Un-edited so please don’t kill me if you find anything wrong, please gently commenting so I can fix it. Thank you.
Witch, Open Your Eyes Chapter 111
Cat Part 9
The wind picked up in the evening.
As Fang Daichuan was walking back to the cabin, the cold wind blew snow mist all over his face. He put the basket he had won from the snowman fight on the ground, shielding Beta with one hand and brushing the snow from his hair and collar with the other.
A warm scent suddenly wafted through the air, mixing with the coldness of the wind and snow.
Fang Daichuan inhaled, suspecting that his sense of smell had been frozen to the core, or else how he could have caught a whiff of fried crabmeat and fried fish steak through the snow and ice.
“Beta, has my nose been frozen off?” Fang Daichuan looked down at Beta, but to his surprise, Beta’s whole body stood up from his arms, its nose sniffing vigorously in the air, its little whiskers stained with two snowflakes, trembling.
Its eyes suddenly lit up. Fang Daichuan’s heart pounded violently as a possibility occurred to him.
At the end of the road stood a warm-coloured house with a large red roof and a little halo of light through the foggy windows, at this moment he forget about the dark sky and the wind and snow.
Fang Daichuan was halfway through his frantic run after Beta when he heard the camera brother behind him shout, “The basket! Your basket!”
Fang Daichuan sighed and ran back, picking up the basket and running back, listening to his beating heart all the way.
As he entered the door, Fang Daichuan held the door with his right hand.
He tried to tell himself that act normal, you couldn’t be too high-profile in front of the camera and that it probably wasn’t true that a certain shameless person had come …… and then he heard Beta’s soft, whiny cat cry.
Calm down, he wouldn’t run away. Fang Daichuan rubbed his face, it must be frozen, otherwise why can’t he close his mouth? He sniffed and pushed open the door.
The fireplace was lit by an orange fire and outside the large floor-to-ceiling windows was a fairy-tale snow scene.
Li Sinian was wearing a turtleneck sweater, leggings and flight boots. Standing by the fire, he hugged Beta and smiled at him. The warm light from the fire neutralised his overly dark features, reflecting the softness of his face and the tenderness of his eyes.
Fang Daichuan threw the basket, rushed up and hugged him. Who cares about the show, Fang Daichuan thought, if it’s too much, let the show team edit the post-production by themselves. He hugged Li Sinian tightly and Beta was squeezed by them and screamed, scratching Fang Daichuan with its paw fiercely.
In a place where Li Sinian could not see, Fang Daichuan jabbed his fist at it.
“It’s freezing, take off your clothes.” Li Sinian laughed and rubbed the top of his head.
The temperature difference between indoors and outdoors was so great that the snowflakes stuck to the fur melted with the heat of the house, and Beta jumped down to the floor to shake its fur and lick its paws while a cameraman lay on the floor to film it.
Fang Daichuan took off his jacket and jumper, flung his thick boots aside and wiped his hair wearing just his shirt and trousers.
“Come on, Beta has putting the tough persona but as soon as you came, the original form was revealed.” Fang Daichuan stretched his foot to tease Beta, who arrogantly twisted away and ignored him.
Li Sinian squatted on the ground to sort out the contents of the basket, smiling at the two of them.
“Why are you here? You didn’t tell us when you came and made Beta sad for half a day.” Fang Daichuan also squatted beside him, complaining half-heartedly about him.
Li Sinian took out the frozen fish and beef and left them to thaw in the room, “The programme team said for me to keep it a secret, it wouldn’t look authentic if I tell you.”
Fang Daichuan sighed in depression, “So you’re looking for real performance? My stupid look has been recorded, and when the time comes, I’ll lose tens of thousands of fans, you say you’re not overdoing it?”
Li Sinian laughed but did not say anything.
The fish, beef and chicken giblets were minced, diced skinned prawns were added, an egg yolk was beaten into the mixture, and the dough was formed into a ball and steamed. This is Beta’s cat food, with a spoonful of nutritional powder added, in case his son is deficient in any vital elements.
Beta buried its head and ate furiously, as if Fang Daichuan had abused it the other day.
Li Sinian looked amused, and when he had finished eating, he picked up the cat and weighed it with one hand: “Why do I think Beta has really lost some weight?” He teased Fang Daichuan, “What do you feed him?”
