Cry and Look for Mom

The shrill wailing sounded like an air raid siren, instantly piercing every inch of the kindergarten's air.

Chen Zhi felt a sharp sting in his eardrums.

Expressionless, he picked at his ear, casually closed the Early Childhood Math Olympiad Enlightenment book that Zhao Xiaolong had left on the desk, and tossed it back to the boy's seat.

The world was finally half quiet.

"Boss! That... that gibberish you just spoke, teach me!"

Li Zihan leaned in with a look of pure admiration, sporting two precarious snot bubbles.

The kid looked exactly like a pug that had just spotted a meaty bone.

Chen Zhi leaned back in disgust, avoiding those two biological weapons that could launch at any moment.

"That was English."

"What's English? Is it more powerful than Ultraman language?"

Li Zihan blinked, his face full of a thirst for knowledge.

"A bit more useful than that. At least it'll save you from having to use hand gestures when you go abroad to move bricks in the future."

Chen Zhi spouted nonsense casually, his gaze moving past Li Zihan to land on the teacher who was peeking in from the doorway.

The young female teacher, Wang Yue, was currently in a daze, her entire worldview undergoing a restructuring.

She had been right around the corner in the hallway.

That pure London accent, so perfect it made someone who passed the college English test like her feel ashamed, actually came out of the mouth of this three-year-old child?

Has early childhood education become this fiercely competitive nowadays?

Before Wang Yue could sort out her thoughts, a chubby little pink hand offered an unwrapped White Rabbit creamy candy to Chen Zhi's lips.

"Chen Zhi, eat some candy!"

Lin Wanwan smiled, her eyes curving into crescents, the little dimples on her cheeks filled with sweet flattery.

She didn't understand anything about English; she only knew that Chen Zhi had just made that annoying Zhao Xiaolong cry from anger.

It was so satisfying!

Chen Zhi looked down at the candy, which bore a few fingerprints. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before opening his mouth and taking it.

The sweetness melted on his tongue.

Forget it. For the sake of the candy, he wouldn't hold it against these little brats for waking him up from his nap.

"Everyone go back to your seats and sit down! It's time to get ready to go home!"

Wang Yue finally snapped back to reality, clapping her hands as she walked into the classroom, trying to maintain the already collapsed order.

Although she had ten thousand questions in her heart, it was now the peak dismissal time, and handing these little ancestors safely over to their parents was the top priority.

The large iron gates at the kindergarten entrance slowly opened.

The army of parents, who had been waiting for a long time, surged in like a zombie siege.

"Oh, my good grandson!"

"Did my baby eat properly today?"

"Tell mommy if anyone bullied you!"

The noisy chatter instantly drowned out the entire playground.

Carrying his small backpack, Chen Zhi slowly mingled into the crowd.

He just wanted to go home quickly.

"Chen Zhi!"

A familiar call pierced through the crowd.

Chen Zhi sighed and resignedly stopped in his tracks.

Not far away, Zhang Guifang was struggling to squeeze past two hefty grandmothers, waving in his direction.

She was still wearing her bank uniform today. Her white shirt was a bit wrinkled, clearly indicating she had rushed over in a hurry right after getting off work.

"Mom."

Chen Zhi walked over and called out obediently.

Zhang Guifang scooped up her son and planted a hard kiss on his face, the force so strong that Chen Zhi suspected the flesh of his cheek was going to be sucked off.

"Such a good boy! Did you listen to the teacher at school today? Did any kids bully you?"

This was the standard opening line of a Chinese parent.

Just as Chen Zhi was about to brush it off with a casual response, a familiar figure suddenly rushed over from the side.

"Mom! That's him! He's the one who swore at me!"

Zhao Xiaolong was crying, snot and tears streaming down his face. One hand was tightly gripping a plump woman wearing a tight leopard-print skirt and wavy permed hair, while his other hand pointed straight at Chen Zhi.

The plump woman had a gold chain as thick as a finger hanging around her neck and three gold bracelets on her wrist that jingled as she walked. Her entire being exuded an aura of having money and not being someone to mess with.

This was presumably Zhao Xiaolong's mother.

Mrs. Zhao looked in the direction her son was pointing. Her beady eyes glared, and the fat on her face quivered.

"Are you the little brat who bullied my son?"

She had a booming voice, and when she roared, the previously noisy crowd around them instantly fell silent.

Gossiping is human nature, and even parents picking up their kids were no exception.

The smile on Zhang Guifang's face vanished instantly.

Although she usually liked to show off her petty cleverness, when it came to protecting her child, she was an absolute tigress coming down the mountain.

"Lady, watch how you speak! Who are you calling a brat? Keep your mouth clean!"

Zhang Guifang pulled Chen Zhi behind her and put her hands on her hips, her aura not weak in the slightest.

"I cursed at him, so what!"

