Flight of the Bumblebee

Chapter 29 chapter 29

Back at Niu Niu's house, He Qi ordered Xing Yan to take Niu Niu to take a bath, but Xing Yan was stunned after hearing this, and stammered, "Wash... take a bath... Me?"

He Qi didn't expect him to have such a reaction. He stood at the door and took off his shoes, and said to him in an unquestionable tone: "Isn't it you? Is it me? Don't you usually take care of her?"

Neither of them moved much, one was in the room and the other was at the door, staring at each other, as if they were waiting for the other to move first.Here, Niuniu ran into the bedroom in a dirty flowery dress that was still dripping, humming a Pleasant Goat song, picked out another dress from the closet, and asked the two adults who were still standing there. Said: "Which one of you will give me a bath?"

"Listen, I'm calling you." He Qi knew very well that it was preemptive to speak out at this time, Xing Yan had no choice but to turn around when he heard what he said, scratching his head and asking Niu Niu: "Can you wash yourself? "Niu Niu shook her head, "I need someone else to wash it for me." "What should I do? I don't seem to know how to bathe children, can you teach me?" Niu Niu nodded and put the skirt in her hand Opening it in front of Xing Yan, said excitedly: "Then I want to wear this skirt!" "Okay!" Xing Yan agreed: "You can wear whatever you want."

When Xing Yan was dragged into the bathroom by Niuniu, He Qi also walked in, and put the two bags of things he bought back on their dining table.The log-colored table is covered with an umbrella-shaped cover, which should be the lunch that Niuniu's mother left for Niuniu.Just as he stretched out his hand to lift the cover, a piece of note paper fell lightly on the ground, he picked it up and turned it over, the crooked words on it made him laugh.He recognized the handwriting of two people, one must belong to Niu Niu, she even wrote her own name wrong, and wrote "Niu Niu", so cute.The other one probably could only write his own name, with a single "Yan", the strokes were blunt and unsightly, even elementary school students could write better than him.It seems that Xing Yan is really as he said, not even a semi-literate person in today's China.He Qi held the note, the previous smile gradually disappeared on his face, and he let out a long sigh full of sympathy.

While waiting for Xing Yan to bathe Niuniu, He Qi went home, took the daily necessities he bought, and changed the wet clothes on his body.He thought that a lot of time must have passed since he went back and forth like this, but after changing his clothes, Xing Yan still didn't finish bathing Niu Niu.What the hell are these two doing? They just take a shower and change into a clean dress. It takes almost as long as the bathroom to scrub.He Qi opened the door of the bathroom suspiciously, and when he opened the door, he saw two people who were supposed to take a bath and whose task was to help others sit on two plastic benches, looking up at the ceiling of the bathroom and chatting.

"Look there's a gecko on the wall."

"I hate geckos the most. Their eyes look terrible and they crawl around."

"I didn't expect there to be spiders in the corner of the bathroom!"

"Wow! Spiders! Spiders are the most disgusting! I'm so scared!"

"Look! The gecko crawled over, and it stopped! It was waiting for a chance! It's going to bite the spider off!"

"It's so scary! I dare not look at it." Niuniu covered her face with her palms, revealing only a pair of eyes, staring at the most tense corner of the bathroom at this moment without blinking.

He Qi couldn't help but say, "What are you doing?"

The gecko quickly bit the spider off the web, and Niuniu let out a scream.Hearing his voice, Xing Yan raised his neck from behind and saw He Qi who was holding onto the doorknob, then turned his head to look at him and said, "Niuniu said to take a hot bath, we are waiting for the electric water heater to boil. He pointed to the water heater on the ceiling and explained to He Qi.

"Then you held hands and watched the gecko killing the spider in a friendly way?" He Qi felt a headache.

"We didn't hold hands." Niuniu turned around and stretched out her palms to him and explained.

"If you don't take a shower, you'll catch a cold. Get out of here." He ordered Xing Yan to evict the guest.

"Huh?" Xing Yan looked at him blankly.

