My Queen, My Rules - 95
Extra: Sparrow’s Cub-Raising Diary (4)
Honestly speaking, no one had expected that, despite all their efforts, Cen Sen and Ji Mingshu still hadn't managed to give Yan-bao the long-promised little sister by the time he reached the second grade of elementary school.
Over the years, the two of them had seen no shortage of doctors and consulted no shortage of nutritionists to condition their bodies. They had even made thorough preparations for pregnancy several times. Ji Mingshu had gone so far as to earnestly learn a few post-intimacy positions from various sources, yet the little sister showed not the slightest sign of coming.
As the days went by, and Little Cen Yan became an elementary school student, Cen Sen and Ji Mingshu gradually stopped pinning their hopes on welcoming Zhuo-bao. For one thing, there was nothing wrong with either of their bodies. If they still could not conceive after all this time, perhaps fate simply could not be forced. For another, taking care of Little Cen Yan, this one little elementary school student, was already more than enough to give them both a headache.
Originally, they had thought that since Little Cen Yan excelled at cultivating his interests in drawing, piano, violin, and the like, there would naturally be no need to worry about his studies.
Who could have known that after entering first grade, Little Cen Yan would drift around the lower middle of his class in every exam, and by second grade, he had gloriously become a regular at the very bottom of the rankings.
Looking at the tests that had been handed back, Cen the elementary school student’s handwriting, though carrying a few traces of the carefree unruliness typical of a school-age boy, was clearly the work of someone who had answered every question seriously.
But when Ji Mingshu examined his answers closely, she was left staring at them with a head full of question marks.
"Xiaohong bought ten new books. After reading three of them, how many books does she have left? Ten minus three is seven, isn’t it? Why did you answer ten?" Ji Mingshu pointed patiently to a question on the test paper that had been marked with a bright red X by the teacher.
Little Cen Yan looked up at her adorably, three little tufts of hair sticking straight up from his forehead. He answered with complete conviction, "The books aren’t going to fly away just because I finished reading them. Of course there are still ten."
Ji Mingshu said, "But you finished reading three..."
Little Cen Yan cut her off. "Does finishing them mean you have to throw them away? That would be such a waste! And Yan-bao learned an old saying. ‘Read a book a thousand times, and its meaning will reveal itself.’ You have to keep the book so you can read it many times!"
Ji Mingshu fell silent for a few seconds, then looked at the question again.
Well, the question didn't actually specify that it was asking how many books remained unread after Xiaohong finished the three. In that case, Little Cen Yan’s answer did seem to have a point.
Before Ji Mingshu could finish wrestling with the issue, Cen Sen, sitting on the other side, had already taken a pen and marked the question. In a low voice, he delivered his verdict. “The question is poorly worded.”
Little Cen Yan gazed at Cen Sen with sparkling, starry eyes and nodded deeply in agreement.
Cen Sen corrected him again. "In ‘Read a book a thousand times, and its meaning will reveal itself,’ the word ‘reveal’ is pronounced ‘xian.’ And it isn’t a poem. You can call it an idiom or an old piece of classical writing."
Little Cen Yan rested his chin in his hands like a little grown-up and thought for a while before asking in confusion, "Why is it pronounced ‘xian’? And why isn’t it a poem?"
Cen Sen was exceptionally patient. He broke the explanation down into simple pieces and patiently explained it to his curious little boy, rather than brushing him off with a few perfunctory words the way some parents might do when they assumed children wouldn't understand anyway.
Once Little Cen Yan had finally finished asking questions, the family of three continued analyzing the test paper. Yet Ji Mingshu discovered that nearly every answer that looked absurdly wrong could be defended by Little Cen Yan with his own peculiar line of reasoning, and somehow, each defense contained a few slivers of crooked logic that almost made sense.
What was more, after every explanation, Little Cen Yan would lift his little face, troubled and bewildered, and ask her, "Mama, you think Yan-bao didn’t get it wrong either, right? If I didn’t get it wrong, then why didn’t Teacher give me a little check mark?"
Ji Mingshu: “...”
It really was not an easy question to answer. Forcing such an intellectually nimble little student to think only along conventional lines seemed like a kind of constraint in itself. Yet if she kept encouraging him to leap outside the usual patterns of thought, she worried she might raise a child who became stubbornly determined to do everything the unconventional way.
