Family Survival Rules 5
She noticed red pen marks on the diary—likely the teacher’s comments—but for some reason, the pages had been torn out.
“The diary is a tattletale,” they said. But wasn’t her daughter keeping a diary too?
She couldn’t quite understand what it was all about.
At that moment, Xu Si was overwhelmed, her head pounding, when a knock came at the door—“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
She opened it to find her mother calling her to eat.
“My dear daughter, you’ve worked so hard studying. Mom made some delicious food for you!” Her mother looked pleased, smiling broadly as she handed Xu Si a bowl of rice.
The dishes on the table were simple home-cooked meals, nothing unusual—except they were all crawling with maggots.
Xu Si poked at the rice with her chopsticks, thinking about how to handle this.
“Granddaughter, why aren’t you eating? Are you just going to waste your mother’s hard work like this?!” her grandmother snapped, glaring fiercely.
Hearing this, her mother turned to look at her.
Xu Si pulled out a steamed bun and handed it to her grandmother, then said to her mother, “Heh… heh… Mom, the food is too hot. I want to wait for it to cool down before eating.”
Her mother nodded in satisfaction and went back to the kitchen to finish the last soup dish.
Steamed buns!
Yes, she could use the buns to swap for the food.
She could replace the dishes with these, but with her grandmother and little brother staring at her, she didn’t dare move a muscle.
Her grandmother exaggeratedly sniffed the aroma of the bun, baring her teeth at Xu Si, while her brother tugged hard on her grandmother’s sleeve, clearly wanting some too.
Xu Si pulled out a bag of steamed buns, waving it in front of the two of them. The grandmother and brother salivated involuntarily, eyes reddening.
Seeing this, she tossed the buns onto the sofa.
The grandmother and brother scrambled to grab them.
Taking advantage of their backs being turned, Xu Si swiftly swapped out all the dishes on the table.
“Ah… buns! All buns! You really are grandma’s good granddaughter!”
“Sis, I declare you the most beautiful sister in the world; no one can compare to you!”
The two of them flanked Xu Si, showering her with flattery, just as her mother brought the final dish to the table and saw the scene.
Xu Si was enjoying some ribs, her grandmother eagerly offering potatoes, and her brother peeling shrimp.
“Oh, Mom, you’ve worked so hard. Please sit down and eat!” Xu Si said, pulling out a chair for her mother and handing her a bowl of rice.
Her mother was puzzled.
The tables had turned.
Wasn’t this supposed to be her domain?
The “happy and harmonious” family ate their meal in a strange silence for three minutes.
“Thump!” A piece of vegetable was placed into Xu Si’s bowl. “Good daughter, eat some vegetables—it’s good for your health!”
Xu Si swallowed her food and began to rant, “Mom, I can’t eat vegetables. Don’t you remember I have a stomach condition? You never care about me, only about my brother!”
Her mother’s expression turned awkward, head bowed, avoiding her gaze.
She continued, “When my brother is unwell, you rush him to the hospital. But me? You just watch coldly and say it’s my own fault! You’re not a good mother!”
It seemed the pages ripped from the diary were indeed true.
The more Xu Si read, the stranger it felt—until she found the torn pages in her room, confirming her suspicions.
That’s why she purposely left one stir-fried vegetable dish untouched, so she could use it as a pretext.
“So… so what? I am a good mother! Didn’t I take you to the hospital later?” Her mother squatted down, hands on her head, screaming, “I am your mom! I serve you like a slave, I can’t be wrong…”
Meal times were absolutely safe.
Xu Si curled her lips into a wicked smile, flexed her wrist, and gave her mother a sharp slap.
“Stand up! There are no slaves in New China!”
The other three ghosts felt the air growing redder around them.
Ah, that was the scent of revolution!
Her mother, meanwhile, looked dazed, mechanically standing and sitting repeatedly, muttering, “I’m not wrong.”