Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ice Cream

Jiang Cheng had been keeping track of the expenses for Xiao Yao throughout the trip. He knew that out of the eighty yuan, Xiao Yao had spent less than fifty, leaving over thirty yuan by the time the shopping concluded.

Just as Jiang Cheng was about to whisper a teasing comment to Xie Huan about how stingy the boy was, Xiao Yao suddenly turned back and asked, "Uncle, is there an insulated or cooling box on the vehicle?"

"We do. Why?" It was Jiang Cheng who answered this time. Their official vehicle was indeed equipped with a cooler, usually kept for chilled bottled water. In this heat, water left in the car would quickly turn lukewarm.

"Could I borrow it?" With that, Xiao Yao ran to a cold drink shop at the market entrance and returned with five boxed ice creams.

"Oh, it's freezing! Uncle, catch!" Xie Huan quickly took them. Just then, Jiang Cheng arrived with the cooler. Xiao Yao took the small cooler from Jiang Cheng, opened it, and placed the ice creams from Xie Huan's hands inside. He then carried the cooler onto the van and said to Jiang Cheng, "Uncle Jiang, I'll keep the cooler here for now and return it when we get back to the village."

Xie Huan smiled and asked, "Did you buy these for your friends?"

Xiao Yao nodded.

"How much did you spend?" Xie Huan pressed, having not followed him into the shop.

"Luxue tricolor ice cream, five yuan each. Spent twenty-five," Xiao Yao replied.

"Huh, quite generous. No haggling this time?" Xie Huan teased.

"This is a fixed-price item, okay? This is a cold drink shop, not the market," Xiao Yao rolled his eyes.

Having been effectively snubbed, Xie Huan awkwardly scratched his head, though his embarrassment didn't last long as the other children and the film crew began to return.

"Everyone is back. Did you get everything you needed?" Xie Huan asked the lively group of children with a smile.

"We did," the children replied in a chorus.

Xie Huan looked up at the two directors following the children, and seeing them both nod with smiles, he said, "Alright, since you're all done, let's get on the van and head back." He opened the van door and ushered everyone inside.

"Where is Ba-Yi?" Zhao Rui, the oldest, asked with a frown, realizing someone was missing.

"That's right, where is Brother Ba-Yi?" Sun Tingting added.

"Right here," Xiao Yao said, leaning forward from the back seat of the van and waving through the doorway.

"Ba-Yi finished his shopping early and has been waiting for you all in the van," Xie Huan said with a smile.

As everyone boarded, the van started its journey back.

"Raise your hand if you spent all your money," Xie Huan asked the children in the van.

Except for Xiao Yao, the other four raised their hands.

"So everyone except Ba-Yi spent it all," Xie Huan smiled. He continued, "Raise your hand if you bought something for yourself, besides the ingredients for lunch and the clothes for your fathers."

Zhao Rui lowered his hand, but Xiao Yao helplessly raised his. He had bought five ice creams, which included a portion for himself. Sun Tingting asked, "I didn't buy anything for myself, but I bought something for my mom. Do I need to raise my hand?"

"Duo-er is such a good girl," Xie Huan sighed with a smile. "Daughters really know how to care for people."

"Is everyone hot?" Xie Huan asked again.

"Yes!" the children shouted in unison. It was late August, and after running around the market for nearly an hour, it would have been strange if they weren't.

"Then why didn't you buy yourselves any cold drinks?" Xie Huan asked deliberately.

"I ran out of money." "I forgot." "I didn't see any drink shops." The children chimed in with various excuses.

"Look behind you now," Xie Huan said loudly.

Xiao Yao dragged the cooler out from under his seat, opened it, and handed a box of ice cream to Sun Tingting in the front.

"Wow! Ice cream! Thank you, Brother Ba-Yi!" Sun Tingting cheered and happily accepted it.

