House Dad's Literary Life

Chapter 352: Can You Help Him?

“Little Xin was very sad. She had a lot of chores to do and couldn’t go out to play. Oh, Papa said she was too dirty, and everyone called her Cinderella.” Xixi’s storytelling was not as structured as Yang Yi’s, but it was already great that she could retell it!

Yang Huan was still crying on the ground, but her clever eyes didn’t have any tears and they kept glancing towards Xixi.

“Then, then a little fairy came out! I am the little fairy, little aunt, I am here to find you!” Xixi giggled, got off the sofa again, and hopped over to her little aunt.

“Ah, little fairy.” Yang Huan played along. She turned her head to look at Xixi with a surprised face. She was just as exaggerated and her mouth was wide open.

“Don’t be afraid, Cinderella, I am here to help you!” Xixi looked down at Yang Huan’s eyes, patted her body on both sides with her little hands, and said, “Do you want to go to the ball?”

“I do, I dream of it!” Yang Huan sniffed and pretended to speak softly and weakly. This time, it wasn’t as exaggerated.

“Then I’ll let you go! Change, change, change!” Xixi waved her little hand in the air and drew a cute circle. This was the magic gesture that Yang Yi taught her, except she was missing a small magic wand.

Yang Huan blinked in confusion.

What changed?

“I turned the big pumpkin into a carriage and transformed your dress into a beautiful one, plus super beautiful glass slippers!” Afraid that her little aunt wouldn’t understand, Xixi explained like her father did. “Glass slippers are like glass, super beautiful.”

It was the first time that Yang Huan heard such a magical and fascinating story, and it captivated her a bit. Fortunately, she also had the self-cultivation of an actress. She jumped up from the ground very professionally, pretended to pinch her skirt, tiptoed, turned around, and exclaimed, “Wow, it’s really beautiful!”

“Hee hee!” Xixi smiled with joy and backed away. She climbed back onto the sofa, but instead of sitting properly, she knelt and leaned forward excitedly, saying, “Okay, you can go to the ball now!”

“Okay, I’m going to the ball!” Yang Huan pretended to sit in the carriage, jolted a bit as if arriving at the ball, and then started to dance and twirl around.

“Wait a minute! You have to come back before twelve o’clock!” Xixi thought of something and jumped down again. She ran to her little aunt and said, “Because… because after that, you’ll change back and you won’t be able to go back.”¹

“Mmm!” Yang Huan nodded vigorously as she increasingly found the story interesting.

……

While Yang Huan was dancing on her side, Guo Ziyi and the others were also dancing. After a while, they came back from the dance floor satisfied.

In the middle of winter, after dancing for a while, they felt incredibly hot. Guo Ziyi and Wang Chao both unzipped and opened their jackets. Zhu Liyang even took off his jacket and draped it over his shoulder, looking very chic and cool. Long Ni’s face was also red from the dancing, her face glowing with excitement.

After all those activities, the drunkenness from the few drinks they had was sweated out. They ordered some more drinks.

“Did you have a good time?” Yang Yi looked at his watch and asked with a smile.

There was still half an hour left. They had to go back after playing for another half an hour. Yang Yi still had his daughter on his mind, wondering if she was unhappy at her little aunt’s place…

“I had a great time! I used to think bars were messy and didn’t dare to come, but now I feel it’s not that bad!” Zhu Liyang spoke without being as careful as before, his eyes shining with excitement.

“Bang! Crash!”

Before Zhu Liyang could finish speaking, the sound of shattering bottles came from behind them, causing the music on stage to pause for a moment.

Zhu Liyang shrank his head in fright, and the others also became tense.

Was there an accident?

However, it wasn’t with them.

Yang Yi furrowed his brow slightly and looked towards the sound, which was coming from the direction of the stage.

On the stage, Lin Mu’an was standing with his guitar, looking somewhat confused and panicked. In front of him were shards of broken bottles scattered all over the floor.

“Ah? It’s Lin Mu’an.” Ding Xiang covered her mouth and exclaimed in surprise.

“Who is Lin Mu’an?” Guo Ziyi turned around, kneeling on the sofa in the booth, leaning forward to get a view of the stage. He really wanted to watch the excitement.

