An Jing burst into laughter, and the four children joined in with their babble, making the scene extremely lively.
And this lively noise just carried outside.
Xiao Changyi hadn’t reached the entrance of the courtyard when he heard An Jing and the kids’ frolicsome laughter, and a sense of ’home’ spread to the tip of his heart, permeating his limbs and bones, bringing warmth to his cold eyes, and causing an almost invisible smile to form on his usually cool lips.
Unintentionally, Xiao Changyi sped up his steps toward home.
At this moment, he was eager to see his four children.
At this moment, he was even more eager to see his wife.
Upon entering the courtyard, Xiao Changyi found that the noise came from the main hall, prompting him to walk briskly towards it.
Inside the main hall, An Jing heard the courtyard door being pushed open and closed again, and felt it must be Xiao Changyi returning, so she immediately got up and walked out of the main hall, only to bump right into Xiao Changyi’s embrace.
Xiao Changyi embraced her in his arms.
An Jing immediately laughed heartily and didn’t attempt to break free from Xiao Changyi’s embrace; she just tilted her head upward, smiling and asking, "Husband, where did you go? I called you, but you didn’t respond."
Only then did Xiao Changyi release her and held up the flowers in his hand in front of her, "Here."
The flowers were a small bunch of wildflowers picked from the mountain, in several colors—red, pink, blue, purple, yellow—all there, with green leaves and stems, even slightly dewy, and they looked rather pretty.
An Jing hadn’t noticed before, but now she saw the bunch of flowers in Xiao Changyi’s hand and was completely sweetened by the gesture.
Her husband wasn’t much for romance, but this act of his now made her feel very romantic.
An Jing took the flowers from Xiao Changyi’s hand while smiling radiantly, "No wonder I couldn’t hear you when I called just now, you went to pick flowers on the mountain."
"Hmm," he paused, "Do you like them?"
"I love them!" An Jing replied immediately, nodding emphatically, and even stood on her tiptoes to sweetly kiss Xiao Changyi on the lips.
In front of the children, his wife had finally kissed him again!
Xiao Changyi’s lips curved slightly. He didn’t say anything, but he had already made up his mind to pick flowers for his wife again in the future.
Yesterday he had seen a lot of wildflowers blooming on the mountain that were quite beautiful, but he hadn’t had the time to go; today, after he finished cooking and saw his wife was still in the inner chamber dressing the children, he hurried to the mountain.
Indeed, his wife liked them.
"Look at you, your clothes are all wet from the dew, and your shoes too, go on, go change them," she said.
"Hmm," Xiao Changyi obediently went to change.
An Jing stood at the entrance to the main hall, watching Xiao Changyi enter the inner chamber with a happy and sweet smile. Then, she lowered her head and blissfully sniffed the flowers she held in her hands.
The flowers didn’t actually smell much, but they were sweet enough in An Jingxin’s heart, causing the smile on her face to grow larger.
Catching a glimpse of the four children grinning at her from the corner of her eye, An Jing immediately entered the main hall and began to show off the flowers Xiao Changyi gave her to each of the children.
"Jing’er, Star, Qinger, Yun Er, see? These are the flowers your dad gave me, pretty, aren’t they?"
"Do you want them? Well, I’m not giving them to you! These are a gift from your dad to me!"
"Look at your dad, how good he is to me, everything for the first time he’s given to me; I’ll bet you, this must be the first time your dad has given flowers. And they are for me!"
"You can’t even be envious!"
"Your dad, oh, you don’t know how good he is to me, better than anyone..."
As soon as Xiao Changyi came out after changing his clothes and shoes, he saw An Jing, full of pride, showing off to the four children how good he was to her, which made the corners of his mouth curl up once again.