WRA CH95

For this five-night, six-day countryside getaway with the spirit wives and spirit babies, Chu Ren was definitely the most anxious one of all.

Naturally, Bai Qi did not fail to live up to that anxiety.

There was simply no helping it: trailing behind Gua Zi and Coffee Bean, Little Bai Chu’s appetite noticeably improved. Everything tasted delicious to him, he was no longer a picky eater, and because it was summertime, he had visibly packed on weight.

Chu Ren had no choice but to keep watch, ensuring they didn’t go out hunting field mice. Using Xiao Kui Bao, he generated fake illustrations to lecture the three illiterate toddlers: “Wild field mice are nationally protected terrestrial wildlife of significant ecological, scientific, and social value.”

Chu Ren brandished a legal document—bound in an imposing red cover: “These are official statutory provisions. Read through them one by one.”

The three babies sat in a row on tiny wooden stools, their chubby little toes barely grazing the floor. Little Gua Zi took the book first. Clasping the massive legal tome with his tiny, chubby arms, he browsed through it with utmost solemnity: “Baby understands.”

He handed it to his younger brother, Coffee Bean.

Coffee Bean stared at the text, his eyes filled with profound confusion. Little Gua Zi enthusiastically pointed a chubby finger, coaching him word by word: “Field mouse babies are protected animals!”

Coffee Bean: “Oh, oh!”

Reviewed and acknowledged, Coffee Bean passed it on to the little white snake—a genuinely protected wild species.

Little Bai Chu: Reviewed and acknowledged.

Chu Ren continued solemnly: “Catching wild field mice without authorization means the police uncles will come arrest you.”

Whoa! During their brief stint at “entrepreneurship,” the three toddlers had already been nabbed by police uncles once. All three immediately clenched their chubby little fists behind their backs: Baby does not eat field mice!

Human laws really were sticking their noses into everything—even trivial, petty matters like this. Xiang Zhen picked up the red-covered legal book Chu Ren had flourished, only to discover it was actually a banquet menu from a neighbor’s recent college acceptance celebration.

“…”

He suddenly recalled that long ago, when he had offered to run over to Manning’s place at lightning speed to fetch coffee for Zhou Sicheng, Zhou Sicheng had told him, “The state strictly prohibits performing acts by animals and plants.”

Xiang Zhen whispered to Dou Manning, “I’ve figured it out. Capitalists always love throwing their weight around under false pretenses. Blue-collar workers are far more honest.”

Dou Manning replied, “Blue-collar workers can do it too.”

Last time, when Coffee Bean brought home coffee beans to launch an “entrepreneurial venture,” Shen Ku gave his son a science lecture about the ancient Mother Tree Da Hong Pao tea trees on Mount Wuyi, explaining that the state had banned picking, selling, and distributing leaves from the mother trees.

“Your daddy is the coffee realm’s equivalent of the Mother Tree Da Hong Pao. The coffee beans daddy produces are strictly forbidden from being sold by national law,” Shen Ku had declared with utmost gravity, scheming to monopolize his spouse’s exquisite fragrance all to himself.

Hearing that, Coffee Bean tilted his head in deep thought, hugged Dou Manning’s shin, and pleaded: “Daddy, can you lend baby some coffee beans? Baby will pay you back when baby grows up.”

He didn’t claim they were daddy’s coffee beans—he was marketing Baby Coffee!

Left completely tongue-tied, Shen Ku realized he was cornered: the kid genuinely intended to borrow and repay.

Manning was thoroughly charmed by his adorable son and agreed on the spot. He had mountains of reserve stock anyway; it would take Shen Ku until the year of the monkey to drink it all.

As Shen Ku hesitated to speak, Dou Manning reminded him, “Back when you worked on the construction site, didn’t you sneak plenty of things from your mother’s house too?”

Shen Ku: “…”

Plucking a jar of coffee beans for his son, Dou Manning told Shen Ku, “Anyone in construction should understand one fundamental truth.”

Shen Ku asked, “What truth?”

Dou Manning said, “If the upper beam isn’t straight, the lower beam goes crooked.”

With a two-year-old child, Shen Ku suddenly had his old history dug up, costing him an exclusive jar of private-reserve coffee beans.

Since field mice were off-limits, the longans happened to be in season.

Right in front of Li Guihua’s door stood a longan tree with rough bark, heavy with succulent fruit hanging in cascading clusters like sweet waterfalls.

Drool pooled at the corners of the three toddlers’ mouths.

Snakes were natural-born climbers.

