Chapter 21: The School Bully (21)

The basic curriculum of kindergarten could be summed up in one word: “play.” Most of the time, children spent their days in activity rooms, playing games with other kids under the teachers’ guidance.

Among the group of children, there were always a few who stood out differently. Yu Qian was one of them. She idly hugged her water bottle, watching as the other kids played simple games with the teacher’s help.

She seemed uninterested in the other children and even less interested in the toys laid out before her. She lay down and began to stare off into space for a long time.

Zai Ye stood on a tree, holding onto the trunk, where he could see Yu Qian lying silently inside through the large window.

While he himself often had a distant look in school, when it came to his daughter, he couldn’t help feeling anxious. The child’s idle boredom appeared to him as “lacking vitality” and “feeling down.”

He furrowed his brow tightly, closely watching what she would do next. When another child approached Yu Qian, he thought they might interact or play together. Instead, the little girl simply took the toy in front of Yu Qian and went off to play with it.

Zai Ye: “…” She didn’t react even when her toy was taken!

The young father felt angry about his daughter’s social failure in kindergarten and pounded the tree trunk with his fist.

Yu Qian didn’t like kindergarten much; she preferred staying home or going to the Soaring Lounge with its many large toys. There, she could eat, drink, and play whatever she wanted freely, unlike now, where she couldn’t roam around as she pleased.

She lay there, almost dozing off for a moment. But the active blue light point beside her was very noisy, shouting: 「How pitiful, our male lead is already a mature dad, yet he’s hiding outside watching his child.」

「Host, look! The male lead is outside!」

For this occasionally noisy light point, two-year-old Yu Qian couldn’t understand the concept of a “system” that appeared in some memories. She just treated it as a special companion or pet.

After being nagged by it for a while, Yu Qian lifted her head and looked outside.

She locked eyes with Zai Ye, who was standing on the tree outside the wall.

Three seconds later, Yu Qian, who had been calm and almost asleep, suddenly burst into tears.

This sudden cry in the classroom triggered a chain reaction, like a wolf’s howl causing many more howls. The room quickly filled with children’s cries of varying pitches.

Young children were easily influenced by their peers. Once one started crying and a few others followed, soon all the children joined in.

The three teachers quickly moved to comfort the children. One hurried to Yu Qian, who had started crying first. Just as she called Yu Qian’s name, she noticed what the child was looking at and also locked eyes with Zai Ye outside the wall.

At that moment, Zai Ye was puzzled by Yu Qian’s sudden crying and leaned forward to get a better look.

After one teacher noticed him, the others did too.

A younger teacher looked stern: “Who is that? Why are they spying from the tree? The child must have been scared!”

An older, more experienced teacher suggested: “First, have security check if it’s a parent. Either way, tell them to come down and not stand there.”

Zai Ye soon faced the vigilant security guards and had to climb down. However, instead of leaving, he swung his backpack over his shoulder, registered himself, and entered the kindergarten.

Shortly after, Yu Qian was brought out of the classroom. Her tree-climbing, peeping father waited at the door, reaching out to hold her hand as they walked out.

The morning classes weren’t even finished when Yu Qian got an approved leave of absence, legitimately taken out of kindergarten by her parent.

The sun was still strong, so Zai Ye put his own hat on the child’s head, shading her fair cheeks. He hung her small backpack and water bottle on his elbow and carried her in the shade of street trees.

“Why did you suddenly cry earlier?” Zai Ye asked.

The child blinked her grape-black eyes: “Daddy climbed tree!”

Zai Ye: “Shut up.”

Though he maintained a cold expression under the strange gazes of the kindergarten teachers and security, the embarrassment of being treated as a suspicious person and made to climb down from the tree still lingered.

“Daddy, Brother Xiu!” Yu Qian requested to go to the Soaring Lounge with its many large toys.

Zai Ye had the same thought. He had impulsively taken her out and didn’t know where else to go, but…

“I call him Brother Xiu, you call him Uncle Xiu.”

“Uncle Xiu,” Yu Qian obediently corrected herself.

Unfortunately, their plans fell through. When the father-daughter pair arrived at Soaring Lounge, they found it closed with a sign saying the owner was traveling with no set return date.

Zai Ye and Yu Qian: “…”

Zai Ye had to find another way to pass the time.

Passing by the cinema, Zai Ye noticed a poster featuring a character from a game he played. Looking closer, it was a game adaptation movie, reportedly a big production that he’d heard his underlings at school mention. Interested, he pointed at the poster and asked Yu Qian, “Want to watch?”

Yu Qian bounced in his arms, enthusiastically responding, “Yes!”

