Chapter 44: Playtime
The evening sun was like a yolky egg, and the soft, orange-yellow clouds beside it were like the runny yolk of a broken egg. Nuonuo, who was staring at the sun, couldn’t help but drool.
With his bright, clear black eyes, Nuonuo’s little head was already thinking about whether there would be duck eggs for dinner tonight. Duck eggs were salty, but when mashed with a spoon and mixed into porridge, they were so delicious they made Nuonuo stomp his feet.
When Fei Han returned from his lab outside, he saw the little dumpling in a daze, his little face, stained with the golden sunset, propped up in his hands.
Walking over, he noticed Nuonuo’s furrowed little brow and couldn’t help but wonder, Can such a small person also have worries?
“What are you thinking about?”
Unlike Fei Jing and Fei Luo, Fei Han didn’t like to hug Nuonuo as soon as he saw him, as if to show how close they were. But although Fei Han didn’t hug him, Nuonuo, seeing his brother return, stretched out his little arms and stood on his tiptoes, expectantly waiting for his brother to lift him high.
“Brother, hwug, ya!”
Nuonuo especially liked to be close to his papa and brothers, especially when they held him in their arms. His little face had to rub against his brother’s neck.
Fei Han had only held Nuonuo twice, but the impression was deep. Almost every time, the little one’s warm, smooth little face would make his heart itch.
Too small and too soft. Fei Han felt he couldn’t even use force, afraid he would crush the little one.
He originally disliked physical contact with others, but when Fei Han saw Nuonuo’s moist eyes, he thought of the little expression he had when he pushed the bun to him at noon.
Reluctant yet generous. The thought of it made Fei Han’s mood inexplicably lighten a lot. And he had even foolishly gone to wash his clothes for him, only to get himself trapped in a pile of foam…
The coldness in Fei Han’s eyes that kept people at a distance couldn’t help but soften. His steps paused for a moment, and then he lowered his eyes and picked up Nuonuo.
Nuonuo had taken a nap and had forgotten about washing clothes in the morning. He cheerfully wrapped his arms around his brother’s neck and happily told him what he had done this afternoon.
“I kicked the wittle baww, I… I kicked it so faw, faw away—I also ate candy, and I gave some to Eldest Brother too!”
Nuonuo’s thoughts jumped around. He took out the candy from his pocket, his eyes crinkling with a happy smile, and offered it to his brother.
Fei Han knew that Auntie Wu and the chef at home liked to feed Nuonuo, sometimes with little cookies, sometimes with a piece of candy. But Nuonuo was like a little hamster, always hiding things.
Last time, the candy hidden in the sofa crack was discovered by Fei Zhiyan and he was scolded. After that, Nuonuo had changed his hiding spot to his clothes pockets. This led to the cleaning lady finding a lot of things falling out of his pockets when she took his changed clothes to wash the next day.
Fei Han saw Nuonuo take out candy from his pocket again and felt a slight headache. He pinched the piece of candy and handed it back to Auntie Wu next to him. “Auntie Wu, please put this away for him.”
If he eats candy all the time, his teeth will rot.
Nuonuo’s little mouth was open, as if he couldn’t believe the candy in his pocket could be taken away. His little eyes widened in shock. “My… my candy…”
Hearing Nuonuo’s words, a hint of a smile appeared in Fei Han’s cold tone. “Not anymore.”
Nuonuo, torn up over his lost candy, let out a little “ah,” tilted his head, and was placed on the sofa, looking up at his eldest brother as he went upstairs.
Fei Han could imagine that this little dumpling would probably be dwelling on this matter until dinner time. But once dinner started, he would be so happy he would forget everything.
But Father is so calm and wise, and his methods are ruthless enough. How could he have given birth to such a silly little merman?
Staring at the test result that had just been made in the afternoon, with a genetic inheritance of 99.99%, Fei Han even forgot to change his clothes and sat at his desk in silence for a long while.
Perhaps it was caused by that mutated 0.01% of the genes?
Then the effect of that 0.01% is a bit too big…
In that instant, Fei Han and 006’s thoughts strangely coincided.
At dinner, Fei Zhiyan was too busy to appear, and Fei Jing, after being tortured by tutors from various subjects, didn’t even have the strength to eat. He just took two buns and went upstairs to study again.
Fei Jing’s career was now at its peak, but the company didn’t dare to offend Fei Zhiyan behind him and could only painfully cut two-thirds of his activities. The rest were things that really couldn’t be pushed back, as Fei Jing still had to continue in this circle.
Just like that, a rough calculation by the company showed that they had already lost several hundred million, so heartbroken they could barely breathe. And Fei Jing’s busyness also soared, with him running between the film set and the classroom since this afternoon.
Fei Luo also had to go to school. Nuonuo had already taken his little ball to find his third brother to play, but was told by Auntie Wu that his brother had to do his homework.
At the end of June, the final exams were approaching, and Fei Luo’s homework load had also suddenly increased. Unlike before, he didn’t have a lot of free time to play with Nuonuo.
Nuonuo, who had finally managed to wait for his brothers to come back, saw that everyone was so busy. He pouted and sat down on the steps in disappointment.
Nuonuo, with no one to play with, wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and had to go back inside with his little ball.
On the lawn, the little thorny vine, seeing the little cub, shook its body in pleasant surprise and quickly climbed up the wall to Nuonuo’s front.
