Slacker Second Gen C24

Chapter 24: School Tyrant 24

After the New Year, Yan brought up the topic of studying abroad several times and asked him to send the child over to his place, but Zai Ye ignored him.

To be precise, Zai Ye got angry with him again and then blocked him.

Apart from Yan, who occasionally tried to get attention, Zai Ye’s life was relatively peaceful and smooth. Regarding raising the child, he gradually got on the right track and became more and more adept at it.

High school is a period where many teenagers feel confused, unsure of their direction, calculating every grade, comparing every imagined future. The atmosphere in the classroom is often heavy, especially after teachers harshly criticize them for failing their exams once again, sometimes accompanied by suppressed cries.

In such an atmosphere, their School Tyrant, Brother Ye, always stood out as the most special one.

He came in relatively late today, carrying two large bags of oranges.

The heavy bags of oranges were placed on the desk, and the surrounding little brothers quickly reached out to grab them.

“Thank you, Brother Ye!”

“Thank you, Brother Ye. What made you think of bringing us oranges today?”

“Brother Ye, let me help you divide them!”

Zai Ye stopped them, “Wait.”

“Do you guys know how to make orange lanterns?” he asked.

The little brothers were confused, “Huh?”

The story began with Yu Qian’s kindergarten.

The kindergarten didn’t offer academic courses yet, but it focused on developing children’s hands-on skills, so they occasionally assigned simple craft tasks, such as making orange lanterns.

Typically, these craft tasks required parents to help their children, promoting communication and giving parents more time with their kids.

The intention was good, but it was really taxing for the parents, especially those with poor craft skills.

When Zai Ye received the assignment to make an orange lantern, he didn’t think much of it and bought a small bag of oranges to quickly make one for his child. However, the orange slices he peeled ended up filling the child up, and he didn’t manage to create a single complete, beautiful orange lantern.

Perhaps it was the wrong kind of oranges.

So, he bought two large bags of oranges and brought them to school, planning to get everyone’s help… Surely, at least one or two could manage to complete it, right?

That day, the whole class was immersed in the fragrance of oranges. The girl who had cried through the class after failing the exam received two oranges.

When the homeroom teacher walked into the classroom, he found that nearly everyone was peeling oranges. After that, for a long time, nearly every student had an orange peel lantern on their desk, and Zai Ye took the three most well-made orange lanterns back to his child as a gift.

The craft assignments didn’t stop there.

The second one was to create a picture with colored clay.

His rebellious daughter, focused on playing with the clay, refused to make a picture and handed the task over to him completely. Zai Ye frowned, tried to do it, and decided to seek outside help.

His class had many talented students, and soon, they had created a satisfactory work: a colored clay version of a character from a game dynasty warriors, “Diao Chan.”

After submitting the work, because it was too excellent, it was clearly something a child couldn’t have done. The kindergarten teacher contacted him and subtly expressed that “parents shouldn’t do the craft work entirely for their children; they should let the children participate more.”

The third task was to make a leaf collage.

“You should be doing your homework now, right?” Zai Ye looked down at his child, who was lying on the sofa.

Zai Ye didn’t expect that one day he would be the one urging someone to do their homework.

Yu Qian sighed reluctantly, laid on the desk for a while, and when she was applying glue to the leaves, she accidentally glued her fingers together.

It seemed neither parent nor child were good at crafts.

Zai Ye cleaned the glue off her hands, pushed her aside, and completed the task himself.

He had never been so serious about doing his own homework.

After this assignment was submitted, Zai Ye was contacted by the kindergarten teacher again.

“Although I mentioned before that parents shouldn’t complete all of their children’s craft assignments, they also shouldn’t leave everything to the children because this time the work done by the child was too sloppy. In the assignment evaluation, no red stars were awarded, which could hurt the child’s self-esteem.”

Zai Ye: “…”

It wasn’t the child’s self-esteem that was hurt—it was his own!

What did this mean? Are they saying that his solo effort was rated the worst in the kindergarten’s evaluation? He was outdone by a bunch of kids?

Brother Ye felt an unwilling fighting spirit arise in an odd place.

After several instances, Zai Ye’s classmates became accustomed to the School Tyrant often bringing materials to school for everyone to help with crafts. It became a rare enjoyable break in their busy and tedious senior year.

When the little brothers sitting next to Zai Ye saw him pull out paper from his bag, they instantly knew it was time for some work and asked, “Brother Ye, what are we making today?”

Zai Ye: “Nothing today.”

“Then what’s with the paper?”

“It’s a thank-you card made by Qian for me.” Zai Ye showed them the very ugly card she made.

This assignment was a task given directly to the children, asking them to create a card to express love for their parents. Since receiving this ugly card last night, Zai Ye had looked at it several times and couldn’t help but open it again.

