DJPWNK Extra four

She’s our daughter.

“Jiang Xu! Look at your daughter!”

The noisy day began with Shen Fangyu’s breakdown. He carried the little girl all the way from the bedroom to the study and complained to Jiang Xu, “If you don’t take care of her, she’ll destroy the house.”

Five year old Xiaoxiao stood beside Jiang Xu’s desk was with a box of watercolor pens, pouting and looking at her feet. She glanced at Jiang Xu from the corner of her eye and said, “Baba, look at the makeup I drew for daddy. Isn’t it beautiful?”

When teaching Xiaoxiao how to speak, Shen Fangyu had coaxed her into saying “baba” countless times. However, the little girl had always looked at him as if she didn’t understand. It was not until one day when Jiang Xu held her in his arms and coaxed her by saying, “call me Baba”, that the little girl called out “baba” without any psychological burden.

This caused Shen Fangyu to have a heart attack and he couldn’t eat for several days. It wasn’t until Jiang Xu taught Xiaoxiao to call him “daddy” in English, while other children struggled with Chinese, that Shen Fangyu’s broken heart finally healed.

Unexpectedly, as the little girl grew up, she looked more and more like Jiang Xu, except for her eyes, which resembled Shen Fangyu’s. It was as if she was carved out of the same mold as Jiang Xu, with softer lines and a rounder face.

This made Shen Fangyu unable to say a word of criticism whenever he saw her face, especially when she cried. He felt like he was seeing little Jiang Xu cry.

His heart would clench up and he couldn’t put on a stern face so, Shen Fangyu told Jiang Xu early on, “I can’t discipline this child, I can’t be cruel.” Even just putting on a serious face felt like a sin to him.

However, children are creatures where if you are strong with them, they become weak and if you are weak, they become strong. Xiaoxiao didn’t dare provoke Jiang Xu, but she wasn’t afraid of Shen Fangyu at all.

Jiang Xu looked at Shen Fangyu, who Xiaoxiao had turned into a small cat after only taking a nap, and couldn’t help but shake his head helplessly. “Xiaoxiao,” he said, “you can’t do this to daddy.”

“But it looks so pretty,” Xiaoxiao said.

“That’s not how you put on makeup,” Jiang Xu said. “How about we go find Aunt Zhong and Aunt Lin this weekend and let them teach you how to put on makeup?”

Xiaoxiao, who had been trying to hold back tears just seconds ago, suddenly smiled. “Okay!”

“Apologize to daddy first,” Jiang Xu said.

Xiaoxiao hesitated for a moment, then pulled on Shen Fangyu’s pants and said softly, “Sorry, daddy.” Her voice was very soft, and from Shen Fangyu’s angle, she looked even more like Jiang Xu. So Shen Fangyu’s anger disappeared like a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head.

“Never mind,” Shen Fangyu sighed, picked up the little girl. He looked at his green eyebrows and purple lips, then weakly threatened her, “Come wash my face with me. If it doesn’t come off, I’ll settle the score with you.”

*

On the first day Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu moved into their new home, they came out to Zhong Lan.

They bought a house next door to Zhong Lan, and they got along very well.

Zhong Lan moved in earlier, and Jiang Xu moved in later because he was afraid that children were more sensitive to formaldehyde, so he waited a bit longer to move in.

Before visiting Zhong Lan, Shen Fangyu taught the little girl for a long time, telling her to be polite and say “Hello, Auntie” when she saw the two aunts.

Unexpectedly, Xiaoxiao learned how to sweet talk from her daddy, and as soon as she saw the two of them, she said, “Aunties, you’re so beautiful!” Her newly-learned standard Mandarin was like reciting a poem, which made Zhong Lan and Lin Qian feel so happy that they immediately gave Xiaoxiao a tangerine candy.

While holding the little girl and praising her for being good, Aunt Lin asked Jiang Xu where the little girl came from.

Shen Fangyu rubbed his nose and confessed, “She’s our daughter.”

Aunt Zhong was giving Xiaoxiao candy on the coffee table when she heard this and dropped the candy all over the floor. “Your daughter? How did you guys have a child?”

Before she even had time to digest why Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu would have a child, she first thought, “Do you know that surrogacy is Illegal?”

“Not a surrogate,” Shen Fangyu cleared his throat. “It’s… the surgery I did a few years ago, the patient was Jiang Xu, we’ve been together for several years.”

