As soon as the little child saw First Uncle leave, his whole body instantly revived with energy.
He ran off to find Savi and the others, saying, "First Uncle won't let me exercise anymore. Wagner, let's go pick some fruit to eat!"
But the child’s joy didn’t even last half an hour before First Uncle ended it.
First Uncle handed him a printed copy of winter break homework, placing it right in front of him. "Ningning, here’s your homework."
The little child was stunned: "..."
He stared at the familiar cover of the winter break homework, his eyes widening in shock.
"But I threw away my homework!"
"Your dad picked it back up for you."
Seeing that the little child wasn’t taking the homework, First Uncle urged him. "Here, your dad didn’t even want to give it back at first. But since you’re so eager to do your homework, I couldn’t let you down."
"After I persuaded him, your dad asked the teacher for the digital version of the winter break homework, and I had someone print it out for you."
"Take it. No need to thank me."
Hearing First Uncle’s words, the little child was on the verge of tears. "I don’t want to say thank you."
And he definitely didn’t want to do the homework.
First Uncle, being so strict, had gone through all this trouble to get his homework back, so there was no way he’d let the child escape easily: "You must finish at least 10 pages of homework a day, and while doing your homework, you can’t play with Wagner and Savi."
As he said this, First Uncle took away the child mode version of the child’s Star Device. "You can get it back after you finish your homework. Oh, by the way, Savi and the others had their Star Devices confiscated too."
The plan to use the Star Device to look up homework answers was now off the table.
After giving him the task, First Uncle let the little child choose a spot he liked to start his homework.
Holding his homework, the little child felt weighed down, both in his heart and in his hands.
Two winter break workbooks—so heavy that the little child could barely carry them.
The little child, holding his workbook, walked for a while before heading towards the mountains he had visited last time.
This time, without Savi leading the way, the little child skillfully found the spot where he had slept before.
He had brought some gifts this time—persimmons, fruits, and some dug-up roots.
After crawling into the cave, the little child tried to pull the iron ring again, but this time he couldn't budge it.
He looked up, then slowly sat down on the ground.
He started a fire, roasted the fruits, and then opened his workbook, trying to do his homework.
Before he had finished one page of his winter homework, the little child was already full. Since he hadn’t brought any tissues, he wiped his hands on the back of his homework book.
After wiping his hands, he finally continued to write.
It’s unclear how long he wrote.
The little child raised his hand to rub his eyes and yawned.
The winter homework book from kindergarten came in two volumes, both of which his First Uncle had printed out for him. Throughout the entire winter vacation, the little child hadn’t started on his homework yet.
Perhaps remembering First Uncle's words about the punishment for not finishing his homework, the little child forced himself to stay focused, counting the number of pages he had to write.
"One, two, three... ten pages is so much homework."
The little child’s wrist grew sore from writing, and he had only finished ten pages.
After finishing, he sniffled, crawled onto the bed he had made for Lele last time, and planned to take a nap.
He didn’t sleep for long. After waking up, he couldn't shake the feeling that the air pressure around him had dropped a bit.
The First Uncle he had seen last time still hadn’t appeared. The little child looked at the wall and sighed softly.
“Sigh.”
The unfamiliar First Uncle still hadn’t shown up.
The little child felt a bit disappointed. He walked over and picked up his workbook.
The workbook was wrinkled, as if someone had crumpled it. The little child stared at it, feeling confused for a moment.
When he had wiped his hands earlier, he had only used the back of the book; he hadn’t crumpled it.
“Maybe I forgot,” he thought.
He explained to himself that while doing his homework earlier, his mind had been in a fog, which is probably why he had crumpled up his homework book and then forgotten about it.
The little child picked up his homework book and decided that he would come back here to do his homework tomorrow.
Because he felt that doing homework here seemed to make him work a little faster.
Just as the child picked up his homework book and was about to leave, a ripple of uncontrolled spiritual energy suddenly appeared in the cave.
A man dressed in black with black hair stood where the child had just been, his spiritual energy spiraling out uncontrollably.
His face was as cold as ice, and images of the homework book he'd just seen kept flashing through his mind. Just looking at this kid's homework had nearly caused his spiritual energy to spiral out of control.
His black eyes stared in the direction the child had disappeared. For some reason, he suddenly thought of another soft, small figure.
The age didn’t match, the body size didn’t match, and neither did the background.
But even though this chubby little child didn’t fit with the soft figure in his memory, he still couldn’t help but overlap the two in his mind.
And the more he merged them together, the more chaotic his spiritual energy became.
The man closed his eyes, forcibly calming his spiritual energy.
The best thing for him to do now would be to seal this place and never see the child or anyone else again.
But the next day...
The little child came back with his homework book in hand. This time, as usual, he brought food and once again scratched at the wall.
After waiting for the child to finish his homework and go to sleep, the man couldn’t help it and once again flipped through the homework book.
This time, after reading the homework, he didn’t leave like he did before.
He woke the child up.
The child, rubbing his eyes, still half-asleep, immediately started to throw a bit of a tantrum. He grabbed the little pillow he had pulled out earlier and threw it to the ground with a thud.
The man: “...”
The man coldly said, “Pick it up.”
The child: “...”
Hearing the man’s voice, the child lifted his gaze and finally noticed the man’s face.
Once he saw the man’s open eyes, the child’s mouth opened slightly in shock.
“Uncle.”
He stretched out his chubby little hand and poked the somewhat stiff face of the man in front of him, dazedly saying, "You're alive?"
The man, who had never been dead in the first place: "..."
