American comics: May the Holy Light deceive you

Chapter 88 "The Zhang Family" - 3

Vega, carrying dumplings and roasted eggplant, left the alley with mixed feelings. After a moment's thought, he took a step and disappeared into the bustling street.

"Dad!" Little Shengxi, who was sitting on the sofa watching cartoons, rushed over as soon as she saw Vega appear in the living room.

Monica, who was working nearby, stood up, walked over, and asked, "Oh, why are you back?"

Vega: "The two elders cooked some dumplings for us, but what about the two girls?"

"They went out to play, what elders?" Monica took the dumplings and braised eggplant, looking at the Chinese characters printed on the packaging with a puzzled expression.

This is clearly from a restaurant. Her husband and the restaurant's Eastern relative? How come she didn't know?

Vega: "The world I went to, that's where I am."

"Huh?" Monica was very surprised to hear this. Vega sat down on the sofa and said, "I might be wrong. Maybe I don't come from a world outside this world group."

Monica: "Can we find the world you used to live in?"

After a long silence, Vega said softly, "I don't know."

He genuinely didn't know.

The X-Men universe is the first world he has discovered where he exists, where people and cities he knows exist. He may not come from outside the Marvel universe, but this is just his guess—he doesn't know if he exists in other universes, or if they were deliberately evolved and arranged by those powerful beings.

Little Shengxi didn't care about any of that. She hugged Vega's neck, pressed her chubby little face against Vega's face, and said in a spoiled tone, "Daddy, I want to go see Auntie, I want to kowtow to Grandma."

"I think you want a beating." Vega patted his daughter's bottom a few times in annoyance. How could he not see through his daughter's little thoughts? She just wanted to know what he used to look like.

Monica scolded with a stern face, "Don't cause trouble. Your aunt and the others are just ordinary people. If we go, we'll only bring them trouble."

Vega rolled his eyes at his wife. That "we" was used so cleverly. You probably really want to know what I was like before, don't you?

Ha, give up on that idea. I'm not taking you there.

Despite thinking this way, Vega, swayed by his daughter's coaxing, still led the two, now disguised, back to the familiar street.

Suddenly appearing on a completely unfamiliar street from her living room made the usually composed Monica nervous, and she gripped her husband's hand tightly.

"Huh?" But then, Monica realized something was wrong; the feel was off.

She turned her head in surprise and found a strange fat man standing next to her.

Monica quickly let go and took two steps back, then noticed the fat man smiling at her, holding a cute little girl in his arms.

Isn't that little girl my daughter, Xiao Shengxi? And is this fat man in front of me my husband?

"What, don't you recognize me?" Vega's smile deepened, but before he could say anything more, his daughter pinched his cheek: "Wow, Daddy's so fat!"

Vega: "Dad isn't nearly as fat as you, you little dumpling."

Little Shengxi pouted and retorted, "I'm not fat, Daddy is fat. Daddy has a big belly, I don't."

Vega deliberately exaggerated, "Your stomach could fit a whole watermelon, and you call that small?!"

Little Shengxi: "Hmph, your belly can fit me!"

"Haha, really? Then Daddy will give it a try." Vega laughed and grabbed his daughter's little feet, pressing them against his beer belly. Little Shengxi knew her father was teasing her and giggled happily.

Their interaction helped Monica calm down. She looked around at the two-story shops and the ten-story residential buildings on both sides of the street and asked, "Is this where you live?"

This place looks similar to those Chinatowns, except that all the signs are in simplified Chinese and all the pedestrians on the street have Asian faces.

Vega: "No, I've always lived in the countryside outside the city, and I only come to the city occasionally."

"This is just a small county town, only a fifth or sixth tier city, but it's developed quite well now. Let me show you around."

"This street is called Jinan Road. There used to be a small market in the middle of the road where clothes, shoes, socks, toys and all sorts of things were sold."

The market was built with iron pipes and sheet metal, stretching from this intersection all the way to the intersection to the south.

The roads on both sides of the market are only passable by bicycles and tricycles, and they are all worn out. When it rains, both sides are flooded and very difficult to walk on.

Your great-aunt used to run a wooden door and window business on the east side of the north intersection. I often came here to play during summer and winter vacations.

"Let me tell you, our family lives in the west of the city, but when I was in junior high school, I went to school in a town more than 20 kilometers east of the city."

It's about 40 kilometers from home to school, and I always ride my bicycle to and from school.

It takes me about two hours to ride my bike to the city after school each time.

At that time, I had a terrible sense of time. I kept thinking that I had been riding for several hours, and that it must be noon or afternoon, and the sun should be in the south.

Then I lost my bearings and kept going around in circles on that east-west street in the south, unable to find my way out.

When you get tired of driving around, or get dizzy, just twist the handlebars and turn into this street, and the direction will instantly be corrected.

Little Shengxi: "Daddy's so stupid! There are signs on the roadside, can't Daddy read them?"

Vega: "Hey, honey, you're absolutely right. Back then, Dad really didn't know how to read signs."

"Huh?" Little Shengxi opened her mouth wide in surprise, and Monica also looked at her with disbelief.

Vega thought for a moment and said uncertainly, "Really, um~, I think I was eighteen when I learned to read signs while working in the provincial capital."

Little Shengxi: "Daddy, I'm so embarrassed. I can read signs now."

Vega: "Hehe, when I was a kid, the places I went to were basically the same, or my family took me there, so there was no need to look at any signs."

Monica covered her mouth and chuckled, "Honey, did you always get lost back then?"

"Eight out of ten times, I guess." Vega looked at the wide road with four lanes now and felt very emotional. He couldn't remember any of the streets in the county town, but he remembered this one street, which was very special to him.

After taking a few steps, a sweet fragrance wafted over, and little Shengxi excitedly pointed ahead: "Daddy, I want Pikachu!"

Vega looked in the direction his daughter pointed and saw a small stall making and selling cotton candy in front of a shop selling candied hawthorns.

The kind-looking auntie in the shop also noticed the three of them. She pulled a Pikachu-shaped marshmallow wrapped in a plastic bag from a bunch of straw and waved it at them: "Little friends, do you want this?"

Little Shengxi's eyes lit up as she looked at the pretty cotton candy on the straw sticks: "Mmm, Grandma, I want them all!"

Auntie laughed: "Haha, this is made of sugar, so you can't eat too much of it, or you'll get cavities!"