"Don’t put the spatula in when it’s still wet..."
"Ah!" The hot oil in the wok hissed as it met the water and splattered out, startling Xia Xiaoxiao into retreating clumsily and quickly covering the wok with a lid.
"You’re being silly, don’t panic, give me the spatula." Xu Qingfan turned down the flame on the gas stove and watched her with amusement.
"I don’t want to learn anymore, you do it!" After returning the spatula to him, Xia Xiaoxiao frowned and pouted as she wiped at the spot where the oil had splashed.
"You’re hopeless. Just watch," Xu Qingfan shook his head as he rendered fat from the pork and then added the tardy bok choi.
Recently, a cold front had swept into Li City again, chilling to the bone with temperatures around three to four degrees, but luckily the new air conditioner at home had heating. Aside from the dryness, staying indoors was quite comfortable.
When it was cold, it also happened to be the sweetest time for Li City’s tardy bok choi.
Anyone who had studied high school biology knew that in the cold, plants’ respiration slows down, allowing the sugars produced from photosynthesis during the day to accumulate. The tardy bok choi grown since before the New Year could reach over a meter tall and was an excellent choice for stir-frying, boiling, or making porridge.
"Xu Qingfan, didn’t you say that you shouldn’t cover the wok when frying, or it will turn yellow?" Seeing Xu Qingfan cover the wok and then turn down the heat, Xia Xiaoxiao asked, puzzled.
"It depends on the situation; some dishes need high heat for stir-frying, others need low heat to simmer out the water," Xu Qingfan explained.
"It’s so troublesome," Xia Xiaoxiao pouted, "Xu Qingfan..." she suddenly said, her mood dropping.
"What is it?" Xu Qingfan turned his head to look at her.
"Why didn’t dad come back with mom? Does he... does he not want me and mom anymore..." Xia Xiaoxiao’s eyes reddened, and her voice choked up as she spoke.
"Um..." Xu Qingfan found it difficult to comment.
Earlier, when Xia Xiaoxiao couldn’t resist asking Lin Jing during a phone call with Yao Jinping, "Is dad coming back?"
Lin Jing’s reply seemed pointed as she said, "He’s not coming back."
Because the speakerphone was on, Xu Qingfan also heard it, but whether he wasn’t coming back just this time or never again wasn’t asked by Xia Xiaoxiao and wasn’t clarified by Lin Jing.
Xu Qingfan felt that the key to solving the problem was to first understand the thoughts of Xia Xiaoxiao and Lin Jing; Xia Guofu’s infidelity and having an illegitimate child seemed confirmed, but whether or not to divorce, he personally thought they should.
Many people say that divorce inflicts great psychological harm on children, which is absolutely true.
Unhealthy family relationships cause even greater psychological harm to children.
Xu Qingfan from his previous life knew this very well; Lin Jing indeed did not divorce Xia Guofu after the incident, but since then, Xia Xiaoxiao’s personality turned quiet and withdrawn, almost as if she had become a different person, and she was less close to him as well.
Having lived another life, he naturally hoped Xia Xiaoxiao would grow up healthy, constantly playing the role of a mouthy, haughty, lively, and cheerful little sister.
"Hmm?" Xia Xiaoxiao looked at him with teary eyes.
"Just hypothetically, say, hypothetically, if your dad found another woman, like the mistress they show on TV, would you forgive him?" Xu Qingfan tentatively asked.
Xia Xiaoxiao felt her heart stop for a moment, her mind went blank, as if a voice was continuously repeating: dad has a mistress, dad has a mistress...
Seeing Xia Xiaoxiao stand there dazed as if spellbound, Xu Qingfan quickly shut off the gas stove and came to comfort her: "I’m just saying hypothetically, Xiao Xiao, don’t scare me!" He waved his hand in front of her eyes.
"I don’t know..." Xia Xiaoxiao came back to her senses, clenching her hands helplessly.
Xu Qingfan dared not continue questioning and brought a stool from the living room for Xia Xiaoxiao to sit on, then resumed cooking.
"Xu Qingfan... did my dad have an affair...?" After a long while, Xia Xiaoxiao said softly.
Because of the television as a medium, children as young as seven or eight actually understand a lot. TVB dramas frequently depict scenes of marital infidelity and divorce.
This phenomenon has been exacerbated with access to cellphones and short videos, where many grade school students, still in fifth or sixth grade, demonstrate a level of maturity beyond that of college students, already doing things considered mature and inappropriate.
Some even boldly claim in front of cameras, "We usually don’t take precautions, my boyfriend said he would be responsible."
Seeing such interviews in his previous life, Xu Qingfan was utterly flabbergasted.
After he finished cooking the bok choi and plated it, he hesitated before asking, "If that were true, what would you do?"
Xia Xiaoxiao was just an eight-year-old child, obviously incapable of making decisions about such serious matters, "I don’t know... I’ll do whatever mom does."
Xu Qingfan wasn’t sure what choices Lin Jing would make in this life, especially with so many variables now.
An illegitimate child was only one aspect; age was another.
This year, Lin Jing had just turned 29, an age where twenty years later, there would be plenty of unmarried people around, and calling her a young lady wouldn’t be an exaggeration at all.
"What if your mom wants to divorce your dad?"
"Xu Qingfan, will my mom and dad really get a divorce?" Xia Xiaoxiao felt somewhat adrift.
"If your mom wants a divorce, would you support her?"
"I...I support mom!" Xia Xiaoxiao hesitated for a moment before responding firmly.
That was enough for him; Xu Qingfan always felt it was rather inappropriate to encourage divorce, what Lin Jing would decide, he thought it best to wait for her to return.