"Grandpa can promise you anything." Li Yuan said firmly.
"Grandpa is so kind..." Sizi rubbed Li Yuan's wrinkled old face and smiled brightly.
"Haha... Come, tell grandpa, what do you want grandpa to promise you?"
"I want my grandpa who loves me the most. When he gets better, he can always be with Si Zi, okay?"
"...Sizi." Li Yuan's throat froze.
"Grandpa is sick. Sizi is very scared. He is afraid that the grandfather who loves me the most is gone."
Si Zi buried his face deeply in Li Yuan's neck and choked in a low voice.
Feeling the dampness and heat on his neck, Li Yuan felt so distressed that he almost broke into pieces.
"My good granddaughter, Sizi, don't be sad. Grandpa, grandpa promises you."
"Promise to stay with you forever, okay?"
"But if grandpa doesn't treat his illness, he won't be able to stay with Si Zi because of his poor health."
Sizi finally raised his little face full of tears and choked with sobs. "Grandpa, Sizi wants you to get better..."
"My little sweetheart, don't cry. Grandpa's heart is almost broken. Grandpa promises you.
Treat, I must cure the disease. When grandpa recovers, can I take you to play?"
"real?"
"Of course it is."
"Then... Grandpa wants to hook up with Sizi, and he is not allowed to cheat."
Li Yuan, who was already in tears, was amused again by his little granddaughter's childishness.
He stretched out his fingers, and gently but surely hooked them with Sizi's green-white little finger...
Changsun Wugou gently wiped the corners of his eyes, and looked at his father with red beard and gray hair as he awkwardly stretched out his fingers.
I made a pact with Sizi, who was crying and smiling, and felt relaxed in my heart.
Seeing this, he giggled again and even kissed Li Yuan several times.
It makes this father who hardly raises his eyebrows these days very happy.
"Okay Sizi, grandpa is sick, come down quickly."
Sizi nodded sensibly, gently touched Li Yuan's forehead with a small palm, and said seriously.
"Okay, grandpa, you are a patient now, so you can't hold me for too long. When you recover, you can give me a good hug, okay?"
"Okay, haha, grandpa promises you that when the illness is cured, you can hug my sweet granddaughter..."
"Come here, Sizi, what are you doing with your grandpa?"
Changsun Wugou squatted down and looked at Si Zi who reluctantly let go of Li Yuan's hand and walked towards him.
"Mom, this is a secret between Si Zi and grandpa. You can't tell mom, right grandpa?"
"Haha, yes, Sizi is right, grandpa will definitely keep it a secret."
Li Yuan nodded heavily, but couldn't close his mouth.
"Well, then I won't ask." Changsun Wujia gently scratched Si Zi's beautiful nose and laughed.
#####
Cheng Chubi was outside Da'an Palace, looking around boredly for a long time. Soon, his attention was attracted by the ancient trees on the side.
To be precise, I saw a group of hard-working ants at the foot of a big tree, besieging an unlucky spanker.
I don’t know if this spanking bug was pecked by a bird or bitten by something else. It’s missing half of its tail and three legs.
It was dying at the foot of the tree, and a large number of ants had appeared around it.
At this moment, everyone was stepping forward to try to subdue the spanker, but the spanker was naturally unwilling to be surrendered and kept struggling on its own.
The fight between the two sides seemed very exciting, and more and more ants crawled out of the holes at the foot of the tree.
They surged towards the unlucky insect, so densely packed that they almost covered the insect.
The guards and eunuchs at the gate of Da'an Palace saw the tall and heroic Cheng Laosan.
He actually squatted at the foot of a big tree, and then squatted there motionless.
It took a long time to make a cup of tea, and it seemed as if not even a hair had moved.
This made the guards and eunuchs a little confused, wondering if something would happen to Cheng Laosan, the rumored young man who lost both his parents.
One of the guards plucked up the courage, quietly moved forward a few steps, stretched out his neck and took a long look.
"What's going on? What is Mr. Cheng doing?" the guard on the side couldn't help but ask.
"...He seems to be looking at the ant hole." The guard stretched his sore neck and said unconfidently.
"..."
Not far away, a figure came in a hurry, and his eyes quickly locked on Cheng Chubi.
"Brother Chu Bi, hey, what are you doing squatting here?"
The figure of Prince Li Chengqian sounded from behind along with the sound of footsteps.
"I have met His Highness the Crown Prince." Cheng Chubi quickly turned around and saluted.
Li Chengqian waved his hand and glanced around, and then he realized why Cheng Chubi was squatting here.
"Okay, there's no one else here. You and I are just like brothers. Are you... looking at ants?"
Look at the ants, big guys, look at the ants. If this spreads, it will have a bad impact. Cheng Chubi smiled slightly uncomfortably.
Just as he was about to say something in defense, he saw Li Chengqian squatting down as well. "Oh, it's actually ants eating bedbugs."
"Is this a bed bug?" Cheng Chubi looked at the green spanking bug with a body like a European-style triangular shield.
I'm not a gangster, but this thing has a more distinctive name in the southwest where I live.
"This should be called a spanker, right?"
"Spanker? What a weird name..." Li Chengqian was very curious.
"Because if you touch it, it will feel danger.
It will release gas with a strong odor, hence the name."
Li Chengqian looked stunned.
"I see, such a name is quite vivid, Bedbug, because that's what the guards around me call it."
Cheng Chubi looked at the prince who didn't care about his own image at all. He also looked at the ants with great interest.
I couldn't help but feel a lot better for Li Chengqian, who had the same hobby. I almost wanted to ask him if he had ever filled an ant hole when he was a child.
I heard Li Chengqian suddenly say, "When I was a child, there was a nest of ants like this in my own yard.
I like to see them very much. When the weather is nice, they will climb down from the trees.
When the weather is bad, they will climb out from under the trees."
"I remember when I was five years old, one day they came to sweep me and found the ant hole..."
"Then... they went to boil a pot of hot water and poured it all in."
Cheng Chubi's eyes lit up. Oops, there are people who use hot water. In the past, I only used cold water to fill the ant holes.
"They were all dead... Since then, I have never been to that tree again..."
Li Chengqian raised his head, with a touch of sadness in his expression.
Such an expression made Cheng Chubi, who was calm on the surface, secretly take a breath.
I was afraid and wiped away cold sweat, secretly glad, fortunately I didn't just do it for the sake of friendship.
He took the initiative to ask this guy if he was a comrade-in-arms. His Royal Highness and the ants were in the same group.
If he knew that I was an excellent ant killer, he would be in the East Palace from now on.
Can you live a good life by working under the prince?
"It seems that someone is coming out. Hurry, let's go over. It's not good for others to see it."
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince saw the movement at the gate of Da'an Palace and quickly moved away from the foot of the big tree.
Then he stood gracefully and reservedly on the flat ground paved with stone slabs.