Chapter 131: The Toyed-With Goddaughter (6)
By dinnertime, Yu Nian paid the price for her earlier teasing.
She sat with her chopsticks poised over the elaborate spread, unsure where to begin. Su Mingxiu removed her apron, approached the table with a smile, and said, “Although it’s not quite the eighty-eight dishes of a Manhan Quanxi, these eight dishes were meticulously prepared for you—”
“Why aren’t you eating?”
Yu Nian’s gaze swept over the dishes: drunken shrimp, drunken crab, sashimi, salmon… She placed her chopsticks on the table and gave a strained smile. “Actually, I’m fine without the Manhan Quanxi.”
“I’m not,” Su Mingxiu said, sitting down across from her.
“Uh…” Yu Nian made one last attempt. “The pan-fried buns last night were quite good.”
Su Mingxiu poured herself a glass of iced tea, the ice clinking against the glass. She glanced at Yu Nian. “Oh, I suddenly forgot how to make them.”
Yu Nian froze, looking at the raw dishes before her, wondering whether to just eat them or go back to her studies.
“I prepared all this for you, it cost a lot, don’t you like it?” Su Mingxiu asked, knowing the answer.
“You guess.”
“I guess you like it, you’re just being shy. Don’t be polite, try some.”
Yu Nian, feeling suffocated, took a deep breath and gave a stiff smile. “Guess again.”
Su Mingxiu: “…”
Having had her fun, knowing that Yu Nian was about to lose her temper, she took a sip of iced tea and gestured towards the kitchen. “There’s one more dish, in the microwave, go get it.”
Yu Nian, already uncomfortable with the raw food, immediately jumped up and went to the kitchen. As she approached, she smelled the aroma, opened the microwave, and saw a steaming bowl of seafood noodles.
Topped with prawns, fish, and vegetables.
Most importantly—they were cooked.
She breathed a sigh of relief, reached for the bowl, then recoiled, having burned her hand. She rubbed her ear, then remembered to get oven mitts.
Returning to the table, she thought Su Mingxiu was truly ruthless, seeing her drinking iced tea and eating raw seafood. “Take care of your stomach,” she said instinctively.
“I know.”
Su Mingxiu watched her eat, trying to recall the girl’s personality from the original owner’s memories.
But they had barely interacted at the Yu residence, only maintaining a facade in front of Yu Wanru. Yu Nian usually ignored her.
She didn’t seem this talkative before?
She wondered inwardly, then, not bothering with the child, continued peeling prawns, a pile of shells accumulating before her.
When Yu Nian finished eating and stood up, she walked around the room, then asked in surprise: “The carnations are still alive?”
She had assumed that, with Su Mingxiu’s personality and her current financial situation, she wouldn’t bother taking care of them. But the carnations in the vase were still vibrant.
Su Mingxiu only raised an eyebrow in response.
Then, she saw Yu Nian sit back down, as if waiting for something.
Su Mingxiu: “?”
Su Mingxiu: “Don’t tell me you’re waiting for dessert.”
Yu Nian: “…”
She said, slightly exasperated, “You don’t have a maid, don’t you have to wash the dishes yourself?”
Su Mingxiu was surprised that this child actually had a sense of responsibility. She had initially planned to do it herself, but thinking that Yu Nian was a good student, and it wouldn’t take too long to wash the dishes, she wiped her hands with a wet wipe and started giving instructions: “Oh, then clear the table and wipe it down first.”
“After washing the dishes, remember to clean the sink, the stove, and the cutting board—”
Yu Nian, who had never done any chores at home, was surprised by the list of additional tasks. But before she could speak, she was interrupted.
“What, you’re only going to wash the dishes? Not the chopsticks? Not the pots?”
Yu Nian, speechless, could only reply: “I’ll wash them…”
“Good girl.”
Su Mingxiu praised her perfunctorily, placed the used wet wipe on the table, and walked towards the living room, intending to watch some TV.
Amidst the cheerful sounds from the television, Yu Nian first searched online for “how to wash dishes,” then, feeling confident, put down her phone, thinking that cleaning the kitchen couldn’t be that difficult…
Half an hour later.
She looked at the table, still stained with food residue.
Another half an hour.
She stared at the gas stove, a cleaning cloth in her hand, lost in thought.
Twenty minutes later.
She started questioning her life choices, staring at the range hood, her neck and back aching.
But seeing the grease stains, she felt that it should also be cleaned. She turned to look at the figure in the living room.
