Chapter 75 - As Long as You Like to

Finally, it was the weekend. Gu Nianbin wanted to sleep late, but his little girl was used to getting up early. She tried to sneak out of bed as soon as she woke up, but was pulled back into Gu Nianbin’s embrace for half an hour before finally getting up.

After breakfast, Du Xiaoxian went to the study to practice painting. With Teacher Li’s encouragement, she became more and more interested in painting. Every day after school, she would have an extra painting class by Teacher Li. But of course, her young master gave her the permission only after thinking long and hard about it.

Sitting in front of the painting board, Du Xiaoxian looked at the snow-white paper and felt her heart was filled with serenity. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them, picked up the brush and drew a rising sun in the upper right corner. Looking at the beautiful color, she found the inspiration to continue painting without thinking much about it. With more and more blazing colors filling up the rest blank space, her heart lit up with pleasure. She thought it was extremely beautiful, so she dropped her brush and ran to the living room, trying to ask Gu Nianbin to come and take a look. But she didn’t find him in the living room and heard some noise from the kitchen. Was her young master preparing lunch so early? Du Xiaoxian walked over curiously.

Wow! Wow! Wow! She shouted happily. Her young master was actually baking cookies! Du Xiaoxian hurriedly rushed into the kitchen, washed her hands and offered to help.

Watching her being so excited, Gu Nianbin was a little worried, “Be careful, don’t ruin my work.” Because she loved sweets, President Gu came up with the idea of making desserts himself one day. He bought an automatic oven, many dessert cookbooks and various ingredients. After studying for several days, he finally started his first practice today.

President Gu studied very hard before, so it was not so hard for him. He had clearly remembered every step and proportions of each ingredient. He poured the concocted ingredients into cute cartoon molds and put them in the oven. When it was half baked, he took it out and decorated it with cream and soft chocolate. President Gu was not creative enough to come up with decorations other than a smiley face. Du Xiaoxian came at a perfect time, he simply let her do the decoration.

Du Xiaoxian looked at the neat rows of biscuits in the mold and asked excitedly, “What should I paint?” She had never painted on a biscuit, so she got all worked up.

“Whatever you want!” Gu Nianbin rested his chin on Du Xiaoxian’s shoulder, waiting to see his little girl’s masterpieces.

With white cream in one hand and black chocolate in the other, she drew eyes and mouths on the animal-shaped biscuits and flowers on the square ones. As for the round ones…she tilted her head, thought for a while before drawing a man with a short beard and a little girl with a braid. She drew very carefully and pursed her lips to chuckle after finishing it.

Gu Nianbin recognized them but still asked, “Who are they?”

Du Xiaoxian pointed at the little girl with a braid and said embarrassedly, “This is me.”

“Is this me?” Gu Nianbin pointed at the man.

Du Xiaoxian nodded.

He said, “Why do I have a beard?”

“When we sleep at night, I can feel that you have a little beard on the chin.” Du Xiaoxian showed him where it was, “It was stubby, making me feel itchy.”

Gu Nianbin was used to shave himself in the morning, so he would have some dark stubble at night. Every time he kissed Du Xiaoxian, she would giggle and dodge.

Gu Nianbin smiled. He didn’t expect her to remember it so clearly. He turned his face and rubbed his chin against her face, “Prickly, huh?”

Du Xiaoxian dodged and giggled in an extremely ringing voice, “No, no…” Gu Nianbin had already shaved this morning, so it was not prickly at all. He rubbed his firm chin against her smooth and soft face, feeling the urge to kiss her again.

The biscuits were put into the oven again and baked for another ten minutes. Gu Nianbin opened the oven with thick cotton gloves and a rich smell pervaded the kitchen right away. Du Xiaoxian impatiently picked up a piece of biscuit to taste, but yelped because it was too hot, yet she was still reluctant to throw it away. She tossed the biscuit back and forth between two hands while grimacing in pain.

“Throw it on the plate, little fool.” Gu Nianbin handed over a clean plate.

Du Xiaoxian put it down and rubbed her ears with her hands.

Gu Nianbin picked up a biscuit, took a bite and nodded, “Not bad.”

Du Xiaoxian looked at the remaining half and cried, “Let me try, let me try…”

Gu Nianbin put it into her mouth, “Is it delicious?”

The freshly baked biscuit was crisp, sweet and extremely delicious. Du Xiaoxian’s eyes narrowed in satisfaction as she nodded her head vigorously, “Yes, yes, so delicious.”

Gu Nianbin held the plate in his hand and told her, “Choose whatever you want.”

Du Xiaoxian picked one for each pattern. She was reluctant to eat the biscuit with the drawing of the little girl with a braid and the man with short beard. It was displayed on a snow-white plate.

Gu Nianbin handed the plate to her, “Alright, take it out to eat. I’ll make some more.”

Du Xiaoxian stuffed a small biscuit into her mouth and muttered, “I’ll help you.”