As the person in the family who normally had the most to say, Ji Mingshu found herself unexpectedly speechless in the face of Little Cen Yan’s slightly aggrieved question. To make matters worse, she even developed a strange little pang of guilt, as though she were somehow failing at being a mother.
There was nothing Ji Mingshu could do. With the elementary school student gazing at her expectantly, she could only turn around and gaze expectantly at the elementary school student’s father.
The elementary school student’s father lifted his eyes in perfect understanding and met her eyes. Then he casually loosened his collar, one corner of his lips curving almost imperceptibly with a faint glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
After all these years of living together, if Ji Mingshu still could not understand what those tiny gestures and microexpressions meant, she might as well not be Mrs. Cen.
She silently looked away and, as though nothing had happened, reached over to pat Little Cen Yan on the head.
Cen Sen understood her tacit agreement, and the barely visible smile at the corner of his lips deepened.
Cen Yan had absolutely no idea that his Mama and Papa had just concluded an unspeakable highly classified “transaction” right in front of him through a few gestures and glances. He remained completely absorbed in his sorrow over the fact that he had clearly answered correctly, yet still being denied a check mark by his teacher.
Fortunately, once their "transaction" was concluded, his decisive father quickly chose to take his side. He told Little Cen Yan that he hadn't done anything wrong and encouraged him to continue using his own way of thinking to understand questions in the future. Only then did the elementary school student finally breathe a sigh of relief and stop worrying.
After finishing the elementary school student’s daily home tutoring, there was still plenty of time. Cen Sen called his homeroom teacher and offered some opinions about the precision with which the school’s test questions were written. He also had an in-depth discussion with the teacher about allowing reasonable, varied answers to certain questions and not restricting children’s imagination and ways of thinking.
Ji Mingshu sat nearby eating oranges, casting sidelong glances at him as she sneered inwardly.
He certainly knew how to put on a serious face and play the once-in-a-century model father. Yet when it came time to coax his own elementary school student, he still had to extract a little benefit from her first. Hmph! Cen the Exploiter incarnate!
As if sensing her contempt, the Exploiter himself suddenly glanced at her and pointed toward his slightly dry throat.
Ji Mingshu understood perfectly well what he meant, but couldn't be bothered to indulge him. She merely shifted her gaze aside and continued happily feeding herself orange slices.
But just as she brought a freshly peeled segment to her lips, someone suddenly caught her wrist.
Cen Sen bent down toward her. His voice remained calm and measured as he continued offering his suggestions to the teacher on the phone, but his eyes stayed fixed on her. Then, with deliberate slowness, he stole the sweet, juicy tangerine segment straight from her lips.
Ji Mingshu: “...”
Stealing food right from a sparrow’s beak!
Absolutely shameless!
What was even more shameless was that once Cen Sen finished the call with the teacher, he fully lived up to the title of “Cen the Exploiter.” He swept Ji Mingshu up into his arms and carried her back to the bedroom to collect his payment.
As it happened, there was something rather amusing about the whole thing. Cen Sen and Ji Mingshu had worked hard for several years without managing to produce a baby to settle the "enormous debt" that Little Cen Yan brought up every so often. Yet somehow, when they were just fooling around and he came to collect his reward, they somehow managed an accidental bull’s-eye on the very first try.
After several years without any news, Ji Mingshu hadn't even considered the possibility. She went more than a month into the pregnancy without realizing it, and even personally went out into the field to survey a site for one of the pro bono renovation projects her studio took on that year.
It was midsummer, the sun hung glaringly overhead. After stepping out of the air-conditioned interior and standing in the heat outside the old house for more than ten minutes, Ji Mingshu began to feel dizzy and light-headed.
An Ning noticed that something was wrong with her complexion and hurriedly supported her, asking softly, “Are you all right?”
Thinking that the client was about to arrive and have the lock opened, Ji Mingshu shook her head. "I’m fine. It’s just a little hot."
Afraid she might suffer heatstroke, An Ning opened an umbrella over her as well.
