“I can cook,” Shen Sixing protested stubbornly.
“I don’t think so.” Wen Ya was practically tempted to snatch the child away from him after seeing what was in the refrigerator. “Everything in your fridge is frozen food.”
Shen Yi was even more willing to follow her mother than her father. She immediately chimed in, “That’s right, Dad. I’m hungry too. I want to go with Mom.”
Shen Sixing’s expression darkened slightly, and he couldn’t help shooting her a glare.
“Sir,” Wen Ya said, “you two can barely manage to feed yourselves. Are you really capable of taking care of a child on your own?”
Being questioned by his future wife one point after another made Shen Sixing rather unhappy. He tried to cite scientific evidence and, unusually serious, explained to her:
“Did you know, miss? Research has shown that an appropriate degree of hunger can slow aging and extend one’s lifespan.”
Wen Ya blinked. “Huh?”
“For example, there’s the theory of autophagy. When cells lack nutrients, they consume their own aged and damaged components, thereby renewing themselves.”
Whenever he got onto a topic that interested him, the listless, gloomy air about him vanished. He spoke rapidly and endlessly.
Wen Ya stared at him in a daze, wanting to interrupt, but Shen Sixing was speaking too smoothly to leave anyone else a chance to get a word in.
“It’s an evolutionarily conserved mechanism, and fasting can also promote the secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor.”
“To put it simply, hunger makes your mind sharper.”
Shen Sixing summed it up, his expression so earnest it was almost reverent.
“That’s why I like being hungry. Hunger makes people smarter.”
Wen Ya: “...”
“A Japanese scientist even won a Nobel Prize for this theory,” Shen Sixing added when Wen Ya gave no response.
All Wen Ya had heard was him rattling off a whole bunch of things.
When she finally came back to herself, she realized that this man’s thought process seemed rather... robotic.
“So what?” she asked.
Wen Ya found it utterly unbelievable. “Shen Sixing, you’re using conclusions that won a Nobel Prize to raise a child?”
“...It’s scientific evidence.” Shen Sixing was stumped for a moment. He pressed his lips together lightly, then wilted again. “I’m sorry. It seems I really don’t know how to raise a child.”
He truly lacked... common sense when it came to everyday life.
He had always lived alone, with no one to worry about but himself.
Sometimes, Shen Sixing could go three days without eating, drinking only water.
Once, when he got up, his vision went black from low blood sugar and he fainted, hitting his forehead on the corner of the table.
When he came to in a haze, the blood had already dried into a dark brown scab.
Malnourished and anemic, he looked to be in rather worrying health.
Wen Ya sighed and pulled Shen Yi a little closer to her side. “Move in with me. I’ll cook.”
Her forcefulness gave Shen Sixing an inexplicable sense of crisis.
After all, Shen Yi had lived by his side ever since he found her. Now that someone was suddenly trying to take her away, his expression darkened. In a soft voice, he said, “...She can live with me. I’ll work hard to learn how to cook from now on.”
“Enough. Both of you are moving in with me.”
Shen Sixing still wanted to put up a fight, but Wen Ya silenced him with a sharp look.
That look in her eyes was like a final warning before she lost her temper.
He reflexively shut his mouth.
Wen Ya said, “A child her age needs to go to school. You’re a tech geek, right? Can you find a way to create a suitable identity for her and get her into a private school?”
Shen Sixing was thoroughly assigned his tasks. He stood there blankly.
“...Yes, miss.”
Household registration records, school enrollment files, vaccination records—those were nothing more than a few lines of code to him.
Getting Shen Yi officially registered would be easy. He could fabricate a complete past for her, from a birth certificate to a kindergarten graduation certificate, without leaving a single flaw.
But...
He lifted his eyes and secretly glanced at Wen Ya.
She was lowering her head, gently smoothing Shen Yi’s hair. The tenderness of the gesture made something in Shen Sixing’s heart tighten faintly.
Did this makeshift family of Shen Sixing, Wen Ya, and Shen Yi really have a future?
And then there was his complicated family situation.
Shen Sixing was certain that the people who had been watching him in secret would report every detail of what happened next to his family.
He wondered what his parents’ reaction would be once they found out.