With no one around, Little Bai Chu shifted into a slender snake, slithering smoothly up the trunk.

Little Gua Zi wanted to get up the tree too. Clamping his hands and feet tightly around the trunk, he exerted every ounce of milk-fueled toddler strength. He was strong, but without proper footholds, climbing was an uphill battle.

Seeing this, Little Bai Chu slithered back down, coiling tightly around the trunk like a thick hemp rope to act as raised handholds. Barefoot and aided by the snake baby, Little Gua Zi wiggled his plump little bottom and clambered straight up to the fork of the branches.

Coffee Bean followed suit.

Before long, a three-meter-tall young longan tree was laden with three chubby spirit cubs—a load comparable to perching three giant pandas in the boughs. The branches creaked and swayed, ready to snap at any second.

Yet the three babies weren’t afraid in the slightest. Sitting comfortably on the branches, they plucked longans and feasted on the spot.

A light press popped the thin shell right open. Plucking out the sweet, translucent pulp, they popped it into their mouths, chubby fingers guiding tiny front teeth to scrape every bit of fruit clean.

Dark, glossy longan seeds were spat down toward the ground, pitter-pattering like rainfall.

Not a single cub feared falling. Both hands were occupied with eating, completely unbothered with holding onto the tree.

Hearing the rustling overhead, Zhou Sicheng stepped outside and spotted the shadowy silhouettes trembling amidst the foliage. He drew in a deep, sharp breath.

How on earth did they get up there? Little Gua Zi hasn’t even unlocked this skill yet.

Walking beneath the canopy, a stray seed spat out by Little Gua Zi landed squarely on the crown of his head.

Getting bold, aren’t we.

Zhou Sicheng called up, “Good son, if you fall, you’ll hit the ground the hardest of the three.”

A solid, dense cub—guaranteed to make a loud thud.

Tossing his longan aside, Little Gua Zi chirped brightly: “Baby will test it out!”

With that, he wiggled his bottom and dove straight down.

Standing at 1.9 meters, Zhou Sicheng could easily reach the branch where his son sat. Taken completely by surprise by the aerial ambush, he caught the toddler by pure reflex, caught between exasperation and laughter.

Pinching Little Gua Zi’s cheeks to ensure nothing was choking him, he flipped the cub upside down over his forearm and gave his little bottom a firm smack.

“Feigning ignorance on purpose, are we?”

Well-versed in receiving reprimands, Little Gua Zi admitted defeat instantly: “Baby knows he was wrong!”

Seeing their big brother Gua Zi get a smack, the other two cubs exchanged a glance and clung to their branches for dear life.

Stepping out the door, Xiang Zhen caught Zhou Sicheng disciplining their son and pounced on the opportunity: “You’re hitting the baby again!”

Hadn’t they agreed on free-range parenting for the sunflower baby in the countryside?! Xiang Zhen resolved to seize this leverage, compelling Zhou Sicheng to agree to let him take the toddler camping alone in the mountains tonight.

Zhou Sicheng casually patted Little Gua Zi’s back twice: “I didn’t hit him. He was choking on a longan; this is the Heimlich maneuver.”

Pausing his rescue mission, Xiang Zhen quickly pulled out his phone to search whatever-maneuver. Oh, so it really was Little Gua Zi’s fault.

Hearing the commotion, the other fathers rushed out and hastily hauled their sons down.

Indeed, these cubs were far too young to eat whole longans unsupervised; choking hazards were terribly dangerous for toddlers.

The spirit babies had no idea what all the fuss was about. All they knew was that their usually indulgent spirit daddies had also banned them from approaching the longan tree.

Shen Ku asked, “How did you get up there in the first place?”

Not a single baby answered.

The little white snake maintained an icy, cool expression, keeping his heroic deeds entirely in the shadows.

After lunch, the three toddlers happily set off once more, bustling through the fields and around the farmhouses like three cheerful puppies—Little Yellow, Little Brown, and Little White.

A little mischief was still far better than staying indoors to sneak peeks at Father Xiang Zhen’s short video feeds.

Rural residential plots were cramped, leaving barely a hand’s-width gap between adjacent self-built brick houses.

Li Guihua’s detached outdoor kitchen, complete with a traditional wood-fired stove, stood back-to-back with the neighbor’s kitchen, leaving only a razor-thin crevice between the exterior walls.

The little white snake slipped through effortlessly; Coffee Bean squeezed through with a bit of effort.

