"Drink up!" Zhang Yiyi handed her water bottle to Lin Wanning, seemingly suggesting that drinking water would ease the pain in her bottom.
"Thank you, Yiyi!" Lin Wanning opened the spout and gulped down three big mouthfuls, "Brother Qing Fan, would you like some?" She handed the water bottle to Xu Qingfan.
"I will." Xu Qingfan took the bottle, tilted his head back, and took a few sips, "Give some to Yiyi!"
"Okay!" Zhang Yiyi smiled lightly and also took several hearty gulps.
"I’ll carry your backpack, having three layers of clothing is too heavy." Xu Qingfan put his hand on Zhang Yiyi’s shoulder and helped her take off the backpack.
It seemed like a nationwide uniform for middle school students to like carrying backpacks when going out, regardless of whether there was anything to bring, but they just liked to carry the backpack on their back. It was also a good way to tell high school students from college students. Xu Qingfan remembered that in his previous life, he stopped carrying a backpack when he went out after he entered college.
"Brother Qing Fan, Wanning wants a balloon!" Far away, a wandering NPC old man was carrying a bunch of helium balloons, and Lin Wanning pointed in that direction, excitedly exclaiming.
"Buy!" Xu Qingfan grandly gestured, and pulling both by the hand, ran over.
The three of them stopped the balloon-selling old man. After looking for a long time, Lin Wanning chose a cat from Magic Girl Sakura, and Zhang Yiyi selected Dora Mei, the sister of Doraemon, "Brother Qing Fan, aren’t you buying one?"
After both had made their selections, they looked at him together.
"Then I’ll buy one too." Xu Qingfan, despite feeling it was childish, decided it was better not to spoil the fun. He chose a Black Cat Sheriff and handed over a ten yuan note.
"Thank you, my dear; here’s one yuan change!" The old man happily took the ten yuan, gave back a red one yuan note to him.
Xu Qingfan tied the balloons to Zhang Yiyi’s backpack and took both by the hand again to walk around the park.
The three of them, like children who never grew up, carefully avoided stepping on the cracks in the floor tiles, walked on the cement railing as if it were a narrow bridge, hid in the shadows to stay out of the sun, and stepped on each other’s shadows under the sun...
"Last time it was right here, that old...old..." Lin Wanning momentarily forgot how to say that word.
"Old geezer!" Xu Qingfan reminded her on the side.
"Heehee, right, that old geezer was sitting right here!" Lin Wanning let go of Xu Qingfan’s hand and ran over, sitting down and imitating the old woman’s movements from last time, slapping the ground, "I’m an old woman over seventy years old, I won’t lie to you!"
Xu Qingfan and Zhang Yiyi were amused and laughed out loud, and Lin Wanning, while slapping, laughed along with them.
Xu Qingfan walked up to her, stretched out his hand pretending to hit Lin Wanning, "Old thing, you let go of me!", after the mischief, he pulled the little girl up.
"Brother, cool!" Zhang Yiyi mimicked the motion he just made with his hands.
"Brother Qing Fan is super cool!" Lin Wanning patted the dust off her bottom and joined in.
"Little cool guy, let’s go, are you hungry? Let’s go for afternoon tea." Xu Qingfan stretched out his arms and pulled them both close, speaking as they walked.
"I want to eat wheel cakes!" Lin Wanning remembered the red bean wheel cakes she had last time at the old market and her eyes lit up.
"Egg waffles!" Zhang Yiyi also mentioned what she wanted to eat.
The three of them walked for more than ten minutes to the old market, bought wheel cakes and egg waffles, and then sat down in a nearby Green Tea Island bubble tea shop.
In this era, which still didn’t have CocO’s Fresh Tea, it seemed that all bubble tea shops were named Green Tea Island, and Xu Qingfan didn’t know why either.
"It feels so good having finished the homework!" Lin Wanning said after biting into the hot wheel cake.
"Careful, it’s hot, and please correct that; it’s having copied the homework that feels so good." Xu Qingfan took a napkin to wipe the red bean paste at the corner of Lin Wanning’s mouth.
"Heehee~ it’s all the same, it’d be nice if we could keep a little cat."
"A cat, cute!" Zhang Yiyi nodded repeatedly.
"If you like it, just keep one, Wanning, your house is so big." Xu Qingfan suggested without a second thought.
"It’s not possible, dad said he gets dizzy when he smells cat poop, our home cannot keep cats." Lin Wanning explained to him.
"Oh, cat poop does smell nasty." Xu Qingfan nodded in agreement; having had a cat in his previous life, every time he had to scoop the cat’s litter was torture, especially after a few days had accumulated, that smell, even ten layers of masks wouldn’t block it, it indeed could make someone faint.
"Cats are so adorable, how can their poop smell so bad!" Lin Wanning complained.
"Haha~ that can’t be helped, but my mom recently thought about keeping a cat to catch mice in the shop, Wanning, you can come pet the cat then." Xu Qingfan remembered Yao Jinping complaining last time about the street’s mice being too numerous, running to the store to steal sausages.
"Alrighty, once you have the cat, Brother Qing Fan, remember to tell Wanning, then I and Yiyi will come together to pet the cat!"
"Okay~ I’ll definitely tell you guys then." Xu Qingfan patted their heads, "If you’ve finished eating, let’s go, let’s go to Gualv Square to watch a movie!"
After paying, the three left the store, and when passing a sewage channel, Zhang Yiyi suddenly pointed inside: "Look, a cat there!"
Following the direction she pointed, they indeed saw a grubby little gray cat squatting in the dirty, stinking sewage channel.
"Meow meow, why are you squatting in the water? It’s cold, come out quickly!" Lin Wanning ran up, but the little gray cat didn’t run away despite her approach; it stayed squatting in the same spot.
Xu Qingfan and Zhang Yiyi followed closely behind. The cat seemed to be white, with one blue eye and one yellow one, resembling Linqing Lion Cats.