“You crow’s mouth!²” Wang Chao muttered to Zhu Liyang. He also became honest this time. He shrunk his head and even pulled off the conspicuous red headband from his head, stuffing it into his pants pocket, as if he was afraid that he would be targeted because of this thing.

The person who threw the bottle also stood up. He was a drunk man in a leather jacket, emitting an alcoholic breath. He pointed at the stage and shouted, “Sing, sing your mother’s song. You’re here in China, and you don’t sing Chinese songs. What kind of gibberish are you singing?”

His tongue was all twisted! The voice came over, and luckily the music had stopped, so everyone was looking, and Yang Yi could hear some of it.

“I’m singing a Cantonese song, which is also a Chinese song…” Lin Mu’an was a bit unconvinced and said in a low voice, enduring the situation.

“MP³, in Jiangcheng, you sing a ghost Cantonese song! You think, you think this is your Hong Kong? You damn it, are you, are you looking down on me?” The man in leather jacket probably drank too much. He was waving another bottle and shouting.

It seemed like in the slightest disagreement, he would smash a bottle at Lin Mu’an.

“Ah!” Ding Xiang nervously and fearfully covered her mouth, looking at Lin Mu’an worriedly.

Guo Ziyi turned around, took a look at Ding Xiang, scratched his head, and said to Yang Yi, “Brother Yang, that person seems to be an acquaintance of Sister Ding Xiang. Can you help him?”

“…” Yang Yi glanced at Guo Ziyi without saying a word. He wanted to say that Ding Xiang’s familiarity with Lin Mu’an might not be much higher than his own.

Yang Yi said calmly, “Don’t worry, the bar also has its own security.”

“Right, it’s better for us to avoid unnecessary trouble,” Zhu Liyang said fearfully.

As expected by Yang Yi, two security guards with walkie-talkies appeared. They were persuading the man in leather jacket. Of course, it was hard to hear clearly whether they were persuading or warning him.

“Mp, you’re asking us to leave, do you not want to run your bar anymore? Do you know who I am?” The man in leather jacket broke free from the hands of the two security guards and shouted.

The companions of the man in leather jacket also stood up. They were two men in suits, and they were also quite intoxicated. They said drunkenly, “You don’t recognize our Chief Huang?”

“Call your boss over!”

The man in leather jacket was reminded for a moment. He waved the bottle and shouted, “Call your boss, Old Lei, MP. Every time I come, I spend tens of thousands of yuan on drinks, and now Old Lei dares to push me, a valued customer, out?”

The two security guards looked at each other. The opposite party called out their boss’s surname. Perhaps they really knew each other. They didn’t dare to neglect. They told the foreman through the walkie-talkie to help notify the boss, while humbly apologizing in a low voice and appeasing the opposite party’s emotions.

Only Lin Mu’an stood dumbfounded on the stage, unsure of what to do. He had never encountered such a thing before.

It’s not that the bar has never had accidents before, but it was really the first time this kind of thing has happened to him. Lin Mu’an was just a singer. How would he have known what to do?

On his side, Yang Yi watched the behavior of the two security guards, his brows slightly furrowing.

“Wang Chao, Xiao Zhu, you two, take Long Ni and go back first, take a taxi, and go straight back to school.” Yang Yi took out a few hundred yuan bills and handed them to Wang Chao.

“Okay, okay!” Zhu Liyang, worried about any trouble, nodded quickly, but then asked nervously, “What about you, Big Brother Yang? What about you guys?”

“Don’t worry about me, you guys go first. Anyway, my car can’t fit that many people. Also, Little Guo, you and Ding Xiang wait for me at the parking place. The car keys are here. Get in the car first and start the engine.” Yang Yi handed the keys to Guo Ziyi. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Guo Ziyi wasn’t drunk. His eyes were still very clear. His eyes dart around a bit and then stuttered, “Big Brother Yang, I’ve been drinking now and I can’t drive. I’ll wait for you to go together, alright? Sister Ding Xiang, please take the keys and get in the car first!”

“Hey, I can’t drive either!” Ding Xiang pushed his hand away and plucked up the courage to say, “I’ll go with you guys!”

These two were quite loyal, but their act was full of flaws.

“Alright, I’m not going to do anything. Don’t worry about me. Hurry up and wait for me in the car! With you guys here, I have to look after everyone, which is even more troublesome!” Yang Yi waved her hand, both amused and exasperated.