Chapter 79: Becoming the Godfather of Children

When it came to children’s literature, Yu Zhile immediately thought of the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales. The ones that left the deepest impression on him were “Snow White” and “Cinderella.” Besides those, what he recalled most vividly were nursery rhymes.

After feeding the baby, Yu Zhile picked up the remote control and navigated to the TV’s main menu. At the very top, he found a children’s category and clicked into it. Inside were all kinds of children’s literary works: nursery rhymes, poetry, fairy tales, and some educational courses for kids, such as learning phonetics, learning English words, and so on.

When they were at home, his wife loved to play nursery rhymes on TV for the baby, or watch these fairy tales together with the child. Now that Editor Zhang Xue had brought up the topic, Yu Zhile suddenly found himself interested as well. He searched through the menu, but sure enough, couldn’t find the children’s literature he’d learned as a child.

From the kitchen, his mother’s voice rang out, “Give your father a call and tell him to come home for dinner!”

“Okay!”

Yu Zhile called, but his father didn’t answer. He said, “Mom, Dad’s not picking up!”

His mother replied, exasperated, “Forget it! He probably thinks a chess match is all the dinner he needs!”

Qin Haiyu suggested, “Honey, why don’t you go over and call him yourself?”

His mother stopped him, “Don’t spoil him! He’ll remember to come back when he’s hungry enough!”

Then Yu Zhile had an idea. “Let me contact the organizer and have them make an announcement at the venue!”

He messaged Manager Chen, who then got in touch with the person in charge of the chess competition, asking them to help announce that his father should come home for dinner.

So, in the competition square, the host suddenly picked up the microphone and called out, “Today’s competition is now over—everyone, it’s time to go home for dinner! Especially you, Uncle Yu Qing. Your family can’t reach you. If you’re still here, please hurry home for dinner!”

At that moment, Old Yu, who was still playing chess with Old Liu, was taken aback.

Is the host talking about me?

Old Liu was stunned as well, and said, “Yu Qing? Old Yu, that must be you, right?”

“Ahem, that’s enough for now. Time to go home and eat!” Old Yu took out his phone and saw that his son had indeed called him five minutes ago, but he hadn’t noticed because his phone was on silent.

Now it was certain—the host really was calling him.

Considering that this chess competition was arranged by his son, he wasn’t surprised that the host knew his name and was calling him home for dinner.

Old Liu checked the time—it was getting late. If he didn’t get home soon, his own “tigress” might explode, so he hurried off too, not bothering to wonder why the host was urging Old Yu home.

...

At home, Qin Haiyu brought out the prepared dishes and, seeing Yu Zhile watching fairy tales on TV with the baby in the living room, asked curiously, “Honey, since when did you take an interest in fairy tales?”

Yu Zhile replied, “The editor at the publishing house just contacted me. She said that if I have any inspiration, I can consider writing some children’s literature. So I thought I’d take a look.”

“Children’s literature? That sounds great!” Qin Haiyu said. “It must be much easier than writing a novel of hundreds of thousands of words! Plus, you can use it to teach the baby in the future!”

Yu Zhile nodded. “It seems children’s literature can be quite profitable nowadays. Some of these paid nursery rhyme videos and fairy tales have millions of subscribers!”

Qin Haiyu responded, “It’s similar to novel subscriptions. Many parents with children will subscribe to nursery rhyme and fairy tale videos with good reviews for their kids. And kindergarten and elementary school teachers are also major consumers.”

In other words, children’s literature could thrive in today’s world. The main reason was that nearly every sector of the internet had adopted a membership system, and people had gradually become accustomed to paid memberships and subscriptions.

It was precisely this model of paid memberships and subscriptions that drove the industry forward—without a stable income, no one would wrack their brains and tighten their belts to create.

Soon, his father hurried back home.

After the family finished their New Year’s Day dinner, they all sat in the living room, watching TV and chatting.

Yu Zhile took his laptop and uploaded “Courage,” the new song he had performed at the New Year’s Eve gala the night before.

Then, he tried to write down some of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales from memory. Although he remembered the storylines clearly, he found himself unable to put them into words.

In the end, he abandoned the idea of writing fairy tales and instead began to transcribe nursery rhymes from memory—after all, several came instantly to mind!

Sitting in the living room, Yu Zhile typed out two nursery rhymes about “tigers,” then asked, “Mom, as a language teacher, what do you think of these two nursery rhymes?”

Qin Haiyu leaned over to take a look and read aloud:

“Two tigers, two tigers, running fast, running fast.
One has no ears, one has no tail, how strange, how strange!”

“One, two, three, four, five, went up the mountain to hunt a tiger.
Couldn’t catch the tiger, but ran into a little squirrel.
How many squirrels? Let’s count them.
Counting over and over, one, two, three, four, five.”

After reading them, his mother listened as her daughter-in-law recited them, then commented, “What on earth are these? Especially that one about hunting tigers on the mountain—isn’t that teaching children the wrong thing?”

“How is it teaching them the wrong thing?” Yu Zhile protested helplessly.

His mother replied with perfect logic, “What do kids know at their age? That line, ‘Went up the mountain to hunt a tiger,’ won’t it give them the mistaken idea that tigers aren’t scary, and that even children can hunt them? What if a child really meets a tiger and tries to hunt it, and gets eaten? You’ll be the one blamed!”

“All right...” Yu Zhile had to admit, his mother had a point.

Then his mother complained further, “And what’s with this ‘Two Tigers’ rhyme? Why no ears or tails? You’re just making things up to make it rhyme, aren’t you?”

“But it’s precisely because we don’t know why they have no ears or tails that we say it’s strange!” Yu Zhile explained wearily. “And this rhyme can be sung!”

With that, he cleared his throat and began to sing the well-known nursery rhyme.

After listening, Qin Haiyu immediately encouraged him, “Hey, it actually sounds pretty good! And nursery rhymes need to be simple and catchy to become popular. Honey, I think your ‘Two Tigers’ has the potential to go viral!”

Since her daughter-in-law was so complimentary, his mother reluctantly nodded as well. “It is catchy and rhymes nicely when sung.”

“I’ll try to remember a few more!”

Yu Zhile racked his brains, and suddenly “Little White Rabbit” came to mind.

He wrote it down from memory, handed the notebook to his mother, and asked, “How about this one?”

“Little white rabbit, so white,
Ears stand up, tall and bright.
Loves to eat carrots, loves to eat greens,
Hops and jumps, what a lovely sight.”

His mother nodded. “Not bad, that’s a pretty good children’s poem.”

Staring at the word “carrot,” Yu Zhile was struck by inspiration and remembered “Pulling Up the Carrot.” He could only recall the first part, so he improvised the rest.

Then he remembered “Little Duckling” and “Little Bunny, Be Good,” and felt as though he’d been transported back to his childhood.

These nursery rhymes and children’s songs, buried deep in his heart, came back to him one by one, each more familiar than the last.

By ten o’clock that night, excluding the one his mother disapproved of—“Hunting the Tiger on the Mountain”—Yu Zhile submitted five completed nursery rhymes to Zhang Xue.

He was filled with confidence and sighed in anticipation.

Next would be the moment to witness the transformation of the “Father of Pure Love” into the “Father of Children’s Literature!”