After the Sickly Child Differentiates into A - Chapter 21.2

She played with the puppy, her eyes crinkling into a smile as she laughed.

So, this was what she looked like when she laughed so happily.

Wen Jingzhi looked at her softened eyes and thought to herself that Wen Xihe hadn’t been wrong.

They really were puppy-dog eyes.

With the clean, sweet-smelling puppy in tow, the two of them one big, one small left the pet hospital and got into the car. The engine started, and they headed toward the old family estate.

Half an hour later, the car pulled into the garage. Wen Jingzhi brought Lin Li into the house, where the housekeeper greeted them and took Lin Li to settle the puppy in.

There was a guest room on the first floor that was rarely used. Wen Jingzhi had already texted the housekeeper on the way, and by now the room had been tidied up. Dog food and other supplies were gradually brought in and arranged. All Lin Li had to do was set the puppy down and stay with it to help it adjust to its new environment.

By the time everything was done, it was mealtime. The puppy stayed in the room to get familiar with its surroundings, while Lin Li washed her hands and went to the dining room.

Only Wen Jingzhi and Old Master Wen were at the dining table. Wen Xihe was at the company, and Wen Xize had gone to scout a location for an art exhibition, so neither was home.

Old Master Wen helped Lin Li onto a chair and asked her a few questions about the school activities, but didn’t mention the puppy Wen Jingzhi had already explained the situation to him earlier.

Lin Li answered each question with a squinting smile, only mentioning a few small games she remembered and not bringing up how her sister had carried her while running.

For some reason, she just didn’t want to talk about it.

It felt like protecting a secret, or perhaps a “treasure.”

After the meal, Old Master Wen went to take a look at the puppy. He seemed quite pleased with its appearance and said to Lin Li, “I can take the puppy for a walk around the estate in the mornings. I have nothing else to do anyway.”

After all, Lin Li had to go to school, and Wen Jingzhi wasn’t often home either.

If the puppy could be accepted by Old Master Wen, it would be even less likely to end up homeless in the future. Naturally, Lin Li was delighted and replied with a beaming smile, “That sounds great! Thank you, Grandpa Wen.”

The puppy was clever and seemed to know who was in charge of its meals. It wagged its tail enthusiastically at both Old Master Wen and Wen Jingzhi and didn’t bark unnecessarily in the room.

After playing with the puppy for a while, Old Master Wen went upstairs. Lin Li tried to make the puppy a bit more obedient. Using some dog-training techniques she’d picked up from who-knows-where, she attempted to teach it to shake hands, and surprisingly, she looked quite skilled at it.

Wen Jingzhi watched for a while until her phone suddenly vibrated. She pulled it out and saw a message in the parents’ group chat.

The teacher had posted the group photo from that day in the chat.

She opened the photo and looked at the front row, far left, where she and Lin Li were standing.

She was standing sideways to the camera, one hand resting on Lin Li’s head, a faint smile on her lips. Lin Li was facing her, holding the towel-wrapped puppy in her arms, her downturned eyes slightly widened as if in surprise, yet also somewhat lost in thought.

What had the child been thinking when this photo was taken?

To have such a dazed and astonished expression.

After staring at the photo for a while, a sudden sense of familiarity rose in her heart. A certain image flashed through her mind, causing her eyebrow to twitch slightly. She put away her phone, turned, and left, heading straight upstairs.

The old man was lying on a recliner on the balcony, listening to an opera tune while basking in the sun. Just as Wen Jingzhi knocked and entered, the song reached a melodious, theatrical part. She paused briefly before walking over and sitting on the adjacent recliner. “Do you still have photos of Lin Li on your phone?” she asked the old man.

“Yes, I do,” Wen Chende replied, showing a hint of surprise and confusion at her request for photos. “What do you need Xiao Li’s photos for?”

Wen Jingzhi tightened her grip on the phone in her hand. “There’s something I need to confirm.”

“Something about Xiao Li?” Wen Chende took out his phone, opened the photo album, and pulled up the two photos taken back in the village. He handed the phone to Wen Jingzhi. “I was worried before that you didn’t like that child.”

Now, he wasn’t so worried.

But this level of concern was still unusual.

Wen Jingzhi’s movements faltered slightly as she took the phone, and she pursed her lips.

Why was Grandpa saying that too?

It was true that she hadn’t paid much attention to the child before, but she had never shown any signs of dislike either.

She simply hadn’t cared.

Wen Jingzhi lowered her gaze to the photo on the screen, her cold eyes narrowing slightly.

Just as she thought.

The positioning and posture of the elderly woman and Lin Li in the old photo were strikingly similar to how they had been earlier that day.

Time seemed to intersect through the photograph, brushing the dust off memories and evoking nostalgia and melancholy.

So that was it.