The thorny vine was actually not very pretty. Its withered-branch-like vines were covered in small red thorns, and only the small purple flower at the tip was considered good-looking.
So, when it reached Nuonuo, the little thorny vine retracted all its thorns, carefully stretched out its branches, and poked the cub’s shoulder.
Nuonuo was a little tickled by the poke. He giggled and turned to look, and seeing that it was the little thorny vine he had seen before, he let out a happy little “ya.” “I remember you! You helped me find my brother!”
Nuonuo was talking about what had happened in his dream, but hearing that Nuonuo remembered it, the little thorny vine couldn’t help but twist its branches. It couldn’t speak, so it just quietly listened to Nuonuo.
“I… I went to find my brothers to play, but they were all so busy.”
Nuonuo let out a long sigh and lowered his little head in dejection. The little ball fell to the ground and rolled to the front of the little vine.
The thorny vine poked the ball on the ground and gently pushed it to Nuonuo’s feet.
Nuonuo let out a little “ya,” his round eyes looking at the little ball at his feet. He lifted his little head and asked, “Do you want to play with me?”
The little thorny vine swayed its little purple flower up and down and then pushed the ball a little further, answering Nuonuo with its actions.
In the not-yet-completely-dark sky, Nuonuo once again happily chased the little ball.
When Auntie Wu couldn’t find Nuonuo all over the house and came outside, she found Nuonuo wiping the sweat with his little hands, his eyes sparkling as he ran towards her. “Yiyi, is Papa back?”
Auntie Wu knew that Nuonuo wouldn’t sleep by himself until he saw his papa. She smiled and shook her head, taking out a tissue to wipe Nuonuo’s face. “What have you been doing? Playing with the ball by yourself?”
Nuonuo’s little eyes shone in the lamplight, crystal clear and bright. His soft hair swayed with his head-shaking motion. “No, ya. Tengteng played with me.”
Unlike humans, the little thorny vine could always toss the little ball high, and it even once wrapped Nuonuo up to get the ball that had fallen onto a tree branch. Nuonuo loved this game very much. He would open his little arms and let the little thorny vine lift him high several times.
So when Fei Jing, tired from studying, looked out the window and saw Nuonuo being held up in mid-air, his heart skipped a beat in fright.
With a cold voice, just as the little thorny vine was putting Nuonuo down, Fei Jing opened the window and glanced at the blood-sucking vine that was playing with the cub. “Get back here right now!”
Gritting his teeth, Fei Jing narrowed his eyes. Standing in the backlight of the second-floor window, his face was dark and grim.
The little thorny vine, which was immersed in joy, was so scared it shivered. The thorns it had retracted couldn’t help but pop out again, almost pricking Nuonuo’s little hand that was touching its flower.
The thorny vine, which shot up like a rocket, didn’t even say goodbye to Nuonuo and scurried up to Fei Jing’s windowsill in two swoops. If the blood-sucking vine had been a second slower, Fei Jing might have directly burned the flower at its tip.
The flower in Nuonuo’s hand was suddenly gone. He shook his little head and looked left and right. He even held his little ball and spun around in place, but he couldn’t find the little thorny vine anywhere.
Fei Jing held back again and again, trying not to slap this vine into the ground on the spot. Instead, he told Nuonuo to go back first.
Only then did Nuonuo see his second brother on the second floor. He happily lifted his little head and shouted, “Brother, I’m playing with Tengteng! But… but it’s gone!”
Fei Jing fiercely patted the blood-sucking vine, which was still trying to peek out from the windowsill, his smile not reaching his eyes as he coaxed Nuonuo. “Nuonuo, you go inside first. Father should be back soon.”
Nuonuo nodded obediently. Thinking that his papa was really back, he forgot about the little thorny vine disappearing and ran from the backyard back to the front of the house with his ball.
Not seeing his papa, Nuonuo’s little eyes dimmed. He was led by Auntie Wu upstairs to wash his hands and face. “Nuonuo, you can’t be so late next time, playing outside by yourself. It’s getting dark, and good children should be sleeping.”
Hearing Auntie Wu’s words, Nuonuo shook his head and said, “No, ya. I was with Tengteng.”
I wasn’t alone.
Hearing this “Tengteng” again, Auntie Wu thought to herself that no one in the family seemed to have such a strange name. Looking at the night that had completely swallowed the sunset, she thought of something and couldn’t help but shiver.
Could it be that the child saw something… dirty!
Auntie Wu was old and still had some feudal ideas. She always felt that children’s eyes were different from theirs, too clean, which was why they could see those things.
Her heart was a little panicked. Auntie Wu touched Nuonuo’s little face and said with some lingering fear, “Our Nuonuo won’t play with him anymore in the future. He’s not a good thing!”
Nuonuo frowned slightly, feeling that what Auntie Wu said was not right. How could the Tengteng who would lift me high not be a good thing!
And the blood-sucking vine, which had already become a good friend in Nuonuo’s heart, was at this moment suffering a beating from Fei Jing.
Fei Jing was also at his wit’s end. He had only looked away for a moment, and this vine had slipped out. The key was that this guy wasn’t a high-IQ vine and had little thorns on it. What if, in a moment of carelessness, it hurt Nuonuo?
Fei Jing felt he couldn’t spoil it anymore. He pinched the wilted vine, which had shrunk to the length of a bracelet, and tied it to his arm, completely cutting off the blood-sucking vine’s freedom.
There, let’s see how you’ll go out and play now!