Chapter 28: The School Bully (28)

The elementary school’s parent-child sports day had begun, and Zai Ye finally witnessed his daughter’s incredible popularity firsthand.

Many of her classmates gathered on the sidelines, their enthusiastic cheering and applause drawing the attention of numerous parents.

His daughter acknowledged the crowd with practiced grace, and the sight of these little ones made Zai Ye feel like he was watching a boss with their entourage.

Though Zai Ye hadn’t been a school bully for many years, he sensed that before inheriting his fortune, his daughter might first inherit his title as the school tyrant.

Zai Ye and Yu Qian participated in the running event, where parents had to hold their child’s hand and run together toward the finish line.

With their mismatched heights, maintaining a harmonious pace proved challenging. Parents had to be constantly mindful of their children’s speed – if they ran too fast, the children might trip trying to keep up.

This happened to the father-son pair on their right – the father was too eager, his son couldn’t keep up, and fell after just a few steps. The father hurriedly picked up his child to comfort him.

On their left was another father-daughter pair. The daughter was bursting with energy, pushing forward vigorously, but her pot-bellied father could barely move, gasping for air after just two steps.

“Sweetie, Daddy… can’t… run… anymore,” he wheezed.

“Ahhh, run, run faster!” the little girl screamed, dragging her father’s hand like a monkey playing tug-of-war with an elephant.

Zai Ye walked forward expressionlessly, perfectly matching his child’s running speed. Though they weren’t fast, they maintained a steady pace, gradually standing out in the race.

If they continued like this, they had a good chance of placing first, but halfway through, Zai Ye noticed his daughter slowing down. She got slower and slower until finally stopping, hands on her hips and stomach thrust forward, declaring: “I… can’t run anymore.”

Her posture bore a striking resemblance to the pot-bellied father who’d been panting earlier.

Zai Ye glanced back at the short track, remembering his daughter’s usual aversion to exercise and her habit of asking to be carried after walking just a short distance. His sword-like eyebrows furrowed.

During their pause, a little boy holding his mother’s hand overtook them, followed by Ke Yuxiang and his father.

Zai Ye: “…”

This was unacceptable.

He was competitive by nature and absolutely couldn’t accept defeat in such a situation.

“Zai Qian, run. Are you doing justice to your classmates cheering for you?”

Yu Qian considered his words and then extended both hands to him.

Understanding her intent, Zai Ye grabbed his lazy daughter’s arms and sprinted forward like the wind, instantly passing several parent-child pairs ahead of them, taking the lead in a flash.

Reaching the finish line, he set his daughter down without breaking a sweat, ready to embrace victory.

The teacher blew the whistle: “Zai Qian’s parent broke the rules! You can’t carry the child while running!”

After the parent-child sports meet, Zai Ye began supervising Yu Qian’s exercise routine.

Thus began their countless battles of wit and strategy. Zai Ye tried every method to make her exercise, while Yu Qian exhausted every trick to avoid it.

Eventually, Zai Ye proved himself the better strategist by exploiting his daughter’s weakness.

An employee of Wilderness Games went to find the boss, only to spot the boss’s daughter in the small recreation area outside his office.

The company’s unofficial mascot was jogging at an incredibly slow pace on a custom-made mini treadmill.

The female employee watched her for a while and suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu. After some thought, she realized – it looked just like her pet hamster running on its wheel.

A tablet was mounted in front of the small treadmill, displaying the gacha interface of “Feed the Little Yellow Duck” game.

This game had many rare pets that could only be obtained through gacha draws. Despite playing for so long, Yu Qian hadn’t collected them all, mainly because her boss father absolutely refused to give her special treatment and wouldn’t allow unlimited spending, only permitting one free daily draw.

This time, to encourage her to exercise, Zai Ye brought out his trump card: if she completed her daily running tasks, she’d get three ten-pulls, and if she completed extra running tasks, she’d get five more ten-pulls each day.

When the female employee walked by, Yu Qian had just completed her basic daily exercise, and the tablet chimed: “Congratulations on completing the task, you’ve earned 3 ten-pulls.”

The child leaned against the treadmill, raising both arms to rest on the sides, seriously tapping the gacha draws on the tablet.

The employee watched as thirty pulls yielded only the most common thirty ducklings.

Yu Qian: “…”

Female employee: “…”

She couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, wondering how to tell this little cutie that her gacha rates had been secretly modified by the boss.

Noticing her gaze, the child came over holding the tablet.

“Big sister.”

“Hmm?”

“I want this one,” she said, her expression pitiful, eyes round and wet, looking so pleading that it was impossible to refuse.

The female employee sympathetically comforted her, mentally cursing the heartless boss, and hesitated about whether to secretly ask a colleague to restore the child’s gacha rates. Looking up, she saw the boss standing in his office behind the glass, arms crossed, staring at her.

Female employee: “…”

Getting involved in the war between boss and little boss would end badly – sorry, little cutie!

Unable to secure external help, Yu Qian could only put the tablet back and stubbornly set additional running tasks.

The determination to get gacha pulls kept Yu Qian running for about half a month, but after that, she absolutely refused to continue.

Moreover, she had somehow learned about her heartless father’s trick and decided to punish him.

That evening, Zai Ye went to bed early, he was exhausted.

Half-asleep, he heard the door open and felt the bed sink. Before he could open his eyes, he suddenly felt a heavy weight on him, as if hit by a cannonball.

Zai Ye: “Oof!” All sleepiness was knocked away.

His daughter, wearing yellow duck pajamas, was bouncing on his stomach, like an angry bird that had crashed into him, or like a wild boar charging.

