24 Who to choose as godfather
On the last working day of the year, Liu Yuwei rarely got off work on time. The bustling street was jammed with cars picking up their children, making it nearly impossible to move. Liu Yuwei had the Didi driver park by the side of the road and jogged to the kindergarten gate. "Hello, Teacher Zhang. I'm sorry I'm late. Where's Lu Lu?" Liu Yuwei pulled her parent card from her bag and handed it to the kindergarten teacher. "After-school classes are over, and I saw no one was here to pick her up, so I left her drawing in the classroom. Come with me." The female teacher gently led the way, opened the door, and said to the little girl inside, "Xiaolu, someone's here to pick you up!" Liu Yuwei thanked the teacher, then took Lu Lu's hand and walked out together. "My mom left me with you again?" The round little face twisted into a knot. "Xiaolu, how can I say 'dump'? It's my godmother who missed you so much that she asked to come pick you up." Liu Yuwei stroked Lu Lu's little head. "Godmother's spending New Year's Eve with you today. What do you want for dinner?" The little girl's eyes widened. "I want the sweet and sour pork ribs Godmother makes, okay?" "That's easy. Let's go to the supermarket and buy some ribs." "But first, you have a deal: you can't mess around while Godmother cooks!" "You can give me a chocolate bar as a reward, but don't tell Ms. Lu Xiaohe!" Liu Yuwei made a shushing gesture. "No problem, I promise!" After arriving at Xiaohe's house, Liu Yuwei called her and told her she'd be home straight after work. Then, she rolled up her sleeves and headed to the kitchen. Both times she brought out the dishes, Xiaolu sat obediently in her little chair, flipping through picture books. Liu Yuwei thought, what an angel baby! As the door opened and closed, the child's excited voice rang out, "Mom, you're back! Godmother's making me sweet and sour pork ribs!" Liu Yuwei poked her head out of the kitchen and gave instructions with a smile. "You're back just in time. Dinner's served! Xiaolu, take your mother to wash her hands!" Ten minutes later, the three of them sat down, four dishes and a soup on the table. The sweet and sour pork ribs were bright red, the sauce rich, and exuding an alluring sweet aroma; the pine nut corn was golden and tender, dotted with emerald green beans; the shredded cabbage was crisp and refreshing, the blanched shrimp was bright red, and the seaweed egg drop soup was lightly fragrant, with steam rising from it. The meat and vegetables were well-balanced, nutritious, and delicious. Xiaohe looked at the sumptuous dinner and couldn't help but sigh to her daughter, "Honey, we're in for a treat today!" She turned to look at Liu Yuwei with a mixture of admiration and curiosity. "Your cooking skills are really...
On the last working day of the year, Liu Yuwei rarely got off work on time. The busy streets were jammed with cars picking up children, making it difficult to move.
Liu Yuwei asked the Didi driver to park the car on the side of the road and jogged all the way to the kindergarten gate.
"Hello, Teacher Zhang. I'm sorry I'm late. Where is Lu Lu?"
Liu Yuwei took out the parent card from her bag and handed it to the kindergarten teacher.
"After the after-hours class, I saw no one came to pick her up, so I let her draw in the classroom. Please come with me."
The female teacher gently led the way, opened the door and said to the little girl inside, "Xiaolu, someone is here to pick you up!"
After Liu Yuwei thanked the teacher, she took Lu Lu's hand and walked out together.
"My mother dumped me to you again?" The features on the round little face were twisted into a ball.
"Xiaolu, how can you say you're dumping me? It's because your godmother missed you so much that she took the initiative to come and pick you up."
Liu Yuwei touched Lu Lu's little head with his hand.
"Godmother is spending New Year's Eve with you today. What do you want to eat tonight?"
The little girl's brows relaxed. "I want to eat the sweet and sour pork ribs made by my godmother. Is that okay?"
"That's not easy. Let's go to the supermarket and buy some ribs first."
"But let's make it clear that when Godmother is cooking, you can't mess around while you play!"
"You can give her a piece of chocolate as a reward, but don't tell Ms. Lu Xiaohe!"
Liu Yuwei made a "hush" gesture.
"No problem, I promise!"
After arriving at Xiaohe's house with her bags, Liu Yuwei called her and told her she would be home straight after work. Then, she rolled up her sleeves and headed to the kitchen.
Both times the dishes were served, the little deer sat obediently on his little chair and read picture books. Liu Yuwei thought to himself that he was truly an angel baby.
As the door opened and closed, the child's excited voice came, "Mom, you're back! Godmother is making sweet and sour pork ribs for me!"
Hearing the sound, Liu Yuwei poked half of his head out of the kitchen and gave instructions with a smile.
"You're back just in time. Dinner's ready! Little Deer, take your mother to wash her hands!"
Ten minutes later, the three of them sat around, with four dishes and a soup on the table.
