Returning to Infancy with my Nemesis - Chapter 103

Since they moved out and began raising two kittens, the two of them lived the life of cat dads directly.

When they were at home, the kittens meowed incessantly and ran around everywhere when they couldn’t see anyone.

When they weren’t at home, they were always worried about the kittens. They occasionally checked the home surveillance to make sure the kittens were behaving well before they could relax.

Especially when the two of them were intimate at home, the two kittens always came over with their tails up, meowing in a sweet voice, interrupting them and clawing at their trouser legs to climb up.

When they first raised Cotton Candy and Snowball, most of the work was shared by family members and a nanny, so the two of them didn’t feel much. Now that they had to do everything themselves, they deeply appreciated the hardships of taking care of babies.

Fu Shizhao sighed, “Fortunately, we won’t have children.”

Taking care of kittens was exhausting enough, let alone raising children.

And neither of them really liked children that much. When they were first reborn, because they were also babies, they had no choice but to interact with other babies. As they grew older, they almost instinctively kept their distance from children.

Tang Mian quickly nodded in agreement.

But kittens were the clingiest at this age, and when they grew up a little more, they might become aloof.

This stage still needed to be cherished.

Suddenly thinking of something, Tang Mian smiled and said, “I wonder if my brother and sister-in-law’s child will be a boy or a girl.”

The sister-in-law’s due date was near the summer vacation, so they could go and see them during the two months of summer vacation.

“Maybe it is twins,” Fu Shizhao casually remarked.

Unexpectedly, it turned out to be twins.

But at first, they didn’t know the gender of the fetuses, they only saw that there were two during the check-up.

The rest would have to wait until the children were born to find out.

—

Not long after moving out, the most troublesome thing wasn’t taking care of two little kittens, but the cooking problem.

When they lived in the dormitory at school, they either bought meals at the cafeteria every day or went out to eat, because the dormitory controlled the use of electrical appliances, so they couldn’t cook in the dormitory.

Now that they had moved out and started living together in a real sense, the kitchen in the small villa was also renovated very well by Grandma Fu. It was a waste not to cook themselves.

But both of them grew up in wealthy families and had nannies taking care of them since they were young.

Tang Mian didn’t know how to cook, and Fu Shizhao had learned some simple cooking skills in this life, but he wasn’t an expert.

After eating similar meals repeatedly for several days, the two of them couldn’t help but choose to order takeout coincidentally.

Tang Mian’s schedule was a bit lighter than Fu Shizhao’s, with more free time on hand. Since Fu Shizhao occasionally went to the Fu family company to handle some work, Tang Mian planned to use this time to practice cooking and secretly impress Fu Shizhao.

So, one Wednesday afternoon, during Fu Shizhao’s absence, Tang Mian boldly entered the kitchen, full of confidence, and began his “journey to becoming a great chef” following tutorials he found on his phone.

…

In the evening, when Fu Shizhao returned with supper, he found Tang Mian standing with his hands behind his back, avoiding eye contact, looking guilty all over.

Fu Shizhao, puzzled, set down the supper in his hands, walked up to him, and pulled his hands out from behind his back.

His fingers were covered with many band-aids, and there was a red patch on the back of his hand.

“What happened?” Fu Shizhao frowned.

Tang Mian: “…”

Tang Mian initially wanted to come up with a casual excuse, after all, the real reason was too embarrassing. However, facing Fu Shizhao’s close and serious gaze, Tang Mian obediently confessed everything.

“Here, here, and here were accidentally cut while chopping vegetables, here was scratched by the vegetables, um… not deep, just a small cut. Sometimes I accidentally cut my hand while sharpening pencils in the studio, it’s nothing serious.”

“Here got splashed by oil, I forgot there was water on the spatula, and there was a lot of water on the vegetables, it sizzled for a long time and startled me.”

“I called my mom and she said to put some medicine on it, it’s okay…”

When Tang Mian said the last sentence, there was a hint of grievance in his voice.

“Have you eaten yet?” Fu Shizhao asked directly, hitting right to the core of the issue.

“…No,” Tang Mian felt even more guilty.

After almost causing a kitchen explosion and dealing with all these “aftermath”, he hadn’t had time to eat dinner.

Fu Shizhao sighed lightly, silently glad that he had brought back supper. Without delay, he efficiently unpacked the supper and fed Tang Mian a mouthful of warmth.

Tang Mian obediently chewed, puffing up his cheeks, not daring to speak again.

“Is the kitchen, okay?” Fu Shizhao asked while feeding.

