Chapter 26: Daily Life 2

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Daily Life 2

A knowing look appeared on Wu Shi’s face. He casually tossed his backpack onto the sofa.

Since they were both home, he couldn’t just throw something together to get by.

But at this point in time, the third-party food delivery industry hadn’t taken off yet.

Wu Shi wasn’t a regular at any particular restaurant, so he couldn’t just contact a business directly for delivery.

He opened the fridge and saw some frozen steaks. He took them out and asked, "Want some?"

"Mhm!"

Louise nodded. There were no snacks in the apartment, and she had no idea how she had managed to get through the afternoon.

"You know how to cook?"

Then it dawned on her that this boy, only a year her senior, was about to cook.

"I wouldn’t really call cooking a steak ’knowing how to cook’."

"Huh?" Louise didn’t understand the Chinese sentence.

Wu Shi didn’t bother to explain. He walked into the kitchen, and soon, the fragrant aroma of cooking oil filled the air.

"Wow! It smells so good~" Lured by the scent, Louise ran into the kitchen. The sight of two glistening, perfectly colored steaks in the pan made her mouth water.

After dinner, Wu Shi still had homework to do, so he went back to his room.

The elementary school problems were a piece of cake for him. He could even multitask while doing rote-copying assignments.

’The CKC Shanghai event starts on October 13th. The week before that is the F1 Hua Country Grand Prix in Shanghai. I wonder if Dad will let me go watch.’

Wu Shi’s mind raced with possibilities. The 2007 Shanghai Grand Prix was full of drama. Forget everything else, just going to see Hamilton’s slide into the gravel—the one that created the infamous "Hamilton corner"—would be witnessing history!

That one slide was precisely what cost F1 the historic moment of a rookie winning the world championship in his debut season.

"Wu Shi, I’m so bored! Can we go out and play?" Louise suddenly called out in English from the living room.

"What?" Wu Shi put down his pen and went to the living room to get a glass of water.

"Hee hee, nothing."

A sweet smile graced Louise’s little face. She had just realized that Wu Shi didn’t understand much English, which meant she could use a language he didn’t know to say all the things she couldn’t bring herself to say directly.

"Oh~" Wu Shi returned to his room and looked up the current F1 standings on his computer.

"Wu Shi, I want you to watch TV with me!" Louise’s voice called out from the living room again, in English. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Huh?"

Hearing Wu Shi’s response, Louise became even more certain that he barely understood any English.

Her mother tongue was Italian, however; she just habitually used English when she was out.

Since she was just having some fun now, she switched to speaking entirely in Italian:

"You know, I’m very lonely. Mamu is always busy and rarely has time for me. I’m often at home all by myself, so I want you to play with me."

Wu Shi’s eyebrow twitched. Of course he knew Italian. How else could he have gotten by at Rafa?

’What is this girl doing? Why is she suddenly pouring her heart out?’

"I’m really sorry about what happened the first time we met. I didn’t mean to put you guys down like that. I just... I just thought you were really handsome and wanted to get to know you, to say hi, but I didn’t know what to do.

"So, I thought if I competed against you and won, I could get your attention.

"When I lost, it was wrong of me to cry and make a scene. I really wanted to apologize, but I was too embarrassed. Then again, if I didn’t apologize, I was afraid you would start to hate me.

"But I was so happy later when I saw that you didn’t hate me."

Even though Louise was pouring out her heart and apologizing, Wu Shi was struggling to keep a straight face.

He clutched his head. ’Thank goodness Aunt Martina only knows I can speak English. She definitely doesn’t know I know Italian, too.’

’So, Louise, I’ll just keep this cringey, embarrassing moment of yours a secret for you.’

"Chinese is so hard! I want to learn it quickly so I can have a proper conversation with you. But why aren’t you learning English? Aren’t you going to Europe next year?" she continued in Italian.

After Louise finished speaking, she fell silent for a while. Then, she quietly tiptoed into Wu Shi’s bedroom, came up behind him, and asked:

"Wu Shi... your... English... have you learned it well?" she asked in stilted Chinese.