"Go out, what's the use of you." He Qi said to him viciously, and Xing Yan was thrown out by him like a dead ball.

He Qi turned on the faucet to test the water temperature, Xing Yan was still lying on the edge of the door and refused to leave, Niuniu sat on the small bench and stretched her legs and sang Little Star.He Qi put the warm water into Niu Niu's usual bathtub, hesitated for a moment, and told her to take off her clothes and dip in the water casually before coming out.

Xing Yan asked suspiciously: "Huh? Don't you want to help her take a bath?"

He Qi replied slightly dissatisfied: "You really don't have any common sense in this area. We have no blood relationship with Niu Niu. It is already very problematic for two grown men to help a five-year-old girl bathe and change clothes."

Xing Yan was surprised and said: "You seem to have been very concerned about this issue."

"Yes," He Qi replied, "I have a sister who is two years older than her, so of course I have more nerves in this regard."

This was the first time Xing Yan heard that he had a younger sister. It was natural for him to be surprised, but he didn't show it too clearly on his face.Except for mentioning his mother a little before, He Qi hardly talked about family affairs, lived with him for more than a month, and never saw him call his family members, so he subconsciously thought that the relationship between him and his family members might not be very intimate.Now that I think about it, it's not necessarily that he was wrong.Xing Yan, who has lived abroad all year round, should pay more attention to these issues than He Qi, but he lived in a narrow and closed circle in the past, and the habits of ordinary people may be a fantasy to him.If he had common sense, he would have understood from the beginning that a strange grown man couldn't get too close to a little girl, but there would be nothing after that.

After hearing what he said, Niuniu stood up from the small bench and gave them orders with a proud face: "I'm going to change clothes, turn around!"

"Okay, okay, turn around." He Qi replied repeatedly, after forcibly pulling Xing Yan's body away, a trace of the old father's relief rose in his heart inexplicably, as if watching his own daughter grow up. Niuniu is quite appreciative of this request.

"After you take a shower, you have to dry yourself and get dressed." He turned his back and said.

"What if she doesn't know how to dress herself?" Xing Yan just turned to ask him, but he forcibly straightened his head with both hands.

"It's five years old, and it's time to learn to wear clothes by yourself."

"I won't!" Niuniu shouted from behind.She really just dipped in the hot water for a while, and came out after warming her body a little.

"Then sit on the bench and put on your underwear first!"

"Are we really going to do this?" Xing Yan couldn't help turning his head again, but he pushed him back.

"It is necessary to cultivate a child's gender awareness from an early age. A five-year-old can already understand a lot, and she can't be paralyzed by adults."

"You... feel like her mother..." Xing Yan murmured.

"It's because you don't know how bad people can be nowadays." He Qi said to him.

"I'm ready!" After struggling for a while, Niuniu suddenly called happily from behind.Xing Yan and the others turned around, and as expected, she put on the skirt backwards, and all the stitches were exposed. Fortunately, she didn't get herself wet again.He couldn't help it. He walked over and helped her take off the skirt and put it on again. After Xing Yan took her out, he soaked the dirty skirt in the basin, poured it into the laundry detergent, and put the washboard out of the water. The corner took it out.

He hasn't washed clothes for more than a month, and since Xing Yan moved in, he has been doing the housework all the time.He felt that today had been a very long day, as if he had been a babysitter for a whole day.After hanging the clothes on the balcony, he walked into the living room and saw two children, one big and one young, sitting on the sofa playing games.It stands to reason that Xing Yan should be older than him. He is tall, but his mental age seems to be about the same as that of Niu Niu on the side. Seeing him having a good time playing, why can't he see that he has been weather-beaten from that face at all? Instead, he saw a childish look on his face.On the contrary, he has become a member of the society for a year and a half, and his inner age seems to be on an accelerated time machine, and he has grown to 30 years old.

"What are you playing?" He walked over and asked.

Niuniu held Disney's Snow White and said to him: "I'm talking to Ultraman!"

