“Master…” The steam rising from the little bowl blurred Guoguo’s eyes. Her tiny body circled round and round it before she finally looked up, her shimmering eyes gazing pitifully into Ye Tianxie’s — deploying the pleading look that had never once failed.
Ye Tianxie could only pick up the light plastic spoon, scoop it brimming full, and quietly move it beneath the table, into Su Feifei’s blind spot. Guoguo flew straight down, stood on his thigh, cradled the loaded spoon, and set to eating with utter bliss.
“Mm… mm… Oh la la, it’s so good, it’s really so good… so good…” Guoguo mumbled indistinctly, cheeks bulging, working away at it with all her might.
“Oh, and — while I was cleaning this afternoon, I found so many instant noodle boxes and canned fruit jars. Hmph, you lazy man, how can you eat that sort of thing all the time… I’ve decided. For the sake of your body… and for my safety, since the healthier you are the better you can protect me — so, starting next week, I’ll be deciding what you eat! I’ll design you the most perfect, healthy, balanced diet!”
“A healthy diet?” The corner of Ye Tianxie’s mouth twitched. He suspected there wasn’t a healthier body in this world than his own.
“Mm… I may as well tell you now. Starting next week, Monday breakfast is a bowl of rice congee, a glass of milk, three slices of whole wheat bread, and an orange. Lunch is braised beef, vegetable salad, winter melon soup, and one raw tomato. Dinner is a small bowl of corn congee, roasted asparagus, and one raw cucumber. Tuesday breakfast is one baked potato, an apple, a large glass of soy milk, and two slices of bread; lunch is three boiled eggs, one grilled sea fish, and mushrooms stir-fried with greens; dinner is a bowl of sweet potato congee, cold-dressed spinach, and braised tofu. Wednesday breakfast is a bowl of oatmeal, a glass of milk, twenty grapes; lunch is three fresh shrimp, a bowl of carrot soup…”
A minute in, Ye Tianxie’s face had gone deathly pale. Three minutes in, something like foam began showing signs of rising from his stomach. He bowed his head and applied himself with great determination to the small bowl of lean pork congee. Right down to the last mouthful.
“Master, more… more.” Having finished her spoonful, Guoguo rose on tiptoe and held the spoon — licked utterly clean — high above her head, her eyes full of longing little stars.
Holding the bowl he had just emptied, looking at Guoguo’s pleading eyes, Ye Tianxie found he hadn’t the heart to swallow the last mouthful still in his mouth.
“It’s gone… it’s all gone… boo-hoo-hoo, why is it gone… waaah! Master drank it all! Master’s so selfish, drinking it all by himself. Master doesn’t like Guoguo at all, doesn’t cherish Guoguo at all, master’s the worst… boo-hoo…”
Guoguo sat on his leg, clutching the spoon, and wept with grievance. Ye Tianxie’s head ached. After a brief internal struggle, he took the spoon from her hand and… transferred the mouthful he hadn’t swallowed into it.
Guoguo stopped crying at once, cradled the spoon again, and resumed eating in bliss, her small face full of satisfied enjoyment, entirely unbothered that what she was eating had already been in Ye Tianxie’s mouth.
She called him master, and yet from beginning to end Ye Tianxie had always felt that he was the nursemaid to this little tyrant. But faced with a girl like this, he couldn’t strike her, couldn’t scold her — and even if he could have, he never would. That gaze, innocent beyond innocence, pitiful beyond pity, pure beyond purity, could annihilate any heart of iron and stone in the world.
This was Guoguo’s unique charm… or perhaps one should call it her ability.
Su Feifei’s very first day had brought enormous changes to Ye Tianxie’s life. And as he finished this first dinner she had made him, his impression of her was quietly shifting too.
And for Su Feifei, this day was one on which her fate changed enormously as well. She had made this stubborn, obstinate decision that no one else could understand, and only she knew how vast her hunger for safety had always been. When such a man appeared, mad or reckless as it might be — even if it ended with her as a moth flying into flame — she would hold to this choice. Living every day in fear and dread, steeped every day in gloom and shadow, waking every day from nightmares… She never wanted such a life again.
And so she would stay by Ye Tianxie’s side — the man who had saved her, and who was so strong she could scarcely believe it. A man who could block a bullet with his body and take four lives in an instant without changing expression. With such a man protecting her, what was there to fear, what was there to worry about?
Su Feifei sat alone on the sofa, watching the television screen, the sound of running water reaching her ears now and then and unsettling her. Against her will, images of Ye Tianxie bathing surfaced in her mind… It was the first time in her life she had lived under the same roof as a man, and the first time she had ever heard a man bathing. Her heart began, instinctively, to churn.
She made an effort to fix her attention on the screen — and at last her thoughts were drawn in by the drama playing there… a mother and daughter, parted forever by death.
Su Feifei’s gaze went blank, staring dumbly as the mother and daughter wept and cried out in heartbreak, and the strings of her own heart were plucked hard. A thick, bitter ache rose within her. Her memory returned to ten years ago… that night of chaos, and the mother who had shielded her small body with her own, with her life…
Tears blurred her eyes before she noticed. She lowered her head, tore off a tissue, pressed it to her eyes, and wept soundlessly, stifling her sobs.
The bathroom door opened, and Ye Tianxie walked out fully dressed — apart from the damp still in his hair, so neatly turned out that there was no sign he had just bathed at all. Seeing Su Feifei’s shoulders shaking, his gaze paused. He walked over and bent his head. “…What’s wrong? Who’s made you cry now?”
“I… I am not crying.” His sudden appearance threw Su Feifei into a fluster. She turned her head away stubbornly so he wouldn’t see her reddened eyes. “…It’s just, just something on the television reminded me of some things from the past…”
Something on the television? Ye Tianxie looked over at it, puzzled…
“…Do you suffer from congenital infertility? Has repeated miscarriage left you unable to conceive? Are you still troubled by your inability to raise a next generation? Now, none of this need trouble you any longer. Our XX City XX Hospital has introduced advanced international equipment, with first-class medical staff and service, specializing in stubborn infertility of every kind, congenital and acquired alike. Our hospital hereby pledges to the public: treatment first, payment after! Any case we fail to cure, we refund in full and pay an additional XXXX yuan besides. Because we are singular, we are professional! Consultation hotline: XXXX-XXXXXXX. Website: double-you double-you double-you dot who-else-would-we-cheat dot com. Address: turn east, turn east, east, east, turn…”
Ye Tianxie: “!@#$%…”
(End of Chapter 91)