HSB Chapter 9

Chapter 9

For Bambi, one of the benefits of saving Ivan was that when Ivan woke up, she could eat cooked food and drink hot water once again.

In the first few days when Hugh met his accident, Bambi was so scared that she would stand at the door every day, press her little face into the door, and listen for the sounds outside.

But there was no sound.

She followed Grandpa’s instructions and didn’t open the door no matter what she heard.

Therefore, even though she was hoping every moment of the day for Grandpa to open the door and come over, Bambi didn’t open the door.

She wanted to drink hot water, but after she tripped, she didn’t dare to enter the kitchen to use the stove, so she could only drink cold bottled water and hard instant noodles.

Bambi had a weak stomach, so in the first few days, she’d throw up whatever she ate. She knew this was a waste of food, so she didn’t eat it anymore, only taking small sips of cold water, making her stomach hurt again after drinking.

It was those first few days when Bambi lost weight at such a rate it was visible to the naked eye.

After bearing through the hardest days, Bambi’s body slowly adapted to her new diet and stopped causing problems.

With Ivan’s arrival, the kitchen appliances and what was left of the gas tank would finally be used. Bambi ran into the kitchen several times, looking around expectantly, and ran back to Grandpa’s room to see Ivan, who was sleeping on the bed, and whispered a prayer that Mr. Ivan would wake up soon.

After the bullet was removed and the wound bandaged up, Ivan lay down on the bed and slept with peace of mind; he had to sleep to replenish his lost strength.

Ivan’s chapped lips were peeling, and Bambi went to grab her mug. Bambi copied her grandpa’s example of how he used to take care of her and used a cotton swab to dip into the water and coat Ivan’s chapped lips.

Bambi was affixed to the task at hand, and when Ivan’s lips were dry, she applied the water once again; she repeated the procedure more than ten times before putting the cup down, and then leaned against the bedside as she stared at Ivan.

“Winnie, once Mr. Ivan wakes up, we’ll be able to eat hot noodles.” At this, Bambi’s little belly growled. Bambi patted her little belly and recalled the taste of hot noodles, and giggled in anticipation.

Suddenly, Bambi remembered something, and she turned and ran to her room to take out a pink metal box from one of the drawers. Opening the box revealed the small, colorful stones that lay inside.

Bambi knew these were crystals. Grandpa sometimes killed a monster and he would dig out these from the monster’s head. Grandpa said these were good things. Bambi also knew Grandpa holding these crystals with his eyes closed.

Mr. Ivan was so badly injured; would the crystals make him get better soon?

Bambi carried the metal box to the room next door, grabbed a handful of the crystals from the box, and put them on Ivan. When Bambi saw the cyan stone light up and emit a faint light, she knew that the cyan crystals were the ones useful for Ivan.

So, Bambi carefully picked out a handful of cyan crystals and put them on Ivan.

Julius’s heart, as he was peeping at the screen, seemed to be soaked in a jar of vinegar, feeling unbelievably sour.

He began to regret “operating” on Ivan.

However, soon, something that made Julius feel even more sour happened: after Bambi saw that the cyan crystals began to glow, she considerately exited the room, closed the door, and then dragged Ivan’s dirty clothes to the bathroom—where she was planning to wash Ivan’s clothes.

Julius: “…”

Would those tiny arms and legs be able to wash the clothes of an adult man?

Julius blew his top. How the hell did Hugh educate his granddaughter? How could Bambi be so nice to strangers?

“Grandpa will still be needing his clothes in the future. I’ve already given a set to Mr. Ivan to wear, so I can’t give anymore to Mr. Ivan,” Bambi shared her thoughts with Winnie on why she was washing Ivan’s clothes.

She was “stingy”; she didn’t want to give Grandpa’s clothes to Ivan, but Ivan had no other clothes, so she had to wash the clothes he changed out of, so he could have a set to change back into—Bambi thought considerately.

Julius instantly felt better. It turned out Bambi only washed Ivan’s clothes because she was reluctant to let him use her grandpa’s clothes.

Adult clothes wouldn’t be easy to easy in the sink, so Bambi filled a basin with water and soaked the clothes in them, pouring in powder laundry detergent.

Then Bambi looked at the water which was quickly turning a dark red with a troubled look.

It’s too dirty.

By the time the color of the water finally became lighter, Bambi was already tired from changing out the water in the basin. She didn’t expect that washing adults’ clothes would be so difficult. Shaking her sore little arm, Bambi decided to let the clothes sit and soak for Mr. Ivan to clean himself.

Grandpa taught her the idiom “don’t bite off more than you can chew,” so Bambi didn’t consider not being able to finish washing the clothes as giving up halfway.

Listening to his baby girl’s angelic thoughts, Julius chortled in amusement.

His little angel was so smart and so smooth with her use of idioms at such a young age.

However, if the old man Lane taught Bambi idioms, why didn’t he teach her how to read?

The thought of his baby girl not being able to read made Julius’ brain throb.

If Bambi couldn’t read, he couldn’t communicate with his baby girl through writing. If he were to suddenly do so in front of Bambi, he may end up scaring her again, causing the intimacy to drop once again.

But if he didn’t do anything, how could he get Bambi to increase her intimacy with him?

Julius was practically tearing his hair out.

