Chapter 155 Chapter 155 Father's Favoritism 4
The resounding sobs gradually died down. Zhuozhuo looked tearfully at Zhao Hongwei, who was scratching his head and banging his head on the ground. She knew he would never send her back. She stopped crying in vain and reached out to Zhao Hongwei, aggrieved, "Let's go."
Zhao Hongwei was stunned for a moment. His first reaction was that Zhuozhuo wanted to drive him away. Then he took a hesitant step forward. Seeing that Zhuozhuo did not resist, he stretched out his arm, picked her up and held her in his arms. He raised his other hand and wanted to spank her on the butt twice, but he was afraid that he would make her cry, so he put his hand down silently.
He quickly scrambled to get his bedding on his back and scrambled onto the dirt road, scurrying down the path as if a tiger were chasing him. He didn't dare ask Zhuozhuo why she had stopped crying; he simply kept on going.
Zhuozhuo leaned in Zhao Hongwei's arms and wiped her tears slowly and carefully with the palms and backs of her hands.
9972 said carefully: [Baby, wipe it with clothes, it will be clean.]
Zhuozhuo tugged at her tattered little clothes, remembering they belonged to Xiaofang. Last night, the adults had agreed to go out to work, so Xiaofang had dragged Zhuozhuo to the bath, cleaned her spotlessly, and even found her own old, tattered clothes and stayed up all night patching them up for her. Even after Zhuozhuo fell asleep, she could still hear the gurgling of water; it was Xiaofang washing her dirty clothes.
Zhuozhuo, her heart filled with Xiaofang's kindness, lifted her eyelids to glance at the cold, rough lower half of Zhao Hongwei's face. Sorrow washed over her, and she vaguely grasped the profound meaning of "unsatisfactory things often lead to disappointment." She thought listlessly, Xiaofang hadn't woken up when she left, so she should have finished dinner and was washing the pot by now... Ugh!
Zhuozhuo suddenly remembered that she had taken the basin and pot lid for the loaches from the kitchen, and no one knew about it except her and Zhao Hongwei.
Will Xiaofang be beaten if she loses the basin and pot lid?
Zhuozhuo's mind was filled with the slap marks on Xiaofang's face last night. She suddenly felt as if she was sitting on pins and needles, and her bones kept pounding on Zhao Hongwei, but Zhao Hongwei was like a ruthless machine on the road, and ignored her completely.
"Zhao Hongwei!"
Zhuozhuo's voice was soft and cute, but to Zhao Hongwei, it sounded like the scream of a ghost coming to take his life.
Back off! Back off! Back off!
Zhao Hongwei took three more steps before he was forced to speak in the face of the constant calls. His voice was cold and hard, "What do you want me to do?"
He wanted to scare Zhuozhuo so that she wouldn't bother him with trivial matters.
Zhuozhuo's mouth drooped, and tears welled up in her eyes, sparkling and ready to overflow with a breeze. But before the two small lakes could even ripple, Zhao Hongwei's pupils shrank and he admitted defeat on the spot. He restrained his momentum and instinctively lowered his voice, "What's the matter?"
After saying this, he was startled by the sound that seemed to be squeezed out of his throat. His hair stood on end and his arms were covered with goose bumps.
Zhuozhuo took it well. She subconsciously felt that adults often spoke to her in a clipped tone, and besides, she and Zhao Hongwei were already growing tired of each other. Who cared how he spoke? Zhuozhuo's mind was now filled with Xiaofang. She grabbed Zhao Hongwei's collar and said anxiously, "Zhao Hongwei, go back and take your sister with you."
Zhao Hongwei laughed angrily. "You always do whatever you want and always try to boss me around. I'm out here risking my life to make money, not to run a daycare!"
"My sister's going to be beaten to death!" Zhuozhuo said shockingly, with a serious tone, tears streaming silently, creating a tragic atmosphere. Zhao Hongwei was so frightened that he didn't sneer at first, but asked hesitantly, "How did you know?"
9972 was speechless. How could he know that? Did he think Zhuozhuo had clairvoyance and super hearing? Zhao Hongwei was in his twenties, yet he actually took a three-year-old's words seriously. It was obvious he had never raised a child before.
