LBRDINI

Chapter 100: A Living Story

After a few days of sweltering heat, Water Star was affected by a hurricane passing through and it stormed for three or four days in a row. If it wasn't for the quality of the interstellar era buildings, there would have been dragon casualties.

The childcare centre suspended classes the day before the hurricane and did not resume until after the weather cleared.

On the third day of the hurricane's transit, the windows of Xing Fei's dormitory were smashed by rocks blown from outside and the heavy rain wet many books on the shelves. As Shen Mian and the others were staying at the centre's villa, they waited until the hurricane left before returning to the dormitory, so many books on the shelves had been soaked in water for a day.

Even when it was blown dry, the paper was crumpled and the writing on it was muddled together. In some cases, it was so bad that the words were completely illegible, leaving only a patch of black.

Xing Fei didn't say anything, but when she came back, she kept sitting in front of the bookshelf, stacking up several blow-dried notebooks, which together were almost taller than the stool the little girl sat on.

They were the various diaries that Xing Fei had saved since she could read. Many of these "notebooks" didn't even have covers but were just old papers stapled together to act as a notebook. Many of the pages had words on the other side, cut out from old books. There was no real content in them, many of the words were written by the old dean, who taught them how to write.

She didn't say anything and Qin Yi didn't dare to comfort her, so she dragged the small sofa over and snuggled on Xing Fei, her tail wrapped around Xing Fei and gently patting her, delivering silent comfort.

Qin Yi didn't know how to comfort Xing Fei and could only circle around her, gently stroking her.

It must have taken a long time to write such a thick stack of notes. It was soaked in water just like this, how sad would she be? But it didn't stop her from understanding the feeling.

Xing Fei smiled at her and quickly lowered her head. A crumpled diary was sprawled on her lap, her handwriting a mangled mess- this was her first diary. The old dean had stapled together pages from old books that didn't have many words on it.

Just when Qin Yi was in a dilemma, the dormitory door was gently knocked on twice.

Qin Yi quickly glanced at Xing Fei. The little girl slowly tilted her head, seemingly unresponsive.

Shen Mian waited outside the door for a few seconds, couldn't be bothered with politeness and opened the door to go in. He found that Xing Fei was still alright and was relieved. Shen Mian bent down and put down the boxes in his arms. Behind him, He Xing had two more in his arms. It was unknown what was in them but it looked big and heavy.

He Xing softly said, "Then I'll just start installing it."

Shen Mian nodded.

He Xing opened the express delivery boxes, which contained steel frames and transparent glass.

Qin Yi glanced at it a couple of times and guessed what it was from the pile of parts- it was a bookshelf with glass doors!
The little dragon cub looked at the dean, who was coming over, quickly moved out of the way for him and ran off to help Uncle He.

Shen Mian sat next to Xing Fei and wrapped one arm around her.

The little girl who was trying to control her emotions quickly blinked and stretched out her hands to cover her face. "I-It's nothing... Dean, you should go back to rest."

Although the childcare centre didn't suffer too much financial damage, the hurricane still caused a lot of trouble after it passed- the shed in the back of the eco-field collapsed and broke a lot of things. The two housekeeping robots and the security guard uncles were frantically busy. The dean and Uncle He had been busy all morning.

As the window in Xing Fei and Qin Yi's dormitory was broken, a lot of debris and water had come in. Just changing and tidying up took a lot of time. Since it was the little girls' room, Shen Mian didn't call other childcare teachers to come in. He got a housekeeping robot to roughly clean it and did the rest himself.

Xing Fei didn't want to cry at all. The childcare centre was already a mess and she didn't want the dean to spend too much energy on her, so she turned around and gently hugged Shen Mian. "Dean has worked very hard."

Shen Mian took a look at the notebooks. He knew that those very rough little books were stapled together by the old dean himself and Gian also had notebooks like this- the old dean would give these pages to the little dragon cubs for them to practice writing. Gian also properly stored them away.

"I'm not tired." Shen Mian caressed the top of the little girl's soft head. "Most of the work was done by the robot. Gian changed the parts for the robot and it works more efficiently than before."

At the mention of Gian, Xing Fei remembered her time at the centre before and couldn't help smiling. "En, Brother Gian is awesome."

Xing Fei was quiet for a bit in Shen Mian's arms and heard the sound of metal clashing and Qin Yi's confused questions. Xing Fei lifted her head from Shen Mian's shoulders and found that Qin Yi and Uncle He were assembling something. Qin Yi was carrying a frame taller than herself and was making gestures. Uncle He smiled at her, held another frame and let Qin Yi install it.

Xing Fei wanted to distract herself from crying under the dean's comfort, so she asked, "Is uncle installing new furniture? Nothing's broken in the room."

Shen Mian picked her up. "We replaced the bookshelf with a new one that has a glass door that can be moved. The original shelves in the dormitory are made of wood and have been soaked for a few days so they're no longer of use. We'll move it to the outside storage room later, it'll easily rot inside the room."

Xing Fei's eyes lit up- it was a new bookshelf! And it's made of metal.

He Xing had Qin Yi, a little helper of infinite strength, who had already put together a small square while Shen Mian was comforting Xing Fei. Shen Mian smoothly picked up a small leather-bound notebook from one side of the table, put it in and closed the glass door. "Look, it fits."

Xing Fei carefully took out the leather-bound notebook and flipped it open, rubbing the handwriting on the pages several times. "The old dean gave this to me."
The cover was faux leather and there were delicate little button fasteners on the front and back. All the rain that leaked in through the window hit the outer cover and the inner pages were still fine.

By the time she returned, the centre was in much better shape than before, and the dean loved the cubs and did his best to give the best of everything they used. From a small diary to a library and mock battle arena.

This was probably a notebook with notes, or an essay. The pages were filled with Xing Fei's clear and elegant handwriting. Shen Mian roughly took a glance at it, her phrasing appearing to be lovely.
The first page wasn't much, just about that one time they were eating sweet whites. Shen Mian didn't have enough time to open it for them and went out for business. As the older brother, Lu Yuan bit off all the sweet whites one at a time and managed to gain the dislike of the two little dragon cubs.

There were no ups and downs in the plot, but you couldn't help but smile when reading it. Not to mention little dragon cubs, even adults like Shen Mian couldn't help but want to see what kind of interesting things were written on the next page.

Shen Mian suddenly had an idea. "We can send it to be published."

Xing Fei was stunned.

Shen Mian, "That way, even if one day we can't find the manuscript, our little Xing Fei's story will have been circulated among other little dragon cubs."

"It becomes a living story."

Not just in any one place, but everywhere.