Be Careful, Scum Dad! Mommy Is Back!
Chapter 440: Coaxing Daddy to Sleep

Chapter 440: Chapter 440: Coaxing Daddy to Sleep

"Brother! Get up and practice archery!"

Little Dumpling’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt when she spotted Ji Muye inside the room.

Xiao Bai really brought back her discount-price dad!

Those dark, pitch-black eyes slowly opened, meeting the concerned and worried gazes of his two sons. He patted their heads and said, "Wake up and freshen up."

Seeing her discount dad’s gaze turn toward her,

Lu Nuonuo, biting her bottle, waved her hand and said, "Nuonuo has already brushed her teeth and washed her face~"

"And put on lotion." She ran over, pushing her face close to Ji Muye to let him smell it; her face was already moisturized with a soothing children’s cream.

As she got closer, Lu Nuonuo caught a strong medicinal scent from him.

Her small face scrunched up, and she turned to glance in the direction where her brothers had left. Just as she was about to speak, she remembered what her uncle had said about maintaining authority.

Lu Nuonuo, still biting her bottle, gripped the edge of the bed with both hands and quickly climbed up.

Standing on the bed, she compared her own height to Ji Muye, who was sitting in a wheelchair. She noticed that the difference had significantly shrunk compared to before.

Lowering her voice, Lu Nuonuo asked, "Uncle, are you hurt again?"

Ji Muye just watched his daughter busily climbing up the bed. At first, he didn’t understand her sudden motive and even gave her a helping hand to get her safely onto the bed.

Now, hearing her words, his brows knitted together. He thought of the recent injuries he had sustained several times, and how she could always spot them in an instant.

Curious, he asked, "How did you know?"

"The medicine smell," Lu Nuonuo said smugly, raising her chin proudly.

Since she was young, she had been very sensitive to the scent of medicine. Even a faint trace wouldn’t escape her notice.

Feeling tired from standing, she plopped down onto Ji Chao’s blanket, quietly gulped down the remaining milk in her bottle, and casually handed it over to Ji Muye.

The man accepted it with a smile and placed it on the bedside table.

Lu Nuonuo scooted forward on the bed, rummaged through her little candy bag, and took out the mirror with a little fox design that hung from it. She held it up in front of Ji Muye’s face.

Pointing at the dark circles under Ji Muye’s eyes, she said, "Panda Uncle."

Ji Muye glanced at the small mirror in her hands. He hadn’t even noticed his dark eye circles before.

Little Dumpling turned the mirror around to reflect her own face. She beamed at Ji Muye and said, "Pretty Nuonuo."

Ji Muye: "..."

He remembered what Ji Ze had said to him earlier: no matter how young his daughter was, she’s still a little girl. She needed praise, and you definitely couldn’t call her chubby.

Of course, he couldn’t mock her vanity now.

Lu Nuonuo put down her mirror, rested her chin in her hands, and stared at Ji Muye. Her eyes drifted down to his legs. Cautiously, she stretched out her foot to tap his knee, discovering no reaction.

Little Dumpling: Disaster! Discount dad’s legs are broken!

Ji Muye had no idea what his daughter was thinking at the moment. But when he saw the concern brimming in her bright eyes, a wave of warmth swept through his heart.

"Daddy’s fine. I’ll be good in a little while."

This period of rest was the perfect chance for him to spend more time with his three children.

It gave him an even better excuse... to stay at the ZN research facility.

Earlier, Lu Xining had handed her daughter off to Jing Zheng and immediately headed to the lab.

That morning, Sang Yimin messaged her, saying they had discovered a special substance in the samples extracted from the young merman.

There was a real possibility it could help him revert to being fully human!

At this moment, Lu Xining had already put on her lab coat and dived into the next phase of research with Sang Yimin and the others.

Ji Muye lifted Lu Nuonuo down from the bed and asked, "Where’s your mom?"

"Mommy went to work."

Lu Nuonuo didn’t sit on his lap. Though she was very petite, she still worried that she might accidentally hurt her discount dad’s injuries.

