After delivering this bold declaration, the little child retreated far less heroically.
He shuffled back into the classroom, where he dug through his backpack. After searching for a while, he actually found a spare pair of underwear.
Clutching the underwear, the little child was moved to tears.
Dad was the best, really.
Dad knew exactly how to take care of a child. If his birth father had raised him, who knows how he’d have turned out!
Once his teary moment passed, the little child gripped the spare underwear and went to find a place to change. The bathroom was out—other kids were using it.
After some careful consideration, he settled on Principal Hardy’s office.
The principal’s office had a private rest area, unlike the other teachers’ offices.
Tucking the underwear into his pocket, the little child went to find the headmaster. The kid who’d challenged him earlier saw him heading there and assumed he was tattling.
"That Ning kid must be scared of us!"
"Yeah, he knows he can’t beat us, so he’s running to the teacher!"
“Tattletale!”
The little child, who’d just been called a tattletale, ignored the other kids behind him. He successfully knocked on Grandpa Principal’s door and politely asked Principal Hardy if he could use the restroom.
Hardy: “…”
Principal Hardy had… complicated feelings about the chubby little child in front of him.
The exam livestream he’d set up before winter break had been completely derailed by this little one—well, not completely. The stream had gone viral for days, after all, and plenty of parents had seen it. Enrollment rates looked promising.
“Go ahead.”
Principal Hardy let him into the restroom.
The little child trusted Hardy so much that he didn’t even lock the door. He climbed onto the small bed, kicked off his shoes and pants, and only then changed out of his underwear.
The discarded underwear now caught the little child’s attention. The seams had come undone, leaving it as nothing more than a few ragged scraps of cloth that could no longer cover his bottom.
Staring at the ruined underwear, the little child’s mood grew heavy.
Sigh.
Having a birth father who couldn’t even handle basic life skills was such a headache.
After brooding over the tattered underwear for a moment, the little child stuffed it into his pocket. He left the restroom and, spotting Principal Hardy drinking tea outside, sweetly thanked him again.
“No need. For this afternoon’s fitness test, the instructor will let you use a different scale. Your weight will meet the imperial children’s standard by then.”
“Mhm!”
The little child’s eyes curved happily.
Dad had already told him at home—it was okay if he was a little chubby, as long as he was healthy.
With fresh underwear on, the little child practically skipped as he ran back to the playground, where the other kids were still playing.
“Roy, gaming takes forever. I’ll play with you at noon, okay?” The little child handed the star device back to Roy.
Roy nodded, curious. “Ningning, how come I haven’t seen you play games at all after the New Year?”
Since children are exposed to Star Devices early, they’re very familiar with Star Device games—not just familiar, but they even arrange to play the same games together.
The games allow adding friends, and they’ve already added each other long ago.
"I got caught playing games during New Year, and Dad put my Star Device in Child Mode."
"Wow, that’s rough."
The little child also felt miserable: "I heard adults aren’t supposed to hit kids during New Year, but my dad still spanked me."
Roy: "..."
That sounded even worse.
Roy felt bad for the little child and gave him a handful of chocolate candies: "Here, my family bought imported chocolate. This kind is super sweet—you can’t even get it on White Mist Star yet."
The little child loved sweets, especially chocolate and sugary candies. He took the chocolates and returned the favor by giving Roy a handful of sunflower seeds.
"Here, my dad bought so many seeds for New Year that we can’t even finish them now."
Eating too many seeds can make you overheat, and to avoid wasting them, Dad’s been cracking them open whenever he can—so much that his lips got blisters.
Roy glanced at the seeds. They were the cheap kind, but he didn’t mind, pocketing them anyway.
By the next class,
The two classes almost didn’t get to play soccer. A kid from the other class pointed at the little child and called him a tattletale. Furious, the little child shot back, calling the other kid a liar.
He never snitched to the principal!
Both groups of kids were fired up, and once the game started, hardly anyone followed the rules. Before long, they weren’t kicking the ball—they were kicking each other.
The first day of school was pure chaos.
By evening,
When Zhan Xi came to pick up the little child, his kid looked like he’d been through a war, covered in dirt.
"Were you at school or on a battlefield?"
Zhan Xi rubbed his temples at the sight of his child in such a state.
Sitting in his dad’s tricycle, the little child didn’t see anything wrong with himself. He tossed his bag aside and reported: "Dad, the kindergarten said lunch can be at school now, but we have to pay a lunch fee."
The school lunch menu is quite varied, and there are lots of other kids to eat with too. The little child is a little tempted.
Zhan Xi is even more tempted than him: "Sounds good. I’ll go pay for it tomorrow morning, and you can have lunch at school from now on."
The scrap yard he opened at the beginning of the year is still new, so there’s a lot to handle.
He couldn’t bring himself to hire help, and when Ling Qi saw how busy he was, he offered to assist. The two of them have been managing the yard together, but they still have to come back at noon to pick up the little child, cook, eat with him, take a nap, and then send him back to school—it takes up a lot of time.
It’s exhausting.
The little child is happy that his dad is paying for his school lunches.
"Daddy, big brother said he eats at school too."
Huo Lin had also paid for school lunches, though he occasionally goes back to the palace at noon—most of the time, he eats at school.
"Ningning wishes he could eat with big brother."
Even though the little child likes the other kids at kindergarten, he still likes his brother more.
"Work hard, and once you graduate from kindergarten, you can go to school with him."
Zhan Xi then reminds his child: "Ningning, your brother’s elementary school requires an entrance exam. If you don’t study hard now, you won’t be able to get into his school later."
That’s what he says, but deep down, he’s thinking—
Even if he doesn’t get into Imperial Elementary, it’s fine.
Imperial Kindergarten is already much stricter than other kindergartens, and Imperial Military Elementary? No need to even think about it—it’s definitely even tougher.
After Imperial Military Elementary comes Imperial Military Middle School, then Imperial Military University.
Any school with "Imperial Military" in its name is hard to get into and even harder to graduate from.
Zhan Xi pictures his chubby little child. It’d be great if he could get in, but if not, he can just go to another university.
Other universities still let you take the civil service exam—as long as he ends up with a stable job, that’s all that matters.
"Ningning, how many lines of your letter have you translated?"
"One line!"