Tang Mian nodded hastily, “It didn’t explode, I cleaned up, it’s spotless.”

Fu Shizhao: “…”

Fu Shizhao: “Don’t cook anymore in the future, take care of your hands, they’re for painting.”

Tang Mian nodded obediently once again.

Actually, he wasn’t that delicate, but he probably didn’t have much talent in cooking.

After being fed a few bites of supper by Fu Shizhao again, Tang Mian suddenly remembered something and spoke up, “I actually succeeded in making a dish.”

“What is it?” Fu Shizhao became interested.

“Tomato and egg soup, it’s in the fridge, just needs to be heated up, I tasted it, it’s not bad,” Tang Mian’s eyes finally lit up a bit.

Fu Shizhao fed him a few more bites of supper before getting up to check the bowl of tomato and egg soup in the fridge.

It did look decent.

Fu Shizhao directly heated up the soup, brought it back to the table, and took a sip in front of Tang Mian’s expectant gaze. He looked up and praised, “Delicious, really.”

Tang Mian’s mood finally improved a bit, even though this kind of simple soup had almost no technical difficulty.

Watching Fu Shizhao finish all the soup, Tang Mian suddenly remembered elementary school.

During the spring outing, the teacher asked all the children to prepare a dish, he chose something simple, cucumber salad.

After all… not everyone had cooking skills like Xiao Cao.

At that time, Fu Shizhao also ate all the food he made, just like today.

Tang Mian’s heart softened.

—

After Tang Mian’s “assassination” by the kitchen, Fu Shizhao began to study new dishes.

Even though they could easily hire a cook, or order takeout from some restaurants, they didn’t need to spend their time cooking themselves.

But cooking for someone you love, seeing them eat with their cheeks puffed up… the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction couldn’t be described in words.

As the weather got warmer and summer approached, Tang Mian often woke up in the morning to see Fu Shizhao wearing only a pair of shorts, wearing an apron in the kitchen. His inverted triangle figure was particularly attractive.

Tang Mian would always rub his eyes and lean in next to him, wrapping his arms around his waist from behind, watching him prepare breakfast with love.

Occasionally on weekends, he would take over breakfast and become the “breakfast of love”.

Since moving into their new home, the two of them had unlocked many new scenes.

The kitchen was indeed a great place for sneakily enjoying food. [T/N: Yeah its not food.]

–

–

As the temperature rose and the weather gradually turned hot, they stepped into the summer of the new year.

One day, they received a sudden call from home and rushed to the hospital overnight.

When they arrived, the children had already been successfully born, and the nurse had placed the baby next to his sister-in-law.

His sister-in-law was in good condition, holding his brother’s hand. There was also a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the bedside, obviously prepared by his brother.

Seeing the two of them arrive, his sister-in-law hurriedly smiled and greeted them to see the newborn baby.

It was a pair of twins.

During the pregnancy, it had already been found that there were two babies, but they hadn’t expected it to be a boy and a girl, truly a double blessing.

Both of the babies’ faces were wrinkled, staring at them without crying, their features not quite distinguishable.

But they were quite well-behaved.

“Are they ugly? I was shocked when I first saw them,” his sister-in-law laughed.

His brother explained, “They’ll grow into their looks, I’m sure they’ll be beautiful.”

Tang Mian and Fu Shizhao smiled at each other.

Soon after, his sister-in-law was sent to a high-end postnatal care center.

His brother’s social media feed completely transformed into showcasing his wife and kids, with numerous updates every day. Often, a new post would pop up as soon as he refreshed the page.

The two babies also grew quite a bit, their little arms and legs were like lotus nodes, soft to the touch, especially adorable. They were still too small to crawl, so they could only be held, emitting a pleasant scent of milk.

Tang Mian was extremely nervous the first time he held one, afraid of holding the baby too tightly and hurting them, yet also worried about holding them too loosely and dropping them. He was in a state of extreme tension.

Fu Shizhao, holding the other baby, wasn’t faring any better.

Fortunately, both babies were very well-behaved and didn’t cry much, but they were quite active.

Tang Mian’s headband was pulled down by tiny hands, and a pair of curious eyes looked at it. The next moment, the baby opened their mouth and tried to put the headband in.

Everyone: “!!!”

His sister-in-law quickly took the headband back from her and put a pacifier in her mouth.

As his sister-in-law was about to speak, Fu Shizhao said, “It’s okay, I have another one here.”

Fu Shizhao’s wrist still had a spare headband that Tang Mian used to “declare sovereignty,” occasionally coming in handy when Tang Mian forgot to bring his own headband.

