Chapter 81: Scared
Shao Dong touched his nose upon hearing Shao Xi’s accusation. For the first time, he felt a little guilty. However, he still said, “I just feel that I have to make things clear for you guys. Don’t you know that we should grieve first and rejoice later?”
Could ‘grieve first and rejoice later’ even be applied in such a situation? No one spoke for a moment.
Mu Jingzhe didn’t know that the children had already made all those arrangements for her. Moreover, it was very forward of them to think that she would get married and have her own children.
This was truly ‘farsighted’ of them.
She was coaxing Little Bei to sleep, but Little Bei insisted on hugging her arm before sleeping. She even refused to sleep and kept staring at her, saying that she wanted to look at her face because she had missed her so much previously.
The little girl was so sweet that Mu Jingzhe felt her heart br.i.m.m.i.n.g with sweetness.
After coaxing Little Bei to sleep, Mu Jingzhe lay in the familiar room and slowly heaved a sigh of relief.
Ever since she’d transmigrated into the novel, this was actually the place she had gotten most used to.
After relaxing, the exhausted Mu Jingzhe quickly fell asleep. However, she was awakened by Little Bei’s sobbing in the middle of the night.
When she got up, she saw Little Bei crying. Her face was covered in tears, and she was trembling from crying. In her dreams, she was saying, “Mommy, don’t go…”
Startled, Mu Jingzhe hurriedly woke Little Bei up. “Little Bei, wake up. Mommy is here.”
When Little Bei woke up and saw her, she hugged her and wailed. “Boohoo, Mommy… I dreamed that you left. Don’t leave again, alright?”
Knowing that Shao Qihai was not dead and merely didn’t want them anymore was a huge blow to the children. Although they claimed that they didn’t care, their self-confidence had suffered a blow, and they now felt even more insecure.
Little Bei was like that.
“Mommy, I’ll be good and listen to you from now on. Mommy, don’t leave, alright?”
Mu Jingzhe hugged her tightly. “I’m not leaving. Little Bei, don’t cry.”
Mu Jingzhe hadn’t expected her departure to have such a big impact. She was filled with guilt.
Little Bei calmed down thanks to her comfort and said, feeling a little embarra.s.sed, “Mommy, can you sing a lullaby for me? All the children on TV have lullabies sung to them. I’ve never heard one before.”
Little Bei’s mother had pa.s.sed away the moment she had been born. Zhao Lan had never sung them a lullaby. If they dared to cry, they would basically be asking to be scolded.
Little Bei had never had someone sing a lullaby to her before and was very envious of the kids who had.
A lullaby?
Mu Jingzhe scratched her head. Lyrics such as ‘Go ahead and sleep, my baby’ flashed across her mind, but she didn’t know how to sing.
She also thought of the lullaby ‘Mothers are the best in the world’. However, the topic of a mother was very agitating to an orphan. In the past, the orphanage director had never coaxed them by using a lullaby before.
Mu Jingzhe thought about it for a long while and finally remembered a song that basically all young children knew how to sing.
“Then let me try singing for you.”
Mu Jingzhe cleared her throat and patted Little Bei as she sang.
“The sun is s.h.i.+ning in the sky, and the flowers are smiling at me. The little bird says morning. Why are you carrying explosives in your bag? I’m going to bomb the school. I’m never late…”
As Mu Jingzhe sang, she saw Little Bei’s shocked gaze and suddenly felt that something was amiss. It didn’t seem like the song was sung that way. Wait, what was the original song?
“No, no, I sang it wrong.”
It was all those students’ fault. They were the ones who had changed the lyrics!
Outside the door, Shao Qiyang, Shao Dong, and Shao Xi nearly burst out laughing.
They had rushed over after hearing Little Bei cry. They hadn’t expected to hear Mu Jingzhe’s version of a lullaby.
Shao Qiyang resisted the urge to laugh and patted Shao Dong and Shao Xi’s heads. “Hurry up and go back.”
Shao Dong and Shao Xi looked at each other and nodded. When they lay down, the two of them hid under their blankets and laughed.
After a moment, the two brothers popped their heads out, their faces looking slightly red.
The two of them had been about to sleep when they’d suddenly heard Shao Nan shout, “No!”
It seemed like he was dreaming and sweating profusely.
Shao Dong quickly shook Shao Nan awake. “Did you have a nightmare?”