“No need, go to play.” Despite saying so, Gu Nianbin was still reluctant to drive her out. The excited Du Xiaoxian was like a lark chirping all the time. However, Gu Nianbin wasn’t annoyed at all. Instead, he was very happy. This was what ordinary and real life looked like, right?

When he was about to knead the dough, Du Xiaoxian’s eyes lit up as she looked at the soft dough, “I can do this, I can do this!”

Gu Nianbin raised his arm to let her stand in front of him. A pair of big hands and a pair of small hands were kneading the dough together like making potteries. With the right background music, they would look exactly like the couple in the movie Ghost. Gu Nianbin weren’t think about that, his attention was completely on the little girl in his arms. Her eyes were shining with colorful lights, her body was releasing a faint fragrance, and her voice was so melodious and ringing as she was having so much fun. This was the greatest joy for Gu Nianbin. Nothing else was important as long as she was happy.

Gu Nianbin let out a sigh of satisfaction. Finding the dough was almost ready, he said, “Baby, if we continue playing, this dough will be wasted.”

Du Xiaoxian hurriedly stopped, but her face turned red with embarrassment because he called her baby. She leaned against his chest and snorted like a kitten, “You should have said it earlier.”

“Say what earlier?” Gu Nianbin teased her, “call you baby?”

“Ah!” Du Xiaoxian was so embarrassed that she wanted to run away, but she was trapped in Gu Nianbin’s strong arms and couldn’t go anywhere. She wiped her dirty hands on his face in a haste. He dodged, and she took the opportunity to escape with giggles. Gu Nianbin also laughed, but didn’t chase after her. He added some butter and started to make more batter to fill the molds.

This time, Du Xiaoxian participated the whole process. She had more ideas when drawing on them. She turned them all into limited editions because she drew differently on each biscuit. A smiling kitten, a cute bear, a cute chicken, a fluffy squirrel, a horse raising its hooves, flowers, trees, houses and so on.

She kept coming up with so many new ideas that she didn’t even need to think about it when drawing on them one by one. Gu Nianbin was very happy. He didn’t expect that she could come up with so many things with her small head. But what fascinated him even more was her attentive look. Every time she concentrated on doing one thing, the radiance in her eyes was incomparably beautiful. Gu Nianbin was fascinated by this radiance back them, and she walked into his heart little by little afterwards.

When the biscuits were being baked, Gu Nianbin took out the plates, brewed himself a cup of coffee and poured Du Xiaoxian a cup of juice. They sat at the dining table and ate slowly while waiting.

Du Xiaoxian ate two pieces and asked Gu Nianbin, “Can I give some to my friends?”

“Of course, as long as you like to.” Gu Nianbin replied gently.

Du Xiaoxian blinked her big bright eyes and kissed him on the face to express her gratitude. For many times, when she asked similar questions, his answers would always be, “As long as you like to.”

Compared to the question itself, Du Xiaoxian liked to hear this sentence the most because she felt very happy. Being loved and spoiled like this by a man who would always say, “As long as you like to”, she felt really happy! Once again, Du Xiaoxian thanked God silently in her heart for letting her meet Gu Nianbin, the most important person in her life!

When the second batch of biscuits were done, Du Xiaoxian found two clean glass bottles and put the biscuits in one by one neatly. They were stacked on top of each other and separated by white oil paper in between. Finally, she covered the bottles with lids and tied beautiful bows with ribbons on them. They were as beautiful as those in the shops.

Putting the glass bottles on the table, Du Xiaoxian clapped her hands and smiled in satisfaction. She was going to give one bottle to her classmates, and the other for Zhou Ting.

Sitting on the sofa with a smile on his face and arms crossed, Gu Nianbin watched her preparing all these, “Aren’t you going to leave any for yourself?”

“I have this.” Du Xiaoxian showed him the biscuits with two little persons on a plate.

“Are you going to eat it?”

“No, I’ll keep it.” Du Xiaoxian smiled and said, “I can’t bear to eat it.”

“Actually it doesn’t matter,” Gu Nianbin said, “Next time, we can make some more.”

Du Xiaoxian shook her head. The next time they made it, it might not be like this. A lot of things are bound by destiny, like her and Gu Nianbin. Even if someone treated her better and spoiled her more in the future, as long as he was not Gu Nianbin, she wouldn’t want him.

It was only after finishing doing everything did the little girl look at her young master with admiration, “Brother, you are really amazing, you can even make biscuits!”

“Not only biscuits, I can cook anything you want.” Being praised by her, President Gu became proud.

She turned to look at the fridge, in which there was an unfinished fruit cake.

President Gu said calmly, “Cake, no problem, let’s make one tomorrow.” But he thought to himself, “I have to memorize the procedures of making cakes as quickly as possible tonight, so that I won’t become flustered tomorrow.”

Little stars appeared in Du Xiaoxian’s eyes because she admired him so much. Nothing was difficult for her young master as she expected! Her young master was omnipotent!

President Gu found her so cute looking at her silly and adorable face, he couldn’t help but kiss her again.