My Dreamy Old Husband

There were a lot of cats and dogs in the neighborhood—Sophia had six cats, Linus had four stray cats, and the other households also had cats. Hanging cured meat outside the house was risky. There were always several big orange cats sitting at the bottom of the shelf where the meat was hung, especially where the dried fish were. It would all disappear in an instant after being hung up.

Someone always had to keep watch outside Villa No. 8 to chase the animals away. Meanwhile, Linus had already designed an intelligent system to cure meat. He created an environment where there was constant temperature, adjustable wind direction, and humidity.

Moreover, he even made two intelligent robots that used infrasound to chase away the animals that were stealing the food. The dried fish he left outside his house was still in perfect condition after several days.

Indeed, science and technology were revolutionary.

Sophia had so much admiration for him, too. She gazed at Michael with a yearning look in her eyes. I really want a cured meat robot!

Michael decided to put his pride aside and ask Linus for a robot, but he still felt like it was too shameful.

This is so embarrassing!

Fortunately, Linus was sensible enough to give them a robot as a way of thanking them for teaching him how to cure meat.

Not only did he send it to their doorstep, he even wrapped it in protective packaging. The dried fish Sophia hung outside the house could be cured perfectly now.

Feeling delighted, she decided to give Linus a treasured, decade-old, pickling liquid to make pickled vegetables with.

But Michael thought it was a shabby gift. After all, Linus was the second-in-command at Michel Group. Fass had brought him up to be his successor. If everything went smoothly, he would also become the head of the Michel Family in the future. Was a jar of pickling liquid worthy enough for a man like him?

When Linus received the pickling liquid, however, he was quite happy about it and had the cook in his house make a large amount of pickled vegetables.

…

Sophia had not gone to school lately and had just been resting at home. Because she had enough cured meat to last the whole year, and she had the robot that Linus sent to her, she was quite content. She would drop by Linus’ place every day. When she came back, she always bombarded Michael with endless compliments about Linus’ house.

“Linus has a 3D projector in his room! It’s so cool. You can even see the stars!”

to the beach at his old place in Eastern Europe, so you can see the ocean when you

of his cats. It can process a hundred different cat body languages and noises to distinguish what the

“Linus…”

was just dying to live there. Whenever that happened, Michael

upgraded that robot of his by using the world’s most sophisticated intelligent technology to create a new CPU that was able to simulate dozens of emotions and have an intelligent conversation with a person. The robot could check on the state of an injury; it had a program that detected emotions,

few big orange cats at the Fletchers

Michael was deserted. Sulking on the sofa, he was watching television while Sophia and Nathan had gone off to Linus’ place. They claimed that they wanted to try out

of Michael. It asked politely, “Dad, I want a pat on the

had the cute voice of a little boy and was even leaning its head to one side as

he looked at the robot that was even more obedient than Nathan.

hat on his head. He

was worried that I would be

not pat the robot’s head, it stretched out a robotic arm and took Michael’s hand to put on its head. Michael caressed his head

a word. After the robot was content with the head pats, he went to sit

said, “Dad, I want

to

together. The robot was very happy and was even

had given his own clothes, pants, hat, and shoes to the robot. He did it to make

“Nicholas.”

suddenly called the robot’s

“Oh!”

“Call me ‘Dad’.”

“Dad! Dad!”

never really called him dad. Every time he did, he did it reluctantly. The robot was so much better

Michael said, “Again.”