A call request popped up, and Julius had to exit the game and connect the call.

It was a friend of his who called.

“Julius, do you have other plans for today?”

“What? Why?”

“We’re throwing a small party for my son’s birthday today. Do you want to join us?”

Julius was about to refuse the invite—he was here turning bald over raising his little angel; how could he have the energy to go to a birthday party—but before he could say no, he suddenly remembered something—

“How old is your son?”

“Six years old,” said his friend. “If you don’t come, I’m afraid he won’t remember you anymore.”

Julius’s heart skipped—a six-year-old boy, who was the same as his little Bambi. He couldn’t figure out what his baby girl was thinking in the game, but he got along with other children in real life, surely it would help increase his intimacy with his baby girl?

Thinking this, Julius swiftly agreed, “Okay, I’ll come over later.”

He had to gain some experience points with other children!

Julius’ friend was an idyllic aristocrat named Sean May who married young and had a son, Quinn May.

Quinn was a six-year-old little gentleman; when Julius walked in through the door, Quinn bowed like a little adult and said in a straight voice, “Good afternoon, Prince Julius.”

Julius: “…”

“Call me uncle.”

“Hello, Uncle Julius.”

Julius swept a glance over the little boy. “Six-year-olds…grow so tall?”

His baby girl appeared even more malnourished compared to Quinn.

Quinn looked up at Julius and said seriously, “I am 4.4 feet tall. Daddy is 6.2 feet tall. Compared to Daddy, I am not tall at all.”

Julius mentally thought that it was tall enough for a six-year-old. Listening to Quinn’s slight tone of disdain, it appeared he wasn’t pleased with his height.

After he handed over the birthday gift he brought to Quinn and gave it a moment’s consideration, he pulled Sean to the side for a little chat first and asked him how he usually interacted with Quinn.

Sean almost thought he had misheard, astounded that Julius would ask him such a question.

“Why? Is His Majesty pressuring you to get married and have a baby?”

Julius: “Don’t overthink it. Just answer my question.”

Sean said, “Then why are you so interested in how to raise children? Could it be…?”

“Are you telling me or not?” Julius glared at Sean.

Sean shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Usually, I’m at work, so the child is raised by his mother, so I don’t have much time to accompany him. However, whenever I’m on break, I will take him out for a walk, play games with him, and so on.”

“Does your son like you?”

“Nonsense!” Sean said proudly, “He is my son. If he doesn’t like me, who else would he like?”

Julius mentally scoffed. Who didn’t have a little angel of their own?

Only his little angel was in a game.

Julius wanted to hear more, but when other guests came through the door, Sean had to go and greet them, so Julius let him go and turned around to pull Quinn off to the side. “Little plum.”

Little Quinn frowned and said disapprovingly, “Uncle Julius, I have a name. My name is Quinn, not Little Plum.”

After all, Julius was asking for help, so he quickly changed Quinn’s nickname, “Little Quinn, I have a question for you. If you are home alone and your daddy and mommy aren’t home, but you need an adult’s help for everything, you suddenly find an invisible person is entering your home and wants to secretly help you, do you think this person is good?”

Little Quinn’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “He already snuck into my home, so how can he be a good person? Hiding and trying to help me? He clearly wants to do bad things.” Quinn concluded righteously, “This person must be a bad guy and a big pervert!”

So, in his baby girl’s heart, he was a big pervert? That’s how the –50 intimacy came about?

Julius: “…”

He humbly asked, “Little Quinn, then what should this person do so that you won’t be afraid?”

Quinn considered this thoughtfully and shook his head. “I don’t know. Anyway, if an invisible person is entering my home, I will immediately sound the alarm, and the guards will arrive as fast as possible to arrest the big pervert.”

Julius: “…”

He felt like he had asked the wrong person.

When Julius once again logged into the game, he found Bambi was nibbling on instant noodles again. With complete disregard for the possible increase in intimacy, he hurried over to buy today’s portion of apple from the store.

At the very least the apple tasted better than the instant noodles. He couldn’t watch his baby girl nibble on instant noodles paired with cold water and remain indifferent.

How could a little angel, raised by a prince, eat such trash?

Upon hearing a soft bang, Bambi looked up and found, just like yesterday, there was another red apple, nearly the size of her head, that appeared out of nowhere on the table.

Bambi instantly realized that the bad guy wasn’t gone yet; he was still there.

Bambi nervously turned her little head and looked around like a small animal, but Bambi wasn’t particularly afraid this time around—most likely because of the new addition of Ivan’s presence in the house.

Also, her thoughts had changed.

Even if there was a bad guy who wanted to fatten her up and eat her, it didn’t matter, because once Mr. Ivan woke up, she would ask Mr. Ivan to help get rid of the bad guy!

The newly appeared big apple, that Bambi had tasted yesterday, was no ordinary temptation for Bambi, making Bambi feel the instant noodles in her hand were no longer appetizing.

Julius saw the System pop up with a pleasing prompt: [Intimacy+5.]

“?”

Julius was stunned, and he stared at the prompt for a minute—what a tearjerking +5!

Daddy Xander had some kind of strange expression on his face. The AI butler happened to see it, and after looking it up, he matched this expression with the idiom “crying tears of joy.”

And the AI butler was particularly daring as he captured it into a meme and forwarded it to Julius.