Chapter 76 Photo Album
Caroline's eyes darted around, and before she could speak, Leopold leaned against her back and said in a husky voice near her ear:
"Go ahead, make up a lie. If you can't do it well, I'll help you."
Caroline couldn't hold back her laughter. She turned around with a smile in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, "This was given to me by a high school classmate."
"High school classmate?" Not even a close friend, just a classmate randomly giving her a stuffed toy - that sounded like quite a story.
"Yes, a classmate from high school," Caroline said, looking into Leopold's eyes to gauge his reaction, trying to appear confident. "During the sports day in my first year of high school, I was a volunteer helping the teachers hand out prizes. A classmate won first place in the relay race. He took the certificate but didn't want the stuffed toy prize, so he said he'd give it to me."
Leopold narrowed his eyes, "This kind classmate was a male classmate, wasn't he?"
Caroline: "Yeah. Boys obviously don't like stuffed toys. Isn't it normal for him to give it to me?"
Leopold looked unmoved, but his words were full of jealousy.
"After all these years, you still remember it was the sports day in your first year of high school. You have such a good memory."
He walked to the other side of the bookshelf, his eyes scanning the rows of books. "I'm so envious. When I was competing, why didn't I have a pretty classmate standing next to me? I could've given her all my prizes too. I'm generous like that."
Caroline sighed, and Leopold turned his face to hear her say: "Are you jealous or envious?"
Leopold curved his lips into a smile, looking wickedly charming, "What's the difference between those two words when describing how I feel right now?"
"What's there to be jealous about? It's all from when we were kids. Holding grudges doesn't suit your style."
Leopold: "Very well, I accept your compliment. I'm not a petty person. After all, we didn't understand love when we were young."
Caroline glanced at him with a smile, holding up the photo album in her hand, "Aren't you curious what I looked like as a kid?"
Leopold pulled her to the desk, "Curious. Let's see how adorable my cute little Caroline was as a child."
Before opening the album, Caroline pressed both hands on top of it, "First, promise you won't laugh at me."
Leopold didn't know what level of funny she was talking about. Based on Caroline's current demeanor, there probably wouldn't be anything that would make him unable to hold back his laughter.
"No problem."
After getting a definite answer, Caroline slowly opened the first page.
At first, the photos were fairly normal - baby pictures of Caroline, mostly with her parents holding her. But as she gradually learned to walk, the style suddenly changed.
If Leopold hadn't had good self-control, he would have burst out laughing on the spot.
Caroline looked up to check his expression, "Are you about to laugh at me?"
Leopold shook his head, forcing back the smile at the corners of his mouth, pretending to be serious: "No, I'm not laughing. How old were you here?"
Caroline replied: "Three years old."
While she was looking down to introduce the photo, Leopold raised his hand to rub his aching cheeks. "You were pretty brave, daring to hold a goose for a photo."
Caroline said: "This was taken the year my dad went to work in the countryside. He was sent to a remote village to do grassroots work. We lived at a local family's house. They had chickens, ducks, geese, dogs - everything. I had just learned to walk and played in that courtyard, staying in the same yard with all those animals, so I wasn't afraid of them. But this goose specifically bullied me. It chased me and pinched my legs. You don't know how much it hurts when a goose pecks you. That day it bullied me again, so I grabbed its head with my arm, pressed it to the ground, and bit it. I finally subdued it. My mom was working as a reporter at the newspaper at the time. When she heard something was wrong, she ran out to look, but instead of pulling us apart, she went back inside to get her camera and took a photo of me and the goose. That photo was even sent to her newspaper and won an award."
Leopold looked at the photo of Caroline with her hair pulled askew, a tuft of goose feathers by her mouth, her little brows furrowed tight, her eyes fierce - it was both adorable and hilarious.
The other photos were all of Caroline with the animals in the courtyard. In one, she was squatting in the chicken coop, staring at a hen laying an egg. The hen got disturbed and flew up, scaring Caroline into covering her head. Even the dog had lipstick on it, eyebrows drawn on, and a headscarf tied on - very amusing.
Leopold couldn't hold it in anymore and laughed so hard his shoulders wouldn't stop shaking.
In short, judging from the photos, during those years in the countryside, she hadn't spared a single animal in that courtyard.
When she got a bit older, she moved to town with Elijah for his job transfer. Their living environment changed - they lived on the second floor behind a supply and marketing cooperative. She still managed to take all kinds of interesting photos. In one, she had her head stuck between the railings of a handrail, crying with tears all over her face, looking both pitiful and funny.
"Caroline," Leopold said with his head lowered, gently stroking her head, "you were so naughty as a child, you must have gotten beaten a lot, right?"
Caroline looked at those photos, her eyes full of memories, a peaceful smile on her lips, and shook her head:
"No, from childhood to adulthood, my parents never hit me. I was puzzled too. Looking at these photos, I caused so much trouble, how come they never beat me? Later when I grew up, I asked my mom - other kids who were this naughty would have been beaten long ago, why didn't you ever hit me?
My mom said they only had me as their one child, and they loved me so much they couldn't wait - how could they bear to hit me? Although I was immature as a child, when she explained things to me, I remembered, and I never made the same mistake twice. Plus, she and my dad felt that at such a young age, I was already running around everywhere with them, which was already very hard. They felt sorry for me - how could they bear to hit me?"
"What about Mr. Tudor? Didn't he ever think about beating you?" Leopold asked.
The smile on Caroline's face faded, "He was always busy, didn't have time to deal with me. When I caused trouble, it was always my mom cleaning up the mess. You see how my dad listens to my mom about everything at home now - whatever she says goes. Maybe my dad also feels that during those years, my mom suffered a lot with him, and she worried about so many things by herself. He probably feels guilty about it."
Leopold flipped through the photos, listening to Caroline tell each interesting memory. As he looked, his heart began to feel uncomfortable.
There were more than ten albums recording Caroline's growth, but there were pitifully few photos recording his childhood. Especially seeing Caroline's family take a family portrait every year made his heart feel even more stifled.
Because he and his mother Quinlan Barnes had a special status, Preston always kept them hidden, and they had to move frequently. Forget about taking family portraits - there wasn't even a single photo of Preston with him. In his memories, there was only Quinlan and himself. Quinlan's energy was all consumed in scheming against Preston's legitimate wife, and her discipline and care for him was almost negligible.
Leopold stared at the photo of Caroline's first day of high school. In the photo, her parents were beside her, and she was smiling happily.
Some people's lives are colorful, while others live in chaos.