The sweet and sour spare ribs are bright red in color, with a rich sauce and an alluring sweet aroma; the pine nut corn is golden and tender, dotted with emerald green beans; the shredded cabbage is crisp and refreshing, the blanched shrimp are bright red, and the seaweed egg drop soup has a faint fragrance and rising steam.
The meat and vegetables are well-balanced, nutritious, colorful, fragrant and delicious.
Xiao He looked at the sumptuous dinner and couldn't help but sigh to her daughter, "Baby, we are in for a treat today!"
She turned to look at Liu Yuwei again, with a bit of admiration and curiosity.
"Your cooking skills are really good, a bit like a master chef. Who did you learn from?"
The smile on Liu Yuwei's face froze instantly, and her heart seemed to be gently stabbed by something.
Her eyes involuntarily fell on the sweet and sour pork ribs, which was Jin Lang's specialty and the first hard dish she learned to cook.
Quickly adjusting her composure, she replied in a relaxed tone, "I've been abroad for so long, and I miss Chinese food. So I just have to learn how to make it myself!"
After dinner, Liu Yuwei took out the New Year's gift Ren Yiming had given her, and she happily started role-playing as a rabbit and a mouse. But after a while, she started clamoring to watch the cartoon "Percy and Pip."
After three episodes of screencasting, the TV screen automatically returns to the homepage. A satellite TV station's New Year's Eve gala begins playing automatically in a small window in the upper left corner.
Jin Lang's face suddenly appeared in the picture. He was standing in the center of the stage wearing a shiny blue performance costume.
The little deer quickly ran to his mother, grabbed her sleeve, pointed at the TV and said loudly, "Mom, look, it's my godmother's famous celebrity friend!"
Xiao He picked up the remote control and zoomed in on the picture. Although her friend had confessed to Jin Lang about his past, she hadn't had time to elaborate at the time.
At this moment, looking at the radiant man on the screen, Xiaohe couldn't help but feel a little teasing in his heart.
She squatted down and asked her daughter with a smile, "Xiaolu, if you had to choose between this celebrity uncle on TV and Uncle Ren to be your godfather, which one would you choose?"
When Liu Yuwei heard her friend teasing her, she immediately retorted, "Lu Xiaohe, stop talking nonsense! You're corrupting the kids!"
The little deer's big eyes rolled around, as if he was thinking seriously. Then he said in a baby voice, "I choose Uncle Ren because he bought me a New Year's gift!"
The two adults couldn't help but laugh when they heard this. The children's world is so simple.
Lu Xiaohe turned off the TV and pulled out her laptop. She planned to work overtime to finish the unsubmitted materials and not let the old issues linger until the New Year.
Children's enthusiasm for new things doesn't last more than three minutes. By now, she had already thrown the doll aside and was pulling Liu Yuwei along to build Lego on the carpet.
Xiaohe was deeply grateful to her friend for patiently accompanying Xiaolu. To finish the job quickly, she pulled out her noise-canceling headphones and forced herself to focus on her work.
After a while, she felt a little thirsty, so she reached out and picked up the white thermos on the table. Just as she was about to pour water, the phone rang in her headphones.
Seeing it was her boss calling, she quickly picked up the phone, "Zou Lu, what do you want to talk to me about?"
"Lu Xiaohe, what's wrong with you? I asked you to send the contract to the client before leaving get off work today. What are you doing?" came the woman's shrill voice.
"The client just called me and said they still haven't received it! If you don't want to do this, get out now!"
Xiaohe took a deep breath, trying hard to suppress the irritation in her heart. She walked past Xiaolu holding the phone and opened the glass door to the balcony.
The deer stared at the thermos on the dining table, put down the half-assembled train in his hand, walked around to the stool, and climbed up with his hands.
The contract in Lu Xiaohe's hand clearly had problems, but the client believed that the terms that did not affect the overall situation did not need to be changed. The partner did not understand her stubbornness and told her to just do as the client said.
After hanging up the phone, she felt depressed and went back to the house. She saw Xiaolu standing trembling on a stool, holding the thermos in both hands.
Hot water flowed down, half poured into the cup, and half spilled on the table, about to touch the laptop power port.
"Lu Xiaolu, what are you doing!" Xiaohe's voice suddenly rose, ringing in the room like thunder.
The sudden scolding scared Xiaolu so much that his hand trembled, and the kettle knocked over the cup, and half a cup of water spilled directly onto the computer keyboard.
The cylindrical glass cup turned twice and rolled to the ground, and with a "pop" sound, it turned into glass fragments.
Xiaohe rushed over, picked up the computer and tried to control the water, but the LCD screen still turned into colored bars.
Anger instantly burst out of her head, "Lu Xiaolu, Mommy is just going out to answer a phone call. Why are you messing with the thermos when you're not playing Lego?"
