House Dad's Literary Life

Chapter 421: The Little Girl Who Planted Flowers

The idea of planting flowers was proposed by Mo Fei.

After staying at home for the past few days, Mo Fei noticed that the flowerbed outside the coffee shop had suffered through the winter. The flowers inside were scattered and sparse, no longer blooming as they once had, and weeds had even begun to grow in many places.

So, Mo Fei suggested that the whole family use this weekend to properly tidy up the flowerbed.

Yang Yi readily agreed, and he was more than happy to organize an activity where the whole family worked together. So early that morning, Xixi—who was going to join in—was fully geared up by her father.

The little girl wore long rubber boots, denim overalls, a towel around her neck like the kind old workers used, and a sun hat on her head. The pink, doll-like little fairy instantly turned into a sweet and pure little village girl.

But she found the outfit interesting and giggled nonstop all morning.

Before planting, they had to pull weeds and loosen the soil. Yang Yi took on this heavy labor himself, while Mo Fei helped dig out the flowers that were still alive, placing them aside with their clumps of soil intact.

Naturally, Xixi was assigned a small “field” of her own—one full of weeds. The little girl was thrilled. She didn’t feel tired at all and energetically swung her small hoe, tilling the soil until the patch looked as though it had been scratched up by a dog.

While she worked, Yang Yi didn’t dare relax. He stood nearby, watching carefully, afraid she might swing the hoe onto her own foot. Although it was a children’s hoe—with a hard plastic handle and a wooden, blunt blade—it still had weight. Getting hit on the head or foot would be serious!

But the little girl was having great fun. She tirelessly turned that small patch of earth upside down.

“Alright, alright, that’s about enough!” Yang Yi said with a helpless smile as he pulled his daughter back.

“Papa, let me play a little longer, okay? Let me help you, okay?” The little girl, still not satisfied, pointed at the patch her father hadn’t finished yet and asked eagerly.

“That won’t do. Your little hoe can’t handle too much more—it might break. Don’t you still want to keep it as a souvenir?” Yang Yi said with a smile.

Xixi looked at the hoe in her hand with its cartoon stickers, then glanced at her father’s unfinished patch. After hesitating for a moment, she chose to treasure it. “Okay then!”

“Xixi, come here and help Mama hold these flowers steady. Mama needs to change their soil,” Mo Fei chimed in, giving Xixi another small task.

Seeing Yang Yi and the others working, Ding Xiang and Yang Huan wanted to help, but Yang Yi refused.

It was just a small flowerbed— there was no need to make a big fuss. Besides, Yang Yi wanted to treat it as a family activity so Xixi could experience the joy of working.

Yang Yi used a rake to loosen the soil thoroughly and sifted out the stones and clumps of grass mixed in.

When Yang Yi finished, he turned around and saw Xixi intently helping her mother support the flower stems, while Mo Fei was cleaning the outer layer of soil from the flowers she had dug up, leaving only the moist soil around the roots.

The little girl squatting on the ground was very serious. There was no smile on her small face, her little mouth slightly open as if she had forgotten to close it.

Mo Fei was also no longer concerned about her image. With one knee kneeling in the dirt, she tilted her head and used a small brush to tidy the loose soil around the roots of the flowers. If her hair hadn’t been pinned up, it probably would have hung all the way down to the ground.

Perhaps she hadn’t noticed when she wiped away her sweat earlier, but a bit of dirt had gotten onto Mo Fei’s face. She looked completely different from the glamorous, radiant superstar she was on stage.

At that moment, Mo Fei, like Xixi, looked like a slightly prettier village girl.

But in Yang Yi’s eyes, they were beautiful like this too—real and endearing.

Finally, Mo Fei finished her work. She clapped her hands and raised her head with a smile. “Sorry to keep you waiting! Now, let’s plant the flowers!”

Only then did Yang Yi come back to his senses. He walked over, took the towel from around his neck, and gently wiped the dirt from Mo Fei’s face, saying gently, “You’ve worked hard!”

“Not at all! I’m having a great time!” Yang Yi showed a little affection toward Mo Fei outdoors, in front of their daughter. Mo Fei felt sweet inside, but she was still a little shy and responded softly.

“Papa, you didn’t say I worked hard! Look how dirty I am!” Xixi felt her hands were dirty but didn’t know where to wipe them. She was quite clean-loving and couldn’t bear to wipe them on her denim overalls. Now seeing her father only caring about wiping her mother’s face and ignoring her, she pouted unhappily.

Yang Yi couldn’t help but laugh. He picked up a towel, walked over and said affectionately, “Alright, Papa will wipe you clean now. You worked hard too!”

When it came to planting the flowers, Yang Yi and the others didn’t need to rush and could take their time. So, unlike before, they didn’t divide the flowerbed by assigning each person a section. Instead, they arranged the planting tasks according to the difficulty of each step.

Yang Yi was responsible for digging the holes and filling in the soil afterward, while Mo Fei was responsible for bringing the flower plants over and planting them in place. Besides the original plants, there were also artificially cultivated seedlings Yang Yi had bought at the flower-and-bird market the day before. As for how to arrange them, Mo Fei had her own ideas.

As for Xixi, she was responsible for stepping on the soil her father had filled in to flatten it, and then watering it.

The little girl ran around happily with her small watering can. After her parents planted a flower, she would use her cute rubber boots to press the soil flat around the plant. Then she stepped back two paces and carefully watered it with the watering can, as if she were worried that the water might splash onto her pretty little boots.

The small watering can wasn’t very big—after all, it was meant for children. After watering once, she had to go back to the bucket nearby to refill it. The weather was still a little chilly, and the water in the bucket was quite cold. Earlier that morning, Xixi had already been chilled once; when she tried to wash her hands, the cold made the little girl bare her teeth and grimace. So, every time she refilled the watering can, she was very careful, trying her best to avoid direct contact with the water in the bucket.

But accidents were always inevitable.

“Ah!” Xixi was holding the watering can and didn’t notice that she had tilted it upward a little. As a result, a stream of water flowed down along the handle and onto the little girl’s hand, causing Xixi to exclaim in surprise.

“What’s wrong?” Mo Fei looked over worriedly.

But the little girl burst into giggles. She carried the watering can over and told her mother, treating it like something fun: “Mama, guess what! When the water fell, I thought it would be really cold, but it wasn’t that cold. It really startled me!”

It turned out that after the sun had risen, the water in the bucket wasn’t as cold anymore. Moreover, after passing through the plastic watering can, the temperature was noticeably not as low as before. Xixi had simply startled herself.

After Mo Fei understood what had happened, she laughed as well. As she rolled up Xixi’s damp sleeve, she said, “You didn’t scare yourself, but you scared Mama.”

Amid such laughter and cheerful chatter, the family worked the entire morning and finally gave the flowerbed a complete makeover.

However, the results weren’t visible yet. Aside from a small area where the old plants were blooming—though their petals looked somewhat wilted from being moved—the flowers in the other areas were still just seedlings, and it would probably take several more weeks before they blossomed.

But looking at the neatly arranged flowerbed, not only was Mo Fei happy, but Yang Yi also felt much more relaxed—he had bought just the right number of seedlings, enough to plant in even rows and even columns. Although the flowerbed was not square, the neat arrangement was pleasing to the eye at a glance! When they returned to the coffee shop, Yang Yi planned to take Mo Fei and Xixi to the restroom in the back to wash their shoes and hands before going upstairs. However, when he saw Guo Ziyi, who was still staying in the coffee shop to avoid the spotlight, he immediately became wary.