the bridal sedan herself."