Little Gua Zi confidently followed behind—and then his chubby, milk-fed belly jammed tightly in the gap.

Uh-oh? Trouble!

Stuck without room to advance or retreat, a rescue plan was imperative.

Little Bai Chu suggested: “Let’s push together and shove this wall over!”

“Okay!”

With their backs pressed against one wall and tiny hands planted on the opposite wall, the three spirit cubs pushed forward with all their might.

The baby formula hadn’t gone to waste, but the solid wall remained utterly unyielding.

Inheriting an engineer’s practical instincts, Coffee Bean declared, “Can’t push it. We have to excavate right here!”

And so, Little Bai Chu and Coffee Bean took turns hacking at the cement wall using a kitchen spatula, carrying out focused excavation right around Gua Zi’s stuck tummy.

After a bout of sweaty manual labor, Auntie Guihua’s wall was covered in shallow gouges.

Coated in pulverized cement dust, Coffee Bean wiped the sweat from his cheeks, looking the spitting image of Dou Manning on a construction site back in the day.

Xiang Zhen had mentioned craving sweet-and-sour pork ribs. Coming downstairs to cook, Zhou Sicheng couldn’t locate the kitchen spatula. Checking his son’s GPS tracker, he strolled around the side of the house and spotted the toddler construction crew.

Stepping back without making a sound, he pretended not to have seen a thing.

Only when the three little construction workers collapsed from exhaustion did he pull out his phone, playing a short video on speaker while musing aloud: “Wife, how come nobody is watching your phone?”

Hearing this, Little Gua Zi sucked in his belly with all his toddler might and popped right out.

Baby wants to watch!

Closing the video, Zhou Sicheng snapped several photos and shared them to the three-person group chat.

[Zhou Sicheng]:What kind of shoddy construction is this? [Shocked] Three tiny cubs scraped off an entire layer of stucco.

Auntie Guihua’s two-story house had been built ten years ago with financial backing from Chu Ren and Bai Qi.

Before Li Guihua took over the Spirit Foundation, the accounts held a sizable reserve. But money ran out eventually, and back then, the outside world was shifting rapidly with housing prices fluctuating daily. Li Guihua had pinched her pennies, figuring future spirits might want to buy apartments in the city, so she never prioritized building a rural estate.

Only after Bai Qi became wealthy did Li Guihua finally loosen her purse strings.

A modern three-story villa, fully furnished inside and out, with each bedroom styled to distinct tastes.

The sons-in-law who arrived later were forced to stay in ready-made quarters, feeling somewhat like freeloading boarders.

Since the house couldn’t simply be torn down and rebuilt, President Chu walked with his head held high. This was the privilege of having the head spirit as his spouse! He insisted that Zhou Sicheng cook and Shen Ku wash the dishes to offset their room and board.

Swallowing his pride for days, Zhou Sicheng had finally found his counterattack.

[Zhou Sicheng]:@EngineerShen, draft a reinforcement blueprint. I’ll fund one million yuan.

[Shen Ku]:Agreed. The soundproofing definitely needs an upgrade too.

[Chu Ren]:…Try letting spirits take a spatula to your villa and see what happens.

All in all, the three cubs had an absolute blast staying at their grandmother’s rural home. But for the adults, the three bedrooms were far too close together; wanting to be intimate with one’s spouse at night was terribly awkward.

Eventually, Xiang Zhen proposed returning to the city for work.

Li Guihua saw the three families off as if ushering away turbulent deities. Grandbabies were adorable, but exhausting beyond belief! Who could understand the torment? None of the three sons-in-law were willing to take a loss; whenever one spirit pawned a baby off to sleep in her room, the other two cubs were guaranteed to come knocking on her door within ten minutes.

With three babies huddled together, falling asleep was an ordeal, ruining Li Guihua’s beauty sleep for the next day’s mahjong matches.

She had a mahjong buddy who raised two sons. The elder son sent his grandson back for the summer holidays, and right on his heels, the younger son dropped off his granddaughter—even scheduling to pick her up a day later.

Who knew these cutthroat capitalists would calculate every penny with the exact same petty score-keeping!

Everyone claimed Li Guihua was truly blessed in life: her juniors were accomplished and handsome, and even better, the spouses got along harmoniously while the children never fought.

Aiya, underneath the surface, the scheming was ferocious—they wouldn’t even book tickets on the same high-speed train ride home.

“Next time, remember to stagger your departures,” Li Guihua muttered. Staggering schedules was the timeless wisdom of ancestors; she had made a careless oversight this time around.