Slacker Second Gen C11

Chapter 11: School Tyrant 11

“Xiao Qian, it’s time to sleep.”

Yu Qian leaned against the sofa with her little belly out: “I don’t want to sleep yet.”

She had slept for a long time earlier due to a fever, and after shopping in the afternoon, she had napped again. Plus, she had eaten too much yogurt, and her stomach was still a little bloated, so she couldn’t sleep.

Ms. Wen Ling gave a knowing look: “Alright then, we’ll wait for your dad to come back before you sleep.”

At ten o’clock, Zai Ye came back.

Ms. Wen Ling walked to the door: “You’re back, Xiao Qian has been waiting for you to sleep together. This child is really dependent on you. She insists on waiting for you before she will sleep.”

Zai Ye looked surprised, seeming a little pleased, and casually said: “I’ve been with her for several days. She’s not used to it when I’m not around.”

Wen Ling: “Yes.” She couldn’t help but smile when she saw him like this.

Zai Ye walked over to the sofa and blocked Yu Qian’s view of the TV.

Yu Qian: “?”

Just as she was about to turn her head to look, she was suddenly scooped up by her armpits and lifted.

No matter how handsome a man is, sweat always makes him stink. Yu Qian was suffocated by the smell of his sweat and leaned back, only to be pulled back by Zai Ye.

“Listen, if anyone bullies you in the future, you have to tell me,” Zai Ye seriously instructed.

Unable to escape the sweaty arms of a teenage boy, Yu Qian struggled wildly: “Ah, ah, ah!”

Zai Ye’s expression grew serious: “You’re only two years old. How can you start rebelling so soon!”

Yu Qian: “Uh, ah, ah!”

Ms. Wen Ling heard the noise and came over, rescuing Yu Qian from his arms and sending him to take a shower.

After the refreshing, handsome guy returned from his shower, he sat back on the sofa. With one hand, he turned off the TV, and with the other, he picked up the child: “Go to sleep.”

Earlier, Ms. Wen Ling had asked twice, but Yu Qian refused to sleep. Now, Zai Ye didn’t ask but directly picked her up, and she didn’t struggle. Mainly because the TV show had just finished.

“Alright, now close your eyes.”

Yu Qian lay down obediently and closed her eyes. Zai Ye waited for ten minutes, then quietly opened his eyes to look beside him. Seeing that the child seemed to be asleep, he secretly sat up, grabbed his phone, put on his headphones, and began to play a game.

Young people can’t sleep so early. He’d play a few rounds first.

The game was intense, and Zai Ye gradually forgot that there was a child sleeping beside him. After being backstabbed by a teammate, he couldn’t help but curse: “f*** you!”

After saying that, he suddenly felt something and looked to the side. He met Yu Qian’s bright eyes. Her big eyes were shining in the dark, like a cat’s.

Zai Ye was startled, and his hand slipped, pressing the wrong skill.

At that moment, he heard Yu Qian say: “f***!”

Zai Ye’s phone dropped. He quickly covered the child’s mouth with one hand: “Don’t learn this!”

But children are like little parrots, learning everything around them. Yu Qian saw him like this and happily repeated it again.

Zai Ye let go of her: “Forget it, just curse like that when someone bullies you in the future.”

He gripped his phone again and continued to play. Yu Qian climbed out of bed, squatted beside him, and leaned over to watch him play the game. Watching for a while, her head rested on his arm.

Zai Ye swiftly moved his fingers. Noticing her focused expression, he suddenly moved the phone in front of her: “You try it.”

Since this round’s teammates were losing, he could do nothing to save it.

Yu Qian stretched out her little finger and started tapping randomly. Zai Ye heard a teammate’s voice through the earphones— it was a tall, thin boy he played basketball with. He sounded frustrated: “Ye Ge, what happened to you suddenly? Why are you dancing on the road! Even though we’re going to lose this round, don’t just give up like this!”

“Ye Ge, did you change from hands to feet to play?!”

Zai Ye ignored his confused voice and shifted Yu Qian’s tiny hand slightly, guiding her: “Move it this way.”

But the child quickly lost interest in the game. After Zai Ye played another round, he found that the child had already fallen asleep, leaning against him.

During the day, Ms. Wen Ling helped take care of things, so Zai Ye could finally go to school. He had never thought that going to school could be such an easy thing.

However, this situation wouldn’t last for long because Ms. Wen Ling’s current husband was taking her second child back to their home country. After that, the three of them would live together, and Zai Ye didn’t want to continue staying as a guest.

When he was a teenager, there was one summer vacation when Zai Ye stayed with his mother. His half-brother, Lu Lang, was only three years old, and Zai Ye found him to be an annoying brat. That summer, he stayed for about ten days before insisting on returning home, and he never agreed to spend another summer with his mother after that.

In the years that followed, Zai Ye hadn’t seen Lu Lang, but he had heard that he grew up to be a little troublemaker under his parents’ indulgence.

One day, when he returned from school, he heard a boy’s voice outside.

Zai Ye, carrying his shoulder bag, quickly entered the house and saw the nine-year-old boy holding a pink bowl that Yu Qian used for fruit. His daughter stood on the sofa, holding a flyswatter and slapped it across the boy’s face.

Lu Lang, who had been shouting earlier, was stunned, while Yu Qian threw the flyswatter aside and suddenly began crying.

