When old men got stubborn, they were hardly any better than children. Old Master Fu had said he would give them a belated Children’s Day celebration, so he really sent people back to prepare.
There had to be cake, and presents had to be bought.
Whether Fu Hui appreciated any of it was very hard to tell from that little face of his.
But Old Master Fu could see that Lan Xi was happy.
“Well? Grandpa’s belated Children’s Day celebration isn’t bad either, right?”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm.”
After asking, Old Master Fu could not help glancing toward Fu Hui again. He lowered his voice and asked Lan Xi, “Do you think Fu Hui likes it?”
Lan Xi lifted his face blankly.
The moment Old Master Fu saw that expression, he felt unwilling to let it go and asked again, “Then do you know what Fu Hui likes?”
This time Lan Xi understood immediately. Full of confidence, he pointed at himself. “Lan Xi.”
Old Master Fu was left speechless.
A child was still a child.
What a pointless question.
Old Master Fu deliberately kept the two of them at the old residence for the night too.
He even specially placed two Ultraman figures by their bedside.
Wanting to see the children’s reaction, Old Master Fu made a point of wandering into their room before bed.
He asked, “Well? Do you like them?”
Lan Xi was squeezed into the blankets beside Fu Hui with his head resting on Fu Hui’s arm, leaving only a palm-sized little face visible. He said, “I want to hear that…”
Old Master Fu was completely baffled. “Hear what?”
Lan Xi pursed his lips and hummed a little tune.
But Old Master Fu had practically no ear for music. He listened for ages and still could not make it out.
Fu Hui was the one who finally said, “It’s called Lullaby.”
“Mm-hm. Lullaby. I want to hear that.” Lan Xi mimed playing a cello. “Like this. Listen like this.”
Old Master Fu finally understood. “…You want me to play it?”
Lan Xi blinked.
Who else?
Old Master Fu… did not know how.
When he was young, he had learned only one instrument.
He said, “I play the harmonica.”
“What’s that?” Lan Xi asked, puzzled.
Fu Hui thought using a harmonica to lull someone to sleep sounded somewhat difficult, but he did not say it aloud.
Old Master Fu, driven by pure stubbornness, really did go fetch his harmonica and played Lan Xi a passage from Farewell.
Elio’s Notes: Farewell (《送别》) is a classic Chinese song associated with parting and nostalgia, which makes it a rather spectacular choice for putting an already-curious Lan Xi to sleep.
Instead of getting sleepy, Lan Xi grew more and more energetic and simply sat up to study the harmonica.
Old Master Fu had obviously realized his own “shortcoming,” but there was no chance he would admit it.
He immediately seized the opportunity. “Come, come, I’ll teach you two how to play the harmonica. This one’s easy!”
Lan Xi held it in his hands and turned it over and over. Then he looked at Fu Hui happily and said, “This one won’t break easily!”
Downstairs.
Fu Hui’s aunts and uncles were jolted awake. “Good grief, who’s disturbing the peace?”
Old Master Fu was not particularly elegant, and his technique for lulling children to sleep was truly terrible.
But from that day onward, Lan Xi began learning the harmonica from him.
Lan Xi was bursting with enthusiasm, puffing away at it with tremendous energy.
Old Master Fu received an enormous amount of emotional satisfaction from this and became even more eager to call the children back to stay at the old residence.
Meanwhile, Song Xu began pursuing a new degree. The university she attended was not far away, so from Monday through Friday she would pick up the two children after school on her way past, drop them off at the Fu residence, and then leave.
At first, Lan Xi was a tiny bit unhappy about it.
His concept of moms and dads was still very weak, so in his mind Song Xu and Fu Lin were not much different. Both were “outsiders” intruding between him and Fu Hui.
He did not need any “outsiders” joining them.
But one day, Song Xu brought Lan Xi a small blue-green opal bracelet. When she lifted it and gave it a little shake, its brilliant colors shimmered and rippled in the light.
“Does it look like the mermaid you played that day?”
“It does!” Lan Xi nodded again and again.
After that, Song Xu would occasionally bring him delicate, beautiful little trinkets, thoroughly winning Lan Xi over.