Wu Shi turned to look at her. After a moment of silence, he nodded slightly. "I set aside three or four days a week to study foreign languages," he replied in English.

"So that means... you can understand most English now?" Louise asked in English, her face starting to turn red.

"Only a little," Wu Shi replied in English.

"Then... did you also understand when I said I wanted you to watch TV with me?" Louise asked anxiously in English.

"No, I didn’t catch that one," Wu Shi said with a smile, still in English.

"Phew!" Louise let out a deep breath. ’That was close! Any other way and that would have been a total disaster!’

She patted her little cheeks, then suddenly froze. ’Wait, that sentence was just a few basic words in a simple structure. How could he possibly not understand?!’

"No, you understood!" Louise realized, speaking in English.

"I really didn’t," Wu Shi said, holding back a laugh. It was quite amusing to see the little girl so flustered she looked like she wanted to dig a hole and hide.

"Nghhh!"

Louise felt like her head was a steam engine, practically steaming with heat.

’Thank goodness,’ she thought, ’I said the rest in Italian. Otherwise, everything would have been exposed!’

"Alright, alright. I know you’re bored. How about I watch TV with you after I finish my homework?" Wu Shi said in English.

Hearing his completely fluent English, Louise lowered her head and covered her face. ’What do I do? This is so embarrassing!’

’But... did he say he’ll watch TV with me later?’

’Yay!’

"Mhm."

Louise hummed in agreement and then scampered barefoot back to the living room.

Wu Shi smiled. ’Sometimes this girl is pretty cute.’

He looked down at his notebook, and thinking back on what Louise had said, he sighed.

Life in a single-parent family was tough, and it was even tougher when that parent was always busy.

If it weren’t for his adult mindset, he’d probably be overcome with endless melancholy every time he came home from school to an empty house, watching the warm glow of the setting sun stream in.

After all, the desolation of dusk as it nears night is most keenly felt by a lonely heart.

After finishing his vocabulary copying, Wu Shi went out to the living room.

Louise, who had been lounging against a small pillow, had a tuft of hair on her head that stuck up like an antenna. It quivered as she sat up straight.

"What are you watching?" Wu Shi asked.

"Tom and Jerry," Louise answered quietly.

Wu Shi found an empty spot to sit. On the bulky, old-fashioned television, Tom was concocting an evil potion. Drops of what was drawn as an incredibly viscous liquid dripped into a bowl of milk, setting off flashes of light and sparks of electricity.

"A timeless classic," Wu Shi remarked. Even now, sitting down to watch, he felt the urge to see the episode through to the end.

"Mmph~" Louise made an indistinct sound from her spot.

"What’s wrong?"

"Those weren’t beginner’s words," Louise said, her mouth muffled by the pillow, only her eyes visible beneath her bangs.

"Our classes do teach a lot of words that you native speakers don’t often use," Wu Shi said.

"Oh? Really?" Louise asked, surprised.

"Yes. Since we aren’t immersed in the language, we’re mainly taught formal, written language. Sometimes it can make us sound a bit too stuffy when we speak."

"Oh~" Louise nodded, looking as if she only half-understood.

"Can you tell me about Hua Country? Mamu rarely tells me about it."

"Of course. Hua Country is an ancient nation..."

Wu Shi began to introduce the cultural origins of his homeland like a storyteller, speaking of everything from the Qin Emperor Hanwu to the Tang and Song Ancestors. There were so many interesting people and events to talk about.

Since he was approaching it like a storyteller, he cherry-picked the most entertaining events to share.

You can’t truly understand Hua Country just by walking around and seeing its modern society.

Louise listened as if it were a bedtime story, turning her head from time to time to look at the boy beside her.

’I really do,’ she thought, ’want to lean against him.’

"I wish you were really my brother," she murmured in Italian.

"Hm?"

Wu Shi froze. ’What is this girl saying?’