Facing the pitch-black face of his own father, the little guy took a sip of his milk, his large, shiny eyes calmly looking at him: "Being first place every ti is so boring. I wanted to taste what it’s like to be last, so I left half of the test paper blank."
Standing by, Uncle Yu twitched the corner of his mouth, unsure whether to call the young master wise and brave or simply naïve. But what he knew clearly was that the father valued the young master’s French grades imnsely, almost more than his native language.
As expected, Mu Shuoqian’s face grew somber, his voice tinged with extre displeasure: "Is that the reason?"
The little guy nodded vigorously, taking a sip of milk and biting into a sandwich, sensing that the person sitting opposite him didn’t look too pleased. He offered his sandwich to his father coyly, rolling his eyes pleadingly: "Daddy, here, your favorite sandwich. I saved it especially for you."
Uncle Yu shook his head and smiled. The young master was doing this on purpose; he clearly knew that sandwiches were the father’s least favorite thing.
Mu Shuoqian did not reach for it but instead gazed into the depths of the young one’s dark eyes, lost in thought.
There was a ti when she also liked to offer him a sandwich, repeatedly urging him to rember to eat breakfast and what would happen if he didn’t.
The eyes of the little guy were almost identical to hers, the pupils black, eyelashes dense and long. Whether smiling or not, there was always a lively spark in the depths of his eyes.
"Daddy, if you don’t want to eat it, I will," he said, hurrying to stuff the sandwich into his mouth as if afraid of his father changing his mind.
"Young master, slow down, what if you choke?" Uncle Yu hastily patted his back soothingly and pushed the milk closer to him.
Mu Shuoqian finally snapped out of his daze, suddenly commanding: "Fill in the blank spaces in the test paper and copy the questions you didn’t answer a hundred tis."
"Pfft!"
The milk sprayed from the little guy’s mouth, as he looked at him in disbelief: "Daddy, didn’t your math teacher teach you how to count when you were in school?"
Mu Shuoqian frowned.
"I don’t even have a hundred fingers and toes combined. You’re asking to copy it so many tis, are you trying to work to death?"
"Well then, try and see if copying a hundred tis will kill you." Mu Shuoqian continued to read his newspaper, and said to Uncle Yu simultaneously: "Supervise him later, and if even one copy is missed, you can pack up and go ho too."
"Daddy." The little guy imdiately appeared indignant, his little eyebrows raised, ready for battle. "Punish if you must, but the sheep and chickens are innocent."
A slight twitch appeared at the corner of Mu Shuoqian’s mouth, correcting him: "If you don’t know how to use idioms, don’t use them at all. It’s ’negatively affect the innocent’, not sheep and chickens."
"Daddy, you know yourself that the sheep and chickens are innocent, so, you can’t punish Uncle Yu." A sly glint passed through the eyes of the young one, "Although, he is a fish."
Uncle Yu: "...."
It was just his last na, Yu.
Mu Shuoqian couldn’t be bothered to argue with him any longer, habitually folding the newspaper into neat squares.
"Daddy." The little one tried again to bargain for a lighter "sentence," gazing pitifully at Mu Shuoqian, attempting to lt his resolve with puppy-dog eyes.
Mu Shuoqian glared back with a warning growl: "Mu Qinian!"
Mu Qinian, thinking of the French he had to copy a hundred tis and the astronomical number one hundred, felt a wave of sadness, setting down the milk glass heavily, and complained in grievance: "I must not be your biological child. What kind of father treats his son like this?"
Uncle Yu jumped in shock, hurriedly checking Mu Shuoqian’s expression.
"It’s because I don’t have a mother. If she were here, she definitely wouldn’t let you treat like this. Bad daddy." Mu Qinian hopped down from the chair and began to stomp upstairs.
"You stop right there." A low, resonant voice ca from behind him.
Even though Mu Qinian was upset deep down, he did not dare to disobey, stopping in his tracks without turning around, his small neck stubbornly straight.
"Young master, quickly apologize to your father." Uncle Yu was truly frightened; in this household, the word ’mother’ was a taboo no one should cross.
He rembered nearly four years ago, recomnded by friends, he ca to this ho. At that ti, Mu Qinian was still in diapers, sucking on a pacifier, with his little hands and feet constantly moving.
He had been puzzled at the ti, wondering why such a small child wasn’t in the care of a nanny. He later learned that the father had a severe allergy to won, ruling out the possibility of a female caretaker for his son.
Uncle Yu’s wife had passed away from illness, and he had raised his three children to adulthood on his own. It was precisely because of this experience that he was hired.
He had never known who the child’s mother was, nor did anyone ever bring it up. Mr. Mu was particularly strict with the child, hiring a French tutor as soon as he began to speak.
Once, that tutor casually ntioned the child’s mother, and Mr. Mu fired him on the spot.
Ever since then, the word had beco a forbidden topic, and today Mu Qinian naively blurted it out.
Mu Qinian pouted and stood silently for a long while before muttering, "Daddy, I’m sorry."
Upon finishing, he ran upstairs alone.
Mu Shuoqian watched the direction in which he disappeared for a long ti, then nonchalantly returned to his own room.
As soon as the door closed, an overwhelming sense of loneliness and barrenness rushed in, the pain at his heart coming in waves, so intense he could hardly breathe.
He had heard she went to country F, so over the years, he had tirelessly traveled on business to F, even aimlessly wandering the streets, hoping for an encounter. Yet, aside from seeing news about her in the papers and on TV, he never chanced upon her.
In reality, it wasn’t that he couldn’t find her, but what could be done even if he did?
Mu Shuoqian took a box of stomach dicine from a drawer, about to swallow so when Uncle Yu spoke from outside: "Sir, teacher Bruno is here. He’d like to talk to you about the young master’s participation in the children’s foreign language speech event."
Reviews
All reviews (0)