Chapter 952: Extra 25: Parent-Child Variety Show 3

Cheng Zhirang redid Xixi’s little pigtails, gave her a small basket, and sent her and the other three kids out to find some vegetables.

The crew followed along, and with Li Yang accompanying them, there shouldn’t be any issues.

But an hour later, Li Yang returned looking disheveled, bringing back four children and only a haul of radishes, eggplants, and fish.

Everything else was peanuts and lemons, oh, and an orange.

Xixi eagerly held a red-skinned, white-hearted carrot, with a yellow-orange in the basket alongside a little fish in a nostalgic red mesh bag.

Guan Yu sat on the doorstep having a laugh, glanced at the vegetables they brought, and teased Li Yang: “Li Yang, do you want to eat radish eggplant stew with little fish tonight? So many types of radishes.”

White radishes, red radishes, carrots—did they steal these from someone’s rabbit cage?

Li Yang was also quite exhausted, pulled out a stool, and said, “Don’t we have only a hundred yuan? They wanted to catch people’s chickens to eat! Can you handle a chicken? So I obviously convinced them to refuse.”

Guan Yu: “Then what?”

Li Yang: “Then I thought to buy vegetables first, so the remaining money should be enough to buy a pound or two of meat, and they wouldn’t think about buying chickens. But they insisted on getting so many radishes! Even wanted different colors, almost fought over it! What could I do?!”

Another female guest praised Tiantian and chimed in: “But radishes should be cheap, how come the leftover money only got this few small fish?”

“That’s because I never knew kids could be so competitive when it comes to buying food!!!”

If you buy a lemon, then I have to buy something yellow too. If you buy a fish, I must have one too, the same size, and no one should have a bigger one, and if there’s no mesh bag, there’s no deal!

It’s infuriating, having kids is just asking for trouble, he’s about to have a trauma in child-rearing.

Best to start relationships a bit later too.

Cheng Zhirang came out of the room, squatted in front of Xixi, and watched her offer him the fresh “radish” she held like a treasure.

“Daddy, eat this!”

Her actions and expression were very much like Mu Qiu.

Cheng Zhirang gently smiled as he took it: “Alright, daddy will make radish soup for Xixi. Is there more?”

Xixi enthusiastically nodded, took off her mini vegetable basket, squatted before him, and removed the most prominent orange to offer it to him.

“Daddy, it’s yours!”

Li Yang was halfway through his complaints when he saw the orange, inexplicably smiled, and started telling a funny story from their grocery trip.

“This was from the villagers’ fruit tree, and was the last fresh orange, growing right next to their yard wall. Somehow Xixi saw it, and stayed at the yard gate insisting it was for her daddy, and wanted to buy it. Even bargained, haha—”

“Bargained? Xixi knows how to bargain at her age?”

“She said, her mom told her that oranges are daddy, and good things should cost more money. The villager said one yuan, but she seriously refused… Finally, they paid five yuan and got the orange, making the aunt embarrassed, who gave us lots of eggplants.”

Oranges are daddy? Good things?

Everyone in the yard looked at Cheng Zhirang with meaningful expressions.

Cheng Zhirang held back a laugh, pretended not to notice their gazes, and took the orange from Xixi, saying thank you.

Besides the big orange, there were only some peanuts, a tiny fish just enough for Xixi herself, and…

“Why is there nougat candy?”

Xixi in a childish voice said: “It’s from the uncles and aunties.”

Li Yang helped explain: “At the fish stall, they thought Xixi was too cute and snatched their grandson’s candy to give to her. She didn’t eat it, said she wanted to give it to her daddy.”

Probably taught not to eat things given by strangers.

Cheng Zhirang took out the nougat candy, gave it to Guan Yu, saying to let the other children taste a bit too, then opened up the mesh bag revealing the fish.

The father and daughter squatted head to head, one famously handsome, the other cute enough to be chased with candy, the scene was very pleasing to the eye. The clean and beautiful courtyard was brilliantly lit, enveloping them in a halo, even the photographer couldn’t resist giving them a few more shots.

Beside them, three children were taken care of by two guests, also distributing vegetables and chatting with the kids, the atmosphere was nice too.

However, nothing beats an actual father-daughter duo.

Xixi held her face, blinking her cute big eyes, whispered to her dad: “Daddy, that little brother was almost scared to tears by the big rooster and the fish wriggling with its tail, Xixi didn’t cry at all.”

Cheng Zhirang patted her head: “Xixi is such a good girl. Do you want to eat fish for lunch?”

Xixi nodded, reached out and poked the fish in the mesh bag that hadn’t moved. Cheng Zhirang put the orange aside, intending to take out the fish and dissect it, but as soon as he put down the orange and turned around, the fish feigning death suddenly flapped its tail up, slapping Xixi’s chin with a crisp sound, startling her to shut her eyes tightly and fall backward onto the ground.

The fish was still flapping on her.

“……Wah wah wah wah!”

Immediately went into full-on howl mode.

The accident happened so suddenly, Cheng Zhirang quickly stood up to catch the fish, while Li Yang who was craning his neck over, almost couldn’t suppress his laughter and also quickly ran over to comfort her.

Xixi’s pale face was smeared with mud, her chin had a small red patch.

Though pitiful, it was kind of funny.

After a bout of chaos, Xixi abandoned the fish, went inside to shower and change, sat in the dining room watching the other kids’ fish with a sorrowful look.

Without the fish, her meal was just radish dumpling soup and Kung Pao diced meat.

Later, Cheng Zhirang went to the villagers to buy a cucumber and some meat, spending ten yuan, cooked it and gave each child a share.

Perhaps these guests weren’t good at cooking, the three kids were very satisfied with the meal.

Even the guests were very satisfied with the meal.

The only one unsatisfied was probably Xixi.

Two meatballs, a little Kung Pao diced meat, and a special orange steamed egg were enough for her, but after the “fish tail” incident, she lost interest, slowly scooped the fragrant steamed egg custard with a spoon.

Bow-headed on a colorful small stool, looked like a droopy kitty, very endearing.

Changed her clothes, she wore her second favorite small dress, resembling a little angel more.

Just the angel now wasn’t happy, mid-eating leaned on Cheng Zhirang, made a plea in an aggrieved tone:

“Daddy, I want to video call mom, I really miss mom.”

Nearby, Zi’an was already past this phase, energetically “comforted” her.

“Only kids miss mom. Plus you can call mom at night, don’t cry.”

“Xixi’s not crying, I just, I just want to see mom.”

Her quietly teary pout was irresistible, her request for a video call with mom was quickly granted.