Zhuozhuo said seriously, "If my sister loses the small basin and pot lid, she will be beaten."
Xiaofang was beaten last night just because she and Dabao were missing. In Zhuozhuo's opinion, Brother Zhao and his wife liked the small basin and the pot lid much more than their two children, so Xiaofang would definitely be beaten even worse.
Zhuozhuo was really worried about Xiaofang. Without waiting for Zhao Hongwei to ask, he told him everything he had done, what he had associated with, and what he had speculated. He also urged him to go back quickly, because if it was too late, Xiaofang might have been buried in the ground.
Zhao Hongwei listened, his expression shifting several times, a feeling of being completely idle and speechless. He glanced at Zhuozhuo, swallowing his words expertly before they came out. He offered a cold, emotionless reassurance, "It's too late to go back now. If we were going to fight, we'd have already finished it."
This naturally did not satisfy Zhuo Zhuo. She grabbed Zhao Hongwei's collar and shook him left and right, tilting her head back as if crying and howling, "Go back, go back Zhao Hongwei, please, Zhao Hongwei!"
Zhao Hongwei was about to be strangled to death by Zhuozhuo. He was really powerless to resist this little devil. He simply screamed, stuck out his tongue, and fell to the ground with a bang, raising a cloud of dust.
Zhuozhuo was howling with all his might when he suddenly felt weightless and his head hit Zhao Hongwei's chest, choking on the dirt and causing him to cough. When the coughing stopped and his vision cleared, Zhuozhuo sat on Zhao Hongwei's stomach, then climbed onto his chest to look into his closed eyes.
No one came forward to watch the excitement, and there was a noisy silence all around, as if all thoughts were suspended by this sudden change.
9972 was about to speak when he saw Zhuozhuo looking at him for a while and then suddenly scratching Zhao Hongwei's eyeballs.
“Hey hey hey!”
Zhao Hongwei couldn't pretend anymore and quickly held down the little devil. When he opened his eyes, he saw her laughing so hard that she was staggering all over the place. He said angrily, "Laugh, laugh, laugh! You just strangled me until I fainted. I was almost dead, and you're still laughing."
Zhuozhuo laughed even louder, not frightened at all. He pointed at Zhao Hongwei's chest with great pride and said childishly, "Your body is moving. Boom, boom, boom! You're not dead!"
Zhao Hongwei couldn't help but laugh, "Little clever ghost."
After laughing twice, he suddenly realized that Zhuozhuo seemed to have forgotten about Xiaofang. He was immediately delighted. While using his laughter to attract Zhuozhuo's attention, he jumped up on the spot, not even bothering to brush off the dirt on the bedding roll, and rushed out like an arrow.
Zhuozhuo didn't understand what was going on, but he lay firmly in Zhao Hongwei's arms, staring at him. After a while, he said softly, "Zhao Hongwei, Zhuozhuo is hungry."
Zhao Hongwei breathed a sigh of relief. It was then he realized that his anxiety, fearing Zhuozhuo would go back to Xiaofang again, was simply due to hunger. He gradually slowed down his pace, pulled out a pot cake from his bag, tore off a corner and stuffed it into Zhuozhuo's mouth. "Eat it."
Zhuozhuo: “Ugh—”
It was so big that it almost broke my mouth.
Zhuozhuo glanced at Zhao Hongwei, who looked a little guilty, and magnanimously didn't argue with him. She took the cake out of her mouth, held it in her small hands, and ate it bit by bit. After taking several bites, the cake was still intact. She opened her mouth and asked for water.
Zhao Hongwei took out the kettle from his bag and poured some water into the lid for Zhuozhuo to drink.
Zhuozhuo stretched his little head to drink, but when he was done he didn't want to eat the cake anymore. With tears in his eyes he said to Zhao Hongwei, "The Guokui hit me, and my mouth, teeth, and tongue hurt."
“…”
It took Zhao Hongwei a moment to realize what was going on. The pot cake was made with cornmeal, which was rough and irritating to the throat. Just chewing those few bites had nearly blistered Zhuozhu's mouth. He lamented for the umpteenth time how difficult it was to raise Zhuozhu. Why was she so delicate? How did she eat in the past?
