Chapter 56: Third Aunt, Let Me Be Your Daughter

Li Mumu felt that her mother was truly cool and dashing. With those words, she no longer needed to worry that her mother might ever reconcile with that scumbag of a father.

She turned to look at the scumbag, and sure enough, she saw him staring at her mother with a wounded and desolate expression, as if he had suffered some unimaginably heavy blow, looking completely half-dead.

However, Gu Yuru didn't even spare him a glance, nor did she care to.

Having hit a wall with Gu Yuru, Li Yuan instead took out his frustration on Lin Siyan. "Hiss! It hurts! You're so clumsy, can't you be a little gentler?"

Lin Siyan was scolded into a state of panic and helplessness. She had already been as gentle as possible. Especially since she was starving, heavily pregnant, and already feeling deeply unwell, yet she still had to take care of him, only to be met with curses and blame.

Li Mumu, however, felt not an ounce of sympathy for her; showing sympathy to the wicked was simply cruelty to oneself.

Besides, Lin Siyan brought everything about today upon herself. If she hadn't harbored malicious intentions to harm others, she wouldn't have brought about a counterattack.

Whether the bailiffs had forgotten, or perhaps having witnessed Gu Mingjing's formidable prowess, decided that wearing cangues was pointless anyway, they simply omitted them, leaving it entirely to the Gu family's own sense of self-discipline.

Eating without the heavy wooden cangues made the food taste exceptionally delicious.

"Mother, I'm hungry!" Li Fenghua swallowed continuously as she watched the Gu family devouring their meal with gusto.

"Why don't you just starve to death? All you know is eating day in and day out, you're not even as useful as a silly girl. Why couldn't it have been you who died?" Mrs. Sun glared bitterly at her daughter. If her daughter's death could exchange for her son's life, she would have strangled her without a moment's hesitation.

Frightened by her mother's sudden reprimand, Li Fenghua burst into loud, heartbroken wails, which only earned her a vicious beating from Mrs. Sun.

"Crying, crying, all you know is crying! Even if you cry your eyes out, there's no food. You were born under an unlucky star, without a capable mother."

Li Fenghua was not much older than Li Mumu and usually just as clueless. At this moment, she couldn't take in any reasoning and could only weep.

Hearing the little girl's heart-rending and miserable cries, Gu Yuru, being a mother herself, found it hard to bear.

Furthermore, she knew very well that having lived together for so many years, although the second branch's little girl was a twin to her older brother, she had always been neglected and overlooked.

She sighed. Then, Zhang Yi, who was always perceptive and kind-hearted, said in a gentle voice, "We still have plenty left. Let's send some over. The child's crying is quite heartbreaking."

Song Qiang also nodded. "We are all mothers; we can't bear to watch a child cry like this."

Besides, how much could a young child possibly eat? If everyone ate just one mouthful less, there would be enough.

Gu Yuru nodded, taking half a bowl of porridge and a little bit of meat. It wasn't much, but it was enough to fill a five or six-year-old child's stomach.

"Stop hitting her. The child is just hungry, it's not like she committed some grave crime. Yunzhi is your child, but isn't Fenghua yours as well?" Gu Yuru sighed. "How sad do you think the child feels when you say things like that?"

For the sake of the food, Mrs. Sun didn't argue back, though she muttered under her breath, "Can a worthless girl ever compare to a son?"

"In my eyes, they are all the same. They were all born from me." Feeling that further discussion was futile, Gu Yuru decided against saying any more. She bent down and looked at Li Fenghua, whose face was stained with tears. "Stop crying. Hurry up and eat."

Li Fenghua nodded. Looking at the gentle Third Aunt, she felt deeply puzzled: why wasn't she the Third Aunt's daughter? If she were, she wouldn't have to endure beatings and would always have plenty of delicious food.

Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed Gu Yuru's sleeve. "Third Aunt, can I be your daughter?"

Gu Yuru paused for a moment. "Fenghua, I am no longer your Third Aunt. Besides, I already have Mumu, and you have your own mother."

