Little Rats? Miao’er laughs?

I saw that the rat twirling around in Tang Yuan’s hand looked familiar, and upon closer inspection, it was the hamster Song Xiyuan presented to Tang Yuan as a treasure the other day. The hamster was smaller and rounder than the usual rats and was packed in a round cage made of bamboo strips. No matter how hard he ran, apart from spinning the round basket around to entertain people, he could only run in the same place in vain.

Thinking about this, I felt that this rat was a bit unfortunate, so I said to Tang Yuan, “Xiao’er, let the rat go.”

Tang Yuan looked at me and saw that Song Xiyuan was honestly standing in place and did not pounce on me, so he thought that Song Xiyuan had been subdued by his aura, he let go of his slingshot, put down his hand, and turned back to me with an affectionate smile, which was somewhat of a triumphant warrior’s invitation to take credit.

I smiled and pinched his pretty button nose and said with approval, “Good boy, tomorrow I will present you a short mahogany sword, which will be much more elegant than this slingshot”! I pondered over this in my mind and added, “Can I hire a martial arts master to instruct you how to play with a sword?”

Tang Yuan didn’t answer, but looked down at the hamster in his hand, and saw that the rat, perhaps a bit annoyed by being stroked for such a long time, struggled and twisted his head to nibble on Tang Yuan’s thumb, but Tang Yuan didn’t panic and pinched its ear to carry it away.

Seeing him carefully pursing his ruddy little mouth, his expression filled with devotion and kindness with his pale face, he really looked like a lotus boy in front of the Goddess of Mercy’s throne.

As soon as the hamster left Tang Yuan’s tiny white hand, it flew away like an arrow from a string and disappeared in a flash. In the corner of my eye, I felt I saw a white shadow shoot out of the wall at the same time, but when I looked more closely, there was nothing.

At that moment I heard a cry of “Ouch!” I turned around and saw Song Xiyuan holding a bronze mirror as if it were a demon mirror, and after a long time, he turned around and asked me, “Miao Miao, has this bronze mirror been dropped? It’s protruding like this.”

The first thing he did when he woke up from a beating was to look in the mirror, and not to apply for medicine. Come to think of it, he’s so vain when his looks were concerned or when his lovely skin was the capital of a flirt. “The last time Lu Ying accidentally smashed it on the ground, she picked it up and found that it was even more battered than you are right now. It’s a very old piece from a previous era, so I had it restored and left it for general use.” 

Song Xiyuan huffed, “Miao Miao, are you consoling the mirror or me?” Next thing he pounded his chest and sighed in despair. Then gritted his teeth and cursed: “Whoever injures my face, I will kill without pardon!” The tone of his voice was very ruthless.

A slight cold breeze passed through my heart.

“San San, how about I blow on your bruise? If I blow on it, it won’t hurt anymore. As long as you don’t disturb my mother.” After Tang Yuan had taken off his guard against Song Xiyuan, he went over again at some point and half-kneeled on the edge of the bed and puffed out his rosy mouth from Song Xiyuan’s shoulder and blew into the wound on his face.

Song Xiyuan has always had some odd ideas and unique things to do, and his face was constantly smiling, so Tang Yuan was never afraid of him, perhaps because he has always heard people call Song Xiyuan the third son, and since then he has been calling him by his first name. Initially, he was corrected by people at home, but Song Xiyuan didn’t seem to mind. So he’s been calling him his name since then.

When I looked at Song Xiyuan, I saw Tang Yuan blowing cool air on his face, his eyes curved and the corners of his lips curled up, so beautiful that he looked like he was about to ascend to the sky in the clouds. “A puff of air at night works better than any elixir.”

Tang Yuan’s dark and moist eyes drifted towards the now empty bamboo cage on the side table that originally contained a hamster, and continued to blow on Song Xiyuan elegantly.

Song Xiyuan, who was currently in a beautiful mood, said boldly: “You listened to your mother and let the little rat go, is there anything else you want now? In the sky and on the ground, flying, running, jumping, swimming, as long as you can utter it, San San will obtain it for you.”

At that, Tang Yuan stopped blowing and looked at me timidly, but when he saw that I had no objection, he half lowered his black ink eyelashes and looked at the hem of his shirt and whispered, “Xiao’er wants to eat a plum.”

The first time I saw the basket of purple and red plums at my father’s birthday banquet yesterday, Tang Yuan saw them and it was inevitable that a child would have a craving. The plum was not a valuable fruit, but it was only March and the peach blossoms and begonias had not yet fallen, so it was exceedingly rare to see a plum. As an adolescent child, Tang Yuan could not drink wine, so he missed the opportunity to taste them.

Song Xiyuan tilted his head and laughed, covering the corner of his mouth and rubbing it, saying, “What’s so difficult about that? Not to mention one plum, all the plums in the garden are free to be picked today, so you can eat as many as you want.”

It was then that recalled the Song family’s large orchard just outside the city. When I married Song Xiyuan in the past, he always said he would take me to pick fruit in late spring and early summer, but I never got to do it…

The little white cat watched calmly as the rat leaped around for a while, and only when it was about to flee the room did it jump up and pounce on it, and then let it go after it had been caught. I could not bear to look at it, but I didn’t know how to save him.

At that moment, Tang Yuan slowly climbed down from the bed and took a piece of dried fish out of his sleeve pocket, and lured the white cat away before he reached out and grabbed the hamster without any delay. The rat was probably startled out of his wits, but when he was saved, he curled up in Tang Yuan’s hand and rubbed his pale jade-like fingers, as if to curry favor with him, unlike his previous struggle to bite Tang Yuan.

TangYuan looked at the hamster with his big eyes and tilted his head to look at me with moist tear-filled eyes. “Look, mother, can you not let it go? It’s so pitiful…”

Amitabha Buddha, my heart was filled with sin for a moment. This rat is not like a fish; it has a chance of survival if it is placed in the pond, but once it hits the ground, it will be food for the cats, right? Goodness, gracious.

I said, “Don’t let it go. Let’s keep it like this.”

With my approval, Tang Yuan placed the hamster back into its bamboo cage. Once the rat was back in its nest, it stopped fooling around and curled up in a ball, probably still a bit frightened after the disaster.

Song Xiyuan praised Tang Yuan, “You really are like me, you have a very kind heart.”

I felt the corners of my eyes twitch, I merely knew that Song Xiyuan usually swallowed up people’s shops, forced the counterpart to collapse, door-to-door debt collection, hoarding, all of which was sophisticated and ruthless and decisive, but I absolutely did not see where his kind heart was embedded…