Chapter 527: Strive
Editor: Atlas Studios
The following days were filled with bliss for Little Treasure and Little Bear. The two little ones stayed together 24 hours a day and even drank milk together.
In the morning, Little Treasure woke up first and obediently let the servant wash his face and put on his clothes. After he obediently ate a small bowl of porridge, he was carried to his mother to interact with her. When his mother went out to handle matters after breakfast, he ran back to his room to sleep. There was no concern of children oversleeping, unlike undersleeping.
When he woke up again, his soft and fragrant younger brother Bear Bear would open his eyes and grab his two little fingers.
The two little ones would drink milk together and then they would play happily together.
Little Treasure liked to play with his toys in the house or tease his brother, but Little Bear liked to play outside. Almost as soon as he finished eating, he tugged at Fourth Aunt and shouted, “Ah, ah, ah,” his entire body waving towards the door.
Then, Mu Yangling would bring the two of them around the small garden and sit in the pavilion for a while. At this moment, the weather was already slightly cold. Mu Yangling would wrap the two children tightly and hug Little Bear in her arms, letting him turn his head around to look at the scenery in the garden.
Little Treasure would walk on his short legs to pick up some withered branches and pluck grass and flowers, before presenting them to his younger brother as though they were treasures.
Mu Yangling never stopped them. She just had to be careful not to let their backs sweat or catch a cold.
In the end, not only did Little Treasure make himself dirty, but Little Bear was also covered in dirt and grass. Nanny Wang was terrified when she saw this, but when she saw that Mu Yangling kept smiling and did not stop them, she felt slightly relieved.
“Kids that can run and jump are considered healthy and smart.”
Nanny Wang strongly agreed with this sentence. The more naughty children in the countryside were, the more likely they would survive. Li Jinghua only came over to take a look and did not care.
That was why Little Treasure felt that his days had become wonderful. Fourth Aunt had always doted on him. This was unlike when he was by his mother’s side. When he wanted to eat sugar porridge, she wouldn’t let him, and would only let the wet nurse breastfeed him instead.
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After they finished drinking milk at noon, Mu Yangling got someone to carry them for a while while they digested the food before letting them take an afternoon nap. Generally speaking, the two children would sleep for three hours. When they woke up, they would continue to play. At night, when the lights turned off, they would sleep soundly like the adults.
They had been together for the entire day, but the next morning, they were still so excited as if they were meeting for the first time. Mu Yangling couldn’t imagine why the two young ones were so close. Could it be because they were the only two of the same age at home?
Children indeed got along better with their own kind.
Mu Yangling was originally considering whether to let the two children play with the other two children in the Qi Residence. She couldn’t let the younger ones lose the chance to make friends because of the feud between the adults. However, when Mu Yangling specially brought the two younger ones to the other two kids, other than looking at each other curiously and playing, they played by themselves. They were divided into three factions. Little Treasure and Little Bear’s faction, and the remaining two formed their own factions.
Mu Yangling immediately dismissed this idea. She brought her two little ones back and let them flail around in the courtyard.
The weather was getting colder, and after the first snowfall, Mu Yangling reduced their outdoor activity time to an hour. Little Treasure didn’t mind it much, for he wasn’t very interested in going out to play to begin with. But Little Bear made a fuss for a long time. He already knew how to crawl and sit. As long as he was awake, he didn’t stop moving for a moment, fully demonstrating his characteristics as Qi Haoran’s son.
Therefore, in order to fight for more outdoor activity time, this kid would do anything. When he realized that wheedling and throwing a tantrum was useless, he wailed. Mu Yangling’s heart ached as she hardened her heart and rejected him. If she agreed once he cried, she worried that this child would cry to get his way in the future.
Hence, even though Mu Yangling’s heart had already softened and she had long surrendered inwardly, she still insisted on squatting in front of her son and looking at him squarely. She tried her best to maintain a serious expression. “Don’t cry. We can talk slowly. Even if you cry, I won’t agree to it. You have to convince me with reasons.”
Little Bear stopped crying slightly. Thinking that his mother had agreed, he stretched out his arm for her to carry him. Mu Yangling quickly picked him up and coaxed him. “Since you’re still young now and it’s cold outside, you can’t stay outside for so long. An hour a day is not a small amount of time…”
Little Bear was still young and didn’t understand her reasoning at all. He only thought that his mother had agreed to carry him out to play, so he pointed outside with all his might and gestured for her to carry him out.
Instead of moving, Mu Yangling picked up a small toy at the side and teased him with it. She coaxed him gently, “We’ll go out when the weather warms up, or when you grow up, you can go out and play for a longer time…”
Little Bear froze in surprise. Although he still couldn’t understand her reasoning, he now knew that his mother wouldn’t bring him out. He let out a cry, closed his eyes, and howled again.
Mu Yangling had a headache.
Watching from the side, Mama Wang was both angry and amused. “Fourth Madam, Third Young Master is still young. How can he understand? Try carrying him around the house and walking a few rounds. He’ll forget about it in a while.”
Little Treasure saw that Fourth Aunt had made his younger brother cry again and again. He didn’t understand Fourth Aunt’s words, but this didn’t stop him from understanding that Fourth Aunt had bullied his younger brother. So, he rushed forward and slapped Mu Yangling’s arm. Then, he held his younger brother’s small hand and coaxed, “Don’t cry, don’t cry. Bear Bear, be good.”
As he coaxed him, he reached out to hit Mu Yangling, indicating that he was helping Little Bear teach Fourth Aunt a lesson.
When Li Jinghua saw him at the door, she was stunned for a moment. As Little Treasure coaxed his brother, he saw that he kept crying, then he also cried out loud. As he cried, he shouted at Mu Yangling, “Bad person, Aunt, bad person!”
Mu Yangling was even more flustered. She was kept extremely busy having to coax one after the other.
When Little Bear heard his brother’s cries, he slowly stopped. He looked at his brother in a daze with two streams of tears flowing down his face. He even twitched from time to time. Clearly, it was the aftereffects of crying so hard.
Mu Yangling’s heart ached as she hugged him. Seeing his brother cry, Little Bear suddenly pointed at his nose and giggled. He immediately pounced over and kissed Little Treasure’s tear-stained face.
Li Jinghua couldn’t help but burst out laughing, but Mu Yangling looked at her son and felt conflicted, feeling that this kid was too silly.
The two sisters-in-law personally washed the two children before placing them together. Li Jinghua said with a smile, “If the child wants to go out, just carry him and stroll around the various houses. How can he understand your reasoning?”
Mu Yangling muttered, “Little Treasure has been talking to him and there were a few times when I saw him nod seriously. I thought the child would understand.”
Li Jinghua laughed when she heard that. “Why are you acting like a child too?”
In the end, Little Bear failed to obtain more time outside. He was only allowed to go out for a walk for an hour every day and had to stay in the house the remaining time.
Mu Yangling wrote a letter to Qi Haoran recounting the funny incident. In the letter, Qi Haoran despised his son. If he wanted to go out and play, he could just privately order a maidservant to carry him out instead of asking Mu Yangling. If he pretended to cry, the servant girl would certainly not dare to disobey him.
If this didn’t work, he would find another one. There would definitely be someone timid enough who would bring him out to play. Wouldn’t asking his mother block his path of retreat? Blah blah blah.
When Mu Yangling received the letter, she was furious and wrote a letter to scold him, thinking that he was corrupting their son. Fortunately, Qi Haoran wasn’t the one taking care of the child.