Mrs. Zhao's spit flew as she pointed at the still-sobbing Zhao Xiaolong.

"Look at how wronged my son is! Learning to bully classmates at such a young age, won't he grow up to commit murder and arson!"

"You say he bullied him, so he bullied him? Everything requires evidence!"

Zhang Guifang sneered and looked Zhao Xiaolong up and down, whose size was twice that of her own son.

"With your son's physique, could my son bully him? I'd be thanking the heavens if he didn't crush my son to death!"

A few suppressed chuckles could be heard from the surroundings.

Indeed, given Zhao Xiaolong's tonnage, saying he was bullied by the frail Chen Zhi really lacked persuasiveness.

Mrs. Zhao couldn't save face and, flying into a rage out of humiliation, shoved Teacher Wang Yue who was standing nearby.

"Teacher Wang! You were right there, you tell them! Did this kid bully my Xiaolong or not!"

Wang Yue, caught between two powder kegs, was about to break out in a cold sweat.

Being a kindergarten teacher these days really was a high-risk profession.

"Um... Zhao Xiaolong's mother, actually, this is just a misunderstanding..."

"What misunderstanding! Xiaolong said it himself, this kid cursed at him in bird language! And it was really nasty!"

Mrs. Zhao was relentless, the fat on her face trembling.

"Bird language?"

Zhang Guifang was stunned for a moment and looked back at her son.

Chen Zhi stood there looking completely innocent, his big eyes blinking, appearing entirely harmless.

"Stop making baseless accusations! My son hasn't even fully learned Pinyin yet, and you're talking about bird language? Why don't you just say he can fly!"

Zhang Guifang felt this was simply a fairy tale.

Wouldn't she know her own son's level? Every day when he came home, he did nothing but watch TV and sleep; his favorite thing to do was zone out.

"He did curse! He said a whole bunch of things! Everyone heard it!"

Seeing his mother backing him up, Zhao Xiaolong regained his confidence and shouted while jumping up and down.

"Yeah! I heard it too!"

A small, skinny figure squeezed out of the crowd; it was none other than Li Zihan.

Zhang Guifang's heart skipped a beat.

Did this kid actually get into trouble?

Li Zihan puffed out his chest and said loudly, "Boss was speaking English! It's a foreign language! It wasn't cursing at all!"

"Boss?"

Zhang Guifang's mouth twitched.

How did he end up with an underworld title?

Mrs. Zhao seized the leverage and pointed right at Chen Zhi's nose: "Listen to that! Just listen! Not learning anything good at such a young age, and even starting a gang! If you don't give me an explanation today, this isn't over!"

She took a step forward, her massive body pressing down like a mountain of flesh.

Zhang Guifang subconsciously took half a step back, but quickly stepped forward again.

"What do you want? Are you going to hit someone?"

Seeing that the situation was about to spiral out of control and turn into a full-blown brawl between adults, a cool little hand suddenly grasped Zhang Guifang's wrist.

Chen Zhi stepped out from behind his mother.

He straightened his slightly crooked collar and looked up at the angry woman in front of him, his eyes calm.

"Auntie, I think you've misunderstood."

The tender, childish voice clearly pierced through the noisy air.

Chen Zhi showed not the slightest hint of fear.

This calmness, which was far beyond his years, made Mrs. Zhao freeze for a moment.

"Misunderstood my foot! Xiaolong said you called him stupid!"

"I didn't call him stupid."

Chen Zhi shook his head, his tone sincere. "I was merely discussing with him the inevitable connection between intellectual development and genetic inheritance."

The entire place fell silent.

They knew every single word, but how come they couldn't understand them when put together?

Mrs. Zhao's mouth hung wide open, feeling like her brain couldn't quite process it.

"What... what on earth?"

Chen Zhi sighed, seemingly feeling pity for the other party's comprehension skills.

He switched to a more accessible explanation.

"My classmate Zhao Xiaolong wanted to test my arithmetic, and I answered correctly. He then tested my English, and I answered that too. Then he cried. I believe this is a normal psychological defense mechanism when facing frustration, not him being bullied."

These words were logically clear, well-organized, and precisely worded.

The most crucial point was that they came out of the mouth of a three-year-old child.

The surrounding parents were dumbfounded.

Was this really a kid from the preschool class?

Compared to him, their own silly boys who were still playing in the mud seemed like unevolved monkeys.

"You... you're talking nonsense!"

Zhao Xiaolong flushed red. "You clearly just said a bunch of stuff I couldn't understand!"

"That was practicing oral conversation."

Chen Zhi didn't bat an eye. "You were the one who asked me 'How are you' first, right?"

Zhao Xiaolong nodded blankly.

"So I answered you, is there a problem with that?"

"B-but you didn't say 'I'm fine'!"

"Who made the rule that you can only answer 'I'm fine'?"

