Chapter 9 Uninvited Guests
Zhou Xiangyang was thrown into the arms of his son who leaned over.
In fact, before yesterday, Xingxing rarely snuggled into his arms without saying a word like this.
But since Xingxing came to the food street yesterday, there seemed to be some different changes.
Zhou Xiangyang didn't think much about it. He just thought that it was probably because the child saw him selling vegetables and the little guy felt sorry for his father, so he had been so obedient and clingy in the past two days. He would probably be fine after a while.
What Zhou Xiangyang is more concerned about now is Xingxing and the child who was sent home.
So after Xingxing woke up and hugged him for a while, Zhou Xiangyang stood by the windowsill to make lunch. Xingxing moved a small stool and sat not far behind him, and read to his father what happened in the morning slowly and word for word like an intelligent voice robot.
"I woke up in the morning and wanted to go out to play. I met him when I walked downstairs..."
"He wanted to bully me, so I hit him first and made him cry."
Zhou Xiangyang froze while waving the spatula. He suspected he had heard wrongly, so he turned on the stove and asked, "You beat him? And you made the kid cry?"
Facing Sunflower's father's incredulous look, Xingxing nodded obediently, not feeling that she had done anything wrong at all.
"...How did he bully you?" Zhou Xiangyang began to capture the key points in the child's words.
Xingxing tilted her head and tried to describe it with her limited vocabulary: "He wants me to catch a cold, have a fever, and then die."
Zhou Xiangyang: “…”
He began to be unsure whether what his son said was true or not.
Observing Xingxing again, I found that the child had a stern face and frowned between his tender eyebrows, and he seemed particularly justified when talking about beating the other person and making him cry.
The food in the pan was about to get burnt, so Zhou Xiangyang quickly stir-fried it twice.
While he was busy, the child sitting behind him continued to describe the whole thing word by word in a slow tone.
From beating the child until he cried, to taking the child home, and then finding out that the child didn't remember his home phone number, I had no choice but to take him out in a pay-per-ride taxi...
By the time Zhou Xiangyang brought the food to the table, Xingxing had just finished telling this "story".
Zhou Xiangyang handed him the spoon silently.
Xingxing took it, tilted her head to look at her father, and then asked him: "Dad, is there anything I didn't do well?"
This is the first time for Xingxing to be a human cub, and today is the second day of being a human cub. Sunflower father’s silence at this moment makes him unsure whether he is doing the right thing.
Perhaps he didn't expect him to ask this. Zhou Xiangyang was stunned for a moment, then he picked up a piece of food with chopsticks and put it in his small bowl, and said softly: "Eat first, and we'll talk about this after you finish eating."
Oh well.
Xingxing pursed her lips, buried her head in holding the spoon and eating seriously.
The atmosphere between the father and son at the dinner table was not stiff. There was always a lot of food covering the white rice in Xingxing's small bowl. In the dish of stir-fried pork with garlic sprouts, almost all the pork was in Xingxing's small bowl, and the oil soup at the bottom of the dish was also used to mix with the rice for Xingxing to eat.
After the two finished their meal, Zhou Xiangyang started to clean up the dishes.
Xingxing followed behind him, watching his silent and tall figure busying around, and suddenly a strange thought flashed through her mind:
The difference between the peacetime and the end of the world does not seem to be that big.
Because everyone has to make a living and face the same family affairs.
Cooking, eating, washing dishes, bathing, sleeping...
Humans have to do a lot of repetitive things every day, no matter which world they are in. This seems to be the cornerstone of human life.
Sunflower's father only has one hand, so if he wants to wash the dishes clean, he can only use a lot of detergent, then turn on the water to let it hit and wash the walls of the bowls, and then use a towel to wipe the dishes in the sink a little bit and then rinse them clean.
Zhou Xiangyang never thought of asking Xingxing, who just turned three years old, to help him wash dishes. He did not spoil his child, but he was also unwilling to share things that he could do with Xingxing. That was not independent education, but he just wanted to be lazy.
After washing the dishes, Zhou Xiangyang took off the apron on his chest, dried his hands, and then walked over and stretched out his hand to the child sitting behind him.
The small, tender hand held his two rough fingers, and Zhou Xiangyang led the full-fed child under the fan. Both father and son lay lazily on the bed.
"Xingxing, when dad is not at home every day, are you bored when you wake up alone?"
Zhou Xiangyang didn't start talking about what happened today.
He chose to start asking from the most fundamental reason.
Xingxing turned her head and rubbed it against her father's ear, and replied softly, "Yeah, the house is empty."
In the end of the world, the stars feel that the voices of their own kind and humans are all very noisy.
But when he came to this strange world, he was a little uncomfortable with the emptiness.
"But if I take you to where I work...Xingxing has to get up at five o'clock every morning." Zhou Xiangyang also turned his head and gently touched his son's forehead.
And the warehouse is not fun either. It is a very remote area with almost no people.
