Li Du once heard a story, which was rooted in fact.
As any Chinese of a certain age knew, China once had a three-year period of disaster, when there was famine all over the country and people went hungry.
Li Du's home county suffered too. Many people starved to death, and those who survived experienced the torture of hunger. He did not know how terrible the feeling of hunger was, but the protagonist of the story was a youth from one of their villages.
After the natural disaster, the young man worked hard to plant potatoes and sweet potatoes, and then after harvesting the crop, he removed the walls of his home and replaced it with dried mashed potatoes, saying that there would be something to eat in the future when there was famine.
This event made Li Du realize the horror of hunger, so he could understand Ah Bai's pursuit of food. The little monkey was not really a foodie, it was just afraid of hunger.
