Bonus ko-fi chapter courtesy of buriburi and LeProfessionalHobo! Thank you for your warm support ❤
After the house was renovated, Chu Qin and Zhong Yibin went on a trip to the United States to obtain a marriage certificate. The two people spent their honeymoon on a small island on the Pacific Ocean, and moved into their new house upon returning.
They had also organized a banquet within the country, though it was a small-scale one with only relatives and friends. Zhong Yibin had wanted to organize a grand banquet at first, but Chu Qin opposed the idea. The locals had a high degree of tolerance towards him. Even though he had publicly come out of the closet, his career hadn’t been affected. In fact, several international brands had sought him out to be their ambassador. But it was all the more important for him to remain lowkey at such a time.
Those who created a huge fanfare out of their wedding to attract eyes were mostly celebrities who were almost past their prime and needed to find something amusing to create a topic out of. Now that Chu Qin’s popularity was high, there was completely no need for him to create a topic that could easily attract slander.
The banquet was thus organized in a low-profile manner. Both parties’ parents attended. And in this way, the two people started their post-wedding life. To Zhong Yibin, he had a wife to sleep with every night and had food to eat daily. There was nothing regrettable about such a life. However, Mother Zhong disagreed.
“You two will need to have a children eventually, right? Otherwise, who will look after the two of you when you grow old?” Mother Zhong called Zhong Yibin and Chu Qin back to the house for a meal and raised this old topic again.
“How are we going to have a child? Can Chu Qin or I give birth?” Zhong Yibin wasn’t very happy. Both of them were male, why were they being urged to have children?
“I heard that the United States has surrogate pregnancy. It’s only a couple hundred thousand, won’t everything be good if you two go make one?” Mother Zhong had long inquired about this. If not, she wouldn’t have agreed so readily the other time.
Chu Qin sat at a corner and quietly drank his tea. This was a Zhong family matter, he couldn’t butt in.
Zhong Yibin pouted unhappily. They had just gotten married. If a small brat was brought back and got in their way, how was he going to enjoy their two-person world? That was out of the question, definitely out of the question! “Let’s talk about it two years later, we just got married.”
This matter was put off for another year with this reason when Mother Zhong once again brought it up. She felt that her individual combat strength wasn’t enough and even called over Mother Chu.
Father Chu had recently retired, so the two elderly people began travelling the world. They shifted to the capital to be a little closer to their son and would also occasionally stay over at the Zhong family’s place. Mother Zhong usually didn’t have anyone to play with and unexpectedly got along very well with the bold Mother Chu. Mother Chu taught Mother Zhong how to bargain, while Mother Zhong brought Mother Chu to visit high-end shops. The final result was the two people bargaining while visiting high-end shops.
The employees of those high-end shops became terrified every time they saw these two people.
“Last year, you two said you wanted to have a two-person world. Now that it’s been a year, shouldn’t you have gotten your fill of it?” Mother Zhong watched her son and daughter-in-law who were seated opposite her.
“We’re still young,” Zhong Yibin said with dissatisfaction. They had only spent a year in this two-person world, how was that enough? Spending another ten years in it was more like it.
Mother Zhong jabbed an elbow at Mother Chu, who was hard at work eating fruits. “Relative, you say something.”
Mother Chu polished off the last piece of melon and wiped her mouth. “You two are about to reach thirty, how are you young! If you raise kids now, the kids will be attending university when you’re fifty. It’ll be just nice, you can take care of the kid’s marriage matters when you’re young and vigorous. If you continue to wait for another two years, you two will be old men by the time the kid grows up and will only inconvenience the child.”
“Aren’t we raising kids so that they can serve us? Why is it that we can’t inconvenience them?” Chu Qin couldn’t help retorting. The idea of raising children just so that they would look after one during their old age was in itself a very selfish idea which made him very unhappy. On one hand, they had to raise a child to take care of the elderly, while on the other, they had to calculate the timing well so that they could avoid burdening the child. This sort of contradictory logic was simply unreasonable.
Mother Chu choked up. She raised her eyes and glared at him. “This child, what are you saying? Raising children is so that you can enjoy the happiness of the raising period and not so that you can raise a slave.”
“So that’s the case,” Zhong Yibin suddenly saw the light. “All right. The two of us will go raise one two days later.”
“No, it’s so busy at work now, who’s going to take care of the child if you just bring one back?” Chu Qin hurriedly stopped the impulsive Zhong Yibin. What would they do if he really brought a child back?
“What are you scared of? we’re both still young. Mother will help you when that time comes,” Mother Chu patted her chest and guaranteed him. Mother Zhong followed along and nodded as well.
Chu Qin looked at Zhong Yibin with raised brows, questioning him with his gaze.
Zhong Yibin raised a brow. Acting as if he had a card up his sleeve, he indicated for Chu Qin not to worry.
