My brother entrusted his child to me, and I livestreamed raising the baby, making the Empress cry wi

Lin Ye had just glanced at the live stream feed in his mind when he was confronted with those two faces.

Shu Jingwei leaned against the mottled earthen wall behind her, staring blankly up at the sky.

The pale, oppressive light of winter cast shadows into her sunken eyes.

When she noticed Lin Ye's gaze falling on her, she quickly looked away and lowered her head in embarrassment.

He huddled against the wall, trying to squeeze himself in, as if that would allow him to hide in the cracks between the bricks.

Her dry, unkempt hair, like weeds, hung down from the sides of her face, like two tattered curtains that hadn't been tended to in a long time, obscuring most of her face.

The scar on his forehead, which ran diagonally from his hairline to his brow bone, gleamed with a pale, fleshy reddish hue under the light.

The wind blew in from the alley entrance, causing some of the tattered cotton wadding inside her coat to spill out.

She silently stopped in her tracks, not wanting to embarrass herself further in front of Lin Ye.

But Shu Rou immediately pushed her thigh, her thin fingers pinching the little flesh left on her leg, impatiently urging her to hurry on her way.

Shu Jingwei had no choice but to continue forward, enduring the gazes that seemed to be filled with mockery and schadenfreude, making her feel like she was sitting on pins and needles.

Lin Ye sized up the two people.

Shu Jingwei's left arm hung down at her side, like a piece of cured meat hanging under the eaves, swaying gently in the occasional breeze.

The clothes at the shoulder bulged out in a deformed shape, like a broken bone that hadn't healed properly and had just died on its own.

The lower left leg dragged on the ground, its lower leg folding into a strange arc below the knee.

His face was so thin it was unrecognizable, his cheekbones were high and prominent, his eye sockets were deeply sunken, and the skin on his cheeks hung loosely.

There is a scar on his forehead that runs diagonally from his hairline to his brow bone. It's unclear when it was left, but it looks extremely frightening.

His lips were so dry and cracked that the white skin peeled off, and there was a sore at the corner of his mouth that was oozing pale yellow pus.

He was wrapped in a tattered coat that he had dug out of some garbage dump. The cuffs and hem were torn in several places, revealing the blackened cotton inside, which fluttered in the wind.

They had no shoes on their feet, and were barely covered by tattered clothes.

Shu Rou stood next to her, and she wasn't much cleaner than Shu Jingwei.

His face was also covered in mud, his hair was matted into stiff strands, and his eyes held a shrewdness and ruthlessness that belied his age.

The way she stared at Shu Jingwei was as if she were staring at a tool that wasn't very useful but couldn't be thrown away for the time being.

Lin Ye looked at it and felt much more relaxed, both physically and mentally.

Just a few months ago, Shu Jingwei was still the Empress, sitting upright in the imperial court and holding the power of life and death.

A single word can lead to the confiscation of property and the extermination of an entire clan; a single glance can make the entire court of officials kneel and tremble.

She probably still thinks she's the chosen one, believing that she can still manage the Great Flame Sect successfully even after Ye Fan leaves.

The results of it?

Lin Ye smiled slightly and looked away.

Knowing that Shu Jingwei was not doing well, he felt relieved.

There are more important things to do today.

The ice rink is more spacious inside than it appears from the outside.

The dome is an arched steel structure, with silver-gray steel beams intersecting to support the huge roof, painted with white fire-retardant paint, weaving a fine net overhead.

Sunlight streamed through the glass skylight, splitting into beams that fell bright white onto the ice.

The entire ice surface is like a mirror, reflecting the image of the dome's steel beams.

The room was air-conditioned, so it wasn't cold. There was only a faint coolness in the air near the ice rink, which was refreshing.

The entire ice rink was so quiet that only the low, steady hum of the ventilation fans could be heard.

Xiao Douzi and Duo Duo stood at the entrance, both of them opening their mouths wide.

"Wow--"

The sound echoed softly in the empty ice rink.

The barrage of comments suddenly erupted with those two "Wow" sounds.

[Zhang Hai, a commoner: Good heavens! My God! What is that on the ground? A whole piece! Is it white jade?! Such a big piece!?]

[Zhang Lou, a local resident: It's not jade, it's ice! Look closely, you can even see cold air rising from it! It's a whole block of ice!]

[Commoner Wang Xiao: Ice? Indoor ice!? Even in the dead of winter, ice can't stay indoors unless it's extremely cold! But Lin Xianren and the others took off their coats, so it wasn't cold indoors at all! How come the ice isn't melting!?]

[Commoner Li Da: Are you stupid? This is a place for immortals! Immortals can melt ice?]

……

Lin Ye walked up from behind, gently pressing one on each of the two little girls' heads: "Stop crying, change your shoes first."

The shoe changing area is on the east side of the ice rink, with a row of leather benches in front of low cabinets.

Lin Ye skillfully rummaged through the cabinet and pulled out two pairs of small pockets and Duo Duo's size, then took a pair for Mu Chenfeng and himself.

As Mu Chenfeng helped Duoduo untie her shoelaces, he glanced at the ice rink with a solemn expression, as if he were about to record a historic moment.

"Duoduo, Dad will take some pictures of your first time on the ice later, and show them to your mom when she gets back."

Duoduo was struggling to zip up her down jacket when she heard this. She looked up and replied in her childish voice, "Then Daddy should take a nice picture of me, okay?"

"Of course!"

Lin Ye listened from the side and indicated that he had learned something.

He'll take pictures of Xiaodouzi in a bit!

Lin Ye looked down at Xiao Douzi sitting next to him.

Little Douzi had already taken off the hood of her down jacket with bear ears, revealing a head of soft hair that was slightly puffed up due to static electricity.

A few stray hairs stuck up on top of her head, their edges gleaming with a fuzzy gold from the light streaming in through the skylight.

Now he's bent over, struggling with the laces of his ice skates.

Not wanting to trouble Lin Ye, she tried putting on her ice skates herself.

I managed to get them on, but the shoelaces...

The little boy frowned, his lips pursed into a thin line, and he pulled hard on both ends of his shoelaces with both hands...

Then, it was tied in a knot that couldn't be tied.

She tugged hard, but the knot didn't budge. She stared at it for two more seconds, then her lips curled down in a slight purse.

"...Godfather." Xiao Douzi raised his face, looking somewhat embarrassed, with a hint of awkwardness in his eyes.

Lin Ye couldn't help but chuckle. He first reached out and patted Xiao Douzi's head reassuringly, then quickly untied the knot and re-tied it into a pretty bow.

"The other foot."

Little Douzi obediently stretched out his other leg.

Lin Ye kept his head down and continued tying the bag, while Xiao Douzi watched the black head in front of him move around. Suddenly, he reached out his hand—

He gently touched the top of Lin Ye's head.

"My godfather's hair is so stiff," she muttered softly, her tone filled with curiosity, as if she had discovered something extraordinary.

Lin Ye looked up and met her bright, sparkling eyes.

The moment their eyes met, Xiao Douzi realized what she had just done, and her face flushed red, burning from the tips of her ears all the way to her cheeks.

She quickly pulled her hand back and hid it in her sleeve.

"...I...I just wanted to touch it." She lowered her head, her voice growing softer and softer, her chin almost touching her chest, and the back of her neck turning red.

Looking at her embarrassed yet obedient appearance, Lin Ye felt a string in his heart being gently plucked, leaving him feeling numb.

He shook his head, a smile playing on his lips, and reached out to pull the little hand, clenched into a fist, from his sleeve, placing it back on his head. He spoke in a deep voice:

"What's wrong with that? Feel free to touch it!"