Li Xia made egg dumpling soup for the train this afternoon. Shen Hui saw her busy figure in the kitchen. She served the hot food to the table when they came in. Her cooking was delicious. After grandma left, the house felt like home with her.
”Mom, what can I do to help?”
”No, just sit down and eat, everything is ready.”
The child’s call of “Mom” today seemed different from before, with a different feeling than before. Li Xia didn’t think much about it, she was happy that the child got along well with her.
After dinner, the two older children cleaned up the dishes, and Li Xia washed the clothes that had been changed, so that they can dry and could be packed into the suitcase when she left in the afternoon. In the afternoon, she collected the clothes from the line and looked back to see that her son’s white short-sleeved shirt had a large black spot on his chest.
”Fang Ruyi, where have you been?”
The little guy looked down at himself, then slid and hid behind Shen Haiyang. His mother had just changed his new clothes for him, and he was lying on the stone steps outside.
”You’re still hiding. Come here, or I’ll beat you up.”
”Dad, Dad, help me.”
Seeing Li Xia coming angrily, the little guy grabbed Shen Haiyang’s pants tightly. Shen Haiyang stretched out his hand to protect him and prevented Li Xia from fighting with the child. Li Xia gritted her teeth when she saw his little black hand and pulled him over.
”Hurry and wash your hands. Your own clothes are stained, but it’s not enough, you want to smear your father’s too.”
”Mom, I washed my hands. I didn’t pull Dad. I just…”
”Okay, wash it clean with soap.”
Let him wash it himself, she stood up angrily and took clean clothes for the brat to change. “Eight sets of clothes a day won’t last forever, you kid, can’t you be as clean as your brother, at least wear it for a day.”
”My brother also went up the stairs to play just now.”
”But my clothes are not dirty.”
Shen Hui was wearing the same thing as Yi Yi, a white short-sleeved shirt and black shorts. Seeing his brother being scolded, he deliberately teased the little guy. Yi Yi looked up at him, then pouted and almost cried.
”My brother is a bully. He is taller than me… wuwu…”
”Ha ha……”
He cried, and everyone else laughed unscrupulously. Li Xia patted him and urged him to hurry up, “It’s late. If you miss the train later, you can’t go to Beijing. I’ll leave you alone at home.”
” I don’t want.”
This time he was obedient, washing his hands and face and letting his mother change his clothes. Li Xia changed the water to wash his white short-sleeved shirt, fearing that the stains would soak in for a long time and could not be washed out.
He followed his brother obediently and did not run around this time. When his brother and sister packed their school bags, he also put his favorite picture books into his own school bag.
Huihua helped her mother scoop water, and then whispered to her mother. “Just now my brother’s biological mother came again, not far from our front door. But my brother ran back to our house when he saw her, and she stamped her feet in anger. She stared at our door for a while before leaving.”
What is Murong Danling doing? Is she trying to trick the child again? Or is she planning something else? Forget it. Anyway, I have already told Shen Haiyang, and he will take care of everything. She is a stepmother and has not been in this family for long. She is not strong enough to compete with the biological mother. Looking at Shen Haiyang’s arrangement, he is not optimistic about the Murong family. It can be said that he is on high alert. Unless the other party uses force against their whole family, do they dare to do so in broad daylight?
After packing up, the family set off. The children on the train were very curious about the sleeper berths. It was also Li Xia’s first time to sit on a sleeper berth. She tried lying on it and then spoke to Shen Haiyang in a low voice.
”It doesn’t look big, but it’s quite comfortable to lie on. Hey, have you ever sat on a sleeper before?”
”I’ve sat in it while on a business trip.”
”very nice.”
The sleeper berth was much safer than the hard seat, but she didn’t dare to let her guard down. At night, Li Xia slept with her head facing inwards, and put her small bag under her pillow. This was all her assets, the first money she planned to use to start a business. Nowadays, banks don’t have interbank deposit and exchange services, and it’s inconvenient to remit money at any time, so she can only carry it with her.
Shen Hui and Yi Yi were in the middle bunk, and the two children were very happy about it. There was a railing in the middle bunk, and the two of them were quite quiet when they slept, so they shouldn’t fall off. The two of them were on both sides, kicking their feet back and forth in the middle. Only after being scolded by Shen Haiyang did they behave themselves and stopped moving around.
”One person on each side is not allowed to play like that anymore. It’s not fun to fall from such a height.”
”Okay.”
After a nap on the train, they arrived at their destination early the next morning. Shen Haiyang saw her yawning twice in a row and asked her if she didn’t sleep well at night.
”Well, I didn’t dare sleep too deeply.”
“Let’s go to the guesthouse and catch up on some sleep.”
“It’s okay, I just didn’t sleep well the previous night, it won’t affect me.”
After getting off the train, they first found a guesthouse to stay in, and then Shen Haiyang applied for an international long-distance call. The time was set for two days later. Li Xia wanted to go to the hospital for a check-up first, but Shen Haiyang saw that the children were so excited and said he would take them out to play for a day first.
The next day, He took the children to watch the flag-raising ceremony, and then took them to climb the Great Wall. This project was the most physically demanding. Yi Yi was too tired to climb in the second half, so Li Xia carried him up.
