Vol 1 Chapter 1.1 (1/2)
Chapter 1: Xiao Xue Part 1—The Extra Girl – translated by Raylight
All along, Jiang Ziya had thought that the only abnormal person in the house was himself.
Hm… Perhaps there was also that father who had named his son Jiang Ziya1 who then, on a certain day, said that he was going to become an apprentice to a master to become immortal and had since vanished. However, they had always treated it as though no such person ever existed in their family.
However, right now, this current situation is…
His twin sister Jiang Yu2 was currently busy feeding wheat porridge to her two daughters. She fed them left and right and was truly very busy.
His brother-in-law Jiang Qibing3 was eating while he looked at the report in his hands. Occasionally, he would turn to talk to him and ask him questions such as how it was at school and whether his recent grades were good and the like.
It all looked very normal, and the atmosphere was rather harmonious and happy with everyone getting along with each other. Looking at this picture, it could be said that this was a warm family.
However, there was one thing that made Jiang Ziya suspect whether this happy family had gone insane, or if it was himself who had gone crazy?
Jiang Yu had undoubtedly given birth to only one daughter.
At least, when he had gone out to go to cla.s.s in the morning, it had still been one daughter. However, when he returned home in the evening, he saw a pair of sisters.
Upon returning home and opening the door, he had stared blankly at the two children, and the two of them even said in great unison, “Yaya-gēge,4 you’re back!”
At the time, Jiang Yu had been in the kitchen busy cooking, as though it wasn’t odd at all that there was an extra child. When Jiang Qibing-jiěfu5 returned from work, he even asked one of the little girls whether she had helped mommy take care of her little sister.
Jiang Ziya then started to suspect that he had gone insane. He started trying hard to remember how many little girls there were in this family.
One of them was definitely a daughter of this family, for he was very certain that he had made a cup of milk for one of them to drink this very morning. Then, when she was burping, she had even vomited on him, forcing him take a shower and change his clothes, so that he wouldn’t have the smell of milk all over him. In the end, it resulted in him being late for cla.s.s, causing the professor glare at him for an entire lesson.
However, the other was very foreign. With a pair of large, watery eyes that were blue, silvery white hair that was long and wavy, filled with a brilliant l.u.s.ter, and skin as white as snow, she was so cute that she would be loved by all. She was even more beautiful than the babies in television advertis.e.m.e.nts!
But is this a Taiwanese child?
No matter how you looked at her, she was like a foreigner! However, Jiang Yu and Jiang Qibing were definitely black-haired, black-eyed Taiwanese people who were born and bred in this very country. If they gave birth to a white-haired and blue-eyed kid, the first thing that they would do was probably a DNA test!
“Sis… Is this kid from next door?”
Even though there is only a strange woman next door. She seemed not to go outdoors at all, and he had never seen any visitors at her door. She was definitely a legendary female shut-in. Don’t talk about a child, the only human that would go to her door was probably the postman.
Once he said that, the entire family’s harmonious and happy aura suddenly disappeared.
Jiang Yu’s hand that was holding a spoon stopped in mid-air, and Jiang Qibing’s smile too froze on his face. The adults suddenly becoming still could still be considered normal, but the two children had also stopped at the same time. Their big eyes didn’t blink at all, expressions frozen on their faces. At this moment, the two of them looked like a set of dolls, cute and charming, but not alive.
Under this silence, they slightly tilted their heads to the side. Their motions were so identical that they seemed to be carbon copies. They appeared to be looking at him, yet they lacked focus in their eyes. It was as though two lifeless objects were staring at him.
A chill abruptly broke out on his back. Jiang Ziya was nearly about to jump up from his chair, but then, everyone continued moving as though nothing had happened. Jiang Yu even gave him a glare and unhappily said, “Stop joking around, don’t you usually like to rub Xiao Xue’s cheeks? Yet you’re actually saying that she is a different family’s child. Be careful, or else, she might cry for you to see!”
—What Xiao Xue?
He certainly liked to rub the cheeks of the other child, the normal Taiwanese one with black hair and black eyes! Her name was also not Xiao Xue6 but Jiang Jiang.
When they had first named her, this pair of husband and wife had been ridiculously happy, saying that the name used both of their surnames, and when you read it, the repet.i.tion makes it very cute and the like.7
There is no Xiao Xue at all!
However, just now, the two children’s motions had been exactly the same. It wasn’t just Xiao Xue who was strange. There also seemed to be something wrong with Jiang Jiang.
—That’s not possible! He undoubtedly remembered Jiang Jiang: the way she looked when she was born, how she grew up bit by bit…
At this moment, the white-haired, blue-eyed Xiao Xue stared at him with a pair of wide eyes in incomprehension. She shouted, “Yaya-gēge, what’s wrong?”
Simply too darn cute! Large eyes, soft cheeks, and a slightly pouting small mouth. They were both three-year-olds, but she was definitely ten times cuter than Jiang Jiang beside her!
However, Jiang Ziya didn’t have any urge to rub her hair or pinch her cheeks. That was because she was too beautiful. She looked like a model baby from a poster—no, even model babies were not this cute. Actually, she resembled a beautiful doll more, giving people a feeling that they should not carelessly touch her, in fear of destroying her perfection. Better yet, she should be shown inside a display window!
