The System Wanted Me to Be a Landlady (GL) - Chapter 4: Hungry

Chapter 4: Hungry

Song Yuyan crossed into this body, and if she wasn’t mistaken, it had a female structure.

But in the original owner’s memories, she always lived as a boy, even thinking she was a boy until her first period came.

Song Yuyan went through the original owner’s memories several times and only found some clues in her early childhood. Before the original owner turned ten, her mother, Zhou Shi, kept telling her she was a boy. It wasn’t because Zhou Shi favored boys over girls, but because it was the only way she could protect the family property left by her husband.

Song Yuyan understood this approach. She had heard that in remote places, there was a practice called “eating up the household.”

This meant that if a man with only daughters died, other relatives would claim the household had no heir and use various methods to take the property that should belong to the daughters.

Because of societal beliefs, no one would stand up for the poor daughters.

Even in the twenty-first century, such things happened, so in this backward era, eating up the household was a common thing. No wonder Zhou Shi went to such lengths to raise the original owner as a boy.

But Zhou Shi’s thinking was a bit strange. She worried the original owner might let slip her true identity, so from a young age, she brainwashed her into thinking she was a boy. But she also never let the original owner play with other boys and used the excuse of her being born premature and weak to prevent anyone from touching her or discovering her identity.

As for her period, because the original owner was frail from childhood, often went without meals, and was malnourished, she didn’t have her first period until she was fourteen.

She knew what a period was, since when she hung out with troublemakers, she had done things like stealing menstrual cloths drying behind neighbors’ houses. But she never imagined that one day, she would have a period like those women.

This realization left her shaken for a while.

Her memories from this time were chaotic and blurry, showing how much the original owner resisted this and didn’t want to dwell on it, so Song Yuyan didn’t keep digging into those memories.

…

While Song Yuyan was lost in thought, the two little kids on the bed sat facing each other. The younger one, Song Yuzhuan, tugged at her brother’s little finger and asked in confusion, “Why is Big Brother always staring into space?”

Ten-year-old Song Yuban acted like a little adult, his small face serious. “He might have fallen and gotten silly.”

Song Yuyan: “…”

Song Yuzhuan let out an “ah,” slowly climbed off the bed, and limped over to Song Yuyan. She looked up to check if she was really silly.

Song Yuban ran over and pulled his sister back. “Don’t get close to him, or you might get silly too.”

Hearing this, Song Yuzhuan stepped back behind her brother in fear. Song Yuyan, who the two kids thought had gone silly, was speechless again. She turned to look at them, scaring them into backing away a few more steps.

Am I that scary? Or are you just that afraid of becoming silly?

Song Yuyan felt at a loss for words.

If she were just an outsider, she might think the original owner’s wish for her younger siblings to grow up well was overly saintly. After all, her suffering was directly caused by these two kids’ parents. Not resenting them was already generous, yet she worried about them until her death. If that wasn’t saintly, what was?

But after reading the original owner’s memories, though Song Yuyan couldn’t fully relate emotionally, she understood her thinking. The original owner lost her father young, then her mother, and after enduring so much hardship and pain, she deeply craved family care.

When these two kids were abandoned by their mother, she had felt some glee at their misfortune. But soon, she saw her past self in them.

Maybe she wanted to find some comfort in them, so instead of driving them away, she lived with them and hoped they could grow up well.

But though the original owner had this wish, she didn’t have the ability. Her habits also led to many misunderstandings with the two kids, so the three siblings’ relationship wasn’t close.

Looking at it this way, the original owner didn’t just leave Song Yuyan a mess, but so much chaos she didn’t know where to start complaining.

Just then, Song Yuyan’s stomach started rumbling.

When she first crossed over, she was too busy processing the situation to notice her hunger. But now, the hunger was so strong it felt like she’d die if she didn’t eat soon, and she couldn’t ignore it anymore.

As if setting off a chain reaction, Song Yuban and Song Yuzhuan’s stomachs started rumbling one after another.

In the face of hunger, grudges, feelings, and system tasks were nothing!

Song Yuyan went to the kitchen to see if there was any rice to make porridge to warm their stomachs. But she overestimated the Song family’s situation. There wasn’t a single grain of rice in the jar. There were two palm-sized fish in the water tank, but she didn’t think those could fill their stomachs.

After checking the kitchen and the original owner’s memories, Song Yuyan slowly realized that the cabbage Tang Zhi took back might have been the Song siblings’ meal for the day…

The original owner never held a steady job, so her wages were always shortchanged. The little money she earned went to rice and daily necessities, so life was always tight.

Later, the original owner noticed Tang’s vegetable garden and found that no one confronted her after stealing a few times. So she got bold: when there was no rice at home, she stole vegetables from Tang’s garden. At first, she took little, but as her courage grew, she took more.

Like the cabbage Tang Zhi found in their house today, it was enough for the three siblings to eat for a day. The rest could be sold for a few coins to buy five measures of rice, solving the next day’s food problem.

Song Yuyan thought it was a miracle the original owner hadn’t been beaten to death by the Tang family for harming their interests.

Of course, from this morning’s events, it wasn’t that the Tang family didn’t know what she did. It was more likely they were kind-hearted.

So, should she go to the kind Tang family to borrow some rice to get through this food crisis?

Song Yuyan dismissed the idea almost immediately. The original owner had no credit left with the neighbors. Even if Song Yuyan swore to the heavens now, using the original owner’s body, no one would likely believe her.

Starting in a dead end like this, even with her patience, Song Yuyan couldn’t help but hold a grudge against this “happy life” system and the original owner!

Gritting her teeth, Song Yuyan scooped up the two fish from the tank to make fish soup.

Fish had vitamins and protein, and given the three siblings’ malnourished and stunted state, eating fish was the right choice!

As for whether two fish could fill them up?

She didn’t expect the fish to fill their stomachs. They’d drink the soup! Soup could at least make them feel full.

But when she started preparing the fish soup, she faced a new problem—this house was so poor it didn’t even have salt!

…

After Tang Zhi took back the cabbage, she put it in the kitchen.

The cabbage had been picked for a while and wasn’t as fresh as when it was just harvested, so she planned to keep some for her family and give the rest to the neighbors as thanks for their usual help with her family’s business.

Thinking of the neighbors, she couldn’t help but recall Song Yuyan’s strange behavior that morning, which gave her goosebumps for no reason.

After thinking it over, she decided to wait for her brother to return and ask him to check on the Song family to see what was going on.

Just then, someone lightly knocked on the courtyard’s wooden gate.

The gate wasn’t fully closed, and neighbors usually just called out from outside. Why was there no sound today?

Feeling puzzled, Tang Zhi went to open the gate and saw the person she was just thinking about standing at her door. Her heart sank, sensing this might not be good news!