Chapter 2: School Tyrant 2

Zai Ye was the last one to leave the police station.

His loyal friends had long been escorted home by their cousins, leaving only him behind due to a sudden appearance of a child, who seemed to be his father’s illegitimate daughter. He had been lectured at the police station for quite some time because of it.

The child strongly insisted on “going home with Dad,” so after registering all the necessary information, Zai Ye was allowed to take her away.

It was already late, and the child was exhausted, stumbling in her steps. Under the guidance of a kind-hearted female officer, Zai Ye had to pick the child up.

With an odd expression on his face and holding the child awkwardly, Zai Ye walked out of the station.

As they turned a corner and left the sight of the police station, Zai Ye suddenly stopped, grabbed the back of the child’s collar with one hand, and lifted her from his arms, setting her down on a flowerbed by the roadside.

Though the flowerbed’s edge had some height, the child was too small, and standing on it only brought her just slightly above Zai Ye’s waist.

The suddenly released Yu Qian wobbled but managed to steady herself. Drowsy, she looked up at the big boy who had changed his face and instinctively opened her arms.

Zai Ye blocked her with his arm, looking at her with a mocking expression and asking from his elevated position, “Are you called Qian? Which of my dad’s mistresses gave birth to you? You’re the daughter of Yan, right? Can’t even recognize your own dad?”

Yu Qian stared at him with a blank expression. When kids get sleepy, they become unreasonable, and her brain wasn’t functioning properly. She didn’t register a single word he said, let alone understand the meaning. Right now, all she wanted was to sleep.

Seeing the stupid expression on the child’s face, Zai Ye clicked his tongue in annoyance, pulled out his phone, and tried to find a photo of Yan to show the little girl, but after searching for a while, he realized he didn’t have any pictures of his real dad on his phone.

Their father-son relationship had become so distant that they hadn’t been in contact for almost half a year. Even if he wanted to search Yan’s WeChat Moments, he couldn’t distinguish which one was his biological father’s WeChat.

After some effort, he finally found one, opened the picture, and shoved it in front of Yu Qian. “Take a look, is this your dad?”

Yu Qian glanced at the photo, showing no interest in the middle-aged man whose appearance had changed over the years. She turned toward Zai Ye, extended her hand, and coldly said, “Dad, pick me up.”

“Tsk, are you a little dumb? Can’t you say something else?” Zai Ye regretted bringing her out.

Maybe he should’ve just contacted his dad’s secretary to come pick her up.

As he thought this, Yu Qian, too tired to even stand straight, squatted down as if preparing to jump.

Zai Ye’s eyelid twitched as he held his phone and asked, “What are you doing?!”

“Jump!” Yu Qian bounced forward.

Zai Ye cursed, acting quickly to catch her. In the process, his phone slipped from his hand and fell into a small puddle by the flowerbed with a heartbreaking sound.

Meanwhile, Yu Qian, who had been caught, tilted her head and fell asleep.

Zai Ye, holding the child, impatiently shook her, calling out, “Hey! Hey!” But the sleeping child was as unresponsive as a pig, her soft little head just spun a few times but she didn’t wake up.

“Damn!” Zai Ye cursed a few times under his breath, picked up his phone, shook off the water, and unsurprisingly saw the cracked screen. It still turned on, but was unreadable.

Zai Ye closed his eyes, “…”

He almost just threw the troublesome child on the spot.

A few hours later, in the playroom, Li Xiu was playing pool with two friends. He was talking gossip with his cousin, laughing so hard his back arched when suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door.

“Who’s knocking?” Li Xiu lifted his cue stick, knocking his neck, and got up to open the door with a disgruntled expression. “What is it, didn’t you see the ‘Closed’ sign on the door… Oh! It’s Zai Ye, what brings you here today?”

Li Xiu, seeing Zai Ye’s sour face, laughed as he opened the door. “What’s wrong? Did you argue with your dad again? Came here to hang out with your older brothers? Well, lucky for you, your cousin is here playing too.”

Zai Ye growled, “Open the door.”

Li Xiu opened it completely, only to realize Zai Ye was carrying a small child in his arms. The little child was perched on his arm, arms hanging limp, her head nestled against his shoulder, showing only a round little back of her head.

“Where did you find this kid?”

Li Xiu found the scene amusing, an incredibly rare sight, and instinctively pulled out his phone to snap a picture. He said, “You can’t just dump a child here, you know, if you found her, you should take her to the police station, got it?”

Zai Ye waved his hand to block the camera, looking even more displeased, and entered the hall while muttering, “She’s my dad’s illegitimate daughter.”

“Tsk!” Li Xiu raised his eyebrows, closing the door. “Little bro, did you have some conflict with your dad? Stealing his illegitimate daughter to torment her? She’s so small, that’s really not cool. You know that’s illegal, right?”

The youth playing pool overheard and came out to see.

Li Xiu immediately waved him over, “Wen Cheng, come check out your little cousin here. Our Zai Ye just stole his dad’s illegitimate daughter!”

