Chapter 107: Remember Your Name, Fu Haochen

Chapter 107: Remember Your Name, Fu Haochen

For dinner, Su Taotao made a dish of pickled cabbage with assorted fish and a bowl of loofah soup.

Fu Zhengtu carefully picked out the meat from the fish belly for Chenchen to eat, while he himself ate the fish head, tail, and the parts with more bones.

Previously, Su Taotao thought that even if she followed Fu Zhengtu to the base, she would still be living a marriage where she felt like a single parent, working and taking care of the child alone. However, in reality, as long as Fu Zhengtu was at home, Chenchen hardly needed her to manage anything. Eating, dressing, bathing, and education... all were taken care of by Fu Zhengtu.

In the eyes of outsiders, he might seem like a stern father who rarely smiles, but he puts enough patience into the child, so Chenchen is also very close to him, willing to play with his dad and talk to him about anything.

Of course, Fu Yuanhang also takes good care of Chenchen, and the child and his uncle are "good friends" who talk about everything.

Chenchen is becoming more and more cheerful and happy, always smiling, looking like a chubby and fair child who has grown up bathed in love.

The heavy chores at home are also done by Fu Zhengtu, including washing clothes and bed sheets. Any visible work, he does it as he goes.

Other detailed tasks, such as sweeping, cleaning, feeding the White Rabbit, washing dishes, and wiping the table, are all taken care of by Fu Yuanhang.

It can be said that apart from buying groceries and cooking, Su Taotao rarely has to do any other work.

Even cooking depends on her mood; she cooks if she feels like it, and if not, they eat at the mess hall.

Eating at the mess hall is also fine with them.

But whenever she cooks, no matter what she makes, the three men in the house are very supportive, cleaning their plates completely. Even a large plate of pickled cabbage with assorted fish, the brothers managed to eat it all, not even leaving any soup.

Watching them eat gave Su Taotao a great sense of accomplishment.

These days, Fu Zhengtu has been moving things home bit by bit like an ant, and finally, he has collected enough materials to make an oven. The man, never one to sit idle, starts working on it right after dinner.

Su Taotao wanted to help but was pulled aside by him: "It's dirty, sit farther away."

Su Taotao: "..."

But when Fu Yuanhang went over to help after washing the dishes, and Chenchen went over to cause trouble with the White Rabbit, he didn't mind.

Only Su Taotao, like a foreman, lounging lazily in a chair, occasionally waving a large palm-leaf fan to shoo away mosquitoes.

Alright, she really didn't want to get herself dirty.

Fu Zhengtu placed a few large stones at the bottom, then mixed cement with water, partially adding sand to make concrete, which he laid on the stones to form the "base" of the entire oven.

After leaving space for the smoke outlet and the "door," he inserted a chimney, then used bricks and cement to build two layers, separated by an iron mesh in the middle. A fire lit below directly roasts the food above, or charcoal can heat the entire box, allowing the food to bake when the door is closed.

Chenchen was involved in this "large-scale" project for the first time, holding the small shovel his dad gave him, mixing cement and laying bricks with his uncle, having a blast.

After building the box, Fu Zhengtu added a thermal insulation layer around it, then smoothed it with cement, and finally came the shell-sticking part.

The child was thrilled by this part, picking up various shells he liked and sticking them on. He wasn't tall enough, so he cleverly brought his small stool to stand on.

Su Taotao walked over: "Chenchen, weren't you going to ask your dad why he wrote his name on your car?"

Fu Zhengtu looked at Su Taotao, not knowing why she brought this up.

Chenchen was having so much fun that he actually forgot about this. Reminded by his mom, he now widened his eyes and asked his dad: "Daddy, why did you write your name on my car?"

Fu Zhengtu: "..."

"Because people outside only know Dad's name, not Chenchen's."

Su Taotao: "..." Fu Zhengtu, could you consider your son's feelings and not be so blunt?

Chenchen pouted, clearly upset: "Every day they see me ~~ why don't they know ~~ Chenchen ~~"

So many people, staring at him every day.

