Chapter 23: The School Bully (23)

When Zai Ye arrived at the classroom with the child in tow, only a few parents and scattered students were present.

He set the child in his seat, leaned against the desk, and began peeling a boiled egg. Once peeled, he handed it to the child, watching her take alternating bites of egg and sips of milk. His seat, in the classic rear corner by the window, offered a clear view of the playground where clusters of students without class assignments milled about.

Yu Qian ate slowly, one hand idly exploring the clean, tidy desk. Unlike the cluttered desks filled with books, worksheets, and miscellaneous items, this one was relatively empty, with its books pristine and neat. After surveying the desk, the child nearly stuffed her head into the drawer beneath it.

Zai Ye grabbed her by the collar. “Eat your food properly. What are you looking for?”

Yu Qian rummaged a bit more, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from the messy drawer. Zai Ye immediately snatched it and tossed it into the trash can behind him.

Yu Qian, undeterred, kept searching and found a powder-blue envelope peeking out from between book pages. Zai Ye’s eyelid twitched as he grabbed it, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it in the trash.

Yu Qian persisted, finally pulling out a deck of cards. This time, having learned the pattern, she took the initiative to throw them in the trash herself.

Zai Ye: “…”

He grabbed a random book, placed it before her, hoping to divert her attention from his drawer.

The child opened the book and, using the lone pen on the desk, began doodling flowers beside the name written inside. The neat rows of black flowers reminded Zai Ye of the little red flower rewards she often earned, making his eyelid twitch involuntarily.

Parents gradually filled the classroom, each casting curious glances their way.

Finally, the homeroom teacher arrived—a typical middle-aged man in a striped shirt, wearing a watch and perpetually carrying a thermos. Looking at Zai Ye and the child in his seat, he asked, “Didn’t anyone from your family come today?”

Zai Ye pressed a hand on the child’s head. “This is the only one who came.”

The teacher was speechless. “…You brought your sister to the parent-teacher meeting? Take her out and let her play somewhere.”

Zai Ye, who had only wanted a place for the child to finish breakfast, coolly carried her out through the back door, unbothered by the stares of other parents.

On the playground, a group of his buddies were chatting. They had long since resigned themselves to the inevitable lectures awaiting them post-meeting and were instead focused on the sports meet scheduled to follow.

The school’s sports meet, oddly arranged to begin right after the parent-teacher meeting, was an idea from a particularly eccentric school administrator who thought parents might enjoy watching their kids’ athletic performances.

Despite planning to skip the event, Zai Ye had been ordered to attend by his teacher, who insisted that the class not be underrepresented during the opening ceremony.

Nestled in Zai Ye’s arms, Yu Qian suddenly became the focus of over a dozen boys’ gazes.

“Hey, isn’t this your little sister, Zai Ye? Why’d you bring her along?”

Zai Ye ignored them and instead addressed two boys smoking nearby. “Put those out.”

They quickly extinguished their cigarettes and joined the group crowding around Yu Qian.

“Hi there, we’re your brother’s friends. Call us big brother!”

“She can call people? Come on, say ‘big brother!'”

Watching the group act like clowns, Zai Ye’s lips curled into a rare smirk. “Call them ‘big brother,'” he instructed the child.

His obedient little troublemaker complied, calling each one “big brother” in turn, earning rounds of cheerful laughter.

Once the atmosphere settled, Zai Ye calmly added, “This is Yu Qian, my daughter.”

The group froze.

“Wait, what?! Zai Ye, you’ve been taking advantage of us!”

“No way, that’s a scam!”

Amidst their disbelief, they treated his words as a joke, assuming it was another one of his usual antics.

“Alright, then she can’t call us ‘brother’ anymore. She has to call us ‘uncle!'”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind being called ‘uncle!'”

Despite their teasing, Yu Qian clung stubbornly to calling them “big brother,” much to their amusement.

Their antics eventually drew a group of girls from their class, leading Yu Qian to call them “big sister” one by one.

Zai Ye: “…”

The familial ranks had suddenly expanded.

When the parent-teacher meeting ended, the students were organized into formation for the sports meet’s opening.

The homeroom teacher, thermos in hand, scanned the class. “Zai Ye, are you planning to carry your sister while marching?”

“She can walk on her own.”

The teacher considered this. “Fair enough.”

Since the administration had mandated that students wear identical uniforms for the event, the procession was monotonous—until their class stole the spotlight.