Upon hearing this answer, Zhong Lan, who was ready to interrogate them, was dumbfounded, as was Lin Qian, who was trying to soothe the child.

“You, you, you, you guys—” Zhong Lan stuttered, “you guys… Senior Brother!” she said, “Wasn’t it Senior Brother Jiang you talked to me about when you came to me for a heart-to-heart?”

Shen Fangyu averted his eyes, “Yes.”

“Oh my god,” Zhong Lan grabbed Lin Qian’s arm in shock, “Qian Qian, support me a bit, this world is too surreal, I feel a bit dizzy.”

“Auntie, let me massage you,” Xiaoxiao reached out from Lin Qian’s arms and pressed her hand on Zhong Lan’s temple, saying in a milky voice, “After massaging, you won’t feel dizzy anymore.”

“Good child… you don’t have to trouble yourself,” Zhong Lan’s voice was trembling at bit.

Although Xiaoxiao meant well, Zhong Lan felt even dizzier at the thought of Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu’s child massaging her head.

Although Lin Qian was also surprised, it wasn’t as difficult for her to accept since she wasn’t particularly close to Jiang Xu or Shen Fangyu. She just sighed and said, “What a coincidence…”

“I’m sorry, Junior sister,” Jiang Xu said to Zhong Lan, “we scared you.”

“No, no, no, Senior Brother, you don’t have to apologize to me,” Zhong Lan reflected on herself first. “It’s just that I haven’t seen much of the world.”

Jiang Xu: “…”

———————

Four people sat on the sofa in Zhong Lan’s house, each with their own thoughts while watching TV. The little girl lay in Lin Qian’s arms as she played with her long hair.

Jiang Xu had already told her not to keep asking her aunt to hold her because she was too heavy, but Lin Qian didn’t mind and teased him, “I like other people’s children. I don’t have to raise them myself, but I can still have fun with them.”

By the time Zhong Lan finally digested the news, Lin Qian had made over ten irregularly braided little braids in Xiao Xiaoxiao’s hair and took a photo of her.

However, when the little girl saw the photo, she cried, scaring Lin Qian into returning her to her two fathers.

“This little girl loves to look pretty,” Shen Fangyu explained with a smile, and then coaxed Xiaoxiao, “Don’t cry, don’t cry, I’ll braid your hair for you.”

Because the little girl was so fond of looking pretty, Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu even took a class to learn how to braid hair for little girls. The two surgeons used the same level of determination and focus as they would when performing surgery, to learn how to braid hair for children. They even tied for first place in the final exam, winning two big boxes of pretty hair accessories for Xiaoxiao.

Lin Qian watched in amazement as Shen Fangyu quickly and neatly braided the little girl’s black and shiny hair into four beautiful braids. Meanwhile, Jiang Xu naturally took out a small crown from his pocket and put it on Xiaoxiao’s head. The little girl, who had been crying sadly just moments before, suddenly broke into a smile.

“I didn’t expect to see such a weird picture in my lifetime.” Zhong Lan sighed, “I also don’t think I could do a the little girl’s hair as well as you two.”

Although Zhong Lan and Lin Qian don’t know how to braid hair, there’s no child who doesn’t like new friends. Soon, the two ladies next door became part of Xiaoxiao’s favorite people.

At first, Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu were afraid of causing trouble for Zhong Lan, so they said they’ll come when they need their help, especially when Xiaoxiao grows up.

However, Xiaoxiao became very fond of these two young ladies, even more than her two fathers and soon, Zhong Lan was calling to invite Xiaoxiao to come over and play.

During the New Year, Xiaoxiao made a pile of greeting cards at home. Jiang Xu helped her sort them out while listening to her recite, “This one is for Baba, this one is for Daddy, this one is for Grandpa, this one is for Grandma, these two are for Aunt Lin and Aunt Zhong.”

“Where are Uncle Tang and Uncle Zhang’s?” Jiang Xu reminded her.

Obviously, Zhong Lan and Lin Qian’s appearance made Xiaoxiao quickly forget about Tang Ke and Zhang Cheng. She scratched her head awkwardly and said, “I forgot…”

She sat up from the cushion and ran to her toy box, rummaging through it for a long time before pulling out two Barbie dolls, saying to Jiang Xu, “These are my two favorite Barbie dolls, I’ll give them to Uncle Tang and Uncle Zhang as girlfriends.”

