NOVPUB
Chapter 497: Chapter 487 The King of Children
Shen Yunfang brought the children home and then it was time to arrange their sleeping quarters.
With merely the children arriving, she couldn’t let the three kids stay by themselves in the courtyard house side. She needed to keep an eye on them, so the bed in the study wasn’t enough for all the kids. In the end, Shitou and Shuanzi slept in the study, and Jiajia slept in the master bedroom with Shen Yunfang.
Having arranged a place for the children to stay, she simply cooked them some noodles, adhering to the saying, "Dumplings for boarding, noodles for alighting," to tide them over a bit. Letting them take a nap first, they could eat something better in the evening.
As it turned out, the children had no objections to eating noodles and held their bowls, eating without looking up or opening their eyes. No, that’s not right. Shuanzi did look up to say, "Auntie, these noodles taste so good. Can I have more this evening?"
Yunfang had lived in the Capital for several years and had learned to cook some signature dishes. Today, she prepared classic Beijing zhajiang noodles for the kids, rich in ingredients. It would be surprising if they weren’t delicious.
"I want more too," Pangpang imitated his brother.
"Don’t overdo it. How little you are! You can’t eat as much as your brother," Shen Yunfang said, trying to contain her amusement as she saw her son and daughter messily eating with sauce all over their faces. These two scamps used to eat this dish now and then without showing much enthusiasm, but now that their brother and sister had arrived, these noodles turned into something precious.
"No way, I am a man now, I need to eat a whole lot," Pangpang said with his mouth full of noodles.
"That’s rude. Mom has told you, swallow the food in your mouth before you speak," Yunfang deliberately put on a stern face.
Pangpang obediently worked his cheeks hard to swallow the noodles, then opened his mouth to show his mom, meaning, "I’ve swallowed it. There’s no food in my mouth now. Can I speak now?"
"Alright, mom knows you want more noodles. How about I make some for you and your brother and sister tomorrow morning?" Shen Yunfang patted her silly son’s head.
"What are we eating tonight then?" Shuanzi naively asked.
"We’ll eat meat, brother dummy," Manman spoke like a little adult.
"Hehe, right, we’ll have meat tonight," Shen Yunfang laughed.
After eating, Shen Yunfang sent the kids off to bed. Only with a good rest could they play with more energy, right?
Pangpang and Manman had a regular schedule and would take a nap every afternoon, so they fell asleep quickly. But Shuanzi, that wasn’t the case. He was too excited from taking the train, even more excited about traveling with his brother and sister alone, and now completely wired at the promise of meat for dinner, so he couldn’t sleep at all.
But on the way over, his mom had taught him not to cause any trouble for his aunt, and fearful of disturbing his aunt and his little brother and sister’s sleep, he lay in bed twirling around like a worm, not daring to get up and make a ruckus.
Finally, at half-past one in the afternoon, he heard some noises coming from the living room and quickly got up to take a stroll outside.
"You woke up so fast? Did you get enough sleep?" Shen Yunfang didn’t know he had been awake all afternoon and thought her noise had woken the child.
"I’m not asleep, can’t fall asleep," Shuanzi said honestly.
"You child," Shen Yunfang was somewhat at a loss for words, "Alright, if you can’t sleep, just as well, come and help your second aunt with some chores."
So, Shen Yunfang took Shuanzi to the cool terrace and started dealing with the honeysuckle they had picked in the past two days.
Although Shuanzi sometimes seemed unreliable, he was actually quite skilled when it came to doing chores.
By the time it was past two o’clock, the children started waking up one after another. Shen Yunfang told Shuanzi to wash his hands, and then she took the group of kids to bathe.
When they returned home in the evening, Shen Yunfang made sweet and sour ribs and braised pork elbow, making the children’s little mouths greasy as they constantly praised her, saying her cooking was the best in the whole world.
After dinner, Shitou took out a roll of newspaper from his big bag and handed it to his second aunt.
Shen Yunfang found it strange—why would he bring a newspaper all this way?
"This is from my mom. She told me to bring it over because it has something sandwiched inside that second aunt wanted," Shitou explained.
"Right, right, I know, it’s stamps. My dad and I went to the county to buy them together, they’re pretty expensive, you know. A small one costs eight cents, and a large one is six yuan and forty cents," Shuanzi said, his little face wrinkling with concern, "I told my dad that the monkey doesn’t look nice, but he wouldn’t listen and insisted on buying this one." 𝑛𝘰𝑣𝑝𝑢𝑏.𝘤𝑜𝘮
Hearing this, Shen Yunfang knew that Liu Jianjun had really taken her request to heart and even went to the county to buy her the Monkey Stamp. Suppressing her excitement, she slowly unfolded the newspaper and indeed, there was the Monkey Stamp she had seen at an auction in the future. Shen Yunfang counted them first; there were eight in total. She checked them again, and all the stamps were intact.
Shitou fished around in his trousers and finally pulled out a handkerchief roll, "My mom said, my dad went to every post office in the county to find these. The remaining money, my mom told me to bring back to second aunt," he said.
Shen Yunfang took the handkerchief without counting the money and opened it. She took out five ten-yuan bills and gave one to each child. Since she had to give money to her brothers and sisters, she had to be fair with her own children too.
"Take this, it’s your second aunt’s pocket money for you; tuck it away safely. If you run into anything here, you will have some cash for emergencies, but you mustn’t spend it frivolously," Shen Yunfang clarified the purpose of the money, mainly to be used in case of unexpected needs.
Shitou was about to refuse the money, as his mother had instructed not to accept second aunt’s money, but before he could speak, Shuanzi had already pocketed the money and was assuring, "You can rest assured, second aunt, I definitely won’t waste it." With no other choice, Shitou reluctantly tucked the money away, thinking to himself that he wouldn’t spend it and would keep his brother and sister from spending it either. Before leaving, he planned to return the money to his second aunt.
In the following month, Shen Yunfang became the children’s king, leading six kids and Ma Chaofan on a wild tour across the Capital.
Of course, it wasn’t all mindless fun. Every other day, she took the children to visit some historical heritage sites, such as Yuanming Garden. Of course, it wasn’t open to the public at the time, so they snuck in, not needing to spend any money on tickets. However, Shen Yunfang was well-educated and recounted history to the children next to the broken walls and ruins, leaving them all screaming in excitement.
Of course, it was mainly Shuanzi who responded; Pangpang and Manman couldn’t understand much, Jiajia and Transcendent were relatively quiet—even if they were angry, they didn’t show it—and Shitou considered himself the eldest child, able to keep himself under control.
Naturally, every negative has its positive, and she took the children to climb the Great Wall, letting them experience the beauty and vastness of the nation’s landscapes.