“Heartless boss! Heartless boss!” The little wild boar raised her hands and shouted, “Ahhhhh!”

The heartless boss suffering a midnight assassination: “…”

Using both hands and feet, he finally managed to pin down the frenzied little wild boar until she fell asleep, though she still ground her teeth in her slumber.

Unable to fall asleep after her disturbance, Zai Ye sat watching her.

His daughter had slept with him since she was two. Later, when she was older and could sleep by herself, she moved to the neighboring room. At first, Zai Ye was very uncomfortable with this, often getting up in the middle of the night to check on her, once even sitting by her bed for most of the night.

Even earlier, when this daughter suddenly appeared in his life, he had read online that such young children should sleep with adults, so he reluctantly tolerated this child occupying half his bed.

He was more uncomfortable then, constantly waking up even while sleeping, afraid he might accidentally roll onto her or hit her, jolting awake at the slightest movement.

He wasn’t used to her arrival, wasn’t used to her leaving, but now he was used to it all.

Just… Zai Ye reached out to measure the child. He felt that when she was little, she was just a tiny bundle, and now she was still a tiny bundle.

Pulling up the blanket to gently cover the child, Zai Ye lay back down.

Then in the morning, he was woken by this child again. The early-rising wild boar went berserk again, lying on top of him, using both hands and feet. Zai Ye was thoroughly annoyed and shoved his head under the pillow, ignoring her as she bounced on him.

Yu Qian sat right on the pillow, pressing down on her father’s head.

Zai Ye: “…”

Zai Ye discovered his daughter was giving him the cold shoulder.

The Wilderness Games employees discovered that the big boss and the little cutie were in a cold war.

Usually at the company, the little cutie would play by herself for a while, then go to the boss’s office to find him, sometimes to show him cats, sometimes to show him little trinkets she’d found, and sometimes to get help with small problems.

Whenever she entered his office, the boss would stop his work to look at her cats, look at the little trinkets she brought, or solve her small problems. Though his expression remained blank, he was always patient enough.

If the little cutie didn’t visit his office for a while, the boss would come out himself to find where she was, watch her play for a bit before returning to work. Even during the company’s busiest times, the boss would still come out periodically to check on his child.

When the little cutie was even younger, employees had seen the boss hold his daughter in his arms while she slept, handling work with one hand.

But today, under everyone’s watchful eyes, the little cutie walked into his office during a meeting with several core employees. With a stern face, she carried a small basket, opened Zai Ye’s office cabinet, took out boxes of yogurt one by one, put them in her basket, and dragged it out without a backward glance.

Zai Ye and the employees: “…”

Yu Qian had her own special snack cabinet at the company, and the yogurt inside was hers alone. She would share snacks with other brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunties, but she only ever shared yogurt with Zai Ye.

The yogurt Zai Ye hadn’t gotten around to drinking would be temporarily stored in the cabinet, but now, Yu Qian had confiscated it all, not leaving him a single bottle.

“Boss, are you and Xiao Qian having a cold war?” one employee boldly asked.

Once someone broke the ice, others began offering their opinions.

“You can tell Xiao Qian is very angry.”

“It’s really the boss’s fault, how could you secretly modify her gacha rates?”

“Yeah, you can’t deceive children, they’re quite clever!”

Zai Ye listened to his employees’ accusations and asked: “So who told her about this?”

The employees: “…” No one made a sound.

Li Xiu brought over the magical girl dress and wand he’d prepared for Yu Qian and heard about the father-daughter cold war.

“You’re in the wrong here, no wonder the child is angry,” Li Xiu said.

“I did it for her own good. If it was too easy to achieve her goals and get the pets she wanted, she definitely wouldn’t want to run and exercise anymore,” Zai Ye argued.

Li Xiu patted his shoulder: “‘For her own good’ – think about it, when your father used Yu Qian to trick you into going home last time, it turned out to be for meeting a potential marriage match, and he said it was for your own good too. Did you appreciate that?”

Zai Ye fell silent.

“Parents always tend to be self-righteous. Anyway, I’ll give you this dress and magic wand first, you give them to Xiao Qian to make up with her, apologize, and she’ll definitely forgive you.”

Zai Ye expressionlessly: “I’ve never apologized to anyone in my life.”

The next day, Zai Ye placed the tablet in front of Yu Qian.

“You haven’t logged into your game for two days. Are you still playing?”

Yu Qian was unusually focused on doing her homework, holding her pen and turning her little head away, clearly ignoring him.

Zai Ye: “The gacha rates have been changed back.”

Still getting no response from the child, Zai Ye then placed the magical girl dress and wand in front of her.

“Brother Xiu bought these for you.”

The child didn’t even open them to look.

Zai Ye suddenly picked her up, watching her kick wildly in mid-air, thinking that with her cheeks puffed out while kicking, she really did look like a frog.

Holding the child, he sat down on the sofa. Zai Ye said, “You won’t be satisfied unless I apologize, right?”

Yu Qian finally spoke: “You were wrong.”

Zai Ye: “Fine… I was wrong.”

He said it somewhat perfunctorily, but after speaking, he saw the child’s lips suddenly quiver, tears welling up in her eyes, and she reached out to hug his neck. Zai Ye suddenly realized he really had done wrong.

The child leaned against his neck, rubbing her head back and forth, using his clothes to vigorously wipe away tears. The apology that Zai Ye had found so difficult to say came naturally.

“I was wrong. I shouldn’t have deceived you. I won’t do it again.”