"How many times have I told you that children are not allowed to touch the kettle? Why don't you listen?"
"Can't you let mom take some time off?"
The little deer knew that he was in trouble. He curled his lips, and his eyes immediately turned red and tears welled up in his eyes.
When Liu Yuwei came out of the bathroom, she heard her friend scolding her in an angry tone.
After taking two steps, he saw broken glass all over the floor. He quickly ran over, put his hands around Xiaolu's armpits, and carried the sobbing child back to the sofa.
"Don't cry, it's okay. Just break a cup and you will have peace every year!" Liu Yuwei comforted gently, gently stroking the deer's furry head.
The original three points of grievance instantly expanded to ten points. The child's sobs turned into loud crying, and tears rolled down like beads with broken strings.
Xiao He took out a broom from the kitchen to clean up the mess, her voice still filled with anger, "Why are you crying? I want to cry too!"
"Mom..." The little deer cried and tried to explain, "Mom... I'm sorry! I..."
She sniffed and twitched, "I saw that you were thirsty, so I wanted to pour you some water..."
Lu Xiaohe was squatting, his fingers tracing the ground. Deer like to run around barefoot, and tiny glass fragments invisible to the naked eye are even more dangerous.
The finger suddenly stopped and a pain came, as if it was pricked by something sharp.
Xiaohe looked down and saw a drop of blood seeping out of her fingertips.
But compared to this wound, her heart was cut open by her daughter's words, leaving a bigger wound.
…
An hour later, Liu Yuwei tiptoed out of Xiaolu's bedroom.
"The little deer is asleep, don't worry!" she said softly.
Xiao He curled up in a corner of the sofa, holding a bottle of beer. Seeing her friend come out, she asked in a self-deprecating tone, "Am I a particularly failed mother?"
"Why do you think I'm taking my anger out on my child?"
Liu Yuwei quickly sat down beside her, reached out and patted her shoulder, gently but firmly, "Don't say that, it's just that things happened at the same time, you wouldn't normally be like this!"
"A mother's mood determines the temperature of her child's world." Xiaohe's voice choked.
"I recently read a best-selling parenting book that said the best way to educate your children is to not transfer your own anxiety, anger, and grievances to them."
"It's easy to talk about it on paper, but look at me."
Her voice became lower and lower, as if she was suffocating.
Liu Yuwei gently put her arm around Xiaohe's shoulders, her tone filled with heartache, "Xiaohe, Mommy is not Superman either. You can't put so much pressure on yourself."
"Our little deer is a careful and kind little angel. You have educated her very well!"
Xiaohe lowered her head, her fingers unconsciously stroking the edge of the beer bottle, her voice filled with fatigue and helplessness.
“It’s really hard to raise a child by myself.”
She paused, then turned to her friend with a look of confusion and pain in her eyes, crossing her legs.
"You know what? My first reaction when I walked into the house from the balcony was to make sure the computer didn't get damaged, not to worry about whether the child got burned!"
"I'm not worthy of being a fawn's mother! I subconsciously chose work over my child."
Liu Yuwei sighed and held Xiaohe's hand. "Work is also about providing a better material life for your children. Don't be so critical of yourself."
Xiao He finally couldn't hold back her tears. Liu Yuwei looked at her fragile appearance and felt powerless. She knew that Xiao He hadn't had an easy time these past few years.
Liu Yuwei and Lu Xiaohe entered the law firm together. Xiaohe directly joined the public welfare affairs group. Although Liu Yuwei worked as a commercial lawyer, he continued to participate in public welfare activities. The two gradually became familiar with each other and became good friends.
When Xiaohe got divorced, her family scraped together money and bought the wedding house from her ex-husband, leaving a place for the mother and daughter to live in this city.
However, housing prices have skyrocketed in the past two years. After remarrying, her ex-husband felt that he had been taken advantage of and stopped paying child support on a monthly basis. He even called it selling the house as an excuse. The money Xiaohe earned was enough to cover all of Xiaolu's expenses before she became an adult.
Xiaohe had thought about taking legal action to fight for her rights, but she couldn't afford to waste time, money, and emotions raising a child alone.
In the end, she chose to switch jobs to a red-circle law firm and transform into a commercial lawyer. She could earn more money and hold it in her own hands, which made her feel more at ease.
Xiao He's voice gradually calmed down. "I've recently declined several business trips, so I know my partners have some issues with me."
"I just want to spend more time with Xiaolu. It's impossible for her to have her parents absent during her childhood."
Liu Yuwei recalled that she had "complained" about Xiaohe being too busy and having no time to accompany the children two nights ago, and she felt deeply guilty.
If you have never tasted the bitterness of others' lives, don't criticize others' lives easily.
The word "child" suddenly flashed in her mind, as if an invisible thread strung together the scattered fragments of her memory of that night.
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