At that time, when she had just married into the Li Family, arranged by Old Master Li, she knew that Li Beicheng had a delicate stomach, so she painstakingly learned to make something warm and comforting for him to eat when he came home in the early mornings.
Now that she thought about it, Li Beicheng indeed ate her late-night snacks, but that’s all they ever were—just late-night snacks.
In other words, her thoughtfulness had been meaningless from beginning to end.
An hour later, two home-cooked dishes, rich in color, aroma, and flavor, appeared on the opulent marble dining table, accompanied by a cheerful large and small figure circling around it.
“Try this first, this porridge took me a long time to master; it’s my specialty…”
Blowing on the hot steam in the bowl, Yan Xiaye scooped up a small spoonful and brought it to Little Yunduo’s mouth.
Little Yunduo, with her head bowed, revealing a stretch of her tender neck, her little face flushed, happily accepted the spoon-feed.
After swallowing it with a contented “ah-woo,” she squinted her eyes in pleasure, “Yummy, Yanyan is really amazing!”
“Then eat slowly by yourself, there’s a soup in the kitchen, I’ll go check how it’s coming along.”
Handing the spoon to Little Yunduo, Yan Xiaye tasted the soup in the kitchen and pondered whether to add something, when suddenly she heard a faint noise by the front door.
Oh no, could it be that they have been targeted by burglars?
Realizing that Li Yuntang lived in the wealthiest part of the wealthy district, Yan Xiaye swallowed nervously and tiptoed to the door.
Seeing Little Bun blissfully unaware, gnawing on a chicken wing, she turned back, grabbed a spatula, and nervously proceeded towards the front entrance.
Under the brightly lit entrance, a man appeared, holding a suit in one hand, while the other hand was picking something up from the floor.
Yan Xiaye sighed in relief and then took a closer look, her face instantly flushing a deep shade of red.
Probably because she was in a rush to cook when she entered, she hadn’t stored the plastic bag properly.
An herb with a suggestive shape had fallen to the ground, and was now being inspected closely by Li Yuntang’s slender fingers.
His expression was as inscrutable as ever, but she felt as if she could detect a mocking amusement in his gaze, and she stammered with flushed cheeks, “That is…”
The more uneasy she became, the more Li Yuntang felt like teasing her,
His narrow eyes gleaming with a smile that wasn’t a smile, he analyzed seriously, “Little Yunduo is certainly not old enough for this sort of thing, which means… this is Xiaye’s reciprocating gift for me?”
Of course not!
Yan Xiaye felt hugely embarrassed, her face burning as if on fire, trying to deflect by changing the subject, “Have you eaten yet?
Little Yunduo and I were just about to eat.
Do you want to join us…”
Toward the end, she suddenly felt that her home cooking wasn’t presentable enough, not necessarily matching Li Yuntang’s taste.
Thus, her invitation grew quieter and quieter, and before Li Yuntang could accept, she was already considering how to retract the offer.
But Li Yuntang would not allow her to take it back.
Praises of deliciousness from Little Yunduo came from the dining room; she stood in front of him wearing a little bear apron.
The air was filled with a wonderful smell of fireworks, like the fabled scent of “home.”
This feeling, he was not used to it, but…
he didn’t dislike it either.
“Yunduo rarely seems so happy about food, it seems you’re really good at cooking.” Li Yuntang put down his suit and those strange herbs, loosened his tie, and walked with Yan Xiaye toward the dining room.
Finding that Li Yuntang was no longer obsessed with the purpose of the herbs, Yan Xiaye couldn’t wait for him to forget them completely, eagerly guided him with stiff hands and feet to the dining table, and seated him properly.
Little Yunduo, starving, wolfed down his meal with chopsticks, and in the midst of eating, he noticed a gaze landing on him across the table.
Like a startled little animal, he quickly reviewed his own manners and then looked at Yan Xiaye with his eyes, checking to see if there were any grains of rice stuck at the corner of his mouth.
Assured that everything was in order, he put down his chopsticks, blinked, and awkwardly called out, “Daddy.”
Li Yuntang nodded slightly, his gaze falling on the bruise on his cheek: “Got into a fight with a classmate, hmm?”
“I asked about that, and it’s really not Yunduo’s fault!” Seeing Li Yuntang adopting his business negotiation stance with the child, Yan Xiaye, fearless, bit her lip and shifted sideways to block his excessively sharp gaze: “If you must blame someone, it should be your fault…
uh.”
Accidentally speaking the blunt truth, Yan Xiaye instantly regretted it and pursed her lips.
“My fault?” Li Yuntang repeated these two words softly, his eyes quickly filling with understanding: “At his age, I often got treated as a child without a mother, it’s not a big deal.”
He spoke casually and indifferently, but to Yan Xiaye, it sounded incredible.
From her shallow understanding of the Li Family, the family could almost be considered lacking in descendants, with Li Yuntang’s generation having only one elder brother, certainly not the sort of situation where there were too many children to care for, as in an ordinary family.
Realizing he had inadvertently said something, Li Yuntang pondered for a moment.
He then decisively dropped the weighty topic, looked at the confused Yan Xiaye, and curled the corner of his lips: “It’s nothing, all in the past.
As for Little Yunduo, what do you think should be done?”
As her thoughts were pulled back by the change in topic, Yan Xiaye touched her nose uncomfortably and whispered her suggestion: “I think the atmosphere at that school isn’t very good, having Little Yunduo transfer out won’t be a loss, or maybe…”
She hesitated, not wanting to phrase her core strategy of ‘if you can’t beat them, call their parents’ too bluntly.
“Or maybe I can try to warn the adversary by talking to a few of those kids’ fathers alone, that’s not bad either.” Seeing through Yan Xiaye’s careful thoughts, Li Yuntang directly explained for her, while also asking Yunduo’s opinion: “Both methods are fine, which one do you think is better?”
Yan Xiaye sighed in relief, then tiptoed to the side, desperately signaling Little Yunduo with her eyes to choose the first option.
With Little Yunduo’s intelligence, leaving that place was definitely a loss for the school!
Little Yunduo’s eyelashes trembled longly, and at the end, he clenched his little fist and looked solemnly at his own Daddy: “I won’t pick either, the problems that Daddy could solve when he was little, I can solve too!”
Although this decision felt a bit unfair to Yanyan, if he couldn’t withstand even this challenge, how would he protect Mommy when she returned one day?
“Okay.”
Li Yuntang was not surprised by Little Yunduo’s reply.
Ignoring Yan Xiaye’s accusing gaze, he calmly took the spoon handed by Little Yunduo and tasted the fragrant, sticky, smooth rice porridge.
“How is it, isn’t it really delicious?” Fluttering his big eyes, seeking validation, Little Yunduo jumped down from the children’s dining chair, grabbed Yan Xiaye, and ran to the kitchen: “Yanyan said there’s more soup to be served, I want to help Yanyan with it.”
Faced with such an ambiguous question, Yan Xiaye was at a loss for words, pretending to be dumb and slipping away.
In the blink of an eye, the once lively dining room was left with just one person.