Su Taotao smiled, squatted down, and held the child's chubby little hands:

"Chenchen, let's pick some shells of similar sizes and spell out Chenchen's name on the oven, okay?"

The child's big eyes lit up, and his little head nodded like a pecking chicken: "Yes, yes, yes ~~"

Su Taotao: "Come, Chenchen, help mommy count. Let's see how many shells we need to spell out Chenchen's name, and then line them up in groups of ten, okay?"

Chenchen looked at his two small, chubby hands and pushed them forward with a smile: "Ten ~~"

Su Taotao: "That's right, Chenchen's two palms make ten. Today you also helped mommy count twenty-eight steps, right?"

"Yes ~~" Chenchen nodded enthusiastically.

Su Taotao: "The name Fu Haochen has a total of thirty strokes in Chinese characters. Let's count thirty shells first, okay?"

"Yes ~~" Chenchen nodded enthusiastically again.

Su Taotao: "If we arrange the shells in rows like Chenchen's palms, ten in each row, how many rows do we need for thirty shells?"

"Three ~~" Chenchen blurted out.

Su Taotao: "Good, now Chenchen, go help mommy find thirty shells of similar sizes and arrange them in three rows."

Chenchen hopped off to find the shells: "Okay, mommy ~~"

Fu Zhengtu had brought back a bag of shells of various sizes, probably over a hundred, originally intended to be used as "wall tiles" on the oven's surface.

Using the method Su Taotao came up with would be more distinctive and could also teach Chenchen to count.

Chenchen neatly arranged the shells into three rows, counted them, and then showed his palms three times, telling Su Taotao: "Mommy ~~ thirty ~~"

Su Taotao patted the child's head: "Chenchen is so clever! That's right, here are thirty. What about forty?"

Chenchen thought for a moment, then arranged another row, and after finishing, showed his two small palms four times: "Forty ~~"

Su Taotao smiled: "Smart, Chenchen, have you noticed the pattern? Next, fifty would be five rows, sixty would be six rows, and so on."

Su Taotao pointed to the first shell in the first row: "This is 1, right? The first shell in the second row is 11, the first in the third row is 21, and the first in the fourth row is 31.

2 is the same, followed by 12, 22, and 32... numbers up to one hundred work the same way."

Su Taotao paused to observe the child's reaction, then said: "Mommy knows this might be a bit too complicated for Chenchen right now, it's okay if you can't remember, you can think about it next time you help mommy count."

Su Taotao, who had never raised a child before, knew that teaching a two-year-old these things was way beyond the curriculum.

But Chenchen was no ordinary child; he stared at the shells very seriously, and after a while, he said to her: "Mommy ~~ I remember now ~~"

Then Chenchen counted from 1 to 40 using the four rows of shells.

Su Taotao was speechless.

If Su Taotao teaching him to count the stairs from 1 to 28 in the morning was about rote memorization, then now, Chenchen truly understood the pattern and remembered it.

Su Taotao looked at Fu Zhengtu. Is our son a bit too smart?

Fu Zhengtu gave her a reassuring look.

Then, with Chenchen and Fu Yuanhang, they carefully placed each shell one by one, using about sixty shells of different sizes to spell out the three big characters "Fu Haochen."

Fu Zhengtu, wearing a tank top, showed off the well-defined muscles of his arms and back. His entire body, including his handsome face, was smeared with some cement, a departure from his usual gentlemanly demeanor, giving off a rugged, sexy field soldier vibe.

But when he spoke to Chenchen, his voice was very gentle: "Remember, your name is Fu Haochen."

"Wow!" Chenchen clapped his hands, "So pretty!"

Fu Zhengtu added, "In our family, it doesn’t matter whose name we write, so don’t be upset."

Chenchen understood that his father was talking about the car incident, and he nodded with a smile: "Got it, Daddy!"

Fu Zhengtu looked at Su Taotao.

Su Taotao smiled back at him.

Finally, Fu Yuanhang also pasted some floral patterns on the other side, and along the outer edge of the oven, he pasted a circle of large shells, filling in the middle with small stars, hearts, and various other patterns, DIYing a truly unique and one-of-a-kind oven.