They hadn’t expected it to come in handy in such a situation.

Tang Mian’s long hair scattered, and Fu Shizhao took the initiative to hand the baby in his arms to his sister-in-law and came behind Tang Mian to help him tie up his hair again.

Tang Mian didn’t mind. It was normal for children to tug and gnaw at things randomly. After all, they had just arrived in this world and were curious about everything, eagerly adapting to the new environment through sight, touch, and taste.

They stayed at the postnatal care center with his sister-in-law for a while before leaving.

“I’m looking forward to it. I wonder if there will be some interesting things happening when they go to kindergarten,” Tang Mian said with a smile.

Just like… they did back then.

“They will,” Fu Shizhao gently squeezed his hand, “Let’s go, I’ll buy you some new hair ties.”

He still felt a bit empty without something on his wrist.

“Okay,” Tang Mian’s eyes curved.

University summer vacations were very free, with plenty of time to squander.

However, Fu Shizhao often went to the Fu family company to work on projects with Fu Chuming, so he was still quite busy. But he left the rest of his time for Tang Mian.

During Fu Shizhao’s busy work hours, Tang Mian would stay at home painting or help his mom continue to perfect the obscure plant-based popular science book she was preparing for publication.

It was too hot to go out during the summer vacation.

The two kittens had grown up, and their relationship was particularly good. Cotton Candy got along well with them when he returned home.

— Mainly because Cotton Candy couldn’t be bothered with them. At most, when he was in a good mood, he would generously lick them a few times.

Cotton Candy was already an elderly cat, not as agile as before, and not very fond of strolling around anymore. He always liked to quietly curl up by Tang Mian’s legs when Tang Mian was painting, just like he used to do before Tang Mian left for high school, accompanying him.

After all, in its subconscious mind—Tang Mian had started to disappear for a long time, and every time it thought it would never see Tang Mian again.

In the boutique store, there were countless headbands to choose from, dazzling to the eyes.

Most of the headbands Tang Mian used were simple hair ties without patterns, but Fu Shizhao liked to pick out some cute patterns for him. Some of them Tang Mian would only wear at home with the two of them, and wouldn’t wear them out.

After a short while, Tang Mian picked out several elegant and simple headbands without decorations, while Fu Shizhao held a few cute headbands with small strawberry and cat decorations, happily putting them into the basket provided by the boutique store.

Instead of leaving directly, the two of them continued to wander inside.

Suddenly, Tang Mian’s gaze was drawn to something, causing him to stop in his tracks.

Following his gaze, Fu Shizhao looked over.

It was a plush toy that could record sound.

Fu Shizhao could probably guess why Tang Mian had suddenly stopped.

As expected, Tang Mian spoke up, “What did you record on the little dog recording plush toy I gave you back then?”

Fu Shizhao had almost forgotten about this matter. Since he got his own phone, he hadn’t used the little dog recording plush toy again. After all, recording with a phone was much more convenient, and he could secretly save the recordings without them being easily discovered.

Later, fearing that the plush toy would gather dust, he put it away in the cupboard.

“I can’t quite remember. Shall we check it out tonight?” Fu Shizhao suggested.

Indeed, he couldn’t remember much, but he guessed that the recordings would be related to something.

“Okay.” Tang Mian decisively took him to the front desk of the boutique store to pay the bill, also buying a few different-sized batteries.

By the time they returned to Grandma Fu’s house, it was already quite late, and she had already gone to bed, leaving only Snowball to raise its head from its doghouse and wag its tail at them.

The two of them tiptoed upstairs to Fu Shizhao’s room and found the little dog recording plush toy from the cupboard.

After replacing the batteries, fortunately, the plush toy still worked and hadn’t broken.

Pressing the paw that played the recording, Fu Shizhao’s childish voice rang out.

“I really like my gege.”

Tang Mian’s ears couldn’t help but blush faintly.

Fu Shizhao mischievously imitated the tone of the recording and leaned close to Tang Mian’s ear, saying, “I really like my gege… Does gege like me too?”

Tang Mian’s ears instantly turned even redder with embarrassment, and he dared not press the play button for the next recording.

Unexpectedly, Fu Shizhao suddenly pressed the recording button on the little dog recording plush toy again, laughing as he repeated, “Does my brother like me too?”

Tang Mian watched his series of actions, pursed his lips, and cooperatively replied, “Yes, I do.”

Fu Shizhao couldn’t resist and kissed him directly.

…

The recording was still playing, but neither of them had the heart to press the pause button.