Leading their formation was Yu Qian, a small child clutching the class sign like a lost duckling among geese. She wandered forward, occasionally glancing back in confusion but determined to keep up.

As the procession neared the stage, her missteps drew attention, with even the seated parents and staff gasping when she almost tripped.

When she nearly veered off into another group’s path, someone from the class quickly guided her back, eliciting laughter from onlookers.

While Zai Ye competed in various events, Yu Qian was passed around among classmates. From the stands, she was doted on by girls offering snacks, though Zai Ye sternly reminded her not to overeat.

Zai Ye ran under the hot sun, sweating profusely. Passing the stands, he discovered the girls sharing snacks with his child.

“Yu Qian! Don’t eat too many snacks!” he called from below.

The child glanced at him, covered her mouth, and turned away to eat, as if this would hide her from his view – a classic “if I can’t see you, you can’t see me” moment.

The next day, he returned with Yu Qian dressed in a shirt reading “No Feeding Allowed,” hoping to curb her snack-hoarding tendencies.

By the end of the sports meet, their class had unanimously fallen in love with Yu Qian. Even Zai Ye’s usual aloofness gave way to moments of asking friends for advice on children’s clothing and toys, signaling a transformation in the once-notorious school bully.

The semester eventually ended, ushering in a brief winter break. For the first time, Zai Ye’s usual plans to avoid family gatherings were upended by his father’s insistence that he return home with Yu Qian.

When the car arrived, father and daughter were staring at the broken-skinned dumplings Zai Ye had boiled.

“Will you eat them?” Zai Ye asked.

The child shook her head.

“You said they had no flavor, but I added salt, didn’t I?”

“Not tasty.” The child laid her head on her arms on the table, expressing her determination through action.

In previous years, Zai Ye could manage with frozen dumplings for New Year’s alone, but this year was different. With supermarkets closed and no restaurants open, he got into the car to find a proper meal.

Upon returning home, father and son predictably erupted into an argument at their first meeting.

The cause was Zai Ye’s studies.

Zai Ye’s father had long given up hope for his rebellious son’s academics and simply told him to prepare for studying abroad.

It was common for second-generation wealthy kids with poor grades to go abroad for university prestige – with money and connections, getting into a famous foreign university wasn’t difficult. But domestically, with poor grades, getting into a good university was harder to arrange.

“Not going.” Zai Ye rejected his father’s suggestion without even looking up.

“Not going? With these grades, you’ll just attend some terrible domestic university? I won’t lose face like that!” his father sneered.

When speaking to him, Zai Ye’s tone carried inherent mockery: “I know what I want to do, what I aim to do. Stop wasting effort on me.”

Father and son parted on bad terms over this again.

The adults’ quarrels didn’t concern the child. Yu Qian only remembered how sumptuous the New Year’s Eve dinner was – she ate her fill and received many red envelopes with money.

Two years ago on New Year’s Eve, Zai Ye hadn’t eaten dinner, playing games all day before falling asleep, just like any other day.

Last New Year’s Eve, Zai Ye had ridden his bike up a mountain road, spending half the night alone at the summit. It had snowed that night, making it particularly cold.

But this New Year’s Eve, he watched TV with his daughter in a room full of stuffed animals. The living room was filled with New Year’s gifts sent early by Li Xiu and others – they’d only opened a few, with most still piled up.

They’d only opened a few because the gifts were all rather questionable, like a human-sized robot holding two light orbs that would magically twist when switched on, its head and orbs spinning while shooting colorful lights and singing songs.

When he discovered the child actually trying to copy the robot’s movements, he promptly turned it off and stuffed it in the cabinet.

Someone had sent two fresh soft-shelled turtles. Zai Ye stared at them for a long time, not knowing what to do, finally putting them in a basin on the coffee table for the child to watch.

Additionally, someone had sent matching parent-child outfits in festive red. Zai Ye figured wearing these in public would terrify at least ten pedestrians at night.

Setting aside the random gifts, tonight they lifted the cola restriction. Yu Qian filled her little duck cup with a large serving, then filled Zai Ye’s yellow cup too.

“Cheers!”

Despite their earlier conflicts, the year ended on an unexpectedly warm note. Instead of his usual solitary New Year’s Eve spent gaming or wandering mountain roads in the cold, Zai Ye found himself in a room filled with stuffed animals and peculiar gifts, sharing cola and toasts with his daughter. It marked their first New Year together—not as a lone troublemaker, but as a father and daughter building a new life, one small moment at a time.