Li Qianhua clutched the boy's hem, looking utterly at a loss as she let Wen Yanyu help her onto a stool. Her vacant eyes focused on nothing, leaving her to rely on her sense of smell to detect the people around her.
"Qianhua, close your eyes for a moment. I'll wipe your face now."
Li Qianhua nodded blankly.
Wen Yanyu soaked a cloth in water and covered the child's eyes with it. Moisture seeped through the cloth, a little of it slipping unnoticed into her eyes.
"All done."
A strand of black hair quietly lost its color.
Li Qianhua opened her eyes and blinked instinctively. A glimmer suddenly appeared in those dull, lightless eyes.
Wen Yanyu's expression remained unchanged. He lowered his head, rummaged through his bag for the lotion he had brought, squeezed out a little, and gently spread it over his fingertips.
As he applied it evenly to the child's face, he said with a smile, "There we go. Your little face smells lovely now too."
He took a tube of hand cream from his bag as well.
"Qianhua, give me your little hands." As Wen Yanyu spoke, he spread the cream between his palms, then enclosed the child's hands in his, transferring the cream onto them.
Li Qianhua obediently held out her hands. Feeling his gentle touch, a hint of dependence unconsciously flickered in her eyes.
In her memory, only her mother, whose face she could no longer clearly remember, had ever done this for her. The older boys in the village and Grandpa treated her very well, but apart from her mother, no one had treated her like this.
Everything was finished and checked.
Wen Yanyu rubbed the child's cheeks.
"All right, sit here nicely and have some sweets. I'll come play with you when I'm done." Wen Yanyu stood, tore open a small bag of chocolates, and placed it in the little girl's hands before turning toward the other children.
Li Qianhua lowered her head and popped one into her mouth. The fragrance of chocolate spread across her tongue.
Not far away, she could hear Wen Yanyu and the other children.
"Big brother! What's this nice-smelling stuff?"
"That's hand cream. This one is for your face."
"Big brother! Water got in my eyes!"
"Ahem, sorry. Little Tiger! Don't pull her hair!"
"Big brother, I want some of that nice-smelling stuff too."
"Let me finish putting it on her first, then it's your turn, sweetheart."
Listening to the voices nearby, Li Qianhua suddenly stopped just as she was about to take another sweet. Her fingertips lightly counted the chocolate balls in the bag. Six remained.
The child lowered her head slightly and tightened her grip on the bag of sweets, carefully savoring the sweetness in her mouth. The midday sunlight fell over her, warm and scorching.
Something strange seemed to be growing inside her, both sweet and sour.
[I'm dying. Off topic, but the way Wen Yanyu applies skincare looks just like my grandma putting Dabao lotion on me, hahahahahaha.]
[Okay, I know this guy apparently isn't a very good person, but... he's such a mom, aaaaaah! Help!!!]
[Seconded...]
[Duan Radish has even stopped showing off. He's started enjoying life as a baby.]
After bustling around for quite a while, Wen Yanyu finally finished washing the children's faces and combing their hair. Looking at the freshly spruced-up little dumplings of all sizes, he finally sat back down.
Perfect!
He took the storybook a child handed him. There were too many children around him and not enough stools.
Wen Yanyu accepted the storybook a child handed him, sprayed each of the little ones with extra-strength mosquito repellent, and simply sat down on the grass beside the willow in the courtyard.
The children gathered around him, some leaning against his legs and others sitting close beside him. Li Qianhua held Xiaohua while he cradled her in his arms.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, scattering dappled light and shadow across the pages like fragments of gold.
Wen Yanyu opened the fairy-tale book and rewrote all the original stories as he told them. The children, who had long since grown tired of hearing them, began listening intently.
A breeze brushed gently past, and warm sunlight fell into his hair and his eyes.
His light, soft voice was like a summer breeze as he told the fantastical fairy tales at an unhurried pace.
A rose born in winter was ravaged by the cold wind and finally grew thorns; a king who never said what he meant ultimately lost his queen; a caged bird's funeral song.
A little rabbit fought an evil dragon and finally rescued its family, only to discover that everything had been a dream, and ultimately died beneath the winter ice.
The children listened, entranced, their heads unknowingly coming to rest on Wen Yanyu's shoulders.
He led them into that fantastical world of fairy tales.
Wen Yanyu turned the pages, his long hair slipping over his shoulder. His exquisitely striking features held no hint of aggression, their gentleness touched by a faint, elusive coolness.
His beautiful, peach-blossom eyes shimmered with a gorgeous warmth in the sunlight, gentle and tender. Everything around him seemed utterly dim by comparison.
A gust of wind carried the scent of flowers over. Wen Yanyu sniffled, his nose red and his long lashes trembling slightly. His fingertips, pink with vitality, supported the book, its black cover forming a stark contrast with his white skin.
His gentle, sorrow-tinged voice seemed like a passing spring breeze, or a feather brushing across the heart, leaving a sensation somewhere between an itch and an ache.
Duan Mufeng sat backward on a chair, one arm around its back and his chin propped on his other hand, unconsciously losing himself in watching.
A full three hours passed. There were barely any comments in the livestream, but the viewer count had soared from just over seven hundred thousand to more than five million.
[This feels so nice. Am I dead?]
[I want to go back to kindergarten and have Wen Yanyu as my teacher.]
[Baby, as long as you stop desperately pestering men from now on, Mommy will still love you.]
[He's so good at telling stories. This voice, this sunshine, this atmosphere... I feel like I'm back in the days before I turned into a venomous bitch.]
[Ahh~ Feels so good, I shit the bed.]
[I'm a corporate slave who's relied on sleeping pills for years, and I actually fell asleep listening to Wen Yanyu tell stories just now. Waaaah, it feels like I'm back in the days before I went dark.]
[Baby, I'm begging you! ASMR welcomes you!]
[It's just... so heartwarming. Summer, sunshine, a beautiful boy telling stories under a tree, and a bunch of freshly washed children. Perfection, perfection, absolute perfection.]
[Watching Wen Yanyu feels a bit like the taboo of watching an underage male mom. Not very mature, but so gentle and accepting, and a little inexperienced, like a male mom who got pregnant before marriage. Youth angst literature vibes. (jk)]
Warmth filled the courtyard.
Until an elderly man's voice broke it all.
"Lunch is ready! Come eat, little ones!"
The village chief's voice suddenly came from outside the gate.
Wen Yanyu came back to himself and closed the storybook.
"Come on, it's time to eat."
The children turned to see the village chief standing in the gateway with a stern expression. Reluctantly, they stood and brushed off their clothes.
Still reluctant to leave, the children reached for Wen Yanyu's hands, gazing up at him with their faces plainly saying they wanted to go together.
Wen Yanyu ruffled their heads one by one. "Go with Grandpa Village Chief first. I'll tidy up here, then come eat with you in a little while. I still need to bring Qianhua along."
Only then did the children remember. They glanced at the silent Li Qianhua and gave a disappointed "Oh."
"Hurry up, then, big brother! We want more stories after lunch!"
"All right."
Wen Yanyu got up to tidy things away.
Just then, the sound of an argument suddenly came from behind him.
"Those are the sweets he gave me..." Li Qianhua held tightly to Little Tiger's arm. "You're a bad boy! Why did you steal my sweets?"
"What do you mean, your sweets? I don't know anything! Can you stop being so annoying all the time? You left them there yourself, so what if I ate them?"
Guilt written all over his face, the little boy shoved away the girl tugging on his arm.
Li Qianhua stumbled and was about to fall to the ground.
Before you continue