Zai Ye bought tickets and took her inside. On a weekday morning, there weren’t many people. They sat in the middle of the theater, with no one around them, waiting for the movie to start.

Holding a bucket of popcorn, Zai Ye covered it with his hand, only letting Yu Qian get one piece at a time through his fingers. She struggled to get each piece but enjoyed the process immensely, barely watching the movie.

She didn’t really understand the special effects and heroes; the fragrant popcorn was more appealing to her.

“What nonsense,” Zai Ye commented after watching for a while. The game adaptation’s plot was genuinely bizarre. He ate a handful of popcorn while contemplating leaving early to avoid being tortured by such nonsense for another hour.

But soon, he realized the child beside him hadn’t tried to grab popcorn for a while. Looking over, sure enough, she was asleep.

The child looked tiny in the large theater seat, sliding downward. Zai Ye put down the popcorn bucket, lifted her up onto his lap, and let her sleep against him.

He wasted over an hour watching a strange movie while Yu Qian slept for over an hour. She didn’t wake up even when the movie ended, and only when the cleaning lady came did he carry her out.

“You really can sleep anywhere.”

The child resting on his shoulder was soft and warm. Soon after waking up, she started making various small requests again.

And so, the first day of school ended with father and daughter “playing hooky.”

That evening, Ms. Wen messaged asking about how the child’s first day of school went and if she was adjusting well.

She didn’t know that the child hadn’t actually attended school, instead she spent the day wandering around playing. Recalling her own experience of sending children to kindergarten, Mrs. Wen had many thoughts and sent her eldest son some warm messages about the importance of letting children be independent, developing their practical abilities, and interacting with peers their age.

Zai Ye felt a bit guilty.

The next day, Zai Ye went to school early and had Auntie Wu take Yu Qian to kindergarten, since kindergarten started later than high school, and he felt his mother’s words from last night made some sense.

However, sitting in his high school classroom listening to the teacher speak, Zai Ye couldn’t help wondering: Did Auntie Wu get the child to kindergarten on time? Did she cry today since he wasn’t the one taking her? It was almost noon, and he wondered what she was eating and if she was eating enough? Her nap times were usually irregular, could she adapt?

In kindergarten, with so many children and each teacher responsible for several kids, they couldn’t possibly provide such attentive care.

Lost in these thoughts, before Zai Ye realized it, he was once again outside the kindergarten wall.

This time, he didn’t climb the tree, deciding to just take a quick look from outside the wall.

It happened to be outdoor activity time, and among the children playing around the yard equipment, Yu Qian was carrying a small bucket of sand when she spotted Zai Ye peeking.

Yu Qian: “Wuwa!”

Ten minutes later, Zai Ye took the happy child away under the teachers’ speechless gazes.

They had seen parents who couldn’t bear to leave their children before, but rarely one who would take their child home on approved leave once or twice, and such a young parent at that.

On a school day, Yu Qian happily spent another day wandering around with her father.

On the third day, before leaving home, Zai Ye told Yu Qian: “Today, be good and attend school properly. I won’t come to check on you, I’ll only pick you up in the afternoon, understand?”

Yu Qian didn’t respond, just twisted her fingers while looking at him.

Zai Ye coldly shouldered his bag and left.

That day, near noon, Yu Qian spotted her cold-faced father with his backpack in the bushes outside the wall.

Once again taking the child from the teacher, Zai Ye held her hand, pondering where to go.

Just as they reached the nearby elementary school entrance, they ran into Ms. Wen, who was bringing something to Lu Lang. Mrs Wen looked at the father-daughter pair in surprise, unable to make sense of the situation.

“Zai Ye? Why are you here, isn’t it class time? Shouldn’t Xiao Qian be in class too, what are you…”

Caught in the act of both skipping class.

Zai Ye didn’t know what he was thinking, but at that moment, he suddenly picked up the child and ran.

After running for two blocks, he stopped, frustratedly slapping his forehead, muttering to himself: “Damn, why did I run?”

The child he’d been carrying while running was laughing, and also reached out her small hand to pat his forehead.

The sound was particularly crisp.

That evening, Ms. Wen predictably came to visit. She found it somewhat amusing, looking at the father-daughter pair sitting on the opposite sofa – one pretending to be indifferent with crossed arms and avoiding her gaze, the other swinging her short legs, unaware of the situation.

“I asked Xiao Qian’s kindergarten teachers about her situation these past few days… Zai Ye, tomorrow, please attend school properly and let Xiao Qian attend properly too, okay?”

“…Mm.”

Ms. Wen’s tone carried both amusement and resignation. “Zai Ye, children need to grow up gradually. When she grows up, she’ll leave you, so starting now, you need to get used to it.”