The boy looked up at the person who had just called him and saw a little girl standing on the opposite side of the glass. Zong Yanxi straightened up and stared directly at him. The boy took a good look at her face and realized that he had seen her before.
His mother had brought him here to meet his father. While the car was being serviced, he had seen her at the supermarket near the servicing center.
“Do you remember me?” Zong Yanxi asked, grinning broadly. It was rather strange, seeing how she managed to remember his face so clearly.
Today, she wore a red party dress with a frilly lace collar. Her hair had been done up in a ponytail, exposing her porcelain-pale cheeks. When she smiled, her eyes curved into twin crescents. She looked really pretty.
The boy didn’t say anything but made a mental note of her face immediately.
Lin Xinyan walked over to them. “Yanxi, let’s go.”
The boy glanced behind Lin Xinyan and saw an older woman wriggling her eyebrows at Aunt Yu. He quickly drew his gaze away from her and followed his father away.
Zong Yanxi stood rooted to her spot, blinking furiously. As the boy drew further and further away, she wondered gloomily why he couldn’t be bothered to even greet her. This is basic manners!
I had said hello to him, so why didn’t he at least reply?
“Oh, you’ve gotten something sweet again,” Lin Xinyan glanced disapprovingly at the doughnut on her daughter’s tray and frowned. “Having too much sugar is bad for your teeth.”
Zong Yanxi pouted. “Well, I like eating doughnuts. Besides, we don’t come to the supermarket every day. Why shouldn’t I stock up on some? When we get home, I’ll place them in the fridge so that I can have some every day.”
Lin Xinyan looked at her daughter helplessly. This girl was getting smarter by the day, and sometimes Lin Xinyan couldn’t outsmart her anymore.
“Mommy, please buy this for me.” Trying to appeal to her mother, Zong Yanxi tugged at her sleeves and pleaded cutely, “Pretty please with an icing on top?”
Lin Xinyan was left with no other choice. Sternly, she pressed forth, “Alright, but promise me that you’ll only have one per day. Don’t eat more than that.”
Zong Yanxi tried to bargain with her. “Two.”
“Then, that’s a no from me.”
Lin Xinyan turned around as she pretended to leave. Zong Yanxi immediately grabbed her sleeve again as she agreed reluctantly. “Alright, I’ll have only one each day! I’ll get the baker to put these in a bag for me.”
As soon as she spoke, Zong Yanxi dashed over to the cashier counter, as though she was afraid that Lin Xinyan would go back on her word.
Lin Xinyan smiled at her, looking a little hapless.
Zong Yanchen came over and took her hand. “Mommy, don’t you think that Yanxi has changed somehow?”
Lin Xinyan looked down at him and nodded in agreement. “Yes, she has changed. However, why do you sound sad about this?”
Zong Yanchen replied, “I don’t feel sad about it at all. However, your daughter used to be a very clingy girl in the past. That was because her father had just entered her life, and she didn’t feel secure in his love. Now that she knows that her father loves her unconditionally and will never run away, she’s starting to believe in his love. That’s why she has stopped being so clingy toward you.”
Lin Xinyan didn’t know what to think of her two children. In the past, her daughter had been the cute one, but she was starting to resemble her brother more, these days.
However, there was some meaning to her son’s words.
Lin Xinyan could sense her daughter’s change. Zong Yanxi had become brighter and more cheerful, as she seemed to be more talkative.
However, she thought, it was better for girls to be quiet and meek. Perhaps her daughter would get less boisterous once she grew older.
“Do you want anything?” Lin Xinyan turned to her son and asked. Although Zong Yanchen was very mature for his age, she didn’t want him to feel left out if she only bought something for his sister. It wouldn’t be any good if he grows up thinking that I have been biased towards Zong Yanxi.
“There’s nothing that I want on this floor,” Zong Yanchen replied.
“Why don’t we go to the third floor instead?” Lin Xinyan asked, reading his mind. She knew that Zong Yanchen didn’t want anything to eat. On the contrary, he wanted to buy toys. More specifically, the toys that were sold on the third floor.
Zong Yanchen realized that Lin Xinyan was teasing him. Giggling a little, he muttered, “Oh, how hateful.”
After getting Zong Yanxi’s doughnuts, they went up to the third floor.
Zong Yanchen bought a chess set. Upon losing to his opponent back in Baicheng, he had refused to touch a single chess piece for a long time despite Zong Qifeng’s coaxing. However, he finally thought things through, a few days earlier.
There were many challenges in life, but he had to learn how to overcome them. Only by doing so would he encounter character growth.
“When Daddy is free, I’ll ask him to play a game with me.” Zong Yanchen announced cheerfully.
Lin Xinyan patted her son’s head and asked if there was anything else that he wanted. He shook his head, and they went downstairs to check out their items.
There were many people in the supermarket today. The line at the counter stretched out to a few meters long.
Aunt Yu offered, “Why don’t you guys find a seat at a coffee shop? I’ll pay the bill first.”
Zong Yanxi had no wish to hang around aimlessly too. Thus, she grabbed Lin Xinyan’s hand and urged, “Mommy, let’s go there.”
She jabbed a finger at a pastry shop that was nearby.
Lin Xinyan knew what her daughter was thinking. She was feeling a little peckish too, so she took her children by their hands and headed to the pastry shop.
Aunt Yu, who held on to the shopping cart, told the maid to follow after them. She was rather worried about the safety of a pregnant lady who was supervising two children by herself.
