Chapter 14: Triple Trouble
By the time Su Yanyue returned home, the sun had dipped behind the trees, casting golden light across the quiet courtyard. She had barely stepped through the threshold when the silence was broken by a sharp crack—followed by the sound of something shattering.
She rushed inside.
"Su Zhi! Su Rui! Su Lin!"
Three identical heads popped up from behind the low table, faces guilty, eyes wide, and hands sticky with honey.
The once neatly arranged interior now looked like a battlefield.
Her basket of medicinal herbs had been overturned, dried roots scattered like fallen soldiers. A jar of plum jam was smashed on the floor. And on the wooden bench… sat a chicken, wearing what looked suspiciously like one of Yu Shiming's boots.
"What in the world—?"
"We were playing doctor!" Su Lin, the self-declared oldest, announced, puffing out his tiny chest.
"I was the patient!" Su Rui added proudly, holding a wooden spoon like a sword.
"And I was the chicken's bodyguard," said Su Zhi, the most mischievous of the three, adjusting a cloth tied around his head like a turban.
Yanyue pinched the bridge of her nose. "And how did that result in plum jam on the ceiling?"
The boys looked at each other, then at the ceiling.
"…Science?" Su Zhi offered hopefully.
Before Yanyue could decide whether to laugh or cry, footsteps sounded behind her.
Yu Shiming stepped inside and took in the scene with a slow blink.
"…You were gone for two hours," he said.
She pointed to the chaos. "And this is what happened."
The triplets scrambled up and ran to him, clinging to his legs. "Father, we were helping Auntie Yanyue prepare for her business!"
Yu Shiming raised a brow. "By terrorizing a chicken and blowing up jam?"
"It was an experiment," Su Lin mumbled, head bowed.
Yu Shiming sighed and lifted the three up with surprising ease—one under each arm, the third on his back. "You're all scrubbing the floors before dinner."
"Awwww…"
"No complaints."
Yanyue covered her mouth to hide her smile as the triplets groaned and were carried off like potato sacks toward the washroom. The sight of Yu Shiming handling them so naturally, his usually cold demeanor softened by fatherly patience, sent a flutter through her chest.
She began gathering herbs from the floor when a tiny hand tugged her sleeve. Su Lin, having managed a "great escape," looked up at her with wide, innocent eyes.
"Auntie Yanyue," he whispered, "do you like Father?"
She blinked. "What?"
"You always smile when he's here," the boy said. "And you smell nice. He notices that."
Her ears burned. "I—well, that's none of your business."
Su Lin leaned closer, whispering behind his hand, "We won't mind if you marry him. We like you better than all the boring ladies who try to impress him."
Yanyue let out a helpless laugh and tapped his forehead gently. "Go before your father comes back and catches you sneaking off."
The boy grinned and ran off, calling to his brothers, "She didn't say no!"
Not long after, with the mess mostly cleaned and dinner simmering on the stove, the five of them gathered around the table.
Yanyue watched as the boys argued over who had caught the chicken, while Yu Shiming quietly pushed the juiciest pieces of meat into her bowl when he thought she wasn't looking.
The laughter, the flickering lamplight, the warmth… it was unlike anything she'd ever known.
She had no past in this world, no name of power, no golden roof above her head.
But in this little home, with chaos and warmth and three sticky-fingered boys…
She was beginning to feel like she belonged.