No matter how slow Sister Ping was, she could sense the difference. “What do you mean? What do you want? Surely you’re not going to kill someone?!”

  “We should be asking you what you want. Do you know that this is a crime? Abandoning a child will send you to jail.”

  Shao Nan belatedly brought up the law. “If you don’t want to go to jail, get lost quickly.”

  This was the first time Sister Ping had heard of such a crime, but seeing that Shao Nan didn’t seem to be lying, and Mu Jingzhe didn’t want to raise her daughter either, she left unwillingly in the end.

  She had thought that Mu Jingzhe was soft-hearted and wouldn’t care if she was her biological daughter or not, as she simply loved raising other people’s children. Furthermore, she was rich. It was a good idea, so she hadn’t expected it to fail.

  Sister Ping left unwillingly, and Ji Buwang also came out to find her. “Why won’t you come in? What happened?”

  “We met a lunatic.” Shao Nan took Mu Jingzhe’s hand. “Let’s go, Mommy.”

  Ji Buwang was speechless when he heard what Sister Ping had done. “How can there be such a person? If I had known, I would’ve come out earlier. You guys should have called me. I would have scolded them away.”

  “Little Nan and the rest already scolded her into going away.”

  Xiao Wu looked unhappy, and Mu Jingzhe’s mood improved a little. “Xiao Wu, I think I could even hang an oil bottle from your mouth. Why are you so unhappy? Are you jealous? Are you afraid that other children will come?”

  Only then did Xiao Wu realize that he had been pouting subconsciously. “I know you won’t raise other children, Mommy. I’m just angry that she went overboard.”

  “Alright, stop being angry. Such a person is not worth it. Let’s go in quickly. What were you guys doing?”

  “Something important!” Shao Nan replied.

  The so-called important matter was actually Ji Buwang making a kite with them out of bamboo.

  “They said they’ve never flown a kite before. We can fly the kite tomorrow.” Ji Buwang hadn’t gone out in time earlier on because he had been busy working and hadn’t been able to leave for a while.

  As soon as they said that, Mu Jingzhe remembered. “Oh, that’s right. Tomorrow is the Double Ninth Festival[1] We can climb up to admire the chrysanthemums and fly a kite.”

  “That’s right, so help quickly.” Ji Buwang pointed at the finished framework. “I did as much as I could according to their requests, but it’s still not that similar. Hurry up and draw with them to enhance this.”

  \r \r \r

  There were more butterfly and dragonfly kite designs to begin with, and they looked very lifelike up in the sky. When Ji Buwang had come earlier, he’d wanted to show off, so he had asked the kids what they wanted and had ended up suffering. The children’s preferences were completely different, and they didn’t at all stand on ceremony around him.

  There were all sorts of requests—a little kitten, a little pig, a little hedgehog, a little fish, and a little rabbit. Each of the five kids had asked for a different design, making Ji Buwang feel overwhelmed.

  The little fish might be easy to make, but the rest were a little difficult. Ji Buwang had wanted to say that he could just draw anything, but they’d already started to think of ways to make the kite look like an animal.

  Looking at their expectant gazes, he ultimately couldn’t bring himself to tell them that he couldn’t do it. That was how he had ended up working until now.

  “I originally wanted to give you a surprise when I was done, but I didn’t manage to do it.” One’s plans couldn’t keep up with changes. He urgently needed Mu Jingzhe’s help now.

  Mu Jingzhe laughed out loud. “Who asked you to agree to everything they said? Just make a butterfly or a dragonfly or something. If you can’t do it, just draw it.”

  “You’re just saying that now. In reality, you’d probably be even more serious than me.” Ji Buwang could see how Mu Jingzhe doted on the children.

  “Uh…” Mu Jingzhe was at a loss for words. Ji Buwang relaxed. “Take them and draw. I’ll make two simple ones.”

  Mu Jingzhe, Shao Dong, and the others picked up their brushes and worked together to draw the kites. Although they were strangely-shaped, they still looked a little decent.

  Thanks to everyone’s hard work, they finally finished making the kites. Then, Ji Buwang made two butterfly kites for himself and Mu Jingzhe. Mu Jingzhe added color and turned them into seven-colored butterflies.