It was rare for Shao Nan to be a little dazed. He looked at Shao Dong in a daze and hummed in agreement. “Eldest Brother, I dreamed that Mommy got married and had children. She gave birth to many younger brothers and sisters. They were all squeezed next to her, hanging all over her. We couldn’t squeeze past them at all.”
Shao Dong: “…”
He hadn’t expected his words to traumatize his younger brother.
“Don’t think too much. We have to trust Mommy.”
Despite saying that, even Xiao Wu couldn’t help but dream about it in the latter half of the night.
They all dreamed that Mu Jingzhe got married and had a child. Then, she stopped liking them and didn’t want them anymore. Alternately, they had a nightmare about calling Mu Jingzhe ‘Mommy’ but seeing her refuse to respond to them and only liking her own children.
When they woke up, they were all a little dispirited.
Little Bei, who was the only one who hadn’t heard Shao Dong’s words and didn’t know anything, forgot about waking up crying last night by the time she woke up in the morning. On the other hand, she remembered in her heart the lullaby Mu Jingzhe had sung to her only once.
When she got up, she saw the little birds bouncing on the trees outside the door and the bright sun hanging in the sky. This put her in a sunny mood, and she started singing the lullaby.
“The sun is s.h.i.+ning in the sky, and the flowers are smiling at me. The little bird says morning. Why are you carrying explosives in your bag? I’m going to bomb the school. I’m never late…”
Mu Jingzhe, who was combing Little Bei’s hair, trembled and hurt Little Bei for the first time.
Little Bei’s voice was nice, and her pitch was accurate. She sounded super cute singing the lullaby, but these lyrics…
“Little Bei, stop singing. That’s not how it goes…”
She had just stopped Little Bei when Xiao Wu came out carrying a small school bag on his back and started to play a melody on the flute that matched the atmosphere well.
He blew the song at the sun, then at the birds. It was a merry, pleasant tune.
However, the tune he was blowing was ‘Going to School"[1].
Mu Jingzhe held a hand to her forehead. Shao Nan and Shao Xi kept watching and stifling their laughter. When Mu Jingzhe looked over, they quickly shut their mouths.
“Mom, aren’t you cutting Shao Nan’s hair today?”
“Mm.”
Little Bei’s voice temporarily suppressed her older brothers’ nightmares and made them stop thinking about Mu Jingzhe having her own children after remarrying.
Little Bei was ecstatic that her brothers had started calling Mu Jingzhe ‘Mommy’ too. She was glad that her brothers now had a mother too. She then secretly spoke to Mu Jingzhe.
“Mommy, although my older brothers now call you ‘Mommy’ too, you still have to dote on me the most because I was the first one to call you ‘Mommy’.”
“Alright.” Mu Jingzhe was caught between laughter and tears.
She had been accused of playing favorites to begin with and had been working hard to correct it, yet this little girl had used this trick.
But then again, Little Bei didn’t really mean that, for she was actually very good to her brothers. She was happier to see Mu Jingzhe treat them well than having Mu Jingzhe treat her well.
After breakfast, Li Zhaodi came to visit Mu Jingzhe.
The children felt afraid when they saw her.
They feared that she would take Mu Jingzhe away again.
Little Bei swallowed her saliva and gave her a fawning smile. She opened her mouth to greet her, but for a moment, she didn’t know how to address her. As she was wondering with a troubled expression, she saw Li Zhaodi wave at her.
Little Bei went over nervously, her little face cautious and fawning.
Li Zhaodi felt a little uncomfortable seeing this. This reminded her of Mu Jingzhe when she was young. When she was young, Mu Jingzhe knew that Old Madam Mu didn’t like her and would always smile ingratiatingly whenever she saw her.
However, no matter how hard she tried to please her, no matter how careful she was or how much she smiled, Old Madam Mu wouldn’t smile back at her.
When she saw the little brats that had made Mu Jingzhe insist on coming back to be their mother, Li Zhaodi was naturally unhappy and even felt a little mad at them. However, when she saw this smile, it instantly invoked sad feelings in her.
Was this the reason Jingzhe had stayed behind to take care of them?
Was it because she had suffered enough when she was young that her heart had softened when it came to children?
At this thought, Li Zhaodi felt awful.
[1] the nursery rhyme Mu Jingzhe sang last night with revised lyrics