Tang Ke and Zhang Cheng may have had bad luck in love and have never met the right person. Every time they come to Jiang Xu’s house as guests, they sympathize with each other and cannot help but exclaim, “How can we be slower than those two kids?”

One day, Zhang Cheng was talking about not being able to find a girlfriend once again, and Xiaoxiao seriously asked him, “Uncle Zhang, what is a girlfriend?”

It was difficult to explain to a pre-school child what a girlfriend is so Shen Fangyu warned him on the side, “You explain it carefully and don’t teach my daughter bad things.”

Zhang Cheng was very nervous, and racked his brains to explain it to Xiaoxiao with the best of his understanding. “A girlfriend is a girl I like, and she likes me back.”

Xiaoxiao thought for a moment, “Then I have a lot of girlfriends.”

Tang Ke quickly added, “Each person can only have one girlfriend at most, and your liking for her is different from your liking for others. You two each other’s unique person.”

Xiaoxiao nodded seriously, then smiled sweetly at Tang Ke and said, “I understand, thank you Uncle Tang.”

Then “Big Misunderstanding” smiled at the little girl and she prepared a girlfriend for her Uncle Zhang and Uncle Tang respectively.

Jiang Xu looked at the two Barbie dolls Xiaoxiao had dressed up and shook his head helplessly. He didn’t know how Tang Ke and Zhang Cheng would feel about receiving these two “girlfriends”. However, what Jiang Xu didn’t expect was that Xiaoxiao really had some good luck. Soon after Zhang Cheng and Tang Ke reluctantly accepted Xiaoxiao’s “girlfriends”, they both met someone they liked.

Zhang Cheng’s neighbor moved in, and the two coincidentally bumped into each other several times in the elevator. They seemed to have a mutual interest in each other, and one day, they finally gathered the courage to have a bowl of spicy hot pot together at a snack bar downstairs. Later, the neighbor became Zhang Cheng’s girlfriend.

Tang Ke’s experience was even more coincidental. One day, he went to a bookstore to buy some puzzle books for Xiaoxiao and unexpectedly met his long-lost girlfriend, who was still holding the book they talked about all night years ago when they were still dating.

Maybe sometimes, it takes such a coincidence and a bit of luck for a story to continue. When Tang Ke talked about this to Jiang Xu, his eyes were slightly red.

However, Xiaoxiao, who distributed the good luck, was so angry when she heard that her two uncles had girlfriends and she refused to see them for several days. She scolded Tang Ke for not keeping his promise, saying that he could only have one girlfriend.

Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu had to urgently hold a small meeting with Xiaoxiao to explain what love and marriage were. The terms were too professional and the explanation was too obscure, and Xiaoxiao seemed to understand but not really.

In the end, Jiang Xu’s mother summed it up in one sentence, “It’s finding someone you want to spend your life with, just like your baba and daddy, and grandma and grandpa. Barbie dolls can’t be your life partners.”

The Jiang couple moved to Jiang Xu’s home after Bao Nian left. Before Jiang Xu’s surgery, the elderly couple had been thinking about it and they came to A City almost every weekend. Later, Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu moved to the residence arranged by Zheng Qi, and because of the need for secrecy, the Jiang couple could only contact the two of them through video calls. It wasn’t until Jiang Xu moved back to A City that they took time off to come and see their son and granddaughter.

However, Jiang Xu’s house was small, and after having a child, they didn’t even have a place to put their feet up. Shen Fangyu sold the desk to the second-hand market, and the former study had been completely transformed into a room filled with Xiaoxiao’s toys, baby crib, and a bed for Bao Nian to sleep on.

So after Bao Nian left, Jiang Xu’s parents came over to help take care of the child. It was only after several years that the original blueprint was built into a high-rise building, and they successfully moved into the new home.

During the waiting period, the Jiang couple complained to the young couple about the disadvantages of buying a pre-sale house countless times. Jiang Xu didn’t like to listen, so it was all up to Shen Fangyu to play along and forcibly make “Little Shen” turn to a praised “godson.”

On weekdays, Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu had to go to work, and they only had time to accompany their daughter after work. So many of Xiaoxiao’s knowledge was learned from her grandparents, and when her grandmother explained it this time, Xiaoxiao understood.

Unexpectedly, just as Jiang Xu breathed a sigh of relief, Xiaoxiao suddenly said, “Baba, Wang Yize said he wants me to be his girlfriend, is he also saying he wants to live with me?”

Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu: “?”