Shen Hui was also very tired, but the vastness of the Great Wall made him feel open-minded. The child had a smile on his face, and the previous gloom disappeared without a trace.
“Are you tired? Do you want dad to carry you on his back?”
The boy subconsciously glanced at Li Xia and her son behind him, then shook his head at his father. “How old am I? I’m not Yi Yi. Dad, Mom must be tired carrying Yi Yi, how about you take her place for a while?”
“Okay, Dad will carry him.”
The little guy changed to Shen Haiyang’s back and said happily that his father’s back was wider than his mother’s. “Dad, if you are tired, put me down. I think I can walk again.”
“Be good and stay here. You’ve walked a lot these past few days. Don’t ruin your short legs.”
“I’m not short-legged.”
“Whose is shorter than yours?”
“Ha ha……”
His brother, sister, and mother laughed unscrupulously, and he lay listlessly on his father’s back. “I need to eat more and grow taller. Next time I come, I want to carry my mother on my back.”
Shen Haiyang praised the child: “You have great ambition. But you will only carry your mother on your back?”
“And Dad too.” Shen Haiyang was just happy for a moment when he heard the little guy continue, “But Dad is too tall and must be very heavy. So I will let my brother carry him.”
Li Xia raised her hand and patted his little butt. “You are so cunning. You just said you would carry dad on your back. A man should keep his word.”
“Okay, then I’ll try my best to grow taller. When I’m taller than dad, I’ll be able to carry him on my back.”
The family climbed the Great Wall, stopping and chatting, laughing. Today was a cloudy day without any sun. They had a picnic on the Great Wall at noon, and took out the paper and pen they brought with them to do some impromptu sketching.
“Mom, the feeling of seeing the real thing is different from what is in the picture or what the teacher said. The Great Wall is so wide and big, I don’t know what words to use.”
“Then don’t say, you can just draw.”
“I’m drawing. But I’m not good at it. When can I draw as well as the teacher?”
“Learn from the teacher, and one day you will become a teacher too.”
“Um.”
They were having a picnic in the breeze, mother and daughter were whispering to each other, while the two sons were surrounding Shen Haiyang and asking him to tell stories about the Great Wall.
“We are now at the Badaling Great Wall, which is an important pass of the Great Wall. Our great leader once wrote the famous poem that one is not a true man if he has not been to the Great Wall……”
Shen Haiyang and his two children talked about geography and humanities. The children gained knowledge and broadened their horizons, and for a while they were immersed in the vast history of the past. Compared with this, the previous entanglements seemed nothing. When they returned, Shen Hui held his father’s hand and happily jumped on the stairs.
“Dad, I’ll be in the first grade when school starts.”
“so what?”
“So I’m the big kid.”
“What does the older kid want to do?” Yi Yi at the side responded, “Brother wants a new schoolbag, right?”
Shen Hui looked up and glared at him: “Go, stop talking nonsense.” Then he said to his father: “I just want to say that I have grown up and will not get upset easily anymore.”
Shen Haiyang took the opportunity to praise: “That’s great. Managing emotions is the first step to becoming an adult. As you get older, you should be able to control your emotions more easily. Crying and throwing tantrums at every turn are childish behavior. The first sign of growing up is that you can calmly analyze and deal with things when you encounter them. Of course, you are still young, so you can consider asking adults for help when you encounter problems.”
“Um.”
Yiyi was lying on his father’s back, feeling very comfortable, with his head tilted on Shen Haiyang’s shoulder. “I will also tell mom if I had anything to say.”
Shen Hui patted him on the back and said, “You little follower, you do whatever others do.”
“Haha, I’m imitating my brother.”
Li Xia reached out and patted Shen Haiyang, then reached out and held Yi Yi in her arms. “You don’t look well, are you feeling unwell?”
She just said that she carried the child, but he insisted on showing off and said that he was a man with strength. When he went up just now, his face was red and he said it was normal after exercise, but why is his face pale now? She was shocked when she saw it just now.
Shen Haiyang wiped the sweat off his face, stopped and took a few deep breaths. “It’s okay, I might be a little tired, just go back and rest for a while.”
Seeing that dad said he was tired, Yi Yi stepped down from mom’s arms and said he would walk on his own. “It’s not tiring to go down the stairs, I’ll just walk slowly.”
Huihua came over and held his hand: “Follow sister.”
“Okay.” The little guy jumped down a step and stretched out his left hand to Shen Hui: “Brother, come on, let’s go together.”
“We agreed that you should walk carefully. I don’t have the energy to play flying with you today.”
The little guy held his sister’s hand with one hand and his brother’s hand with the other. “I don’t want to play. I will walk by myself obediently.”
The children walked by themselves. Li Xia carried Shen Haiyang’s bag on her back. She supported him with one hand and observed his expression from time to time. The man saw that she was nervous and smiled to reassure her.
“It’s okay. Look, I look much better now.”
The color on his face had indeed returned, and his gentle features made people feel like spring breeze when he smiled. But this did not make Li Xia feel at ease, so she arranged for the three children to stay in the guesthouse the next day and accompanied Shen Haiyang to the hospital.