The pastry shop sold all sorts of fresh juices and coffees. Zong Yanxi ordered what she fancied before she kindly ordered two glasses of juice for the chauffeur and the maid.
They had left the house in the morning, and now, it was already noontime. Lin Xinyan ordered a few snacks and told the chauffeur and the maid to have some too. The chauffeur knew how friendly she was with her employees, so he sat down, looking rather nonplussed. However, the maid seemed a little more reluctant. “I’m not hungry,” she protested.
Lin Xinyan smiled at her and explained, “We all live in the same house, and you help to take care of my kids. We’re not strangers, so there’s no need to behave like one. Come on, have a seat!”
Finding no reason to reject her, the maid was forced to sit down. It had barely been a few days since she had first arrived, but she could tell that these were very nice people.
Although they were fabulously wealthy, the mistress was kind and friendly. Besides, the maid took one look at the daughter and knew that she had seen her somewhere before.
However, they might have met in passing, so it was unlikely that Zong Yanxi would remember her. Besides, the maid’s outer appearance had undergone a huge change.
Back then, her skin had been much darker. The girl probably wouldn’t remember her.
As she gazed at Zong Yanxi, the maid wondered how it was possible for a person to be so cute.
It was quite astonishing how pretty she was.
Very quickly, Lin Xinyan made her way back to the table with a tray of snacks.
“Aunt Wang, try this.” Zong Yanxi scooped up a spoonful of milk pudding and placed it in the maid’s dessert bowl.
The maid was slightly over thirty years of age. Although she was a little older than Lin Xinyan, she was nowhere near Aunt Yu’s age.
Lin Xinyan treated her like a sister. Indeed, she regarded the maid as a close family member. After all, the maid had been hired to take care of her loved ones, so Lin Xinyan didn’t feel the need to treat her as an outsider.
The shop was very quiet, and the sofas were soft and perfectly cushiony. It was the perfect place to rest their feet, after a whole day of shopping.
The children ate very slowly, but the chauffeur and Aunt Wang finished their food quickly. Thus, they left the table and went to help Aunt Yu load the groceries into the car, telling her to go into the pastry shop to have a bite first.
After that, all of them left the supermarket and returned home.
Because of the snacks that they had at the pastry shop, nobody felt particularly hungry for lunch. Lin Xinyan asked Aunt Yu to prepare lunch a little later in the afternoon. Then, she headed upstairs and flopped into bed— it had been a long morning, and she was quite worn out.
Aunt Yu and Aunt Wang started putting the fruits into the fridge. They lay some aside and washed them for the kids to eat.
“I must say, Mrs. Zong has taken great care of her appearance,” Aunt Wang remarked. “She looks so much younger than her age, and she’s so kind to boot.”
Aunt Yu smiled. “She’s rather young to begin with.”
Lin Xinyan had gotten married when she was only eighteen. Hence, it was evident that she was still in the prime of her youth now.
Aunt Wang had thought that Lin Xinyan was already in her thirties. After all, her kids were already so big. Even if she’d gotten married in her twenties, she would be thirty by now.
However, Lin Xinyan looked like a college student.
Ding dong! The doorbell rang shrilly at that moment. Aunt Wang offered, “I’ll go and open the door.”
The groceries had already been packed away. Aunt Yu massaged her legs and decided to go and rest in her room. She then turned to Aunt Wang and said, “Alright, go on then.”
Aunt Wang walked to the door and opened it. A delivery man was standing outside the door.
He asked, “Is there someone named Wang Xinhua here?”
Aunt Wang looked at him, feeling rather perturbed. “I am her. And you are…”
“I have a package for you. Please sign this as an acknowledgment of receipt.” The delivery man handed her a small paper box.
Her name was written in broad strokes on the packaging.
“Who sent this to me?” Aunt Wang asked, confused.
“I’m only in charge of delivering this to you. I’m afraid that I don’t know who has sent this. Sign here, please.” The delivery man handed the delivery slip to her.
Aunt Wang scribbled her signature on the slip and took the paper box from him.
There was no one in the living room— everyone was resting in their rooms. She sat on the sofa and opened the box, only to find a stationery box in it. When she took the lid off the stationery box, she found wads of cash in it— notes valuing at fifty and hundred filled the entire box.
A card had been placed on top of the pile of cash.
She opened it to find a greeting, written in her son’s handwriting. It wrote, “I miss you, Mom. I’d chosen to live with Dad because I was afraid that I would be too much of a financial burden to you. Hence, I left with Dad to make things easier for you. When I grow up, Mom, I’ll earn lots of money and get you to live with me in my big house.”
Aunt Wang’s eyes filled with tears. Both she and her husband were from the same village. In order to make a living, her husband had found a job in the city, while she remained at home to take care of their parents and the kids. After her in-laws passed away last year, she had brought her son to the city, intending to reunite with her husband. To her horror, he had already found another mistress while working there.
After his career had taken off, her husband started to despise having an old and plain village bumpkin for a wife.
They had gone to court over the custody of their son. Her husband had the money, and she knew that she was fighting a losing battle, due to her lack of financial capability in taking care of their son. However, desperate for a chance to keep her son with her, she decided to engage in a custody battle anyway.
Thankfully, the court sympathized with her as they decided to ask her son who he preferred to stay with instead.
Her son had uttered, “I’d like to live with my Dad.”
Aunt Wang felt as though a part of her had died that day.
Nevertheless, she never thought that…
