Chapter 41: My Stomach Hurts So Much

Lin Siyan had no doubts. Even if that little girl was no longer an idiot, she was still just a child. Could she possibly outsmart her?

"What on earth is your method? Tell me quickly!" Old Madam Li asked anxiously.

Lin Siyan’s gaze swept over Li Yunzhao and his two brothers, who were glaring fiercely at her. "Mother, you will find out by noon."

Old Madam Li nodded, and Li Yuan chose to remain silent.

After walking for another two hours, Li Rong’s clothes dried and soaked through repeatedly. By the end, her entire body was shivering violently, and the bleeding between her legs refused to stop, staining her trousers red. Even so, the bailiffs showed not a shred of pity, merely urging them to hurry up and threatening them with whips if they fell behind.

When it finally reached noon and time to rest for a meal, the bailiffs handed them a small amount of rice as usual for them to cook themselves.

Old Madam Li felt a pang of agony seeing that the flour, soaked in water, had diminished significantly, and what remained had formed hard clumps. Yet if they didn't eat it now, it would spoil. She had no choice but to urge Zhao and Sun to press the flour into hard, dry pancakes, hoping they might keep for a couple of days longer.

Meanwhile, she kept her eyes fixed on Lin Siyan, determined to see this brilliant method she had promised.

Thinking of the humiliation and beatings she had suffered over the past few days, Lin Siyan had been longing for this very moment. And those three brats—this time, they could all get kicked out of the Li family together and go plague the Gu family instead.

She pulled a protective talisman folded out of yellow paper from her bodice. Old Madam Li looked at it in bewilderment. "What is this?"

"Mother, this is something I previously had prayed for at the temple for Brother Yuan to keep him safe. The abbot said this talisman can also ward off evil spirits and disasters. I’ll mix it into the food. If there is a demon or evil entity, it will certainly react, while ordinary people will feel nothing. When the time comes, you can just watch and see for yourselves whether I’m lying."

Li Mumu was playing with her brothers when she noticed from afar that the members of the Li family were huddled together whispering. Without guessing, she knew they must be plotting how to deal with her.

Once the pancakes were cooked, Old Madam Li unusually took the initiative to call the children over to eat.

Lin Siyan handed out the pancakes one by one, and when she reached Li Mumu, she gave her a deep, meaningful look.

Li Mumu took it with a smile and began to eat right under everyone's watchful eyes.

Soon, she finished the small pancake. "I'm not full."

Lin Siyan wore a rare smile. "Then have another one."

Before long, she finished the second one and asked for more. Old Madam Li’s expression darkened. "Eat, eat, eat, all you know is eating! You're going to scarf down all our food."

Li Mumu pouted, and Lin Siyan smiled and said, "Mother, the child isn't full, just let her eat."

Old Madam Li snorted coldly, though she didn't stop her anymore.

With three pancakes down her stomach, Li Mumu proceeded to eat a large piece of meat as well. Only then did she let out a satisfying burp and loudly announce she was going off to play.

Old Madam Li was full of doubt. "Why isn't there any reaction yet? Don't try to trick me."

Lin Siyan smiled smugly. "Mother, the time hasn't come yet. What are you rushing for? When the moment arrives, you'll know that I really have been wronged all these days."

Old Madam Li pressed her lips tightly together, eating her food while staring fixedly at Li Mumu without blinking an eye.

Sure enough, very soon Li Mumu clutched her stomach, screaming in pain, and rolled around on the grass.

Lin Siyan curved her lips. "Mother, Brother Yuan, look! She is the demon."

Everyone else had eaten the food too, yet suffered no ill effects whatsoever, so Old Madam Li naturally believed Lin Siyan’s words.

Seeing that something had happened to Li Mumu, the Gu family rushed over first to check on her.

Unexpectedly, Old Madam Li’s voice arrived even faster than her legs: "Aha, you little demon! So it was you making all this trouble."