Seeing Zhou Zhihao eyeing the ice cream in Sun Tingting's hand with envy, Xiao Yao looked at him with a grin and asked, "Little fatty, want some?"

"Yes!" Zhou Zhihao nodded repeatedly.

"Then do you know what you should do now?" Xiao Yao prompted.

"Brother Ba-Yi, I want some ice cream," Zhou Zhihao said, squirming.

"Smart! Here you go." Xiao Yao handed him one. Zhou Zhihao happily took it and began to eat.

"How about you, San'er?" Xiao Yao looked at Lin Qisan.

"Brother Ba-Yi!" Lin Qisan immediately said. After all, it wasn't the first time he'd called him that.

"Here!" Xiao Yao handed one to Lin Qisan as well.

Now only Zhao Rui remained. Just as Zhao Rui was about to turn his head away in feigned indifference, Xiao Yao shoved an ice cream into his hand and said, "I know you won't call me brother, so I won't tease you. Everyone gets one." With that, he grabbed one for himself and began to eat.

Zhao Rui glanced at Xiao Yao, feeling grateful but unable to voice it, simply letting out a huff. Xiao Yao, knowing his aloof, cool-guy personality, just smiled it off.

When the van reached the entrance of the village and the children jumped out with cheers, there was no sign of the fathers waiting to greet them as they had imagined.

Xie Huan communicated with someone through his earpiece and then told the children, "Your fathers are already at home preparing lunch. Take your groceries and head home."

"Wasn't it said that the vegetables we bought were for lunch?" Xiao Yao asked, feeling annoyed. He didn't care about his dad not greeting them; he was worried the ingredients would go to waste.

"It's fine, we have dinner too, don't we?" Xie Huan said with a smile.

Everyone shouldered their baskets and headed home. Since Xiao Yao's house was on the edge of the village in a different direction, he was the first to part ways with his friends.

From afar, he saw his dad sitting on a stool in the open space in front of their house, waiting for him. Xiao Yao waved from a distance and shouted, "Dad!" Xiao Siqi quickly stood up and walked over to meet him.

Xiao Siqi took the basket full of supplies from Xiao Yao's back and carried it himself, asking with concern, "Are you tired?"

"A piece of cake, not tired at all," Xiao Yao shook his head as they walked toward the house together.

"Go wash up, look at all that sweat on your face," Xiao Siqi said as they entered, pointing to a basin of water and a towel he had prepared.

Xiao Yao nodded and went to wash his face, while Xiao Siqi began taking the items out of the basket one by one.

"Clothes, and a full set at that. Oh, and a hat—this is great, especially with the sun so strong today. Rubber boots, quite old-fashioned, but perfect for these dirt roads in the village. I see many of the locals wearing these. Gloves? Why so many?" Xiao Siqi mused as he sorted through them, feeling puzzled by the large stack of gloves.

"Didn't you say that since we have to do chores this afternoon, if there was enough money left, I should buy a pair of gloves for every uncle and aunt to help them work?" Xiao Yao, knowing his back was to the camera and that the hidden cameras in the room couldn't capture his front, quickly winked at Xiao Siqi.

"Oh? Right." Xiao Siqi was quick-witted, and combined with Xiao Yao's wink, he immediately understood that his son was trying to earn him some points on the show. He followed his lead immediately: "That's true. Since we've never done farm work, what else could we do to help the locals? It's not even the busy farming season, so they wouldn't have us transplanting rice seedlings. I figured it would be some heavy lifting, and having gloves would make it easier and offer some protection."

"Dad, I'm done washing up," Xiao Yao said after cleaning his face and hands. "Let's go, I heard Uncle Xie say they've already started cooking. If we're late, there won't be any food left."

"Oh, right, let's go, hurry," Xiao Siqi put down the gloves, picked up the pile of vegetables Xiao Yao had bought, and walked out of the house with him.

Where were they going? To bum a meal—or rather, to dine together.