Wen Cheng approached, curious, “What’s going on?”

Zai Ye, irritated, found a sofa and set the soft, warm, and sticky little child down. The moment he did, he felt a sense of relief. Facing two pairs of inquisitive eyes, he spoke dryly, “Found her on the roadside, she thinks I’m Yan, and called me Dad… Tch.”

Li Xiu and Wen Cheng looked closely at the child’s face, both stunned, then gathered around.

“She looks so much like you, huh?”

“Yeah, she really does.”

Zai Ye flopped onto another sofa, urging, “Get me a spare phone, mine’s broken.”

“Hold on, hold on, stop making noise.” Li Xiu tapped his chin, constantly exclaiming, “She looks so much like you, honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you two were father and daughter.”

Wen Cheng stared at the child for a while, then turned to Zai Ye, “Are you sure this is your dad’s illegitimate daughter?”

Zai Ye leaned back on the sofa, expressionless, “Otherwise, who else would she be? If she looks like this, she can’t possibly be mine.”

“The thing is,” Wen Cheng’s expression turned puzzled, “she looks just like you.” He reached out and poked the child’s face, turning her head so her cheek was pressed against Zai Ye’s side, “Take a closer look, her mouth… doesn’t it look like my aunt’s?”

Wen Cheng’s aunt was also Zai Ye’s mother.

Zai Ye froze for a moment, then carefully examined Yu Qian again.

His parents had divorced when he was six, and he stayed with his mother for two years abroad. Due to her severe depression, she couldn’t properly care for him, which even affected his mental health, causing slight signs of social withdrawal. Eventually, he was sent back to his father, and his mother remarried and stayed abroad, rarely returning due to her poor health.

The last time he saw her was months ago via video call, but that had been interrupted quickly because her children were causing a scene.

It was almost laughable, but he could barely remember what his mother looked like.

He resembled his father more, and since his dad was a scoundrel with a history of bad behavior, when he saw someone who looked like him, he automatically assumed she was his father’s illegitimate daughter.

There was a brief silence in the air.

Zai Ye turned his gaze away, his tone indifferent, “My mom is happy with her current husband, there’s no way she and Yan had a second child.”

Li Xiu snorted, “What if your dad still has feelings for your mom, and that’s why he found a mistress who looks like her and had this kid? I’ve seen a lot of those ‘substitute’ novels my sister reads. Cheating men love substitutes.”

Zai Ye made a disgusted face.

“Why not just get a paternity test? Save all the guessing.” Another of Li Xiu’s cousins, who had been playing, suggested from the door.

“Right, my brother’s testing center can do it. I’ll have him rush it for you, the results will be out in a day.” Li Xiu volunteered, eager to know what was going on.

Zai Ye nodded in agreement.

Originally, he had planned to contact his dad’s secretary to take the child away immediately, but now… he thought it might be good to wait for the test results.

“Let’s play here then,” was a popular hangout place for wealthy second-generation youths, mainly a place to relax. It was usually not open to the public, only entertaining known friends, and Li Xiu was a partner and one of the two resident bosses.

Aside from pool, there were dance machines, motion motorcycles, basketball machines, VR rooms, and a small cinema, but no beds. When guests got tired, they just rested on the sofas.

Later that night, Li Xiu and the others were ready to leave.

“You’re fine here by yourself, right?”

Zai Ye waved them off, signaling for them to leave quickly.

Of course, the sofa wasn’t as comfortable as a bed, but looking at the child curled up on the couch, deeply asleep, he thought that if he had to go home and carry her, she might start fussing. Without hesitation, he decided to spend the night here.

The lights in the hall were turned off, leaving only a dim yellow light. Zai Ye rested against a small sofa to sleep, his brows still tightly furrowed even as he drifted off.

In the dead of night, with the lights off, Yu Qian, who had taken over the big sofa, suddenly woke up. She crawled out of the soft couch, feeling cold. Though he was nearly twenty, as a school tyrant who had never cared for a child, Zai Ye didn’t know to cover her with a blanket.

Yu Qian scanned the room and saw Zai Ye sleeping nearby.

With her age and immature mindset, Yu Qian firmly remembered that when she had problems, her biological dad was the one to solve them. She climbed down from the couch and walked to Zai Ye’s feet, tugging on his pants.

“Cold.”

“Dad, I’m cold.”

Zai Ye didn’t wake up, still asleep, his furrowed brows deepening due to the noise near his ear.

Unable to wake him, Yu Qian saw the coat draped over his legs. She pulled the sleeve with all her strength and finally managed to free it from under his arm. She then dragged it back to the couch, covered herself with it, and went back to sleep, warm and content.

Zai Ye, woken up by the cold, rubbed his head and aching neck as he sat up, swearing.

When he turned, he saw the child, wrapped in his coat, on the sofa. She was so small that the coat was like a little blanket for her.

Zai Ye: “…”

So, how did his coat end up on this child?