  The colors were gorgeous, and the kites were quite beautiful.

  The next day, Mu Jingzhe, Ji Buwang, Li Zhaodi, and Mu Teng went to the top of the county mountain to fly the kites in the wind.

  However, Shao Dong and the others had all failed. Because they had pursued a nice appearance, they couldn’t guarantee that the kites could fly. Therefore, all of them failed to make their kites fly. Even the little fish kite failed.

  Only Mu Jingzhe and Ji Buwang’s two butterflies flew up. They were originally split up, and later on, Mu Jingzhe’s kite almost fell down. Ji Buwang rescued her butterfly kite, but while he did so, the threads of the two butterflies got intertwined and couldn’t be separated.

  The two butterflies fluttered in the wind in midair and flew higher and higher. The five kids looked up and shouted.

  Ji Buwang was very satisfied watching the two butterflies flying together. He felt like this was him and Jingzhe.

  As he was thinking, he heard Shao Xi say, “This is how Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai[2] flew when they became butterflies, right?”

  Li Zhaodi patted Shao Xi. “How can you compare them to those two butterflies? They’re not like that.” Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai had both ended up dying. This was inauspicious.

  Mu Jingzhe hadn’t thought of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. She had merely thought of a song[3] and couldn’t help but want to sing it.

  “Dear, fly slowly. Beware of the thorny roses ahead…”

  Oh no, she really sang it.

  Sensing everyone’s gazes, Mu Jingzhe shut her mouth with a wooden expression. This was what happened with songs like this, which were too popular, catchy, and easy to learn. One could hum them after listening to them once or twice. Just thinking about it made her subconsciously sing the song, and she couldn’t control herself at all.

  She handed the coil in her hand to Ji Buwang, who was suppressing his laughter. Mu Jingzhe wanted to leave, but Little Bei stopped her.

  “Mommy, it’s nice. Hurry up and continue singing. You haven’t sung in a long time!” Little Bei had sung that school bombing song so many times that she had memorized it.

  “No!” There was still a long time to go before this song would be released. She couldn’t fan out this song in advance just because they were flying kites.

  “Mommy, sing. I definitely won’t sing this song outside.”

  “No, no. You can’t sing this song yet.” Mu Jingzhe didn’t believe Little Bei. Little Bei would definitely learn this song.

  When the time came, she would sing ‘Dear’ to her all day long. These lyrics were completely inappropriate now. Furthermore, the lyrics included words like ‘You and I will be entangled together forever’ and so on.

  Now that she’d said it, if she didn’t sing the lyrics, it actually… wasn’t bad.

  Just as Mu Jingzhe thought of this, she heard Ji Buwang say, “Sing it for me later. Even if the kids can’t listen to it, at least I can, right?” Ji Buwang felt that this song was dedicated to him. After all, the word ‘Dear’ was among the lyrics.

  Mu Jingzhe: “!!!”

  She shouted from the depths of her soul, “No, no way! It’s not suitable for you either!”

  Singing the song ‘Two Butterflies’ for Ji Buwang would be too beautiful. She didn’t dare imagine it at all.

  She didn’t want the BGM between her and Ji Buwang to be ‘Two Butterflies’.

  Ji Buwang looked at Mu Jingzhe, who was rejecting him wholeheartedly, and felt very strange. Could she be shy? But why was her expression so strange?

  Mu Jingzhe turned around and felt helpless when she saw Ji Buwang’s gaze. “Stop looking at me. Look at the kite.”

  As long as the song ‘Two Butterflies’ wasn’t playing in her head, the kite was still very beautiful. Mu Jingzhe looked at Ji Buwang and then at the kite in the sky, the corners of her lips curling up.

  Ji Buwang was half a step behind Mu Jingzhe. While Mu Jingzhe was looking at the kite, he was looking at her.

  [1] Observed on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese calendar.

  [2] The protagonists of the tragic love story ‘The Butterfly Lovers’

  [3] A Chinese pop song released in 2004 titled ‘Two Butterflies’