"A demon? What demon?" Old Madam Gu scooped Li Mumu up into her arms, her face full of heartache. "My little Mumu, what is wrong?"

"Grandmother, my stomach hurts."

"Still pretending, you're still pretending, you little demon! In-law... no, this thing is a demon."

"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?" Old Madam Gu said with stern authority. "I think you've gone senile in your old age. This is Mumu, your own biological granddaughter. No matter how much you dislike her, you don't care when she's suffering, and on top of that, you call her a demon."

"She is a demon! Otherwise, why did the rest of us eat the pancakes with the talisman and suffer nothing, while she turned out like this?"

Gu Jian sneered, "Absolute nonsense."

"I'm not talking nonsense at all! I saw it with my own eyes—she is definitely a demon."

"Demon, why are you trying to harm me? Is it because you know there is a star of fortune in my belly? Who on earth is directing you?" Lin Siyan seized the opportunity to add fuel to the fire.

"Demon, why did you harm my son?" Sun asked accusingly. "Give me back my son's life!"

"Hurry up and burn the demon!" Li Sheng shouted. "This demon is going to get us all killed!"

Gu Yuru looked at Li Yuan, her gaze piercingly cold. "Li Yuan, Mumu is your daughter. Are you just going to let them talk about her like this?"

Li Yuan frowned. "Then how do you explain why she ended up like this?"

Li Mumu, while putting all her effort into acting out a severe stomachache, managed to suppress her urge to speak. *What a bunch of idiots,* she thought. *It's simply because Lin Siyan tampered with her pancake.*

She had caught a whiff of the substance the moment she took the pancake. Her sense of smell was exceptionally sharp, and as the descendant of a traditional Chinese medicine family in her previous life in the apocalypse, she had studied medicine since the age of three. Such a cheap trick could only fool a bunch of fools like the Li family; it couldn't possibly fool her.

"It hurts so much, it hurts!" Li Mumu wailed loudly.

"See? I didn't lie. Only evil spirits and demons will react this way." Lin Siyan pointed at Li Mumu, then leaned aggrievedly into Li Yuan's embrace. "I was never a jinx; it was this monster trying to harm me, Brother Yuan!"

This time, Li Yuan did not push Lin Siyan away. Lin Siyan knew she had recaptured this man's heart.

"Quickly, go find some medicine!" Old Madam Gu shouted.

Zhang Yi trotted over, panting. "Coming, coming!"

"You're not allowed to give it to her! She's a demon, giving her medicine is useless. If she gets better, she'll just keep harming us," Old Madam Li screamed. "She belongs to the Li family, and I have the final say."

Watching her daughter sweat profusely from the pain, Gu Yuru looked angrily at the unmoved Li Yuan. "Li Yuan, I'll ask you one last time: are you completely refusing to acknowledge Mumu as your daughter?"

Li Yuan furrowed his brow tightly. "Yuru, she is a demon."

"Absolute bullshit!" Gu Yuru, usually of gentle temperament, was thoroughly enraged. "She is no demon! She is the child I carried for ten months and gave birth to. If you don't want her, you might as well give her to me. Even if she is a demon, I'll endure it!"

Li Yuan raised an eyebrow and looked at her. Gu Yuru no longer expected him to stop her. "You will regret this."

With a resolute attitude, Gu Yuru raised her chin and declared every word with solemn righteousness: "I—will—never—regret—it!"

"If sister is a demon, then so are we! We are staying with Mother, too."

Old Madam Li looked at the meager remaining food. "Go on, go on, get lost, all of you! Third son, you can always have more children. Keeping this bunch of little beasts around means they won't be filial to you in the future anyway."

Li Yuan nodded slightly. Having learned from previous experience, the Gu family drafted another written agreement. This time, Old Madam Gu wrote it out herself. Whether from excitement or anger, her hand shook the entire time she wrote.

Without a shred of reluctance, Li Yuan pressed his thumbprint onto the paper.