Chapter 44

Ai Wei stood by the bed, feeling increasingly uneasy as she looked at it. She bent down, intending to see what was wrong, when Ludwig made a “shh” gesture towards her.

Ai Wei: “?”

Ai Wei looked puzzled.

Ludwig raised his hand and pointed at the bedsheet.

With his gesture, Ai Wei finally understood. She carefully examined the little child who was pretending to sleep and found it amusing.

Previously, the little child would always put on a show of resistance when it came to getting out of bed. But today, with a tense expression on his face, he didn’t move at all.

Ai Wei found it funny.

After enjoying the ‘sleepy act’ of the child for a while, she cleared her throat and said, “Alright, you two can keep sleeping. I’ll go out and see if breakfast is ready.”

As Ai Wei left, the lazy child relaxed a bit.

Ludwig kept his eyes open, calmly observing how long the little child could hold on. He didn’t have to wait long before the little child, who had been listening attentively for any signs, opened his eyes.

At the moment the little child opened his eyes, Ludwig deliberately closed his.

The awakened little child climbed up and immediately checked if Ludwig was awake. His chubby face pressed against Ludwig’s as he softly asked, “Uncle Lulu, are you awake?”

Ludwig remained silent.

Seeing this, the little child turned his head and thought for a few seconds. Considering himself very clever, he reached out and lightly pulled down Ludwig’s eyelid.

Ludwig almost couldn’t keep up with the act.

Fortunately, his desire to watch the commotion was stronger, so even with his eyelid pulled, he didn’t “wake up.”

“Sigh.”

The little child finally confirmed that Uncle Lulu was still asleep. He drooped his little face and uncovered the blanket. As the blanket was lifted, it revealed a wet spot on the bedsheet underneath.

Looking at the damp bedsheets, the little child who had originally sighed now had red eyes.

How could Ningning wet the bed again?

Feeling embarrassed, the child wanted to cover up the wet bedsheets. But not only did the child wet the bedsheets, but they also wet Uncle Lulu’s pajamas.

“What should I do?”

The child sitting on the bed murmured softly.

The child didn’t want Auntie Beautiful and Uncle Lulu to know that he wet the bed. If they found out, they wouldn’t want to sleep with Ningning anymore.

After sitting on the bed for a while, the child, who couldn’t come up with a good solution, had no choice but to resort to the most primitive way of destroying evidence.

First, the child tried hard to pull off Uncle Lulu’s pajamas. After successfully taking off the pajamas, the child began to tug at the bedsheets. It would have been impossible for the child to accomplish such a big task without Ludwig’s help.

After pulling off the wet pajamas and bedsheets, the child, with bare feet, dragged them all to the bathroom.

As soon as the child entered the bathroom, Ludwig got up.

Ludwig casually put on a robe and sneaked a peek at the bathroom door.

Not only did he want to see it for himself, but he also recorded a video to share with Ai Wei: “Look, he’s secretly washing the bedsheets. Quite clever, after putting the bedsheets in the basin, he stepped inside and used his feet to stomp on them.”

“Oh, the basin tipped over.”

Ludwig continued sharing, but Ai Wei couldn’t stand it anymore.

Ai Wei scolded him, saying, “If the basin tipped over, why didn’t you go in and check? It’s early in the morning. What if he catches a cold? Hurry up and go in. Be careful that he doesn’t get stuck in the basin.”

Ai Wei had seen some videos of young children playing with basins, and sometimes, accidentally, they would overturn the basin and end up trapping themselves inside.

The little child, who was trapped in the basin, looked like a small turtle. It was cute, but they could easily catch a cold. When a young child caught a cold, it’s much more troublesome than when an adult did.

Under Ai Wei’s scolding, Ludwig had no choice but to give up watching the show.

He knocked on the door and asked, “Is anyone inside?”

The child, who was secretly washing the sheets, exclaimed, “!”

Upon hearing the knocking, the little child’s eyes widened. He hurriedly climbed out of the water and rushed over to block the door, saying, “There’s no one inside!”

Ludwig raised an eyebrow, teasing the silly child inside, “If there’s no one inside, then who is talking to me right now?”

The little child remained silent.

The little child covered his mouth with a “smack.”

Ludwig wanted to continue playing with him, but thinking about his wife’s expression, he regretfully stopped teasing the child.

“Alright, let’s stop playing.”

Ludwig opened the door and looked down at the damp little child by the door. His eyelids twitched, and he picked up the child and carried him into the bedroom.

“Are you cold?”

Although the little child washed the sheets with warm water, Ludwig touched his little hand and still felt a bit chilly. “Lower your head and take off your clothes.”

Ludwig skillfully changed the wet clothes on the little child.

While changing clothes, the little child lazily stretched his hands and feet, very cooperatively putting on the clothes.

Looking at the big and small figures, the atmosphere was quite harmonious.

It wasn’t until the little child sat on the edge of the bed and Ludwig held his feet to put on his shoes that he muttered, “Uncle Lulu, did you see Ningning washing the sheets?”

Ludwig continued to put on his shoes, speaking slowly, “Uncle can pretend not to have seen it.”

The little one stared blankly.

Ludwig put on the last little shoe for him, then raised his hand to pinch his cheek: “As long as you behave well in front of Uncle, Uncle can keep it a secret for you.”

With one sentence, Ludwig made the little child’s eyes light up.

From leaving the bedroom to eating, the little child was extremely attentive to Ludwig. He held his own little spoon and even tried to feed Ludwig.

Ai Wei noticed something was amiss and kicked Ludwig unkindly. She lowered her voice and asked Ludwig, “Don’t you have any face left? You’re even bullying Ningning.”