Jiang Ziya hesitated for a moment, but he still closed his right eye and used only his left eye to glance at Xiao Xue.
Since young, he had known that his left eye was a little strange… Don’t be mistaken, it’s not the ghost-seeing eye, though he too had wondered before whether he had the ghost-seeing eye. However, that didn’t seem to be the case. Though his left eye could certainly see some kinds of things, they were usually not ghosts… A large amount weren’t anyway.
His father and Jiang Yu had taken him to see a doctor, and the doctor had said that it was hallucinations. Then, he had asked him whether he had received any psychological trauma between the time he was a kid until now, but he had never received any such trauma, other than how his dad had named him Jiang Ziya, causing him to be called Grand Duke Jiang8 since young.
At the time, the doctor had resolutely and decisively said that this was the reason for the illness. The cause of the hallucinations was this psychological trauma. However, when he heard it, he only wanted to beat the doctor up so much that he would have psychological trauma!
He first snuck a peek and felt that something was off, but this one glance wasn’t enough to let him see what was so strange. Hence, he could only brush his hair a little to cover his right eye. Only after doing so did he shut his right eye, so as to avoid looking too strange with one eye open and the other closed, which would draw Jiang Yu and Jiang Qibing’s attention.
Through his left eye, Xiao Xue’s face was still unbearably cute: a pair of watery eyes that were large to the point of it being scary, long lashes, two deeply carved double eyelids, and soft, peach-colored lips. They were extremely small, smaller than most little girls’… That’s not a real human’s face.
Xiao Xue is a doll!
He wasn’t so silly as to jump up and start screaming. Since he was young, he had already been treated as a mental case several times by his cla.s.smates precisely because of that. At this kind of time, the best thing to do was to stop, don’t look, and don’t listen.
However, this time, it was a little different. This was his home! He couldn’t just watch as a doll became his niece, could he?
“Xiao Xue, after you have eaten your fill of dinner, Gēge will bring you to the park, okay?” d.a.m.n! Why did he feel like a strange uncle who kidnaps little children?
Jiang Jiang immediately protested, “Not fair, Jiang Jiang wants to go too!”
Jiang Ziya immediately submitted. Anybody who has taken care of children before would know that children were the fussiest. If one child had something and the other didn’t, the other one would definitely make a racket to the high heavens! It was also best not to waste your time reasoning with them because three-year-old kids would definitely not use logic with you!
He hurriedly said, “Okay, okay! You can go too.”
Jiang Qibing felt a little strange and asked, “The sky is already dark. Isn’t it a little late to go to the park?”
Jiang Ziya could only force himself to lie, “I heard that there is a mini night market there…” He leaned close to his brother-in-law’s ear and whispered, “If I bring them out to play, then Jiěfu, you can conveniently go out to watch a movie with Sis.”
Jiang Qibing’s gaze s.h.i.+fted, and he quickly replied in a small whisper, “Thanks!”
Jiang Ziya only smiled, not daring to say “You owe me one” or take advantage of the situation to say “Help me write my report” and the like as he usually did. After all, he had an ulterior motive and wasn’t actually trying to help him look after the kids.
“What are you two men whispering about?” Jiang Yu purposely pretended to be unhappy as she said, “Can’t females listen?” As she spoke, she even purposely pulled the two little girls to her side, and the three of them looked at Jiang Ziya and Jiang Qibing with three pairs of watery eyes.
Simply really cute… But Jiang Ziya had realized that Xiao Xue was a doll just now. Although Xiao Xue looked normal to him most of the time, she would frequently accidentally show the ball-joints of a doll. If he looked from the left side, he would even see a complete doll… Yet it was moving!
Tiny fingers clutched the fork, and rosy lips that shouldn’t be moving opened and closed. Her eyes that were so large that they were inhuman were blinking and blinking… He started to suspect that later on, would he really have the guts take her—No, take it out all by himself?
Although he had seen many mysterious and peculiar things since young, to go out holding hands with a doll which appeared out of nowhere… He really felt a s.h.i.+ver from the depths of his heart, all the way until goose b.u.mps broke out on his skin.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t an option for him to change his mind. After they finished their dinner, the husband and wife left to watch a movie holding hands, so lovey-dovey that he almost had the impulse to punch his own sister and her husband.
The two of them had been glittering and so lovey-dovey that he couldn’t stand it, while they threw him a ghost doll to take care of. Is this right? Is this right?
Whether it was right or not, in the end, that glittery couple had not waited a moment longer to leave after finis.h.i.+ng their dinner.
“Let’s go.” Jiang Ziya summoned up his courage.
Actually, he too wanted to bring the two children out as soon as possible. To stay alone in the same room with a doll that could walk and talk was simply too scary! He almost didn’t dare to look at Xiao Xue. If Jiang Jiang weren’t around, he would have bolted out of the door long ago!
Anyway, let’s hurry and go out! Looking at the time, the garbage truck should be here soon?
When he walked out of the front door, he still remembered to lock the door. Jiang Ziya had a new understanding of how calm he could be, and it wasn’t really good news.
“Let’s go! We’re going downstairs,” Jiang Ziya said without looking back and then proceeded to walk down the stairs.
“Where are you taking me?”