Of course, Fu Hui received little gifts too.
Fu Hui simply showed very little of what he liked. He seemed indifferent to almost everything, so Song Xu more often gave him things like fountain pens and handkerchiefs.
Oh, and the handkerchiefs eventually ended up being used to wipe Lan Xi’s sweat.
Fu Hui truly did not have any particular preferences.
He had always felt that he had already been born with more than enough. There was nothing especially remarkable about anything money could buy.
But when his mother came every day to pick him and Lan Xi up, and the three of them sat together in the car while he listened to her softly tell Lan Xi where each little gift had come from… he was very happy.
Another Sunday arrived.
Old Master Fu took out a calendar and drew circle after circle on it.
His schedule was normally handled by his secretary, so the people at home were very surprised to see him doing this. “Are you… circling every holiday?”
Old Master Fu said solemnly, “Mm. Fu Hui spent the last Children’s Day with the Song family. The next holiday is the Dragon Boat Festival… I have to get Fu Hui back here for that one.”
And not just the Dragon Boat Festival.
There were plenty of other holidays after that.
An invisible contest seemed to have begun between Old Master Fu and the Song family.
But when the Dragon Boat Festival came, Song Xu directly told Fu Hui to go spend it at the old residence.
Old Master Fu knew nothing about that. He was simply delighted and went on to say that when Fu Hui’s birthday came, he wanted to hold the celebration at the old residence.
Fu Hui’s birthday was in summer.
In fact, it would arrive in what felt like the blink of an eye.
Song Xu had told Fu Hui early on that she wanted to take him into the mountains for his birthday. Old Master Fu had also made his position clear: he intended to hold a birthday banquet for Fu Hui, and naturally it would not be a small one.
This was Fu Hui’s first birthday since his parents separated.
He obviously could not split himself in half.
And Lan Xi had something to say too. “I’m going to celebrate Fu Hui’s birthday!”
Fu Hui knew there might be countless moments like this in the future, with everyone’s plans colliding.
After thinking about it, he said to Lan Xi, “Mm. Lan Xi can celebrate it for me.”
On his birthday, cars from both the old residence and the Song family arrived outside. The two sides exchanged awkward looks and waited together for Fu Hui to come out and make his choice.
The nanny came to the young master’s bedroom door and knocked, but there was no response.
By his usual routine, he should have been awake long ago.
The nanny pushed open the door and found the bed completely empty.
Fu Hui and Lan Xi had disappeared together.
The nanny ran out in fright.
Now neither family had time to fight over who would host Fu Hui’s birthday. They immediately sent bodyguards out to search for the children.
Song Xu came to the bedroom and eventually found a small note.
The childish strokes looked less like writing than a sentence someone had drawn:
【Lan Xi is celebrating Fu Hui’s birthday (*‾︶‾)】
Song Xu carried the note outside. By then, the bodyguards had also pulled up the surveillance footage.
At first light that morning, while the gardener was still trimming branches in the garden, Fu Hui had already climbed through the storage-room window with Lan Xi and headed out.
Each child wore a backpack with a brightly colored water bottle hanging from it, and each was holding a piece of bread and munching away.
Everyone managed only half a sigh of relief before their hearts climbed right back into their throats.
“Where could two little kids possibly go to celebrate a birthday?”
＊
Fu Hui turned off the video on his phone and asked Lan Xi, “Do you know how to do it now?”
Lan Xi shook his head and grabbed Fu Hui’s hand. “Watch it again, watch it again.”
Fu Hui agreed and once again opened the video titled Learn How to Make a Cake in a Rice Cooker in Three Minutes.
Lan Xi watched it carefully one more time.
Fu Hui said, “We need to go buy eggs, flour…”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm.” Lan Xi memorized everything with a solemn expression.
He was going to celebrate Fu Hui’s birthday.
So he also had to be responsible for making Fu Hui a cake.
The two children went on a shopping spree at the supermarket and even rented a small trolley before they finally managed to haul everything back to the apartment.
This apartment was one of the properties Fu Lin had given little Fu Hui when he was born.
After opening the door and going inside, Lan Xi spread his arms solemnly and called, “Fu Hui.”