Ludwig didn’t react to the kick, as he wasn’t afraid to be shameless in front of his wife.

Naturally, they couldn’t keep the matter of the little child a secret from Huo Lin. But for the sake of the child’s face, Huo Lin kept quiet about it.

He sent the child, who had finished eating, to Zhan Xi’s place and had Zhan Xi take him to the sports day.

There was a quota limit for the families of children in the kindergarten. One child could bring two family members, and Huo Lin had originally planned to go with Uncle Zhan Xi.

Now that Ling Qi was here, Huo Lin naturally had to take a back seat.

Just after Huo Lin sent the little child away, he sat in the car and casually checked his star machine.

He wanted to see if the media had taken any front-facing pictures of Ningning yesterday, or if they had posted any pictures of Ningning.

He searched for a long time, but didn’t find anything. Just as he was about to put away the star machine, he saw his mother’s name.

With just one glance, Huo Lin’s nerves tightened.

His mother’s awakening was great news for him and his father, but this good news couldn’t be easily made public.

In the past two hundred years, both uncontrollable and depleted mental power had been major problems.

When mental power got out of control, a person could go crazy and even die.

When mental power was depleted, a person can fall into a “death-like state”, which should be accurately described as a coma.

Currently, in the public’s perception, whether it’s a loss of mental power or depletion of mental power, both led to inevitable death.

Once they learned that Her Majesty the Queen, whose mental power was depleted, had awakened, their first thought would be:

If the Queen had awakened, could other individuals whose mental power had been depleted also recover?

They would desperately seek help from the Queen.

Just the thought of this outcome made Huo Lin break out in a cold sweat.

Suppressing his intense unease, he opened a report about his mother and started reading it, but after a few moments, the news disappeared.

He immediately called his father, but the line was busy, indicating that his father might be busy.

“Auben, drive faster.”

“Yes.”

The car sped up, rushing towards the palace.

***

Meanwhile, Ningning, completely unaware of the crisis, was being carried by his father into the kindergarten. Nestled against his father’s chest, Ningning lazily refused to walk.

Zhan Xi glanced at the other children walking on the ground and gently coaxed Ningning in his arms. “Ningning, how about we walk for a while? It can be our warm-up.”

Before he could finish persuading, Teacher Lily approached first.

With a smiling face, Teacher Lily called Ningning, who was leaning on his father’s embrace, “Ningning, we need to change clothes and do some makeup. Come with me to the backstage.”

Although Ningning disliked walking, he obediently responded to the teacher. After getting down from his father’s arms, he ran toward the teacher and was led backstage to prepare.

Zhan Xi watched as he disappeared from sight.

Once Ningning’s figure had completely vanished, Zhan Xi turned to Ling Qi and asked, “Are all the equipment ready? Boss and the others are waiting to watch.”

Ling Qi took out the equipment he had brought, saying, “I’ve cleaned the lenses, and I also tested them before coming. The footage will be clear.”

It was Ningning’s first time participating in the children’s sports event, so they naturally wanted to keep a memento.

Although there were dedicated people in the kindergarten to record, the person in charge of the park would definitely not only film their own child.

Zhan Xi and Ling Qi wanted to only film Ningning.

The adults were waiting in front, while the little children were preparing backstage.

“Ningning, is your clothes too small?” Roy walked over and looked at the clothes of the little child in front of him, feeling that the clothes were a bit tight.

When Ningning signed up for children’s gymnastics, he was at his peak of weight loss after eating his father’s diet dumplings, so there was a slight discrepancy between the size of the clothes he ordered and his current size.

Faced with Roy’s questioning, the little child tried to suck in his belly and refused to admit that the clothes were tight. “It’s not tight, I can wear it!”

Roy: “...”

Alright.

Roy didn’t dwell on it for too long. Before their performance, they still needed to have a brief rehearsal backstage.

Teacher Lily played the music and personally led them to perform the well-practiced movements.

As she taught, her gaze was attracted to Ningning in the middle. Standing in the middle, Ningning followed the music with precise movements. Compared to the agile children around him, he had a different charm.

“Cough.”

Teacher Lily regained her focus. It was not possible to change the lineup at this point.

Besides, a chubby child doing gymnastics... it was strangely adorable.

After the rehearsal, Teacher Lily encouraged the little children, cheering them on, “Your mommies and daddies are watching you from the audience. Little children, let’s show them how amazing you are, okay?”

“Okay!”

Their sweet and childish reply echoed throughout the backstage.

After finishing the pep talk, Teacher Lily waited for the program announcement. Their Green Grass Class was the frontmost class in the kindergarten, so they were also scheduled to perform at the beginning.

The little children now appeared brave and didn’t care whether they were the first or not.

As the announcement began, Teacher Lily started to feel nervous, influenced by the atmosphere.

She encouraged the little children who were about to perform one last time: “Alright, it’s our turn. Do you all remember the movements we practiced earlier? When you go up, you’ll dance to the music.”

“After you finish dancing, you can go down and find your moms and dads.”

Saying this, Teacher Lily prompted them one by one to rush onto the stage.

And down below, the waiting parents all took out their recording devices in unison, pointing them towards their own little children.

Ling Qi was responsible for recording, while Zhan Xi attentively watched.

As he watched his own son on the stage, the more he looked, the more adorable he seemed, especially with a small red dot in the center of the little child’s forehead, making his little face even cuter.

The music started playing.

The little children look at Teacher Lily in the audience and bravely performed the first movement following her guidance.

The little children were all doing well, but as they continued, one little child captured everyone’s attention more and more.

***

The author has something to say:

The little child in question: It’s Ningning!

 

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