“Heaven and earth know I treat it right!” Fang Daichuan was wronged, “You don’t even look at how active it is, chasing dogs and pigs, scurrying around in the sky and the ground, last time a snake was hibernating, it scratched the snake with one paw and people have to drag it away, can it not be thin?”
Beta buried its head behind its two little paws and covered it up, not listening. Li Sinian raised an eyebrow at its cute face.
“I’m the one who lost weight,” Fang Daichuan was unhappy, “Beta eats fried chicken breast and boiled beef, I eat radish and cabbage with rice sauce, don’t look at it pretending with you now, the little stinky shamelessly is fine. I’m not treating it badly.”
“Really, you’ve lost weight too? I’ll have to weigh that up too.” Li Sinian smiled and walked over to him, bent down and held him by the buttocks, picked him up, and really turned him on his chest twice.
Fang Daichuan was frightened to death, but with cameras all around him, he was too embarrassed to complain, so he pretended to be impatient and said, “Put me down, stop it.”
For dinner, there were fried fish steaks and crab rice, and since it was hard to find vegetables in winter, Li Sinian fried a plate of cabbage with vinegar and a plate of shredded bacon and radish, and left a large portion for Sister Tong and the camera crew.
Sister Tong was moved to tears: “Oh my God, this crab roe rice is really delicious. You can open a restaurant with this skill!”
Li Sinian laughed, “No way, I can only cook ten dishes, I’ll get complaints from customers if I open a restaurant.”
“And the recipe and craftsmanship are inherited from our family’s ancestors,” Fang Daichuan picked a chopstick of shredded radish and stuffed it into Li Sinian’s bowl, glaring at him and forcing him to eat it, “You have to pay me a franchise fee to open a restaurant.”
Li Sinian had the same problem as his son, he was very picky about his food; he disliked radish, celery, leek and parsley. Basically he had a lot of dislikes. Fang Daichuan tries to make him like to eat the stuff one by one and recently he has been able to eat radish and celery, currently his next target is leeks.
Sister Tong smiled and said: “Oh, I remember, when you first debuted, you said that your favourite food is crab roe rice. It seems that there is a rather touching story about it?”
Sister Tong is a recognized representative of the host industry, her memory and ability to throw out storylines cannot be underestimated, since she was kind enough to throw out the storyline, Li Sinian hurriedly picked up on it, “Really? Is that what happened?”
“Well, you know, my grandfather and my grandma, my grandma is from the south and loves to eat crab roe with rice. My grandfather is a typical northern man and he learned to steam crab meat and fry crab roe. Later, my father, who also loved it, followed my grandfather’s example and made it so often that my mother was convinced to eat it. It’s a pity that I didn’t learn this masterpiece and I was afraid it would be lost… You must grasp it if you learn it and don’t forget it.”
When they went to bed at night, Beta was so excited that it went from one side to another, pouncing all over the bed. Li Sinian grabbed it, leaned over to smell it, and complained, “Chuan’er-ge doesn’t even give you a bath, you smell it yourself, Beta, you’re smelly!”
Beta blinked innocently, pretending not to understand.
This move will work for Fang Daichuan, but his father knows it too well, so it’s no use. Li Sinian forcefully carried it to the bathroom, gave it a good bath and used a hairdryer to make the fur shiny and smooth.
Beta had a good time but the two humans had a hard time before going to bed.
Li Sinian picked up his pillow, which was covered in Beta’s cat hair, slobber and teeth marks. Fang Daichuan stared at Beta and sighed heavily, “Didn’t the programme team prepare another pillow?”
“No,” Li Sinian didn’t know if he should have laughed or cried, “The crew said you brought me a pillow, so they didn’t prepare another one.”
What to do, the two sat helpless in the cabin, staring at the clump of dirty pillows.
“Forget it, let’s make do,” said Fang Daichuan, tired from a long day and too lazy to toss and turn, climbing into bed and dragging his own pillow to the centre of the bed, where he lay down and then patted the other half of the pillow, “Sleep together.”
It was completely dark outside, and the village lights had gone out one by one, with only the slightest glow from the fireplace and the crackle of burning wood in the house.
The camera was still on, and the two people in the centre of the frame were leaning together, sleeping on the same pillow, head to head, black hair and light chestnut hair intertwined like two cross-necked birds with intertwined crowns of feathers. Beta had balled itself into a tiny ball and pressed itself against the quilt on the two men’s chests.
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