After some careful recollection, I finally found a detail I hadn't noticed before. Every time they ate, Xiaofang would soak steamed bread and other things in rice and vegetable soup, or even just plain water, making half a bowl of sticky, unrecognizable weird stuff for Zhuozhu to eat.
Zhuozhuo always eats with big mouthfuls and sounds very delicious.
But now there is no bowl to soak the pancakes.
Zhao Hongwei raised his fingers, pinched off as small a piece of bread as he could, and threw it into Zhuozhuo's mouth. Before she could spit it out, he poured water into it, pinched her lips tightly to prevent any water from leaking out, and said seriously, "Shut your mouth tightly and wait until the bread is softened before swallowing."
shining:"……"
9972: [Damn Zhao Hongwei!]
If Xiaofang had been so perfunctory, Zhuozhuo would have definitely acted like a spoiled child and made trouble for her, but as for Zhao Hongwei, she just rolled her eyes at him and said nothing.
Zhao Hongwei held his breath for a moment, feeling a bit surprised that Zhuozhuo hadn't caused any trouble. He took a bite of his pot cake, drank a few sips of water, and continued on his way. Although Zhuozhuo couldn't keep his mouth shut for long enough, causing the water cake mixture to spill several times and staining their clothes, at least there were no other problems.
It was past ten in the morning when they arrived at the station, the sun scorching and making everyone drowsy. Zhao Hongwei felt like he was about to explode, his body scorching like a small furnace, his bedding piled up behind him. He frowned anxiously, trying to navigate the bustling crowd.
Zhao Hongwei was tall and strong, so the others couldn't squeeze past him, and were often knocked off balance by his blankets. They couldn't confront him head-on, so they turned their heads and cursed in secret. Others' eyes fell on Zhuozhuo, dark and gloomy, before Zhao Hongwei glared them away fiercely.
There was a map in front of the station ticket window, with the departure routes marked on it. Zhao Hongwei squeezed over to examine it for a long time, but couldn't understand it. He squeezed back to the window to ask. The ticket seller was indifferent. He confirmed that the daily direct train had left, but he did find a connecting route that allowed him to depart today.
After buying the ticket, Zhao Hongwei went to look for a bus, and then, like everyone else, found a shady place to sit and wait for the bus to depart.
I had just taken off the bedding roll and had no time to breathe a sigh of relief when Zhuozhuo in my arms groaned twice, rubbed his eyes and started crying.
Zhao Hongwei hurried to comfort him, his large hands like a palm-leaf fan patting Zhuo Zhuo's back awkwardly, and whispered softly, "Oh, go to sleep."
Useless.
Zhuozhuo opened his eyes, opened his mouth and started crying. And unlike the purposeful crying in the morning, this time he was obviously crying because he was uncomfortable.
Zhao Hongwei thought he had accidentally squeezed Zhuozhuo, so he put her on the bedroll and checked her. He had no clue, and instead became increasingly anxious as her crying became increasingly heartbreaking. He speculated randomly, "What's wrong with Zhuozhuo? Stop crying and talk. Are you hungry? Thirst? Having a nightmare?"
This unfamiliar environment, crowded with people, made Zhao Hongwei instinctively wary and nervous, and he felt even more vulnerable to this soft little ball of fire. Every little abnormality she showed made him unable to stop his wild thoughts.
Just when Zhao Hongwei was about to rush out of the station carrying Zhuozhuo to find a clinic, Zhuozhuo's crying gradually stopped. Her eyes were clear as she looked blankly at him with an anxious face, and she said softly that she didn't know why she was crying.
Seeing that Zhao Hongwei was genuinely worried, 9972 reminded him, "Baby, it was Zhao Hongwei's sweat that dripped into your eyes and stung you."
Everything will be fine after the tears wash away the sweat.
Zhuozhuo repeated 9972's words in a baby voice, leaned in Zhao Hongwei's arms, and looked around with some curiosity.
Zhao Hongwei: “…”
He seemed to come back to life.
But from now on he won't even have the right to sweat freely.
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