Staring at Su Mingxiu’s back for a moment, remembering her extravagant nails and her demanding attitude at the Yu residence, Yu Nian sighed and searched online for “how to clean a range hood.”
Past 10 PM.
Su Mingxiu, noticing that the evening news was over, but Yu Nian hadn’t returned from the kitchen, wondered what she was doing, if she was simply slow, or if she had broken something…
Then, she saw Yu Nian mopping the floor and froze at the doorway.
“Are you… spring cleaning?”
Seeing the sparkling clean refrigerator, microwave, windows, range hood, and stove, Su Mingxiu had to admit that she was impressed.
Yu Nian, finally straightening up after mopping the floor, took off her mask and looked at her incredulously. “Didn’t you say that washing dishes means washing everything?”
But it wasn’t necessary to…
Su Mingxiu’s eyes widened. After a moment of silence, she gave her a thumbs up. “Yes, exactly, you understand perfectly. Such advanced thinking, truly a top student.”
But Yu Nian understood her sarcasm. Her expression changed as she looked down at the gleaming tiles. “You’re calling me stupid, aren’t you?”
“Huh? Why would you think that?”
“So you are.”
Su Mingxiu smiled sincerely. “I’m thanking you, you saved me 200 yuan.”
“200?”
“The cleaning lady’s fee for the weekend.”
“Uh…” Yu Nian threw the mop aside and left the kitchen with a dark expression. After she left, Su Mingxiu closed the kitchen door and finally burst out laughing.
—Raising a child wasn’t so bad after all, at least this little one was adorably stupid.
“Knock, knock, knock!”
A polite knock on the guest room door, but there was no response. The woman standing outside called out with a smile:
“Want some fruit?”
“No,” a cold voice replied from inside.
“Then how about some walnuts? Good for the brain.”
“Uh…” After a moment, the doorknob turned, and the girl, still in her school uniform, stood by the door, her expression cold. “How long are you going to keep humiliating me?”
Ah, she’s angry.
Su Mingxiu’s playful expression faded. She held a slice of apple towards Yu Nian. “Okay, okay, I won’t tease you anymore. Here—”
Yu Nian turned her head away, refusing her peace offering.
The apple only touched the corner of the girl’s lips. Su Mingxiu, after holding it out for a while, ate it herself.
Seeing her eat the apple she had just touched, Yu Nian’s eyes widened slightly, her expression even colder. “You…”
“Hmm?” Su Mingxiu asked, feigning confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“Shameless,” Yu Nian said, then turned and went back to her desk, picking up her vocabulary book.
But the woman who had been called “shameless” entered the room, her voice slightly raised: “Who are you calling old?! Is that how you talk to your elders?”
Little brat.
Su Mingxiu had initially wanted to coax her, but now, hearing Yu Nian’s words, she simply placed the fruit platter on the desk and left.
Suit yourself.
After Su Mingxiu left, Yu Nian looked up from her vocabulary book and saw the beautifully arranged fruit platter, even the watermelon rind carved into decorative shapes, clearly meant to appease her.
Too bad the person who prepared it gave up halfway.
—And she calls me ill-tempered.
Yu Nian thought, picking up a toothpick. She had intended to eat an apple, but after hesitating for a moment, she ate all the other fruits instead.
Su Mingxiu, while taking a bath, was once again pondering how to extract the system.
But her soul wasn’t strong enough to grant her abilities beyond this world’s limitations. And clearly, the system had chosen an ordinary world, with no supernatural occurrences or superpowers.
She was dozing in the milk-scented bathwater when a news report she had seen earlier flashed through her mind, a story about a teenager who had hacked into a public system…
A different approach.
She couldn’t extract the system, but could she create a cage for it within her mind?
A new idea, and she decided to try it.
As she was engrossed in designing a inescapable maze for the system, a knock on the door. She ignored it at first, but when the knocking became more insistent, the doorknob even turning, she reluctantly pulled herself out of her mental world and called out, leaning against the edge of the bathtub: “What?”
“Are you sleeping in the bathtub again?” The person outside sounded anxious, having knocked on the master bedroom door for a while without a response.
Su Mingxiu, exhausted from her efforts, which had been interrupted, didn’t bother arguing. “Aren’t you angry? Why do you even care?”
She had only wanted to get rid of the child, but Yu Nian, after a moment of silence, replied matter-of-factly: “I’m not angry anymore, is that a problem?”
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