After watching her take a sip of tea, the boy silently turned around and ran up the stairs, which got Meng Qingxue all baffled. She placed the teacup on the table and turned toward the boy’s mother, asking out of curiosity, “He’s so obedient that he’ll go to bed himself?”
“Nah,” answered the other dismissively. “I don’t even know where he gets all his energy from. He always gets restless at night, so I have to coax him to sleep.”
“Then… what is he doing now?”
Chu He glanced at the stairway, then smiled warmly at her guest. “He’s probably tidying up the room for you!”
“Tidying up the room?”
“Yep! We have a guest room upstairs that we don’t usually use. He must’ve guessed that you’ll be staying in that room, so he’s likely sweeping and mopping the floor of that room now.”
That left her even more speechless. “He knows how to do housework already?”
“Yeah. Though his work isn’t particularly clean, he shows great enthusiasm for it.”
“Oh, no; he needs not go through all that trouble. I can do it myself.” As she spoke, she sprinted up the stairs and headed straight toward the guest room, where she saw Baby Chu struggling to hold the mop while he did his best to clean the floor.
Tiny, crystalline droplets of sweat could be seen on his forehead under the lights.
“Baby, I can do the cleaning myself. You should go to bed now since it’s already so late.”
“How can I let you do it? I’m the little host, so this is what I should do!” The boy then continued to work hard in mopping the floor.
As she stood at the doorway and took in that scene with a smile, she could not help lowering her head toward her belly and gently caress it. Inwardly, she wondered how nice it would be if her child grew up to be as obedient and sensible as the boy in front of her. She would need not to worry so much about the child then.
By the time the bedroom floor was all clean, the policewoman was done with the cleaning downstairs as well, and she came up, asking, “Are you done cleaning yet, son?”
The lad dragged the mop over to his mother and, like a soldier, gave her a salute with his small hand and answered firmly, “Yes! I’m done, mommy!”
“Then, off to bed you go!”
“Hehehe!” The boy giggled and awkwardly rubbed himself against his mother before asking carefully, “Mommy, since I’m such a good boy, can I watch another cartoon before I sleep?”
“You still want to watch cartoons this late at night?!” Her face sank as she sternly replied, “No! Let’s go rest for the night, alright?”
“Pretty please?” Looking extremely aggrieved and pitiful as he hugged his mother’s thighs, the child looked up at her and implored, “Just one episode! Just one episode, please? I took a nap this afternoon, so I don’t feel sleepy now!”
“I’m exhausted and terribly sleepy after working for the whole day, though. Don’t you want to sleep with mommy?”
Upon hearing what his mother said, he insisted no more and, instead, pouted his mouth as he nodded reluctantly. “Alright, I’ll go to bed with mommy.”
“Now, that’s my good boy!” The woman then glanced at her guest. “It’s getting late. You should get some rest now.”
“Mm.”
“This guest room has an en-suite bathroom and hot water. You can go wash up before retiring for the night!” With that, she left and closed the door behind her.
After placing her luggage on the table, Meng Qingxue looked around the guest room.
It was quite roomy with at least ten square meters of space and no connecting doors.
