"Why do you suddenly ask about my hometown? I haven't been back for ages."
Zhang Zicheng was puzzled, but his answer was an indirect admission.
It was really his hometown.
"I've run into some trouble. Where are you now? I'll send someone to pick you up."
Shen Weixun decided to call him over directly to ask and let Zhang Zicheng take a look at that peach - shaped token.
"Not going. I'm used to sleeping in a dog's kennel. I can't stand the stink of money in a gold nest."
Zhang Zicheng was sleeping under a flyover at the moment, with the sky as his quilt and the ground as his mat.
If it weren't for his relatively clean appearance, anyone would have thought he was a tramp.
He of course knew how rich his third junior brother was.
But this little third one was really annoying. He was sly and loved to set traps. One might easily fall into them.
He didn't want to get anywhere near the little third one.
Shen Weixun fell silent.
He was used to his second senior brother's reluctance to talk to him.
But he had a trump card.
"Niannian is with me. There are no other outsiders."
With just this sentence, the second senior brother was willing to travel a long distance.
Zhang Zicheng's extremely resistant heart instantly turned into eagerness.
No outsiders?
That meant the little third one had snatched Niannian from her home?
That was great!
Zhang Zicheng quickly reported an address and quietly waited for Shen Weixun's arrangement.
After hanging up the phone, Shen Weixun turned around and saw Niannian with her little head on the tea - table, staring intently at a small transparent bottle.
There was a pink liquid in the small bottle.
It was exactly the one snatched from Luo Wuyou's online dating partner.
"What are you looking at?"
Shen Weixun walked over and stroked Niannian's soft little head.
The little one neither dodged nor flinched. She still stared at the bottle without blinking and let out a sincere sigh.
"Um, the stuff inside seems to be alive. It's so amazing."
"Alive?"
Shen Weixun was puzzled and also looked at the bottle.
"Yeah, I can see a whole lot of tiny pink dots moving inside."
Shen Weixun didn't dare to compare his eyesight with Niannian's.
Anyway, he stared at it for a long time but saw nothing.
It just looked like a very strange liquid.
But a liquid didn't move in a dot - like way.
Niannian never lied, which meant she really saw it.
"They even seem to glow. They're like shrunk - down pink fireflies. So beautiful..."
Niannian stared at the bottle blankly, seemingly very fond of it.
In her eyes, the longer she stared at the pink liquid, the more the substances inside seemed to enlarge.
She could clearly see that there was no liquid in the bottle, but rather tiny pink - glowing dots clustered together.
Those tiny dots seemed very soft and huddled together, which made the whole thing look like a liquid.
"Don't even think about putting it in your mouth to taste. We don't know what it is yet. You can't mess around with it. Got it?"
Shen Weixun reminded her uneasily.
The little one couldn't help exploring new things.
And kids had a rather crude way of exploring.
First look, then touch, and finally put it in their mouths.
When Luo Wuyou was about to die, it was when that woman poured the liquid into his mouth.
Shen Weixun guessed that this bottle of liquid was probably similar to poison. If one drank it, they would most likely die.
If the little one couldn't resist her curiosity and dipped her finger in it and put it in her mouth to taste, that would be really scary.
"Yeah, got it!"
Niannian answered readily.
Actually, she really had the idea of putting it in her mouth to taste just now.
But since the third senior brother said no, she'd better hold back.
Hehe...
The third senior brother said she couldn't taste it, but he didn't say she couldn't touch it.
Niannian raised her smiling face, showing a row of neat little white teeth. She glanced furtively at Shen Weixun.
Seeing that the third senior brother's gaze was not on her, she quickly stuck out her little finger and put it into the bottle mouth.
She dipped a bit of the liquid and took it out.
This stuff was really alive!
The little pink dots didn't drip off like real liquid when she pulled out her hand.
Instead, they clung crazily to her little finger and dyed it pink.
The color was a bit faint. If you didn't look at it against the light, you could hardly notice it.
Niannian observed her hand curiously and watched as these little dots slowly melted into her skin.
Ah!
Oh no!
She'd been tricked!
The little one felt extremely guilty. One second the third senior brother was reminding her not to mess around, and the next second she'd reached out her hand and seemed to have gotten into trouble.
Niannian wiggled her finger. Since she didn't feel anything abnormal, she quietly retracted her little finger.
Hey...
The finger could still move. There should be no problem, right?
The third senior brother probably didn't notice, right?
She should have camouflaged it well, right?
The guilty little one's small eyes couldn't stop darting around. Her attempt to cover up and her guilty look were obvious even to the blind.
Shen Weixun quickly noticed that something was wrong with the little one.
This little kid only made such an expression when she'd done something wrong.
"Nian...nian..."
Shen Weixun narrowed his eyes, frowned, and called out Niannian's name word by word.
The little one was so startled that she shivered all over.
She immediately sat up straight and pretended to be a well - behaved baby.
She smiled obsequiously and pretended not to know anything. "Hehe, what's up, third senior brother?"
Shen Weixun sized up the little one who was obviously acting weird. His expressionless look was scarier to Niannian than when their master was angry.
When their master was angry, he also liked to frown. When really angry, he would blow his beard and glare, looking really fierce.
He would also punish her.
But Niannian wasn't afraid at all. Sometimes when their master was angry, she would even talk back.
But she was most afraid of the third senior brother getting angry.
The third senior brother never punished her, never shouted at her or scolded her. He just simply looked at her.
But somehow she felt terrified.
"Did you just not listen to me and eat this stuff?"
"No! No!"
Niannian shook her head like a rattle.
She didn't eat it. She would never put such a strange thing in her mouth!
"Hmm?"
Shen Weixun clearly didn't believe that the little one hadn't done anything wrong.
"I'll count to three. You'd better confess. Three... two..."
"Wuwuwu... Third senior brother, I was wrong. I was just curious and dipped a little bit with my little finger..."
Counting to three was simply a fear deep in the soul for kids.
Actually, all kids didn't know what would happen after counting to three.
But their intuition told them that if the countdown really ended, they would have a really miserable time.
The little one was just a five - year - old kid after all. She couldn't resist this inborn fear.
Shivering, she confessed everything clearly.
She even burst into tears.