If Zai Ye hadn’t happened to see this scene, he might have thought she was being bullied badly to cry like that.

The crying attracted Ms. Wen Ling, who was busy upstairs. When she saw the scene, she quickly hugged Yu Qian, gently patting her back to comfort her: “What’s wrong, our little Qian? Did your uncle bully you? He’s naughty. We’ll hit him!”

She then slapped Lu Lang on the arm.

Lu Lang, who was used to being spoiled and always getting his way, had never been treated like this. He immediately started crying along with Yu Qian. But the more loudly he cried, the more miserable Yu Qian’s crying became.

Even though Zai Ye had witnessed her hitting and then crying so loudly, at this moment, he couldn’t help but think: Lu Lang is really asking for a beating for bullying his daughter.

Clearly, Ms. Wen Ling thought the same. She sternly told her younger son: “Don’t scare Xiao Qian. She’s your niece, only two years old. You’re much older than her, and you’re her elder. How can you snatch things from her?”

Zai Ye found these words very familiar. When Lu Lang had intentionally cried to frame him in the past, the elders had said the same thing, though their tone was gentler. The meaning was the same—since he was older, he shouldn’t argue with his younger half-brother.

Zai Ye still remembered being lectured that time, while Lu Lang smirked behind his back. Now, hearing the same words, he couldn’t help but cry bitterly. It was as if karma had come full circle.

Lu Lang suddenly, in a fit of anger, smashed the pink bowl Yu Qian was holding onto the floor, shattering it into pieces.

Zai Ye, quietly observing the chaos, saw this and his pupils suddenly contracted.

The broken ceramic pieces slid across the floor and landed at his feet. Anger and gloom rose within him but were forcefully suppressed.

Zai Ye, usually a cool and quiet guy, was especially silent today. At the dinner table, Ms. Wen Ling’s second husband, Lu Xishu, also came home. He was a handsome Chinese-foreign mixed man with a cheerful personality.

Lu Lang angrily banged the plates and bowls, making noise. Ms. Wen Ling scolded him again, and Lu Xishu stepped in to mediate. He quickly calmed his son down and promised to take him out to play on the weekend.

Ms. Wen Ling looked at her husband and son with a gentle gaze, but soon she remembered something and cast an apologetic and worried look at Zai Ye.

“Come on, Zai Ye, have some chicken wings. Don’t you like this?” she said.

At the dinner table, only two-year-old Yu Qian seemed completely carefree. After her outburst, Lu Lang had been noisy for a while, but after she cried, she was fine. Her eyes hadn’t even turned red as she happily ate, especially now with sauce all over her mouth.

Zai Ye wasn’t in the mood to eat, but seeing her like this, he silently ate half a plate of chicken wings.

After the meal, Ms. Wen Ling wanted to talk to her eldest son but found him packing Yu Qian’s things in the room. Her open suitcase was filled with Yu Qian’s clothes.

“What are you doing packing? Didn’t you say you’d stay here?”

“I meant temporarily. Now that your husband and son are here, I should go back,” Zai Ye said calmly.

Ms. Wen Ling seemed a little flustered: “But you still need to go to school. How will you take care of Xiao Qian? If you really don’t want to stay here, you can leave Xiao Qian with me during the day. You can go to school and come back to pick her up after.”

Zai Ye shook his head: “No need, I’ve arranged for a nanny.”

Ms. Wen Ling was stunned: “A nanny? But you’re not…”

Zai Ye didn’t want to explain much and simply said: “I’ll need to hire one eventually. I’ll pay attention to it.”

He had everything planned out and clearly, he wasn’t staying. Ms. Wen Ling understood her son’s character, but after a harmonious period together, she had hoped a little. Now, the disappointment was indescribable.

Zai Ye took Yu Qian back to their long-absent home.

The house was just the two of them. The lights weren’t on, making it feel cold. There were no soft cushions, no pretty decorations, no warm lights or plants, and no mother who would speak softly and cook delicious meals.

Zai Ye put the child down and placed her things in her room.

He opened an empty cabinet that hadn’t been touched for a long time and took out a box. Inside the box was a yellow cup, one of the few things he had taken when he left that old home.

The cup seemed ordinary, but it had been handmade by Ms. Wen Ling.

When Zai Yan and Wen Ling were young, they had fallen in love freely. In order to marry Wen Ling, Zai Yan had rejected the marriage arranged by his family. After their marriage, they were the envy of everyone in the circle. Wen Ling loved to collect various tableware and cups, and Zai Yan had given her many.

Wen Ling had once gone to experience making cups. She took her husband and son to make a set of three cups. One red one was hers, a blue one belonged to Zai Yan, and the warm lemon-yellow one was for Zai Ye.

Although the cups that were finally made weren’t delicate, their meaning was different. Later, their family of three always used those cups.

Until the news of Zai Yan’s affair was discovered by Wen Ling, and she collapsed. In the argument with him, she smashed the red and blue cups with her own hands.

The broken ceramic pieces rolled at Zai Ye’s feet, symbolizing that his family, like those cups, was shattered.

In the end, only the yellow cup remained.

That night, Zai Ye saw Ms. Wen Ling and her husband and son using the same set of red tableware. She had returned to her old habits. Although the cups had broken, she had found a new set.

Zai Ye lowered his gaze, placed the yellow cup back into the box, and pushed it to the back of the cabinet.