An Ning hadn't studied interior design during university. Later, when she was choosing elective modules, the interior design course was known to be particularly difficult, so few students wanted to take it. She had chosen her classes too late and, by a twist of fate, ended up being assigned to that elective.
Unexpectedly, the more she studied it, the more fascinated she became. By the time she graduated, she had wavered for quite some time before finally choosing, with Ji Mingshu’s support, to pursue further study abroad in interior design. After returning home with her degree, she naturally joined Ji Mingshu’s interior design studio as an intern.
Perhaps as the years passed, Cen Sen had come to place greater value on whatever fragments of his family remained. Or perhaps he had already found greater fulfillment from the lives they had built and no longer felt so consumed by what he had lost in the past. Over the past few years, his attitude toward Chen Biqing and An Ning had softened considerably. He would call them during holidays, and he had even tacitly allowed Little Cen Yan to call An Ning Aunt and Chen Biqing Grandma.
As for the Cen family elders, they had always maintained a hands-off attitude toward the relationship between them, following the unspoken rule of, “If you don’t say anything, I won’t ask.”
They waited outside for another two minutes. An Ning noticed that Ji Mingshu’s complexion was getting worse and worse. Before she could say anything, Ji Mingshu suddenly stumbled, her eyes half closing as she fell backward.
"Sister-in-law!" An Ning was so frightened that she even blurted out the private form of address she normally used, barely managing to catch Ji Mingshu before shouting loudly for help.
The last time Ji Mingshu had suddenly fainted was during the filming of an interior design variety show. When she woke up, she had anxiously imagined all sorts of incurable diseases she might have contracted.
This time, however, she was not given even the chance to indulge her imagination. The moment she hazily regained consciousness, Yan-bao was standing beside the bed, clapping his little hands as he cheerfully announced the momentous news. "Mama, you’re finally awake! There’s a little sister growing in your tummy!"
After making his announcement, he leaned over and planted a loud kiss on Ji Mingshu’s cheek.
"Mama needs to rest for a while. You call Grandma and Aunt and tell them she’s okay."
Cen Sen found him too noisy, so he picked him up from behind and settled him onto the sofa to the right of the hospital bed.
It took Ji Mingshu a long while to recover before she finally understood what was happening. As she pushed herself upright in bed, she asked, "I’m... pregnant?"
"Mm. Five weeks."
Cen Sen rubbed her head, then pressed another kiss to her lips.
Ji Mingshu was still somewhat dazed, but Little Cen Yan reacted instantly. He covered his eyes with both hands and dragged out an exaggerated cry of embarrassment. "Ewwww, so embarrassing!"
His mouth was saying "embarrassing," but his two chubby legs were kicking excitedly up and down. Through the gaps between his fingers, his round, grape-like eyes could be seen staring without blinking, his grin resembling that of a kitten that had just gotten away with stealing a bite of something delicious, revealing a neat row of tiny, clean baby teeth.
Of everyone in the world, no one was happier about Ji Mingshu’s pregnancy than elementary school student Cen Yan.
His Chinese, English, and Japanese diaries underwent a complete transformation. They evolved from entries like, "Today I ate xxx, played xxx, and it was such a wonderful day," into things like, "Today is Day xx since my little sister sprouted. Mama had a checkup today. My little sister is very healthy, I’m so happy."
Every day, his Chinese and English teachers were forced to read Little Cen Yan’s little sister growth journal, and before they knew it, they had become members of the little sister’s official growth observation team.
Before Ji Mingshu gave birth, the two teachers even called separately to check on her, solemnly referring to the unborn little bean as “Student Cen Yan’s little sister.”
In fact, this time too, neither Ji Mingshu nor Cen Sen had deliberately checked the baby’s gender. They repeatedly corrected Little Cen Yan and told him that the baby in Mama’s belly might not be a little sister. But Little Cen Yan simply pouted and refused to listen. He accused them both of being big liars, insisting that they had already owed him a little sister for so, so, so long, while he, being such a kind-hearted child, had never even charged them interest.
Because of this, Ji Mingshu seriously worried for several days. She wondered whether, if she gave birth to a little brother, Yan-bao would chase after her demanding repayment of the debt all over again.
But pregnancy was simply too hard. Her morning sickness was particularly severe this time, and the first few months were nothing short of hell. Once this baby was born, she never wanted to go through it again.