What if his legs didn’t recover? That would truly be disastrous!

Standing beside the electric wheelchair, she hesitated for a long while. Then, extremely seriously, she patted Ji Muye’s hand and said in her small, commanding tone, "Uncle, you have to behave, okay? Don’t bother Mommy, alright?"

"Mommy works really, really hard."

Ever since Ji Muye returned to the country with Lu Xining, the others remained overseas at the ZN research facility to recover.

With the lab’s professional medical team, their wounds wouldn’t need to worry much about healing.

What mattered most was the security there. Even if Xi Juan’s men discovered the location of the lab and tried to send people in, it would be impossible.

Fu Junhang had his people stationed at the entrance to protect it.

Compared to the domestic ZN research base, the one overseas was more focused on medical rescue. On the other hand, the domestic base specialized in herbal cultivation, new drug development, and other biological research projects.

The wounds on Ji Muye’s body had been cleaned and stitched by Jing Zheng, then treated with a newly developed regenerative drug from the lab. The effects were significant.

They arrived at the ZN base just before dawn.

Ji Muye only stayed in his sons’ room for about half an hour.

Ji Chao and Ji Ze soon woke up.

After much persuasion from his sons, Ji Muye returned to the guest room in the apartment to rest.

The apartment was a two-bedroom, one-living-room design. Lu Xining and her daughter shared one room, the twins had the other, leaving no vacancy.

Fortunately, the ZN base still had plenty of vacant apartments. She had arranged separate rooms for both Ji Muye and Jing Zheng.

Ji Chao and Ji Ze, being sensible, returned to their lessons in archery and horseback riding with their professional instructors once they saw that their dad was alright.

Meanwhile, Lu Nuonuo, with no tasks at hand, cradled her uncle to sleep and made her way next door to check on her discount dad.

Little Dumpling: I’m so busy these days~

Ji Muye didn’t feel sleepy at the moment. He leaned against the headboard, watching his daughter sit beside him, staring intently as if waiting for him to fall asleep. A small smile tugged at his lips, and he patted the empty spot next to him on the bed.

He said to her, "How about Dad tells you a story?"

Lu Nuonuo shook her head in refusal: "No way."

She knew that listening to stories always made her sleepy, and then she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at night.

"Then why don’t you tell Dad about something fun that happened recently?"

Little Dumpling blinked her big eyes and seemed to have a sudden realization: Oh! Discount dad wants a bedtime story!

Mimicking how her mom told her stories, she first patted for Ji Muye to lie down, pulled the blanket up over him, and gently patted his chest with her little hands.

Lu Nuonuo’s soft voice started, "Once upon a time, there was a fish... and it liked to drink fish soup..."

"..." Ji Muye’s train of thought came to an abrupt halt.

Meanwhile, in the swimming pool, the young merman was happily splashing about in the water. All of a sudden, he burst out of the water with a powerful sneeze.

So strange. Why has he been sneezing so much lately?

-

The agreed-upon time quickly passed.

Xi Juan, still waiting for Lu Xining to come find him, grew colder and colder in expression with each passing moment.

Secretary Cheng, standing by his side, glanced at the time on his watch. Seeing that it was drawing closer to Xi Juan’s bedtime, he reminded, "Old Xi, at this hour, Miss Lu might already be asleep. Tomorrow morning, I’ll have someone contact her. You’ve been tirelessly busy these days; it’s better to rest earlier."

The ebony cane made a soft tap on the ground as Xi Juan remarked with meaning, "That little Lu is just like her grandfather, stubborn to the bone and unreasonable."

"Miss Lu will come around," Secretary Cheng murmured, his eyes glinting with a faint, cold light.

Over the years, he had personally handled all of Xi Juan’s unspeakable matters and naturally understood the deeper meaning behind his words.

Xi Juan said, "Teach her a little lesson. Just don’t hurt her hands. They still have their use."

To him, Lu Xining’s most valuable asset was her hands.

Secretary Cheng bowed respectfully. "Understood."