Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Zhou Ling had been caught off guard. Mistakenly thinking that Xiaotu was about to fall off the bed, she’d quickly reached out to grab her by the collar and said, “Be careful!”
“Mommy, I’m fine.” Xiaotu stood by the bed in her bare feet and her pink rabbit pajamas. She held tightly to her stuffed bear as she said in a bright voice, “I’m ready to go to sleep with Brother Orange Juice now.”
Zhou Ling regarded her daughter, not knowing whether to cry or to laugh.
“This little rascal was still thinking about this after all this time?”
“Behave yourself, Xiaotu. I’m getting tired of this. Don’t you always drink milk before going to bed? If you go to Brother Orange Juice’s home, you won’t have any milk to drink.”
Zhou LIng rolled her eyes. She was determined to find a way to discourage Xiaotu.
“Oh…” Xiaotu tilted her head as she thought about it for a little while. Then she promptly walked to her nightstand and grabbed the box of milk powder along with her milk bottle. She then added them to her bear that was already in her arms and exclaimed excitedly, “Then I’ll take the milk to Brother Orange Juice’s house, so I can drink it with him.”
“…”
Zhou Ling remained silent for two seconds. Then she muttered, “Brother Orange Juice is already ten years old, beyond the age of drinking powdered milk.”
“Oh, okay. Then I’ll drink it myself,” Xiaotu said as she prepared to take off running toward the door.
“You stop right there!” Zhou Ling quickly hopped off the bed and grabbed her by the collar. She yanked her back on the bed as she said, “It’s already so late. I’m sure Brother Orange Juice has gone to bed. I think we should wait until after you get up tomorrow morning to go play with him.”
“No…”
“You have to learn to listen. You can’t disturb Brother Orange Juice while he is sleeping. Do you understand?”
“Oh…” Xiaotu bit her bottom lip.
Finally satisfied that Xiaotu had seen reason, Zhou Ling picked up her reference book for the medical qualification examination and started reading it.
Yet she’d only been able to read for a few seconds before Xiaotu rolled off the bed yet again.
“What are you doing?”
“I…I want to go onto the balcony to see the moon.” Xiaotu hugged her little stuffed bear as she gazed at her mother with an innocent expression on her face.
“Oh.” Zhou Ling sighed in relief and waved her hand dismissively. “Go ahead,” she said.
Xiaotu took off running toward the balcony on her short legs.
On the balcony, there was a little chair that was for her to stand on to look outside. The window was equipped with anti-theft bars, so her mother wasn’t worried that she would tumble down from the balcony.
Xiaotu climbed onto the chair, forcefully pushed open the window, glanced outside at the pitch-dark night sky, and promptly turned her head toward their neighbor’s window, and shouted, “Brother Orange Juice, Brother Orange Juice, are you asleep yet?”
Her voice was very loud and clear, and hearing her shout at the top of her lungs made Zhou Ling drop the book in her hand in surprise.
At that moment, Cheng Zhiyan had been sitting in front of the desk in his room as he finished his summer assignments. Hearing this shout from out of nowhere made the pen in his hand wobble, and he accidentally drew a dark blue line on his homework.
“…”
“All right, so all the words he’d written on this page of his homework had been for nothing.”
Cheng Zhiyan stared at the homework page in front of him in exasperation and promptly ripped off the page. Just as he was about to stand up and head to the balcony to get to the bottom of the commotion, he heard his bedroom door crack open.
Zhou Yue stood in his bedroom door and gazed at her son with a mirthful expression as she said, teasingly, “Your girlfriend is calling you.”