With that, she gently stroked the little girl's head, then returned to the Gu family's side, picking up her youngest daughter and settling her on her lap. "The ground is cold. Mother's lap is warm."

Li Fenghua watched dazedly. Even though Li Mumu was simple-minded and shunned by everyone, her Third Aunt still cherished her dearly and gave her the very best.

Unlike her own mother, who forced her to use whatever her brother discarded, and who took out her anger on her whenever her brother did something wrong.

Li Fenghua thought once more how wonderful it would be if the Third Aunt were her mother instead.

Her words just now had been heard loud and clear by Mrs. Sun. Furious, Mrs. Sun poked Li Fenghua hard on the forehead and viciously cursed, "Wretched girl, ungrateful little wolf, you want to change mothers now? This old lady hasn't even complained about you being a useless burden, yet you have the audacity to despise me! If you want to climb up to a higher branch, at least take a look at what kind of virtue you possess—they already have a daughter of their own."

Li Fenghua picked up a piece of meat, took a bite, and let her mother beat and scold her, while a single thought formed in her mind: What if the Third Aunt no longer had a daughter?

Would she then be able to become her daughter?

Early the next morning, the men put their cangues back on and resumed their journey.

The Li family had exhausted all their food and money, making the days ahead even more arduous.

Li Mumu had been somewhat overexcited from the wolf encounter and took quite a while to fall asleep, though she used the quiet moments to review the plot in her mind.

She remembered that along the way, they would encounter refugees fleeing from famine, some of whom were infected with the plague. Because of a brief and casual contact, several people in the exile convoy would become infected, suffering from unrelenting high fevers and severe diarrhea, ultimately leading to heavy casualties. Since this plot point was unavoidable, she could only do her best to change the outcome.

Although Li Mumu had displayed extraordinary skills when confronting the wolf pack, the bailiffs did not restrict her movements too much, recognizing that she was still a child who couldn't be apart from her mother.

Whenever Li Mumu saw medicinal herbs growing on the mountainside, she would pick a few along the way so that it would seem entirely natural when she eventually produced herbs from her spatial dimension later on.

The further north they traveled, the more remote the surroundings became. Sometimes they wouldn't even pass a town for days, let alone have a chance to purchase supplies.

Li Mumu suddenly noticed that she had acquired a tail. Turning around, she saw that it was her second cousin, Li Fenghua, who was staring at her with a chilling, hair-raising gaze.

Coming from the pure eyes of a child, that look was genuinely eerie.

"I'm gathering herbs too," Li Fenghua said.

Li Mumu nodded. Go ahead and gather them; the mountain didn't belong to her family. However, whatever Li Mumu picked, Li Fenghua would copy and pick as well, presumably because she didn't know how to identify them either.

When they stopped to rest at noon, Li Mumu had already gathered a large bundle, prompting Old Madam Gu to praise her little granddaughter for being so capable.

Li Fenghua held up her own small handful of gathered plants and presented them to Gu Yuru. "Third Aunt, look, I gathered so many, and there's even a flower. I brought it for Third Aunt to wear."

Gu Yuru smiled. "Fenghua, you should take what you've gathered back to your own mother."

She had already corrected the child several times, but the little girl was still accustomed to calling her that; she was young yet and simply couldn't break the habit overnight.

Song Qiang chuckled. "You're certainly different from those other people—knowing how to repay kindness. It wasn't a waste of our food to feed you."

Li Fenghua smiled back. "Second Aunt, Fenghua knows Third Aunt is the kindest person in the world. Fenghua likes Third Aunt the most."

"That's right, a whole family of adults isn't even as sensible as a child. Look at that, truly not easy. For the sake of those words, I'll give you a steamed bun to eat later."

Mrs. Sun glared angrily at her daughter. "Wretched girl, why aren't you hurrying back with your things? It looks like your skin is itching for another beating."

Li Fenghua ignored her mother entirely, simply gazing at Gu Yuru with a bright, smiling face.