Chapter 17: The Real Heir in a Fake Young Master Heartthrob Novel

Under Jiujiu’s expectant bean-like eyes, Shen Yijing gently shook his head. Seeing his little one droop his head, he smoothed his feathers to comfort him.

“Our country doesn’t have bird astronauts yet.”

“Daddy will pay money, Jiujiu will go.”

Shen Yijing was once again troubled by his little one’s overflowing confidence, pinching his small wings and rubbing them – they felt quite nice.

“But Daddy doesn’t have that much money. Being an astronaut can’t be bought with money, and astronaut training is very hard work. At the very least, Jiujiu couldn’t sleep in anymore.”

“Jiujiu doesn’t sleep in, Jiujiu only sleeps fifteen hours a day.”

When being criticized by his daddy for being lazy, Jiujiu felt he needed to defend himself – he wasn’t that kind of lazy little chirp.

“Fifteen hours isn’t a lot? If you were an astronaut bird, you’d probably need to train fifteen hours a day.”

One sentence directly dispelled Jiujiu’s idea. He ingratiatingly nuzzled against his daddy, going from hoping daddy would agree just moments ago to now fearing daddy might nod.

“Jiujiu thinks he still can’t bear to leave Daddy. Jiujiu won’t go, will stay with Daddy.”

Seeing his guilty little appearance, Shen Yijing leaned close to him. Jiujiu understood and gently kissed Daddy with his beak.

Soon it was time for high school to start. When Gu Mother and her husband sent their child to school, Jiujiu went along too.

Since they didn’t plan to board at school, they just looked at the classroom and attended a parent meeting.

Gu Mother always had strange ritualistic feelings about these small matters. When notified a few days ago that there would be a parent meeting after school started, she changed clothes several times this morning, picking out the most dignified and appropriate outfit.

While she attended the parent meeting in the classroom, Shen Yijing took Jiujiu for a tour around the school. Gu Father got him a meal card.

Jiujiu pointed his wing at the fried chicken leg in the display case, constantly swallowing saliva, hoping his daddy could quickly see through his little one’s stubbornness.

If he didn’t see through it soon, Jiujiu felt his drool could wet his feathers.

“Want to eat the big chicken leg?”

Shen Yijing looked down at Jiujiu in his shirt’s chest pocket. He had specifically chosen this outfit today to make it convenient for Jiujiu to maintain a normal height to look at others.

Jiujiu nodded his head rapidly, wishing he could install a continuous clicker on his neck.

“Chirp chirp chirp.”

Shen Yijing bought a fried chicken leg and also got a cup of bubble tea. He held the chicken leg in his left hand, feeding it to Jiujiu’s mouth, and when Jiujiu tapped him with his beak, he also offered the milk tea.

After all these years, Shen Yijing had learned that Jiujiu’s digestive system was even better than humans’ – he had never gotten sick.

However, occasionally if he ate too much junk food, he would still cover his belly with his wings and whimper about pain.

Like today, with one cup of milk tea plus one fried chicken leg, when they got home he could only eat vegetables and rice.

Huo Sitong and Gu Qian both happened to attend this same high school. She had just arrived at the cafeteria when she immediately spotted someone holding a fried chicken leg in his left hand and gripping milk tea in his right, feeding a little yellow chick.

The scene looked very cute, but she instinctively frowned. She also kept pet birds, and this kind of diet was obviously very unhealthy.

“Don’t you have any sense of responsibility? Since you chose to raise this bird, why can’t you be responsible for it? You only know it’s fun to feed it like this, but do you know how much burden this puts on its digestive system?”

Shen Yijing was suddenly accused, and both he and his little one froze.

Jiujiu’s feathers puffed up in anger, and he began pointing at this world’s female lead with his wings. How could she be so annoying?

He had spent so much effort back then to make Daddy accept that he really could eat those things, and this person knew nothing about it. With just a movement of her lips, Daddy might stop giving him food again.

If the angry little bird wasn’t confined by the hole in the clothes and unable to fly, Jiujiu would definitely have a good argument with her.

He was just a bird – if he really couldn’t eat something, he would call out, and even if he ate poison, at most his belly would hurt for a while.

Shen Yijing didn’t want to deal with someone who came over to criticize him for no reason. He turned to walk in another direction, but Huo Sitong quickly chased after him and blocked his path.

“Didn’t you hear me talking? This will shorten the bird’s lifespan. If you keep a pet, you should be responsible for it. If you have no sense of responsibility, why keep one? You might as well give it to me!”

Even though Shen Yijing had a good temper, hearing this made him somewhat angry. Jiujiu preemptively chirped a few times.

“classmate, there’s nothing wrong with my ears. I simply don’t want to deal with impolite people.”

After saying this, Shen Yijing left the cafeteria with Jiujiu and found a stone bench to sit on. Jiujiu ate the chicken leg and milk tea completely clean.

He wanted to rub his little belly with his wings, but couldn’t reach it in his current position. He struggled to pull himself out but couldn’t move, so he could only ask his daddy for help.

