Pei Qiqi looked at his aunt, busy in the kitchen, then at his uncle, who was acting a bit silly.
“Uncle, you’re so childish.”
It was quite a definitive assessment. Unexpectedly, the next second, the uncle leaning against him let out an exaggerated “Wah.”
“Qiqi, you sound exactly like your dad!”
Pei Qiqi thought for a moment, then nodded and said, “Dad was right.”
During the time Pei Qiqi finally wanted to watch some cartoons, his childish uncle kept rubbing against him. He didn’t act like an adult at all. He was very much like a clingy big dog. Because he had compared his uncle to a dog in his mind, Pei Qiqi felt a bit guilty and covered his face, peeking at him through his fingers.
Then he was scooped up by Pei Yi and tousled roughly. The sound of uncle and nephew laughing and playing echoed through the large living room — a sound this house had never known before. Pei Yi and Hua Zhao could feel it: Qiqi had finally opened his heart and his arms to them. He trusted and depended on them from the bottom of his heart.
Su Youli, as Qiqi’s best friend, could deeply feel the change in Pei Xu. Because one day, he noticed that Brother Qiqi was wearing a red bucket hat. The hat even had two triangular egg-yolk yellow ears on top. This was something Brother Qiqi would never have worn before, because he thought such colors were too flashy and the style too childish.
Brother Qiqi was also smiling more. Though he was still mostly quiet, he really did laugh much more than before. One day, Hua Zhao took Pei Qiqi’s hand and walked to the Shen family’s front door. Little Qiqi stood on the steps and rang the doorbell. The door was opened by Auntie Chu Ying.
“Good morning, Auntie Chu Ying. Is Youyou home?”
If this had been before, Pei Qiqi would never have been able to greet someone so openly. Though his tone and body language were still a bit stiff, he was trying very, very hard.
“It’s Qiqi! Come in. Youyou is having breakfast.”
Chu Ying welcomed him and Hua Zhao inside. The little guy was sitting in his high chair, holding a piece of toast, eating it bite by bite with great focus. Hearing the commotion, the little guy looked up from his busy eating and saw Brother Qiqi in his creamy white tracksuit.
“Brother Qiqi!” The little guy waved.
Pei Qiqi never ran around in someone else’s home. Only after receiving a nod from Auntie Chu Ying did he walk over to where the little guy was.
“Oh, Qiqi’s here!”
A teenager in a school uniform was nonchalantly biting into a piece of toast, grabbing a bottle of milk as he prepared to leave for school. Pei Qiqi looked at him, tilted his head, hesitated for three seconds, then spoke: “Good morning, Brother Shen Lin.”
Shen Lin stopped in his tracks, blinking a few times rapidly. “Qiqi, you actually said good morning to me today! Let me see if the sun is rising from the west.”
The teenager deliberately stood on his tiptoes, flattened his palm over his forehead, and pretended to look out the window. Pei Qiqi’s ears felt a bit hot, and he reverted to being a cool little kid.
“Second Brother is mean!” The little guy stood up for Qiqi.
Shen Lin laughed heartily, lifted the little guy out of his high chair, spun him in the air, and gave him a big kiss on his soft cheek. As he left, he bent down and ruffled Qiqi’s hair firmly.
“Good job today. I’ll bring you guys some treats when I get back from school.”
The little guy raised his hand. “What kind of treats?”
Pei Qiqi also looked up.
Shen Lin held up a finger and wagged it. “It’s a secret.”
After Shen Lin left, Grandpa Butler lifted Qiqi onto a high chair as well and poured him a glass of milk. Qiqi, who had already eaten breakfast: “…”
He squirmed a little awkwardly, then summoned the courage to say, “Thank you, Grandpa Li.”
Grandpa Li also found it surprising. This was the first time the child had enthusiastically said thank you to him! Because he was the little young master’s best friend, the butler and household staff all knew that Pei Xu was a quiet child. They didn’t know he had been sick. But now, he was almost fully recovered and had been practicing talking to people lately, following Doctor Du’s instructions.
Pei Xu was a good-looking child to begin with- thick eyebrows, big eyes, a handsome little guy. He was naturally likable, quiet, and didn’t talk much. Now that he had called out to him so warmly, the butler was overjoyed.
“Qiqi, would you like to eat a little more? How about Grandpa steams an egg for you?”
Faced with Grandpa Li’s kindness, Pei Qiqi actually wasn’t quite used to it yet. He scratched his face, then his hand, then picked at the milk bottle with his nails. If he refused, would Grandpa Li be sad? But… but he had already eaten, and his tummy was really quite full…
“Th-thank you, Grandpa Li. I’ve already had breakfast.”
When speaking, you had to look the person in the eyes, or else it was rude. He still couldn’t quite look Grandpa Li in the eyes, so he fixed his gaze on Grandpa Li’s wrinkled forehead instead.
“Alright, alright. Then just keep Youyou company here.”
After Grandpa Li left, Pei Qiqi breathed a sigh of relief. Talking to people was really a difficult thing. But, as Doctor Du had said, he should learn from Youyou and dare to express himself. His role model, little Su Youli, was currently looking very worried, gripping the toast tightly with his small hands. Pei Qiqi looked closely and saw that the little guy had bitten a hole in the middle of the toast, but the crusts were left untouched. Youyou didn’t really like toast crusts because he found them a bit hard and bitter.
But the little guy knew that food was hard to come by and shouldn’t be wasted, so he planned to eat them slowly. Pei Qiqi looked around with his little head, and after making sure no one was watching him, he turned his face towards the little guy, opened his mouth, and raised his little eyebrows slightly in the direction of the toast. Su Youli’s eyes lit up, and he immediately reached out his small hand. Pei Qiqi quickly finished the toast crusts for the little guy in a few bites, his cheeks puffing in and out as he chewed.
“Thank you, Qiqi-gege. You’re so kind, Qiqi-gege.”
Without the dreaded toast crusts, the little guy sped up his breakfast and finished the rest in just a few minutes. The two little ones bounced off to the playroom to find Su Yuanzi to play with. Meanwhile, Shen Yan received a call from the director of a film crew he had previously worked with. It turned out that an actor with a significant role in that drama had been involved in a scandal, and the production team had made emergency arrangements overnight, bringing in another actor to fill in.
Unfortunately, the one involved in the scandal had the most scenes with Shen Yan, so Shen Yan needed to return to the set for reshoots. As luck would have it, the second stop of “Little Feet Big Adventure” was also set to start filming tomorrow. Previously, the filming schedule had been delayed because the Cen father and son had left the show, and the director’s team had only just managed to decide on the new guest line-up. With the schedule conflict, Shen Yan was caught in a dilemma.
Shen Lin learned about this and volunteered, “I can go in your place. I’m Youyou’s brother too.”
Shen Minyan shot a cold glare at him, his eyes silently questioning if he was tired of living, daring to skip class. After a moment of deathly silence, Shen Minyan looked as if no one else could do it but him, and said in a deep voice, “I’ll go in your place.”
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