Fu Hui immediately shook out a little apron and put it on him. They had found it in the children’s toy section. There was no helping it, adult aprons were simply far, far too big.
The apron was finally on.
Fu Hui tied Lan Xi’s hair into a bun, then put a chef’s hat on his head.
Oh, but the chef’s hat was a little too big. The moment Fu Hui put it on him, it slid downward.
Lan Xi immediately cried, “Fu Hui, I can’t see!”
Fu Hui hurriedly tugged the chef’s hat back up.
But the next second it slid down again, completely covering Lan Xi’s big, bright eyes.
Fu Hui suggested, “How about you don’t wear the hat?”
Lan Xi shook his head like a rattle. “No, no.” He emphasized, “Lan Xi is the chef.”
So a chef absolutely had to wear a chef’s hat.
That was the rule!
Fu Hui searched around and found several large hair ties. He stacked them over Lan Xi’s bun until they finally held the chef’s hat up.
Then Lan Xi began cracking eggs.
With the first egg, he crushed the whole thing to bits.
With the second, all the shell fell in.
Lan Xi panicked. “Fu Hui!”
Fu Hui immediately put on gloves. “I’ll crack the eggs.”
Lan Xi was unhappy. “But Fu Hui isn’t the chef.”
“Chefs all have assistants. Assistants are the ones who help crack eggs.”
“Oh, oh, really?” Lan Xi blinked.
“Really.” Fu Hui nodded very hard to show that what he had said was extremely, extremely true.
And so Lan Xi surrendered all authority over cracking the eggs.
Lan Xi began sifting the flour.
He gripped a sieve bigger than his face and shook, shook, shook.
Achoo!
Flour covered Lan Xi’s entire face, even coating his eyelashes.
He rubbed his nose and called again, “Fu Hui!”
Fu Hui turned around and saw him standing there at a complete loss, pitiful and adorable. His whole face was covered in flour, with only his eyes and mouth still visible.
Fu Hui’s hands were temporarily occupied, so he said calmly, “Bring me the phone.”
Lan Xi put down the sieve and went to find the phone.
Fu Hui finally finished cracking all six eggs. He wiped his hands, picked up the phone, and said solemnly, “Don’t move…”
Lan Xi obediently stood still. “Mm.”
Fu Hui opened the camera.
With a click, Flour Ghost Lan Xi was captured forever.
Lan Xi looked confused. “Fu Hui?”
“Done.”
Lan Xi hurriedly leaned his head over and discovered that Fu Hui had only taken a photo. The embarrassed and furious little succubus pressed his head against Fu Hui’s arm and neck, rubbing all the flour onto him before finally calling out triumphantly, “Fu Hui, give Lan Xi Lan Xi’s phone.”
Fu Hui did as he was told.
Lan Xi raised the big phone and copied him exactly. “Fu Hui, don’t move.”
Click.
He took a picture of a thoroughly flour-covered Fu Hui too.
Lan Xi put away the big phone in satisfaction, then carefully wiped his own face with Fu Hui’s clothes before throwing himself back into creating the cake.
The two children spent more than an hour wrestling with it.
Finally, following the instructions, they opened the rice cooker. A golden cake with a burnt bottom was stuck to the lid.
Lan Xi stared blankly. “What do we do, Fu Hui?”
Fu Hui said, “Pry it off.”
They pried the cake loose, put it onto a plate that was not quite the right size, then stuck candles into it and lit them.
They sat on the carpet around the little coffee table and began making wishes.
“What did Fu Hui wish for?”
“I can’t tell you. If I say it, it won’t come true.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s cut the cake.”
“Wait!”
Fu Hui looked over in surprise, because Lan Xi should have been the most enthusiastic one whenever it was time to portion out the cake…
Only then did Lan Xi pull out a mini harmonica he had tucked away. He proudly lifted his chin and announced himself, “For Fu Hui’s birthday! Please enjoy Lan Xi’s performance…”
By the time the adults finally found them, Lan Xi was blasting The Moon Represents My Heart at maximum volume.
Old Master Fu had taught him, and the style was thoroughly old-fashioned.
It sounded just a tiny, tiny bit awful.