“Mom! You’re back!”
As soon as she stepped into the entryway, Su Ziling heard Su Lili’s crisp and pleasant voice.
She had to admit one thing: when it came to personality, this little girl didn’t take after her, nor did she take after Lin Yizhou with his perpetual dead-fish eyes. Instead, she was more like her own energetic little sister.
Genes… were really quite something, after all.
Su Ziling glanced at the clock on the wall. It was already ten at night, so she asked, “You’re not asleep yet?”
“I was waiting for Mom to come back.”
The little girl put down the TV remote and trotted over to Su Ziling, acting as clingy as a kitten greeting its owner.
Seeing this, Su Ziling took the opportunity to pat the little girl on the head.
Who wouldn’t love a well-behaved child?
“Where’s your aunt?”
“Aunt?” Su Lili tilted her head and thought for a moment before answering, “Auntie is taking a shower.”
“Alright, let’s leave her alone for now.”
Su Ziling was about to put the umbrella away when she noticed Su Lili’s big, watery eyes staring at it intently.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hmm…”
Su Ziling placed the umbrella on the stand, but Su Lili took it back out and muttered something under her breath.
Her voice was too soft; Su Ziling couldn’t make out the words, so she asked again, “Is there something wrong with this umbrella?”
“It really is this one…”
“What?”
“Huh?” Hearing Su Ziling’s voice, Su Lili finally snapped out of it and explained, “This is Daddy’s most treasured umbrella!”
“Oh?”
Su Ziling was taken aback, but quickly realized that the “Daddy” Su Lili was referring to wasn’t the current Lin Yizhou.
Su Lili held the umbrella in her hands and continued, “After Mommy passed away… Daddy kept this umbrella safe the whole time. He wouldn’t even let me look at it.”
A faint trace of sadness flickered in the little girl’s eyes, but Su Ziling caught it.
Seeing this, she sighed and couldn’t help crouching down to comfort her, “The future is still far away. There’s still time to change things slowly.”
“Mm-hmm! We will, we will!”
The little girl quickly perked up, nodding her head incessantly.
As she said this, Su Ziling seemed to think of something and asked, “Speaking of which, since you guys already developed a cure in the future, why didn’t you bring it back, Lili?”
Hearing this, Su Lili, who had been nodding like a chick pecking at rice, couldn’t help giving Su Ziling a huge dead-fish-eye look.
“Mom… are you dumb? That big of a life support pod, how was I supposed to carry it?”
As she spoke, Su Lili even drew a large circle with her hands, making Su Ziling laugh and cry at the same time.
“Alright, I get it. But I still have one question. Can you answer it for me?”
“Sure, Mom, go ahead.”
“Does this umbrella have some kind of story behind it?”
Since the future Lin Yizhou valued it so much, there must be some significance to him.
Faced with Su Ziling’s inquiry, Su Lili thought for a moment before replying, “I’m not really sure about the details, but Dad said this umbrella was something he gave you when you first met.”
“Ah?”
Su Ziling was stunned, but then she seemed to understand something.
In other words, without Su Lili’s arrival, her first meeting with Lin Yizhou would have been at the entrance of that parking lot.
And she had to admit, his gesture back then had scored a lot of points.
Plus, his looks were decent enough once he tidied up a bit. If it had been an ordinary girl, she might have fallen for him then and there.
“So that’s how it is.”
“Hehe~” Su Lili put her hands on her hips, looking proud. “So? Was Dad cool? Was he? See, I told you, sticking with Dad is the right call. He’s got money, he’s got looks, and apart from being a bit thick-headed, he has basically no flaws… Oh, and if only he could cut down on those little figurines without clothes, that’d be even better.”
“Heh heh…” The corners of Su Ziling’s mouth twitched.
Forget everything else; those last two points alone were already enough to be fatal!
“Got it. Lili, go to bed now.”
“Okay~”
With a reply, the little girl went back to her small room.
Su Ziling stared at the umbrella hanging on the stand, lost in thought.
“Big bro!!!”
Just then, an ill-timed voice interrupted her musings.
“There’s no body wash in the bathroom. Grab a new bottle and bring it in.”
“Hold on, coming.”
Hearing Su Xiaomeng’s voice, Su Ziling didn’t linger in the entryway. She walked into the living room, opened a delivery box, took out a new bottle of body wash, and headed toward the bathroom.
Because this rental apartment was quite old, the bathroom door lock had a small issue.
It looked closed, but a gentle push would open it.
However, the siblings usually didn’t mind this, and since changing the lock was expensive, they had developed an unspoken rule: if the bathroom door was shut, it meant someone was inside.
After placing the body wash by the door, Su Ziling said to Su Xiaomeng inside, “I left it at the door. Remember to grab it later.”
“I’m coming!”
With a series of pat-pat footsteps, the bathroom door swung open, and Su Xiaomeng, wrapped in a towel, appeared before Su Ziling.
Upon seeing Su Ziling, she immediately put on a very shy expression.
“Oh my~ Even if it’s big bro, staring at me like this is gonna make me blush…”
“Slap!”
But as she spoke, Su Ziling silently picked up a towel from the floor and casually flung it into her face.
“At least put on some clothes before coming out, okay?”
“Tsk…” Su Xiaomeng pulled the towel off her face and muttered softly, “Big bro, you didn’t even react… Could it be you’ve already turned into a girl inside?”
“It would be weird if I reacted to my own sister, okay?”
“But speaking of which, since big bro has become big sis, why don’t we shower together? Ouch!!!”
“A grown person wanting to shower together? How embarrassing would that be? I’m the one who should be embarrassed.”
Su Ziling showed no mercy. She gave the lunging Su Xiaomeng a chop on the head, then, as if picking up a chick, tossed her back into the bathroom.
“Sigh…” After doing all that, she dusted off her hands and sighed. “So much trouble.”
But at that moment, a lighthearted voice drifted out from the bathroom.
“Hehe~ As they say, there are no wrong nicknames, only wrong names… Big bro, that move just now really reminded me of Mom.”
“Go take your shower.”
She could’ve brought schematics though