This courtyard was a little larger than Liu Yiwan's.
It had one extra courtyard section.
Besides the husband and wife at the entrance.
There was also a boy in the yard, not yet ten years old, watching Shen Yi and Tao Tao enter with curious eyes.
The family was about to eat.
There were two vegetable dishes on the table.
Half a sea fish and a bucket of rice.
The woman went to the kitchen to fetch two more sets of bowls and chopsticks, set them on the table, and urged:
"Sit down, quickly."
Shen Yi and Tao Tao followed their hosts' lead.
They sat down as told.
The pockmarked man looked somewhat constrained. His large, callused hands kept rubbing against his knees as he merely muttered:
"Eat, eat."
"This is all we have at home. Don't mind it."
Shen Yi had a rough appetite, and he truly was rather hungry.
After seeing the couple lift their chopsticks, he picked up his bowl of rice as well, grabbed some food, and began shoveling it down.
Tao Tao shot Shen Yi a glance.
"You really do have a big heart, kid."
She hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
"Sir, ma'am, my Aunt Liu's daughter..."
"Do you have any clues about her whereabouts?"
"Please tell us."
She pulled out a string of copper coins from her pocket and slapped it onto the somewhat blackened wooden table, where they clinked and rattled.
The pockmarked man's throat bobbed.
He made an audible gulp as he swallowed.
Who did not want money?
But...
"Sister Liu went out to buy vegetables the day before yesterday and never came back. I was playing at the mouth of the alley then, and I even ran into her."
The boy, who had been rapidly stuffing rice into his