Several days later, Chu Qin drove home on his own after filming for his program. He had ended work early today. It was only past noon, so there was no need for Zhong Yibin to fetch him.
When he entered the house, Chu Qin realized that there was a pair of shoes at the entrance hall. They belonged to Zhong Yibin. This guy actually came back so early? Chu Qin shouted into the house, “Er Bing? You’re home?”
Zhong Yibin ran out from within the house, miming a silencing gesture. “Shh. I just coaxed our son to sleep, don’t wake him up.”
Son? Chu Qin’s eyes widened. “What son?”
“Wasn’t it our mother who wanted us to enjoy the process of raising a son. So, I went and carried one back,” Zhong Yibin said proudly, his expression like that of pleading for praise.
Chu Qin’s heart thumped. In the current society, there weren’t many who threw kids away like there were in earlier years. Now, as long as the child didn’t have an incurable disease, there were even people who would fight for an ugly child. The sole method to obtain a healthy child born to someone else was to buy them. However, buying children was illegal. Zhong Yibin couldn’t have done such an act, right?
Chu Qin quickly strode into the house with a restless heart.
This house of theirs was large. There was a small room on the first floor that had been renovated into an entertainment room. The room was padded with soft mats and outfitted with games like chess and mahjong. This room was the most suitable for a child to be placed in.
Chu Qin pushed the door open. A wooden crib had been placed in the room. Lying on the bed was a bulging lump covered by a blue blanket, which rose up and down, consistent with breathing motions. He took a deep breath and then slowly lifted the blanket up, revealing a black and white, shaggy dog head.
Chu Qin: …
He removed the blanket, revealing the complete appearance of his ‘son’. It was a baby husky that had just reached its first month. It had a coat of black and white fur, and was sleeping on the baby bed like it was dead to the world.
“It’s good-looking, right?” Zhong Yibin smiled mischievously. “That Zhang Xiaoren of Yu Tang’s family was dragged off for breeding lately and the mother dog gave birth to a litter of puparazzi. His family was given two, so I went over and brought one back.”
Zhang Xiaoren was the male dog raised by Yu Tang’s family. Its namesake was a traitorous minister in history. According to Yu Tang, naming it as such was convenient, because then he could call his own family’s dog ‘dog official’, ‘dog thing’, or ‘dog slave’.
“The son you were talking about is this husky?” Chu Qin heaved a sigh of relief.
“Yup,” Zhong Yibin stretched out a hand and poked the shaggy dog head, completely forgetting that he had just coaxed the dog to sleep. “I’ve even thought of a name for it, Two.”
Two was poked awake very soon. It snorted in discontentment and opened its toothless mouth to bite down on Zhong Yibin’s finger. It failed to bite him despite trying several times and climbed up in a huff with creased brows. It glared at him with a pair of eyes that had more white than pupils.
“What? You’re even unhappy? So what if this father poked you a little? Call me daddy!” Zhong Yibin reached out a hand and unleashed a wave of chatter on the dog. He had an awful lot of fun playing around.
“Awoo!” Two immediately got into a quarrel with him.
Chu Qin watched the two of them helplessly. One fool at home was already enough of a headache, now it’d even increased to two. “You’re called Er Bing and it’s called Two. If we raise a cat in the future, is it going to be called twenty-thousand?”
Zhong Yibin pondered over it seriously. “No, it should be called 2580000.” Cats were arrogant creatures. As the saying went, 'arrogance is akin to a hand of 2580000’. One could see that only 2580000 was deserving of a cat’s temperament.
Chu Qin covered his face. He could only prostrate himself in admiration of Zhong Yibin’s naming sense.
Therefore, this ‘son’ suddenly became an additional member of their family. The two people could also then justify themselves to the elderly people.
“Mum, I carried a son back today,” Zhong Yibin was playing with Two on the sofa and decided to give Mother Zhong a call along the way.
“Ah? So sudden!” Mother Zhong was shocked. “Where did you pick him up from?”
Mother Zhong was even more shocked. How did he pick up a child from Yu Tang’s house? Could it be a child the Yu family was raising outside? How could that happen? If they raised a child of the Yu family to adulthood, then wouldn’t the family business all belong to the Yu family in the future? What kind of heart did Yu Tang have to be thinking about such a thing?
Chu Qin, who was drinking yogurt at a corner, pursed his lips and suppressed his laughter. His gaze met Two’s thirsty little eyes, and so he scooped out a spoon of yogurt and passed it over. Two immediately lapped it up with smacking lips. After finishing the yogurt, it jumped excitedly onto the couch and rammed into Zhong Yibin’s chest with a booming sound. Zhong Yibin once again caught hold of it. “Come Two, greet grandma.”
