Chapter 186 - "I want Daddy and Mommy to live together." (2)
Jiang MingYuan was taken aback a little. He had no idea what had just happened.
"Go ahead. Your son is tired of me already," said Cheng Huan to Jiang MingYuan with a resentful look. With a soft hrumph, she pointed at a stack of story books next to the bed.
Jiang MingYuan hesitated a little. "I... have never tried this before."
"It's fine. Just read from the book." Cheng Huan was very experienced at fooling children and shared her tips with Jiang MingYuan. "The only purpose is to put him to sleep anyway."
Jiang MingYuan, "......"
"Oh, alright." Accepting her suggestion, Jiang MingYuan walked over there with his lips tight, picked up one of the story books, and flipped open to one of the stories. He looked around him and was about to start reading while standing next to the bed.
He was tall and, standing next to the bed like that, seemed very authoritative. XingXing leaned on his side and looked at him then, reaching his little hand out from under the blanket, he waved at him and said, "Daddy, sit down."
The chair in front of the vanity table was the only one in the bedroom. Its cushion was pink in color, matching that of the mirror frame.
Jiang MingYuan took a look at it, paused, put the book down, have XingXing held on while he turned around, walked out, and grabbed a chair from the dining room.
He placed the chair down next to the bed, opened up the story book, and started reading it.
It wasn't a difficult task reading stories to a child. The story that Jiang MingYuan was reading was about a crow.
The crow felt that its own black feather was not majestic looking and that the peacock was prettier than him. Months and years had passed with his jealousy toward the peacock built. Finally, it gathered up its courage and went to steal the peacock's feathers in the middle of the night and planted them on itself.
The feather poked through its skin. The crow put up with the pain and felt that it had finally became beautiful. Nevertheless, colorful feathers on the otherwise black crow did not make it pretty. They only looked out of place and the crow was laughed at by its friends.
The story itself was very meaning. The crow finally learned that being one's own self was the best and had learn to appreciate itself. It returned the feathers back to the peacock, admitted its mistake, and was locked up in animal prison to be reformed.
XingXing's take away, nevertheless, was not about being punished for one's misbehavior or not to be envious of those around him, he only wanted to know what the crow looked like.
With the story book on his lap, Jiang MingYuan looked at his son in bed and let out an almost undetectable sigh. He then pulled out his cellphone, searched for crows, and show an enlarged picture to XingXing. "They look like this."
"Oh, they are so cool looking!" For a 4-year-old boy, black was the prettiest color in his mind. XingXing looked at the crow for a while before he pulled his head back. "I feel that crows are prettier than peacocks!"
"Mmm," replied Jiang MingYuan nonchalantly. He closed the book up and put it aside. Straightening up the blanket for XingXing, he said to him softly, "Okay, story time is over. It's time to go to bed."
"But I am not sleepy." With his eyes opened, XingXing looked at this daddy eagerly. Jiang MingYuan's heart was softened by that look. "Okay, what other story do you want to listen to? Daddy will read them to you."
The little kiddo let out a long "hmmmmmm" from his nose then, his eyes rolled, and he said, "Can you tell me about our new place, Daddy?"
Jiang MingYuan gave Cheng Huan a look. Seeing that she didn't have any reaction to that at all, he sat back down and said "okay."
"The new place has three bedrooms, family room, and living room. Each of the bedrooms has their own bathroom..." Outside of textbooks and his work, Jiang MingYuan's talk was very dry. That did not make XingXing any less interested in the subject. He asked about all kinds of details and wanted to compare it with their current place.