Chen Min didn't want to say anything more; she simply led the film crew silently after the father and son as they headed to Sun Zhihao's house.

"You're here! Quick, come in!" Sun Zhihao, sitting in the main hall, saw the Xiao family arrive and quickly motioned for them to enter. "I was just about to call you."

"Oh, you've already finished cooking," Xiao Siqi said, seeing the food laid out on the table in the hall, and held up the vegetables he had brought. "Then these vegetables..."

"It's fine, we'll keep these with the ones Duo-er bought and cook them for dinner," Sun Zhihao smiled, taking the ingredients from Xiao Siqi to the kitchen. "Even though Duo-er didn't buy much, I knew your Ba-Yi would definitely buy plenty, so I cooked the ingredients the two of us gathered this morning for lunch, and we'll use what the kids bought for dinner."

"Dad, what task did you do this morning? Weren't we supposed to be the ones buying the lunch ingredients? How come you already have lunch ready?" Xiao Siqi asked curiously.

"Don't even mention it. Our task was also about ingredients, but they put them in the village's beehive house for us to retrieve. Man, as soon as you walked in, the room was full of bees!" Xiao Siqi said, exaggerating his expression.

"Did you get stung by the bees?" Xiao Yao asked with concern. "I heard that if you get stung too many times, you can get dizzy, vomit, and even have heart problems."

Sun Tingting was terrified upon hearing this and asked Sun Zhihao nervously, "Dad, did you get stung by the bees?"

"No," Sun Zhihao smiled at Sun Tingting.

"Neither did I," Xiao Siqi added. "Before we went in, someone from the village who specializes in beekeeping checked our gear. Other than Uncle Zhou Lixing getting stung once, nobody else was touched. And Uncle Zhou only got stung once, it was nothing."

"Oh, that's good," Xiao Yao nodded in relief and began to eat.

"Ba-Yi, how did you know that getting stung by bees could cause dizziness, vomiting, and heart problems?" Sun Zhihao asked during the meal, unable to hide his curiosity.

"Last year, I went to a film set for a martial arts drama with my grandfather. There was a character in the play who could control bees, so the crew hired a professional beekeeper to assist. I found it interesting, so I went to chat with the beekeeper grandpa, asking him how to raise bees. He told me it was dangerous and that being stung too much was serious, and since I was just a kid, he didn't want to tell me. But I kept asking what would happen, so he told me," Xiao Yao replied.

"The film set again?" Chen Min thought to herself. "What exactly does this kid do on sets? Others go to visit and watch the acting, but he goes and learns carpentry from the props department and beekeeping from the experts. Who knows what else he's done."

"You've been to film sets with your grandfather? How many times?" Sun Zhihao laughed. He knew who Xiao Yao's grandfather was, so he wasn't surprised that he could visit the sets.

"I went to seven or eight sets in half a year," Xiao Yao said. "I stayed there as long as my grandfather was filming. But he wasn't playing the lead, so the longest I stayed was a little over a month, and the shortest was a week or two."

"That long? Don't you go to school?" Sun Zhihao asked, surprised. He had assumed it was just a quick visit to see his grandfather.

"Kindergarten? No," Xiao Yao shook his head. "What they teach in kindergarten is boring. It's more interesting to learn from my grandfather."

"Is it okay not to go to kindergarten?" Sun Zhihao looked at Xiao Siqi, concerned. "Without preschool education, won't you fall behind when you start elementary school?"

Xiao Siqi smiled and pointed at Xiao Yao. "I don't know about others, but he'll definitely be fine. My father has been teaching him himself. According to my father, he could start in the third grade of elementary school right now without any issues."

"Dad, what's a film set? Is it fun?" Sun Tingting asked. "I don't want to go to school either. I want to go to a film set to play."

Sun Zhihao told his daughter, "A film set is where they make movies. Next time I'm filming, I'll take you with me, and you'll see if it's fun or not. But you can't skip school; you're not like Ba-Yi."