His younger sister, Riyana, quickly said, "Mom, half a bowl is enough for me. This soup smells so good, so I'll have more soup and meat. I can't eat that much rice anyway. We shouldn't waste it."
As she spoke, Riyana even picked up the soup bowl and took a big sip.
Mom was very pleased with Riyana's attitude, and only then did she take the empty bowl into the kitchen to get some rice.
Only then did Riyana take the opportunity to spit out the soup she had just put in her mouth, then quickly pour the soup back into the soup pot. She then whispered, "Brother, how did you know Mom would suddenly turn around?"
"I guessed," Ethan hadn't wanted to reveal it, but he was afraid that the copper key he had finally found would disappear after Riyana died, so he could only reluctantly explain, "I saw Mom's footsteps pause for a moment, and then her shoulders moved slightly, so I guessed she might turn around."
"Impressive! Then…"
Riyana was about to say something else, but Mom had already finished getting the rice and returned, so she quickly shut her mouth.
Ethan naturally used the same trick again, hiding the dishes and meat while Mom was away. When he saw her return, he simply pulled out a tissue and wiped his mouth, saying, "I'm full. I'm going to my room first. We have the afternoon off, so I'm going to take a nap in my room. Don't come to bother me."
"Oh, then I'm full too," Riyana quickly stood up, "Mom, take your time eating! There's a homework problem I don't understand, so I'll ask Brother first. Otherwise, once he takes his nap, I won't be able to ask him."
"You're not eating anymore?"
Mom looked at the half bowl of rice she had just brought back.
Riyana wore an apologetic expression, "I just ate too many spare ribs. I can't eat anymore!"
Mom glanced at the table. The red-braised spare ribs were already gone, with a pile of meatless bones on the siblings' side of the table, and two-thirds of the stir-fried large intestine with pickled mustard greens was gone as well.
Only then did she nod in satisfaction, "If you don't want the rice, then don't eat it. You're still growing anyway. Eating more meat and less rice is a good thing."
"Mm-hmm! Mom, I'm going!"
Riyana picked up the backpack on the floor and hurried after Ethan into the room.
Once she followed Ethan into his room and closed the door, she leaned against it and took several deep breaths, "Brother, how did you think of that? You're so smart."
"Shh!"
However, after what had happened before, when Mom had suddenly appeared, Ethan was wary of it happening again.
This time, afraid that Mom might be eavesdropping, he quickly covered Riyana's mouth and gestured for her to be quiet, then loudly said, "It's not that I'm smart. You're just stupid! You can't even do such a simple problem. It's just a matter of plugging it into a formula. Write out the formula for this set of problems first!"
"I… Oh! Oh!"
Riyana was originally puzzled, but after Ethan pointed toward the outside of the room.
She immediately understood and also shouted toward the door, "I just forgot the formula! Besides, this problem is a trap. It's obviously just asking us to use a formula, but they didn't explain it clearly."
"They might as well just write the answer for you!"
Ethan also shouted in response.
But in reality, neither of them had even taken out a notebook. The whole thing was based entirely on their acting.
Tap!
Tap! Tap!
Sure enough, after the two of them acted for a while, Riyana, who had been pressing her ear against the bedroom door and listening to the sounds outside, finally relaxed and whispered, "She's gone."
"Mm."
Ethan also dropped onto the bed, feeling as if he had broken out in a cold sweat.
Taking advantage of this moment, Riyana took an oily copper key out of her backpack. It even had a strand of pickled mustard green clinging to it. She handed it to Ethan and said, "Here! Consider it thanks for saving me once."
"It's so dirty. You could at least wipe it before giving someone a key."
Ethan hadn't wanted to take such a greasy copper key, but afraid of complications, he could only grab it. Then he pulled several tissues from beside the bed and furiously wiped it clean.
[Clue 4, Copper Key: Congratulations, this is the final clue.]
As Ethan wiped the grease off the key, he looked at the exclamation mark on the copper key and read its message.
When he saw the prompt, he was delighted.
'Thank goodness!'
'There are only four clues in total.'
Everyone in this house represented one clue. Ethan's clue was the diary, which was the starting point of all the clues.
Actually, as long as he could find the diary and make sure Mom didn't find it, the difficulty of this mission would be greatly reduced.
After that, the question was how to get the remaining three clues from the three NPCs, his younger sister, Mom, and Dad.
In other words, the keys each of them had.
His younger sister had the copper key for Clue 4.
Mom had the golden key for Clue 2.
If his guess was correct, then his deadbeat dad should have the silver key for Clue 3.
Getting the golden key from Mom probably wouldn't be easy, but at least he knew where it was now, so Ethan wasn't in such a hurry anymore.
The most important thing for him now was to find Clue 3 first.
"Brother, I can only lend you this key for the afternoon. You have to return it to me tonight," Riyana looked reluctantly at the copper key in Ethan's hand, "Otherwise, if Mom finds out I lost my key, I'll really be dead."
"Don't worry. I'll sneak out this afternoon and get a copy made, then I'll return this one to you."
Ethan glanced toward the window.
Since Mom hadn't managed to kill his younger sister, she naturally hadn't needed to dispose of her body, so she wouldn't have gone to the rooftop. That meant this afternoon was the best opportunity for him to find the silver key.
"But Mom is definitely guarding outside. How are you planning to sneak out?"