Chapter 436: Communication

Chapter 436: Communication

Charles sat with furrowed brows while staring at the diary on the table. It had been thirty minutes since he sat down and stared at the book.

Hoot! Hoot! Hoooot!

A mechanical bird popped out of the grandfather clock, interrupting Charles' train of thought.

Charles gnashed his teeth and flipped the diary until he found Sparkle's sketch that Anna had left behind for him long ago.

"Sparkle? Sparkle?" Charles said, tapping on the sketch with his finger.

Wriggling tentacles riddled with green eyes squirmed out of the sketch; they soon converged, transforming into a little girl about a meter tall in front of Charles.

Charles crouched to meet Sparkle's eye level and patted her head gently before asking softly, "Sparkle, what is Mommy doing over there?"

"She's eating; she seemed hungry, and she ate a lotlike a lot," Sparkle replied truthfully.

"Oh" Charles nodded in understanding. After a brief moment of contemplation, Charles said, "Can you go back and tell her that Daddy wants to have a good chat with her? Can you tell her to come over here?"

Sparkle blinked, but she soon disappeared with a flash of light.

A few seconds later, Sparkle reappeared in front of Charles and said, "Mommy said that she doesn't want to come here."

Charles sighed and said, "Then, can you tell her that Daddy is sorry? Daddy acknowledges his mistake. Daddy shouldn't have argued with her in the first place, and Daddy knows what to do now, and we should have a talk about it."

Sparkle disappeared once more, but it didn't even take her a few seconds to return.

"Mommy said that she doesn't want to talk to you right now."

Charles sighed. Anna was truly angry at him.

Now that he thought about it, this was their first major fight. However, the realization made Charles feel even worse; it seemed that Anna had been quietly compromising for him. Perhaps she had always felt aggrieved and had simply been bottling it up until now.

The despondent Charles sat back on the chair, recalling his argument with Anna not too long ago. Anna's words kept replaying in his head, and he couldn't help but feel a bit irritated.

Sparkle accepted the cup and licked the liquid inside with her tiny tongue.

Charles had zero experience with childrearing. However, it wasn't like he couldn't learn how to raise a child with his father as a role model.

"Is it tasty?" Charles asked with a smile.

"I don't know. I can't taste it," Sparkle answered.

Charles looked up in surprise. "What? You can't taste it?"

"Mmhm. I can't taste the things that everyone eats."

Charles put down the crab leg in his hand. He had never thought that Sparkle wouldn't have a sense of taste. "You can't taste anything?"

Sparkle tilted her head at the question. "No, I can taste what Mommy eats, but they taste very bitter, so I don't like them."

"Oh, I see," Charles muttered. Standing in the middle of the street, Charles pondered briefly before turning right. "Let's go somewhere else to have fun, then."

Charles relied on his memory to find his way in front of a small shop. The shop was a small puppet theater, and tiny palm-sized puppets clad in many different outfits danced on a stage, performing a play.

Charles had been here before with Lily, and he brought Sparkle here, believing that children would love puppets.

The table-sized stage was decorated to resemble the vast sea, and the story was about a group of pirates searching for treasure. The play was fast-paced and full of excitement; the puppets moved quickly, and they could even grab props and release them, just like real people.

The children sat in a circle around the stage, completely enthralled by the puppets.

Sparkle was unwittingly transfixed on the play as well, and the sight made Charles sigh in relief. It was great that she seemed to like the play.

A middle-aged man holding his son's hand chuckled and said, "How come I've never seen you around here, man? Have you just arrived on the island with your daughter?"

Charles had no intentions of chatting with other people, so he replied perfunctorily. However, he didn't expect that the middle-aged man would be kind enough to advise them.

"Adventure stories like this are tailored for boys. You should come back here tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, the show is going to be The Tale of Princess Sissi. It's quite popular with the girls."

Sparkle raised her hand just then and pointed at the tiny stage. "Daddy, I want that tiny moving person."