Two didn’t want to play with Zhong Yibin. It leapt about, wanting to find Chu Qin, but was held back and not allowed to leave. The eldest child wasn’t happy. It twisted about for a long time but was unable to escape and was so anxious that it whined. “Hmph hmph awooo!”
Mother Zhong: …
Since he needed to complete the task entrusted to him by the older generation, he might as well do a complete job of it. Zhong Yibin hugged Two and took a few photos, posting them on Weibo and his Moments.
[We’re at this age and those back home are urging us to have children. I failed to live up to expectations and carried one home today. This is Two, mine and Chu Qin’s son.]
Fans saw this and instantly erupted into laughter. In that photo, the small husky wasn’t very happy about taking a photo and was furrowing its brows, its appearance fierce. Zhong Yibin cooperatively adopted a similar expression and looked towards the camera savagely with wrinkled brows. The man and dog appeared startlingly alike.
[Two resembles Er Bing very closely!]
[At a glance, doesn’t it look like the dog from the next door’s neighbor.]
[So cute, I want to be Two’s child bride!]
A cheerful beginning did not signify a cheerful process. A son was not easy to raise, and neither was a dog.
As a purebred husky, Two already had an abundance of energy at a young age and would leap about an entire day without stopping. As it hadn’t had its immunization injections, it couldn’t be brought out either and could only be left to vent its energy in the house.
Both people would be out for work during the day, so they kept all fragile items that Two could touch. Only then could they go to work at ease. Upon returning, Chu Qin stood at the entrance hall and stared blankly for a few seconds. He retreated and went to take a look at the house number. That’s right, it was definitely his house. He went back in. The house was still the same house, but the home was no longer the same home.
The magazines on the table had all been dragged onto the floor and torn to pieces. The toilet paper was strewn on the floor all the way to the entrance hall like the Silk Road. A part of the expensive imported wallpaper had been torn down…while the main cause of this disaster, Two, was lying on the couch with a slipper dangling from his mouth. It looked over provocatively.
“Two, was this done by you?” Zhong Yibin pointed at the things on the floor.
“Awoo!” Two made a sound of agreement and then twisted his head to the side.
“Still not admitting to it, who else can it be if not you?” Zhong Yibin walked over and started quarreling with Two.
“Awooo!” Two continued to bicker, adamantly refusing to admit to it.
Chu Qin looked at the unreliable father-son pair and helplessly cleaned everything up himself. In the end, he couldn’t bear going back every day to a home that gave him the misperception of only having four bare walls. Thus, he could only hire a cleaner by the hour to clean the house every day before they got off work and came home. The wallpaper that had been gnawed off would first be painted over with a layer of paint. Paint wasn’t nice to gnaw on, so for better or worse, the wall was maintained.
After resolving the hygiene issue, Chu Qin didn’t have much complaints about this doggie son. However, Zhong Yibin’s complaints grew more and more numerous.
Ever since Two learned how to jump, Zhong Yibin was never able to have a good sleep at home!
He would be lying on the couch for an afternoon nap when the husky would jump onto him like a rabbit and roll all over his stomach as if it were a trampoline..
When he was snoozing during the weekends, the husky would bump open the bedroom door and jump up like a rabbit. Two front claws would press down on Zhong Yibin’s chest, pushing against him like a pile driver…
At night, Zhong Yibin hugged Chu Qin and kissed him into a ball on the soft carpet. He anxiously pulled apart Chu Qin’s legs and directly attacked his core part. Just as he was hard at work plowing the fields, a husky came over with a cushion from the couch in his mouth. The husky mimicked his movements and did certain indescribable actions to the cushion.
Zhong Yibin: “…What a pain in the ass.”
“Who are you talking about?” Chu Qin slapped him on the head.
“I was talking about myself!” Zhong Yibin hurriedly explained.
Chu Qin: …
He kicked him aside, pulled on his pants and went back into the room.
Zhong Yibin slapped himself on the head, realizing that he had once again said the wrong thing. He hurriedly chased after him to make amends when the door was shut with a bang, locking him outside. “Baobei, I said the wrong thing. I was scolding Two, quickly open the door.” After calling out for a long time, nobody answered and so, the bedless Zhong Yibin pitifully went to another bedroom in search of a blanket to sleep on the sofa.
Two saw his situation and swiftly ran back to its own little bed. It put on an appearance of facing a formidable enemy, fearful that Zhong Yibin would take over its bed. Zhong Yibin saw the way it looked and erupted with anger. He seized the dog and took it out, occupying the baby bed. But his legs were too long, so he could only rest them over the wooden railings and point at the doggie son that was barking at him. “Tomorrow I’ll carry a 2580000 back. Just wait for it to bring you damned thing under control!”
Two: “Aoaoao!”
The more he thought about it, the angrier Zhong Yibin grew. He picked up his phone and gave Mother Chu a call. “Mom, you said the other time that we can bring our grandson over for you to raise, is that still valid?”