Fortunately, just as Little Cen Yan had wished, Ji Mingshu smoothly gave birth to a baby girl.
When they heard that it was a girl, both Ji Mingshu and Cen Sen inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief.
Being in debt for years and having their little tyrant come after them every few days demanding repayment had truly been terrifying.
Cen Sen had already chosen a girl’s name before Little Cen Yan was born, so the baby had her formal name from the moment she entered the world: Cen Zhuo.
Zhuo-bao was a beautiful, adorable little girl whose temperament seemed to take after Cen Sen. She was quiet and calm, rarely crying or making a fuss.
But she had her own little rules. Aside from Papa, Mama, and her older brother, she refused to let anyone else hold her.
At first, Ji Mingshu worried that Zhuo-bao might be too quiet and perhaps not keep up intellectually. As it turned out, Zhuo-bao was a textbook example of someone who spoke little but accomplished much. She mastered all the basic milestones, from rolling over to sitting and crawling, significantly earlier than Little Cen Yan had.
Once she overtook him, she kept overtaking him for life.
Quiet little Cen Zhuo began displaying her astonishing intelligence as soon as she learned to speak. Everything seemed to come naturally to her after only one lesson.
Ji Mingshu would casually put on a musical for the children to enjoy and cultivate their artistic sensibilities, and after watching it just once, little Cen Zhuo could already repeat several lines of English dialogue.
When she and Little Cen Yan built Lego sets designed for different age groups, Zhuo-bao could finish her own and still offer Little Cen Yan guidance when he got stuck.
When Little Cen Yan had spent ages at home memorizing an ancient poem after school and still couldn't remember it, she could silently mouth the words during Ji Mingshu’s surprise checks, giving Little Cen Yan the reminders he needed.
With the contrast between them so obvious, Cen Yan did not feel embarrassed in the slightest. Instead, he was proud as could be, bragging to everyone he met about his beautiful, adorable, brilliant little sister.
When little Cen Yan was in sixth grade, a bold girl in his class confessed her feelings to him and even declared that she wanted to attend the same middle school as him in the future.
He solemnly rejected her, speaking with such righteous seriousness that children should not fall in love too young.
In reality, he was merely trying to spare the girl’s feelings. His true opinion was that she was not as outstanding as his little sister. When he grew up, he was absolutely going to find a girlfriend who was just as outstanding as his little sister.
When Cen Yan graduated from sixth grade, Mingshui Manor was undergoing renovations, so the family temporarily moved into a spacious high-rise apartment in the city center. By chance, Ji Mingshu discovered the elementary school diary that the ultimate little-sister-obsessed Cen Yan had already finished writing.
"Zhuo-bao’s eyelashes are so long, even longer than Mama’s. Is this what they call ‘the student surpasses the teacher’?"
"I’ve never seen a girl as obedient and sensible as our Zhuo-bao. Mama’s cooking tastes so strange, yet Zhuo-bao can still say it’s delicious. Sigh, should I learn from Zhuo-bao and be more like her? But the food really does taste strange."
"Zhuo-bao is two years old today! I made Papa help me bake a birthday cake for Zhuo-bao with our own hands, but after Papa finished, he secretly made a separate little strawberry cake for Mama too. He said Mama is a baby as well, and babies get jealous if they don’t have cake. Sure enough, when we got home, Mama was a tiny bit jealous. It wasn’t obvious, but my observant self noticed it anyway. Once the strawberry cake came out, she was smiling again. Papa is really smart!”
...
Ji Mingshu was so exasperated and amused that she did not know whether to laugh or scold.
Then a familiar scent of fir drifted around her from behind. Seizing the opportunity, she held up the diary and complained, "Look at the nonsense your son has been writing!"
Cen Sen glanced at it and was completely unconcerned. “Didn’t his teacher give him an Excellent? How is that nonsense?”
Ji Mingshu turned around and met his gaze.
The afternoon sunlight was warm and gentle. The children were at school, and the house was quiet.
She suddenly slipped her arms around Cen Sen’s neck and asked in a tiny voice, "Will I always be your baby?"
There was a smile in Cen Sen’s voice. "Always.”
---
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