Tao Ti hugged the teddy bear and nuzzled it again and again, her eyes stinging as she murmured in a tiny voice, "Now, I can hug the teddy bear too!"
Suddenly, the door was pushed open, and Tao Ti was startled, quickly releasing the teddy bear and nervously clutching her clothes with both hands.
"Awake, huh! Do you want Chinese or Western for breakfast?" Cheng Guodong walked over with a smile and rubbed his little sister's head.
Her hair was soft and well-behaved, much more obedient than the family's plush cat!
Tao Ti felt the warmth and tenderness from the large hand as it stroked her head, and when she looked up, she met Cheng Guodong's doting eyes.
"I... I'll eat anything, I'm not picky," she said shyly, looking down, her little ears turning red.
So it turns out that besides Grandpa, there were others who liked me too!
Was it because I saved him, devouring the Evil Spirit that was haunting him?
If I devoured many, many Evil Spirits and saved many, many people, would I be liked by many, many people?
As she contemplated, Tao Ti's eyes grew brighter as if she had discovered the door to a new world.
Cheng Guodong led Tao Ti by the hand out of the room, and she reluctantly looked back at the teddy bear, but Cheng Guodong, being a careful man, immediately noticed.
Cheng Guodong stopped in his tracks, and Tao Ti looked up at him with curiosity.
He pointed to the plush toys on the couch inside the room, "You don't like these toys?"
Tao Ti was stunned and stared at him blankly, "I... Can I like them?"
Her voice was very soft and tentative.
Cheng Guodong's heart ached immediately; he had already looked into Tao Ti's past and learned from her neighbors how difficult her daily life was.
A little girl who had to squat on the floor to wash her siblings' diapers, Guodong couldn't bear to imagine the scene, but the thought alone was enough to make his heart sour!
This was his lifesaver, as well as his lucky star, and now, the half-sister Cheng Guodong had decided to take under his wing!
From now on, if her parents didn't love her, then as her older brother, he would dote on her!
"These are all yours! If you don't like them, Big Brother will buy you new ones! I'll buy you a roomful of toys and create a toy wonderland for you!"
Tao Ti's eyes widened in disbelief, "Really? Are these all bought for me? And that teddy bear... May I hug it?"
Cheng Guodong took a few steps to the teddy bear, picked it up, and handed it to her with a smile, "It's your teddy bear; you can hug it any way you want!"
Tao Ti hugged the teddy bear tightly, laughing happily and rubbing her face against it, "This is great; I now also have my very own first toy!"
The more innocently the child laughed, the more Guodong's heart ached.
She was a six-year-old child, and only now did she have her first toy; it was too sad!
Guodong rubbed his nose, his voice buzzing, "Hungry, right? Let's go downstairs with your teddy bear and eat something delicious!"
This was a Chinese-styled villa with two floors, the first floor being a large hall.
An eight-immortal table was laden with food, and in addition to their tempting aroma, these breakfast items were designed with care, fashioned into little pigs for meat buns, little rabbits for egg yolk buns, and watermelons for bean paste buns...
The colorful Little Steamed Buns came in various flavors, such as pork, shrimp, shrimp with egg yolk, and crab yellow with pork...
There were also the most common Chinese breakfast items like big pancakes with crullers, soy milk with tofu pudding, and fried buns with pot stickers.
Besides Chinese breakfast, there was Western breakfast, with bread made into little rabbits, little turtles, pizzas, pasta, Hamburgers...
There were also foods from various countries, like sushi, pan-fried cheese, egg custard, fruit pudding, curry beef pie, and banana roti...
With so many delicious foods, Tao Ti had not eaten or even recognized more than half of them.
She pointed at the egg custard and asked, "Is this steamed egg?"
It was sad for Guodong that a six-year-old child didn't even recognize egg custard!
"This is egg custard, and it tastes similar to steamed egg, but it isn't as hot, so you need to eat it slowly, and whereas steamed egg is salty, this egg custard is sweet!"
"Sweet?" Tao Ti leaned closer to the egg custard, sniffing it with her little nose, her eyes lighting up, "It smells so good! There's the scent of milk! And a sweet scent!"