Sweetened Red Beans - Chapter 1
## Meeting as Children
Zhou Maoxiu wasn’t some exquisitely pretty little darling as a child. He was the pitiful boy in our village whose father didn’t care about him and whose mother didn’t want him.
His clothes didn’t fit. His shoes were coming unglued, with holes worn through them. Everything about him was filthy and ragged.
His face was blotched with dirt. Streaks of dried snot, wiped sideways across both cheeks, had turned black. His hair hung past his eyebrows, so dirty it had clumped together.
Picture those children in impoverished regions, left behind by parents working elsewhere, whom you saw on television appeals.
Yes. Exactly that.
I’d only just arrived in this body and was still a little dizzy.
The original owner of the body had been delighted when her grandfather bought her a little cake. She’d taken it outside to show off. The male lead had thrown a stone at her, hit her head, and knocked the cake to the ground.
That was how their feud began. Afterward, she found ways to torment him whenever they met, right up until he left the village.
They met again at university. She fell for him, pursued him, tried to break up the hero and heroine, persecuted the heroine, and schemed against him. Eventually, the two leads found proof and sent her to prison. There, she offended the woman running the place and got herself killed.
I felt the spot on my head where the stone had hit. Not too bad. The bump wasn’t very big.
The little wolf cub stood some distance away, watching me with cold, hostile eyes, as though he might spring at me and steal something at any moment.
I silently crouched and picked up a stone.
If he dared lunge at me, I’d crack his head open. Scare him properly once and solve the problem for good.
Seriously, looking at him now, he was practically asking for a beating. How would that count as bullying?
Oh, forget it. He was only six and a bit. Never mind that my twenty-two-year-old soul could practically be his mother—even this body’s original owner was ten.
No point stooping to a little brat’s level.
I picked up the cake. The cream was beyond saving, but the golden sponge underneath was still there. I pinched off the dirty bits and put it on the courtyard wall.
The wall was only about a meter high. At my current height, my head rose above it.
“Hey!” I called, pointing at the cake before going inside.
He was too dirty. I didn’t want to touch him.
Could some saintly girl please come wash him?
I hid indoors and peeked through the window.
Zhou Maoxiu clearly hadn’t expected that turn of events. For a moment, his fierce eyes went blank. Then he pounced on the cake like an animal snatching food and ran.
The next time he loitered near our gate, I briskly tipped our leftover rice and dishes into a large bowl and set it on the wall.
Without so much as a greeting, I went inside.
I didn’t want to take care of him at all. I even wanted to drive him away with stones or a stick, just as the original girl had.
He was unnerving. Those dark, icy eyes made it seem as though he meant harm. Remembering how unhinged he’d become later, I wanted to hide in outer space.
“How come you haven’t been chasing him off these past two days?” Grandma asked.
I scratched at my braid and delivered a mouthful of moral virtue. “Our teacher says we should help people. Besides, didn’t you say his father drinks and neglects him, and his mother ran away? He’s so pitiful…”
Grandma stroked my head affectionately and said I was growing up into a sensible girl.
Ha. All I wanted was for him to remember that I’d fed him now—and leave me completely alone later.