The father and son stared at the small fan whirring above their heads, and both fell into a little dilemma.
After a long while, Zhou Xiangyang said, "In another month, the nearby kindergarten will start school. By then, there will be many children playing together in the kindergarten."
Xingxing could hear the concern in his tone.
He turned over, facing his father, and whispered, "Dad, Xingxing can go to kindergarten by herself."
So I don't have to worry about you getting up at five o'clock to go to work and not being able to take me to school.
Xingxing searched her memory for the nearby kindergarten. It was not far away, just across the street.
Zhou Xiangyang stared into his son's clear eyes and reached out to hug him in his arms.
"Then before school starts, Daddy will take Xingxing with him to guard the warehouse. Don't cry if you get bored."
The child in his arms nodded obediently and lay on half of his body. He was very small and weighed nothing.
"Is Dad still angry?" Xingxing asked softly.
The next second, a hand landed on the back of his head and rubbed him twice with a little force.
"Don't talk to strange children casually, don't bring strangers home, and don't follow strangers to other places. Remember?"
"Um."
Xingxing nodded, although he knew that the child was not the "stranger" his father mentioned.
"The most important thing is, next time you encounter a similar situation, Xingxing must come to me, okay? Or you can just wait for me at home with the child..."
Zhou Xiangyang said a lot, and Xingxing agreed obediently.
Zhou Xiangyang wasn't sure whether the child remembered what he said or whether it just went in one ear and out the other. He could only be thankful that nothing happened today and sigh that raising a child is not easy.
He didn't say anything about Xingxing being lost or abducted, because the fact that Xingxing was picked up by him was already within this range of behavior.
But to avoid this topic, all Zhou Xiangyang could do was to repeatedly remind Xingxing not to trust strangers casually.
After the little guy in his arms fell asleep again, Zhou Xiangyang also closed his eyes sleepily.
In the first few seconds before he fell asleep, the scene of picking up the stars that year flashed silently in his mind.
And another thought: If Xingxing was not abandoned, are his biological parents still looking for him? What if they come to find him one day, how should I deal with it?
Hand over the stars?
…
Zhou Xiangyang was sleeping soundly.
However, because Xingxing had just taken a nap, she had only entered a shallow sleep and was soon awakened by the noise outside.
"Son, the Cheng family stuffed a thousand yuan into your snacks, and Sunflower's father put the red envelope of a thousand yuan away separately. It seems that he doesn't plan to use the money." The ball flew onto the child's gently rising and falling chest.
"..."Xingxing stared at the tireless fan above her head, closed her eyes, then moved lightly around her father and slowly slid off the bed.
"What are you going to do?" Qiuqiu curiously walked around the house with Xingxing.
Soon, Xingxing found the half bottle of mineral water left over from last night and held it in his arms. The next second, he entered the soul-bound portable space.
Pour the water in the bottle onto the spiritual plant, Xingxing squatted next to the spiritual spring with the bottle, and after filling it with water, he said to Qiuqiu: "Sweet water, give it to Sunflower Daddy."
My uncle said that human energy in a day is limited. The average person needs at least eight hours of sleep a day, as well as reasonable work and rest.
But Xingxing observed from yesterday to today, and then looked through his original memories, and found that Sunflower’s father was not an adult with a good schedule.
He has to get up at five o'clock every day to go to work. After coming back at noon, he has to cook and wash dishes, and can only squeeze in a little time for lunch break.
After four o'clock in the afternoon, I have to go out to sell vegetables again. If I'm lucky, I will come back early. If I'm unlucky, I will still be sitting on the roadside after nine o'clock in the evening. After returning home, I will be busy again until very late before I can go to bed.
Moreover, Sunflower's father's health was already weak, and he had been overworked for a long time. Although Sunflower's father is now a young man and looks tall and strong, Xingxing can hear his heartbeat.
His disordered heartbeat was not as strong and healthy as he looked.
Xingxing put the bottle of mineral water on the table, watched the cartoon on the screen with Qiuqiu, and sat there quietly waiting for his father to wake up.
It was a little after four in the afternoon and the temperature hadn't dropped much. The air outside was still as hot as a steamer, making it hard to breathe.
Zhou Xiangyang was afraid that his son would get heatstroke if he went out with him, so he didn't let Xingxing go with him. He carried a large bundle of vegetables and the bottle of mineral water handed to him by his son and walked out.
"Xingxing, if you're really bored in the afternoon, wait until it's not so hot outside and then wait for me at the entrance of the alley. Don't talk to strangers, okay?"
Zhou Xiangyang was still giving instructions to his son when he reached the stairs.
When his footsteps completely disappeared, the house returned to its empty silence.
Xingxing climbed onto the bed and continued watching cartoons with Qiuqiu.
After the events of the morning, today should have been a peaceful day.
But when Zhou Xiangyang dragged his tired body home at night, there were still uninvited guests coming to his door.
Standing outside the door were members of the nearby neighborhood committee.
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