Xing Yan held a partially faded Ultraman Tiga toy in his hand, and shook it in front of him with a smile.He Qi sat down next to him, took Di Jia from Xing Yan's hands naturally, looked at it and asked, "Why is it so old?"

"I picked it up!" Niuniu said proudly.

Seeing her expression, He Qi couldn't help laughing and said, "Then you are amazing!"

Niuniu took Ultraman from him, with an expression of "I'm great", and let the two toys in her hands "talk" face to face.

"Hello, I'm Snow White, are you a prince?" Bai Xue said.

"Hello, princess. My name is Ultraman." said the prince.

"Why is your face dirty?" Bai Xue stretched out her "hand", pointing to a place on Altman's face where the paint had fallen and asked in puzzlement.

"Because I flew across the whole galaxy to see you!"

"Huh?" He Qi said in surprise: "Are you so good at flirting? Who taught you this?" He set his eyes on the man sitting next to him who seemed to be a suspect. Xing Yan waved his hands innocently and called out repeatedly Said: "I didn't teach her this!"

"Huh!" Niuniu said, "I learned it myself! No one taught me this."

Niuniu jumped off the sofa, put the toy on the coffee table, and was about to turn on the TV.He Qi looked at the clock on the wall, and it was already three o'clock in the afternoon. He realized that it was past Niuniu's nap time, so he said to Xing Yan, "We seem to have forgotten to put her to sleep."

Xing Yan just remembered, but he saw Niu Niu holding on to the remote control to switch channels very energetically, so he said: "Looking at her, she doesn't want to take a nap, so let her be happy."

Niu Niu said she wanted to watch "Bear Infested", and she squeezed in between the two of them when she got back.He Qi and Xing Yan, one on the left and one on the right, are like two competent guardians, accompanying the five-year-old girl to watch a whole episode of children's animation that adults can't eat.Niuniu has always been very happy, she really likes watching TV, and of course she really likes this animation, otherwise she wouldn't turn on the TV every day and switch to this station.

After the rain, the sky was only clear for a short period of time. After a while, thick clouds floated from a distance and covered the sky above the city. The outside still looked gloomy. The sun was hiding behind the clouds, making the light inside Drowsy and dull.

He Qi yawned out of boredom, with tears in his eyes, he leaned on the back of the sofa and looked at the ceiling in the room, feeling like he was about to fall asleep.In order to cheer up, he casually chatted with Xing Yan: "Are you teaching her to play the piano?"

"Hmm." Xing Yan's answer sounded like the ravings of a sleeping person in the dark room.He Qi turned his head, looked over Niuniu's head to look at him, and found that he was concentrating on watching the plot on the TV screen at this time, and he was much more serious than Niuniu.Of course, Niu Niu has already fallen asleep in his arms at this moment.Among the three people on the sofa, only Xing Yan was watching TV.

"Why didn't you tell me that she fell asleep?" He Qi lowered his voice and scolded him.

"Huh?" Xing Yan turned around and saw Niuniu sleeping soundly in his arms, and belatedly exclaimed: "Is she asleep?"

"Let's turn off the TV and go upstairs." He Qi suggested.

Xing Yan was afraid that he would wake up Niu Niu in his arms, so he sat motionless on the sofa and nodded cautiously to He Qi.

He Qi stood up from the sofa and turned off the TV.Xing Yan gently hugged Niu Niu horizontally, she slept peacefully like an angel, curled up in his arms and breathed lightly.He Qi turned on the small light in the bedroom for her, and Xing Yan gently placed her on the bed and carefully tucked in the quilt.

They left the light on so she wouldn't wake up in the dark.After gently closing the security door, He Qi yawned a long time and went upstairs.Xing Yan followed behind him and asked concerned: "Are you sleepy?" He Qi was so tired that he couldn't open his eyes, he nodded slightly and decided to go up to take a nap.

Xing Yan wanted to ask him something, but seeing his tired face, he changed his mind and said, "Go up and sleep well, and I'll call you again after dinner."

He Qi nodded. After entering the room, he immediately collapsed on the bed and fell asleep.