"This is an egg cake, you can eat it with a sip of milk like this."
Otherwise, if you only drink milk without eating the bread, the bread will be very dry later.
The two kids then reached for the bread on the plate, glanced at Yun Xiaoxiao, and took a bite with their heads bowed.
"How does it taste?"
Da Bao tentatively spoke first, "It's delicious."
He was afraid that their mother would hit them later because of something they said.
"Eat up!" Yun Xiaoxiao stood up and headed to the kitchen; heating the milk had been quite a task.
With a wood-fired stove, and as a child born after 1995 and the only son in her family, Yun Xiaoxiao seldom cooked or went into the kitchen, let alone cooked with a wood-fired stove—her only experience was with a natural gas stove, except when eating chicken cooked over a wood fire.
This place had no electricity yet, so if you wanted water, you had to boil it yourself.
"Brother, mom didn't hit us," Xiao Bao said in a low voice to Da Bao, after taking a bite of the fragrant and sweet bread and sipping the sweet milk.
Even Da Bao felt that their mother was acting strangely today.
Why would she give them such delicious egg cakes and also let him drink malted milk?
So strange, huh?
Could it be that their mother was planning to abandon them and return to the city?
Before, an aunt had told them: "Your mother is going back to the city, she doesn't want you anymore."
"Let's hurry up and eat," Da Bao said, setting aside those thoughts for now.
Their father was not at home.
In a half-brick-and-tile house not far from their house, a middle-aged woman who looked to be almost fifty was wondering why her two young grandsons hadn't come to eat. And she hadn't seen the daughter-in-law either.
Could something have happened?
She could not sit still anymore; she shut the door and went to see what was going on.
She knew her daughter-in-law wanted to go back to the city.
This was Da Bao's grandmother, the team leader's wife.
As she reached her younger son's house and was about to knock, the door easily pushed open.
Da Bao and Xiao Bao had finished their bread and milk, and Da Bao was even planning to take the bowl to the kitchen to wash it.
"Da Bao, Xiao Bao..."
The two kids turned on hearing their grandmother's voice, "Grandma..."
Mrs. Zhao paused at the sight of her two grandsons holding bowls, realizing they were only eating at this hour.
She wanted to scold her daughter-in-law but feared it would drive her mad.
Yun Xiaoxiao, who was boiling water in the kitchen, heard a voice in the yard and hesitated. Was it the female supporting character's mother-in-law?
No, that was wrong; now, she was her nominal mother-in-law.
After all, she had become the female supporting character.
Should she go out or not?
It was a painless way to become a mother, but it also involved a host of messy relatives.
Better not to go out; she could just play dead in the kitchen.
"Grandma, let me take the bowl to the kitchen," Da Bao said with newfound courage; with their grandmother present, their mother wouldn't dare to hit them.
Now that he and his brother had their fill.
"Go ahead," Mrs. Zhao then looked toward the kitchen, where someone was faintly visible, surely her daughter-in-law.
Mrs. Zhao took Xiao Bao by the hand, noticing the dirt on his small hands and face, but there was a sweet smell on him. Had she made malted milk for the two brothers?
As soon as Da Bao placed the bowl on the countertop, he trotted out of the kitchen, afraid that Yun Xiaoxiao, who was tending the fire, might beat him?
Yun Xiaoxiao's mouth twitched fiercely; she was not the female supporting character. She wouldn't hit children without reason.
Unless they were unbearable kids.
"What did you eat for lunch?" Mrs. Zhao asked as Da Bao came over.
After the autumn harvest, the younger son had gone out, and since marrying into the Zhao family, the daughter-in-law rarely worked in the fields.