Chen Zhi retorted, his gaze sharp. "The charm of language lies in its diversity. I merely expressed my state in a more advanced way, is that wrong?"

Zhao Xiaolong was completely dizzy from the logic.

His brain capacity was currently entirely unable to process such complex information.

It seemed... to make sense?

Although Mrs. Zhao didn't quite understand either, her intuition told her that her son had been crushed in the IQ department.

And crushed comprehensively, with no blind spots.

This was even more uncomfortable than taking a beating.

"You... save your useless babbling!"

Mrs. Zhao flew into a rage out of humiliation and started acting unreasonably. "Anyway, making my son cry is just wrong! You have to apologize!"

"On what grounds should he apologize?"

A cold, clear female voice interjected from the side.

The crowd automatically parted to make way.

Lin Wanwan walked over, holding the hand of an elegant woman.

Lin Jing was very gentle with her own family, but she didn't have such a good temper with outsiders.

She walked up to Chen Zhi, reaching out to gently pat his head, but her gaze toward Mrs. Zhao carried a bit of chilliness.

"Wanwan has already told me everything that happened in the classroom just now."

Lin Jing's tone was light, yet it carried an unquestionable authority. "It was your son who provoked him first, and then cried when he found himself lacking. Does modern education advocate that 'whoever is weaker is right'?"

"Mrs... Mrs. Lin?"

Mrs. Zhao's arrogance instantly shrank by half.

Her husband's company took on projects under the Lin family's corporate group. This woman was the true heiress, and Mrs. Zhao wouldn't dare offend her even if she were given ten times the courage.

"Squabbles among children are perfectly normal."

Lin Jing glanced at Zhao Xiaolong. "But if parents come to point fingers indiscriminately, then it's not just the child's face that is lost."

Mrs. Zhao's face turned red and white in turns, as colorful as a dyehouse.

She glared fiercely at the still-sobbing Zhao Xiaolong and slapped him on the back of the head.

"Cry, cry, cry! All you know is how to cry! Go home!"

After saying that, she dragged her son and slipped away into the crowd in disgrace, even forgetting to take his limited-edition Transformer.

A farce thus ended dramatically.

Zhang Guifang still hadn't quite processed it.

They won just like that?

She looked down at her son, her expression turning strange.

"Son, when... when did you learn those words? What defense mechanism, what genetic inheritance?"

Chen Zhi's heart skipped a beat.

In his attempt to end the battle quickly just now, it seemed he had overdone it.

He immediately put on an innocent expression and pointed at the large TV screen not far away.

"I learned it from TV! 'Approaching Science'!"

Zhang Guifang was half-believing, half-doubting.

Are science shows this hardcore nowadays?

"Auntie, Zhizhi is so amazing!"

Lin Wanwan let go of her mother's hand and ran up to Chen Zhi, her eyes shining. "The English he spoke just now was even more standard than the foreigners on TV!"

Lin Jing also looked at Chen Zhi with great interest.

"Zhizhi, come play at Auntie's house when you have time. Wanwan talks about you every day."

Lin Jing smiled and extended an invitation.

"Yes, yes! I have lots of new toys!"

Lin Wanwan clapped her hands excitedly.

Chen Zhi rolled his eyes inwardly.

Go play at your house? More like going to be a playmate on duty.

"Okay, okay, I will definitely go when I have time."

Everyone was stunned when he said this.

How could a little brat who just started kindergarten not have time?

"Let's go, let's go, Mom will make braised pork for you when we get home!"

Zhang Guifang was in a great mood. She picked up Chen Zhi and walked out.

Resting on his mother's shoulder, Chen Zhi looked at the gradually receding kindergarten gate and let out a long breath.

This day had been more tiring than working overtime at his company.

Moreover, he had a premonition that today's peace was only temporary.

Although that Zhao Xiaolong was nothing to worry about, his mother, who didn't look too bright, was definitely a trouble-maker.

Chen Zhi rubbed the center of his brows.

It seemed he would have to keep a lower profile from now on.

Just as he was thinking this, a black Volkswagen slowly pulled up to the curb.

The window rolled down, revealing the slightly tired face of a middle-aged man.

"Wife! Son! Get in!"

It was Chen Zhi's father, Chen Jun.

Zhang Guifang climbed into the back seat holding Chen Zhi. As soon as the door closed, she couldn't wait to share today's battle record.

"Old Chen! You have no idea how satisfying it was just now! Our son today..."

Chen Zhi buried his head in the seat back, trying to block out his mother's exaggerated descriptions.

The afterglow of the setting sun spilled onto the car window, stretching that small silhouette very long.

"By the way, son, can you recite Tang poetry?" Chen Jun suddenly asked.

Chen Zhi answered casually, "Goose, goose, goose, its bent neck sings to the sky..."