Wen Jingzhi suppressed the sigh in her eyes and returned the phone to her grandfather. The old man took it, looked at the elderly woman on the screen, and smiled. “It’s strange that Junyan, with her temperament, managed to raise Xiao Li to be so well-behaved.”

He sighed, reminiscing about the past, then put his phone away.

Strange?

Wen Jingzhi instinctively wanted to ask more about the elderly woman, but seeing her grandfather’s expression, she swallowed her words. She stayed quietly with him for a while before leaving.

Returning to the living room on the first floor, she found the child teaching the puppy to walk on a leash, still with an air of competence. Wen Jingzhi raised an eyebrow, a flicker of curiosity stirring within her.

She walked over and watched for a moment before asking Lin Li, “Where did you learn this?”

The training method didn’t seem like the typical approach used by pet shops for domestic dogs; it was more akin to how military dogs were trained in the army.

“Grandma taught me,” Lin Li said, mentioning her late grandmother for the first time since arriving at the Wen household. The soft smile she had directed at the puppy faded, replaced by the same squinted, artificial expression as before.

It seemed she didn’t like talking about it.

Wen Jingzhi’s cold gaze dropped to the puppy, and she changed the subject. “Have you thought of a name for the puppy yet?”

“Isn’t it for you to name?” Lin Li asked, puzzled. “It’s your puppy, after all.”

Wen Jingzhi didn’t understand why the child was so insistent on assigning the role of the puppy’s owner to her. Coolly, she replied, “You can name it.”

The puppy’s true owner wasn’t her.

Even though her sister had said she wanted to raise it, she never liked holding the puppy, never mentioned taking it out for walks, and now she didn’t even want to give it a name. It seemed as though she had no intention of raising it at all.

Then why had her sister adopted it?

Her dark eyes flickered, her gaze fixed on her beautiful sister for a long moment before her eyelids drooped, concealing the thoughts within.

She thought she understood.

The child didn’t know much, but she wasn’t foolish. In fact, due to certain experiences, she was particularly sensitive to others’ emotions.

Wen Jingzhi always wore an aloof expression, and her tone of voice was so flat it barely held any fluctuation. Though her demeanor didn’t change much around family, her actions were noticeably gentler.

Lin Li could sense the difference in her attitude and had also noticed her sister’s recent concern for her.

But her sister’s attitude toward the puppy was different, it resembled how she had treated Lin Li when she first arrived at the Wen household.

So she guessed.

Her sister had adopted the puppy because of her.

For a moment, Lin Li felt a pang of sadness. But the puppy was already here, and she truly was happy about it, so she reminded herself not to dwell on it or ask for more.

That would only make her annoying.

“Can’t think of one?” Seeing the child lower her gaze and remain silent for a long time, Wen Jingzhi thought she was struggling to name the puppy and offered a suggestion, “You can say it out loud, let me hear.”

Lin Li snapped back to reality, lifted her face, and smiled with squinted eyes, “No need, sis, I’ve decided.”

“What name did you choose?”

“Xiao Xi.”

When Lin Li said the name, she didn’t hesitate at all, as smoothly as if she had already thought of it long ago.

And she claimed she didn’t want to keep it.

Wen Jingzhi’s expression remained unchanged as her light-colored eyes fell on the child’s pale face. “Why that name?”

Here we go again.

This time, however, Lin Li didn’t feel impatient, thanks to that earlier run.

Even she hadn’t realized that her attitude toward Wen Jingzhi had unconsciously begun to reveal a bit of her “true self.”

Sadness, sorrow, hesitation, dislike… these emotions, which she had always buried behind a smiling face, were now one by one laid bare before Wen Jingzhi and noticed by her.

After waiting a long time without a response, Wen Jingzhi’s throat vibrated with a prompt, “Hmm?”

Unwilling to say even this?

“Because Xiao Huan and Xiao Xi can form a pair.” It was a seemingly random answer.

Wen Jingzhi’s brow furrowed slightly. “Xiao Huan? A pair?”

Lin Li crouched down, picked up the puppy, and smiled, “Yeah, Xiao Huan was the name of the dog Grandma and I raised.”

“Grandma said if we ever got a second dog, we should name it Xiao Xi.”

Xiao Huan and Xiao Xi, huanhuan xixi, joy and happiness.

Grandma had hoped she could always be joyful.

The slender fingers hanging at her side curled slightly, and Wen Jingzhi averted her gaze, falling silent.

It wasn’t until Lin Li was holding the puppy and about to open the door to leave that Wen Jingzhi asked, as if casually, “What about Xiao Huan?”

Lin Li stopped in her tracks. After a few seconds, she turned around and flashed Wen Jingzhi a mask-like, artificial smile. In her always somewhat weak, soft voice, devoid of any emotion, she replied “Eaten by bad people.”

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