Liu Chang'an's hair was soft and thick. Shangguan Dandan ran her fingers through it, then mussed it up into something like a bird's nest before nodding in satisfaction. At last, he looked a little like the mischievous child he ought to be—like Zhou Dongdong, who ran everywhere with hair sticking up like sprouting rice shoots when she got out of bed in the morning.
Just then, Zhou Dongdong came running downstairs again. Earlier, she had flapped her arms as she went upstairs, not because she had found inspiration for flying or because anything else had happened. She was simply used to it. People always said things Zhou Dongdong did not like to hear, but she had no way to stop them, so she ran away to hide and waited until they were done talking before coming back out to play.
Of course, Brother Chang'an was different from those people who pointed and whispered about Zhou Dongdong. So, while she was lingering in the stairwell, she saw that Brother Chang'an had already been tidied up by his mother. Delighted, she ran back downstairs, hopping along as she looked at the familiar expression on his face.
Zhou Dongdong often wore that expression too!
Liu Chang'an came back to his senses. He could not let Zhou Dongdong laugh at him, so he calmly ruffled his hair, slipped out of Shangguan Dandan's arms, and asked Zhou Dongdong, "Do you hear the crickets chirping?"
"Are crickets humanity's good friends?" Zhou Dongdong was not familiar with crickets, since she had never eaten one.
"Crickets aren't very tasty." Liu Chang'an shook his head. In Zhou Dongdong's understanding, not humanity's good friend meant edible, while humanity's good friend meant inedible. But if it was cooked well, Zhou Dongdong would still reluctantly eat three bowls of it.
Zhou Dongdong