“Chirp chirp Daddy, it’s pressing against Jiujiu’s belly.”

Shen Yijing carefully took him out and placed him in his palm, gently poking his round little belly.

The chicken leg was even bigger than Jiujiu, but after he ate it, his belly only got a little bit bigger. Lying in Daddy’s palm, Jiujiu was too lazy to turn over.

“When I’m at school, even if you’re alone at home, you must exercise properly, understand?”

Hearing this, Jiujiu struggled to flip himself over, found that sleeping on his stomach wasn’t very comfortable, so he flipped back again. He raised his head to stare at his daddy and asked:

“Is this enough?”

Having flipped twice, Jiujiu felt his exercise quota for the day should already be met, and he might even earn crazy praise from his daddy.

So before Shen Yijing could answer, he nodded his head first, answering himself:

“Enough, enough. How could there be such an amazing little one?”

Shen Yijing reached out and pinched the tuft of hair standing up on Jiujiu’s head, making Jiujiu immediately start begging for mercy.

“I’ll flip a few more times when I get home.”

“Exercise means running. Mom says in a few years, we might be able to buy things at home using computers. When that time comes, I’ll buy you a treadmill.”

“Will the treadmill be for Jiujiu to put clothes on?”

Jiujiu held onto his last hope in his heart – exercise was clearly just making things difficult for his little chubby chirp.

“Jiujiu will need to use exercise to earn snacks. No running means no snacks.”

Shen Yijing had seen in the newspaper Daddy subscribed to that computers would become popular in every household in their country in the future. He was very much looking forward to seeing such a scene.

Jiujiu struggled painfully between snacks and exercise, finally deciding to enjoy a few more years of his current carefree life.

After the parent meeting ended, Gu Mother and her husband took Shen Yijing home first. Boarding students returned to their dorms, day students went home with their parents, and classes would officially start tomorrow.

Since he knew his daddy would come back at night, for Jiujiu, this was similar to when Daddy went to school before.

Before going to sleep at night, Jiujiu sat on Daddy’s pillow, instructing his daddy to remember to wake him up when getting up tomorrow morning.

Shen Yijing agreed readily. The next day after getting up and changing clothes, he helped his soundly sleeping little one change clothes, brought him downstairs for breakfast, and fed him crumbled egg white.

Drowsy Jiujiu opened his mouth, chewed after eating, and only when they arrived at school and Shen Yijing was about to get out of the car did he poke under Jiujiu’s wing.

Ticklish Jiujiu immediately woke up, staring wide-eyed at his daddy, wondering what Daddy wanted to do.

“I’m going to school now. You can sleep a bit more when you get home. Mom says she’ll take you to see a movie today.”

Jiujiu instinctively waved his wing to say goodbye to Daddy, sat in the car as the driver took him home, and went to see a movie with Grandma.

When Grandma went flower arranging with friends, Jiujiu even picked the most beautiful flower, planning to give it to Daddy when he came home at night.

Time flew by, and Shen Yijing soon reached his senior year of high school.

Though be had agreed readily in his freshman year, when it really came time to separate, as his daddy packed to live at school, Jiujiu cried more miserably than anyone.

Taking advantage of when Daddy wasn’t paying attention, he stuffed himself into Daddy’s suitcase, but was exposed because a tuft of feathers stuck out.

Later he burrowed into his daddy’s pencil case, but because he was too fat, the zipper wouldn’t close. Finally, he simply threw a tantrum and stayed in his daddy’s school uniform pocket.

“Jiujiu, be good. I’ll bring you delicious things when I come back, okay?”

Jiujiu, who couldn’t bear to part with Daddy, couldn’t be tempted by anything now. He stubbornly stayed in the pocket and refused to come out no matter what.

Seeing that school was approaching, Jiujiu looked at his daddy in the middle of the night, snuggled against his daddy’s face to find a place to sleep. Before he could close his eyes, he saw his daddy, whom he thought was asleep, open his eyes.

“Oh! Daddy was pretending to sleep!”

“I wasn’t pretending to sleep. Your feathers woke me up. Jiujiu, look, isn’t the moon very beautiful tonight?”

The little one who had been throwing a tantrum looked in the direction of Daddy’s gaze – it really was quite beautiful.

“I’ll come back during monthly leave and bring you snacks, teach you English.”

“Daddy’s friend says that’s bird language, but it’s not. Bird language isn’t that complicated – just chirp chirp chirp is enough.”

At this point, Shen Yijing knew he had compromised and kissed his little one’s head.

During the first monthly leave after school started, Shen Yijing was also anxious and eager when returning home, wishing he could immediately fly to his little one’s side.

Just as he got out of the car, he caught sight of someone in blue clothes poking at a bird’s nest in a tree.

Below, fallen leaves were burning, with smoke drifting upward.

The nest was poked down by him. As it fell, Shen Yijing could clearly see that the little bird in the nest looked very familiar. He instinctively ran in that direction.

“Oh no! Daddy, they’re burning the birds!!!”