The outside of the card was ugly, but the inside was covered with little red flowers—she had cut out all the red flowers she had earned and stuck them on the card to give to him.

Zai Ye smiled as he looked at the card.

In addition to craft assignments, the kindergarten also had various activities.

“Activity with pets?” Zai Ye frowned as he looked at the notification on his phone.

The teacher said that children who have pets could bring them to school for a day to show them to the other kids and learn how to be responsible for other living beings.

Zai Ye struggled enough with raising a child, and thankfully, she was self-sufficient, so he never considered having a pet. But, if all the other kids had pets and Qian didn’t, would she feel excluded at school? Would she feel embarrassed?

After thinking for a long time, Zai Ye made up his mind and asked the child, “What kind of pet do you want to raise? Preferably one that’s easy to care for.”

Yu Qian blinked her eyes and said, “A pet, I have one!”

“You have one? How come I didn’t know? Is it at Xiu Ge’s Skyhigh Game Lounge?” Zai Ye asked.

Yu Qian stretched out her short finger and pointed at the air next to her, “It’s here, my pet!”

The system, which had been chattering in her ear just a moment ago, went silent. Although it knew that no one could see it except the host, it still felt nervous.

[Host! You can’t tell anyone about my existence!]

Yu Qian withdrew her finger, not fully understanding.

Zai Ye looked at the empty space, “What…”

A fly flew past his face.

Zai Ye looked at his daughter, then at the fly. Where did this fly come from? How could there be a fly so high up? Could it be that she brought it in from outside? His daughter actually considered a fly as a pet?!

Zai Ye suddenly remembered how many times he had seen his daughter standing on the sofa, waving her hands or other things, thinking she was just playing tricks with the air. Now, it seemed like she might have been playing with her little pet.

Children’s world is innocent. She probably didn’t realize that a fly wasn’t a typical pet. Maybe, in her eyes, a fly was just like a butterfly. Zai Ye told himself not to impose adult reasoning on a child.

Zai Ye: “Your teacher asked you to bring a pet to school, and you’re bringing this thing? Can it listen to you and follow you?”

Yu Qian glanced at the flashing blue light next to her, then nodded, “I bring it to school every day.”

Bringing a fly to school every day? Isn’t that a bit ridiculous?

Despite how absurd the request was, Zai Ye could only try to fulfill it.

After the child went to sleep, Zai Ye wandered around the house, trying to find the fly that had mysteriously hidden somewhere. After searching for a while, he finally trapped it in a water bottle.

The next day, he handed the water bottle with the fly to Yu Qian. “Here’s your pet. Take it to school.”

Yu Qian pinched her little schoolbag, looking at her father’s tired face, and raised an objection, “Not this one, it’s the blue one, the one that glows.”

Flies come in different colors? Zai Ye didn’t expect that she could even tell the difference between flies.

Thinking about how much time he spent last night looking for this “little pet,” Zai Ye’s face darkened. “It’s this one. Take it to school!”

Yu Qian sighed softly and shook her head as if helpless. She took the water bottle with the fly.

“Fine.”

She took the fly-filled water bottle to kindergarten, where the kids next door were showing off a turtle. After chatting with the teacher for a while, the teacher walked up to Yu Qian.

“Little Qian, did you bring a pet?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, you brought a pet? Your parents didn’t tell us. What is it? Can we see it?”

Yu Qian took out the water bottle.

The teacher’s smile slowly faded: “Is this… is this a… fly?”

Yu Qian: “It’s the pet my dad caught for me.”

Teacher: “Haha, is it? It’s quite a special pet.” What kind of unreliable dad is this?

Because of this, all the other kids gathered around. Although they had seen flies before, it was their first time seeing one in a bottle for observation.

One of the kids holding a turtle asked, “My turtle can swim in water. Can your fly swim in water?”

Another kid said, “It can fly, and it can swim in water!”

“Let’s pour some water in and see.”

That night, Zai Ye received a message from the teacher. Although it was a subtle reprimand, she expressed her disapproval of him catching a fly for his child’s pet and advised him not to be so negligent with his child.

Zai Ye: “…”

He felt wronged.

The daughter, who had claimed the fly was her pet, put down her backpack, set down her water bottle, and ran off to look for food.

Zai Ye sat on the sofa, feeling speechless as he checked his phone.

After a while, he absentmindedly drank from the water bottle on the table.

When the child came back with her yogurt, Zai Ye glanced at her, “What about your pet? Did you bring it back?”

The child stared at his hand.

Zai Ye: “?”

A bad feeling hit him. Slowly, he turned his head, only to find a fly at the bottom of the water bottle he had been drinking from.

Yu Qian, sipping her yogurt, said muffled, “Dad, you drank a fly.”

Zai Ye’s face turned green, and he rushed to the bathroom.