Then I stood up from the dining table and went to the kitchen to take her ice cream. Then I handed over a bowl of ice cream into her hands and said, "Now don't ask me anymore," I said to her.
She gave her most appealing innocent smile, in which her mischievousness was hidden, and I knew that because I was very familiar with this smile. I knew from where she had inherited this smile. Then I looked at him, who was unknowingly giving exactly the same smile as hers, and then I smiled to myself while looking at both of them.
Then he looked at me and said, "Why are you looking at us like we are some kind of aliens who have just landed on the planet?" he said to me.
I smiled and said, "Indeed you both are."
"Ooo really?" he asked me while raising one eyebrow in his usual style. So many years had passed, but a few things never changed, like him giving the same usual expression as always.
Then he looked at me and said, "I have noticed something. Since morning, you have been making fun of us, isn't it?" he asked me.
I looked away somewhere in the house to avoid eye contact with him, and then suddenly she said, "Pa, when Ma saw you yesterday on TV with an aunty, she got really angry. Her whole face became red. She even looked like a cherry tomato. Then suddenly she took away my snack packet from my hands and said, 'You are eating too many snacks nowadays. You should avoid them,' and then she turned off the TV."
Yuan looked at me after hearing her and said, "So that's the reason you have been acting so weird since morning," he said.
Then I took a deep breath and said, "This girl is really your little detective that you have assigned to give you all updates about me, isn't it?" I asked him.
He laughed very shamelessly and said, "Indeed she is. After all, she is our daughter. She must be extraordinary like us," he said.
"No, she is not extraordinary like us. In fact, she has really surpassed us in being weird," I said.
"Of course she got all the qualities from us only," he said.
"But she is more like you. Look at her face. It's exactly like yours from your childhood pictures," I said.
Then Yuan asked Chen Shiyuan, "Look at Pa, Xiao Shiyuan."
And she did.
Then Yuan looked at her face for a while, from right to left and left to right. Then he looked at me and said, "Indeed she looks more like me, but her habits are just like yours only," he said.
I shook my head and said, "No, not at all. Her habits are also just like yours only," I said.
"Ooo, if that's the case, then tell me where she got the quality of eating whole ice cream tubs within a day. You know how limitless she is when it comes to eating ice cream. And you know too well that if we let her, then she can eat all the ice cream in Shanghai within one day," he said.
And I wasn't disagreeing with him because I knew she was really just like me in this. I thought this to myself.
Then Yuan said to me, "She is a professional ice cream eater, just like you," he said.
And then I looked away somewhere again.
Then Chen Shiyuan asked Yuan, "Pa, how did you get Ma?"
"You are so little and asking such questions from your Pa? I am really going to put a child lock on the refrigerator," I said while showing my fake anger to her, in which I completely failed.
And she said, "Don't worry, Ma. My Pa is not a child, so a child lock won't stop Pa from getting me my ice cream," she said.
I got shocked hearing this from her, and then I said, "She even got such a sharp tongue."
"Of course she did," he said.
Then he looked at me and said, "Look, she got the same mole as you. The mole on the right side of her upper lip. See?" he said while turning her face towards me.
"See, it's exactly like yours," he said.
Then I took a close look at her and said, "Yes, indeed it is."
Then I said to him, "See, look at her. She even got the same mole as yours too. See, the one on her left cheek below her eye. It's at exactly the same position as yours, Yuan. Like yours," I said very excitedly.
Then Yuan looked at me and said, "See, we didn't even notice all these years that our little stubborn troublemaker has been carrying both of us in her all the time," he said while looking at her.
And she got busy watching her favourite cartoon on TV, which was Shinchan.
He looked at me and then at her, who had suddenly become so busy watching it while eating her ice cream that she had even moved from the dining table to sit on the sofa.
"Aren't she a Shinchan fan just like you?" he asked me.
Then I looked at him and said, "Aren't you a fan of Shinchan too, just like me?" I asked him.
He smiled while looking at me, and then I smiled too while looking at him.
"Okay, okay, fine. She is just like us. She inherited everything from us only," he said.
No doubt her physical appearance was more like him, and her inner qualities were just like me. No doubt, in the end, she is just like both of us. She is carrying both of us within herself all the time.
And this is us, and she is ours.
We both said this to each other while looking into each other's eyes, and then...