Although Luo Mingchen felt sorry for them, he still needed to get the full story.
“So they stole your food, and then you got into a fight with them?”
Over two bowl puddings?
That didn’t seem like something Huo Yuhui would do.
In Luo Mingchen’s eyes, Huo Yuhui was someone who endured a lot. If he could avoid trouble, he would. There was no reason he’d start a fight over two bowl puddings.
“No…”
Huo Xiang sobbed so hard that his words came out in hiccups.
“They crushed our cakes and said we came out of a man’s belly. They even cursed Little Daddy, so Big Brother fought them. I wanted to help, but they were too strong. I couldn’t beat them. Big Brother was protecting me, and they even hit him with a chair… wuuu… Big Brother bled so much…”
Luo Mingchen hugged Huo Xiang tightly, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Nearby, Huo Yuhui had already been treated by the physician and sat with his head lowered in silence.
“Which four did it?”
As he spoke, Luo Mingchen looked toward the five boys.
The slightly chubby young boy silently edged to the side.
For some reason, he felt that the handsome older brother who had smiled at him at noon and the person standing here now had to be twin brothers.
Even though Luo Mingchen’s gaze was terrifying, the leading boy still said arrogantly, “We did it. So what? They’re just a couple of mud-legged peasants. If they die, we’ll just pay you a few dozen taels of silver.”
Even Teacher Mo was angered by those words.
What kind of students had he accepted?
Luo Mingchen laughed from sheer irritation.
“So your family must be very rich then?”
The boy lifted his chin proudly.
“My father is a landlord!”
As he spoke, several adults rushed in from outside, each immediately pulling their own child into their arms and calling them precious treasures.
The boy who had claimed his father was a landlord hurriedly complained the moment he was embraced.
“Father! Mother! That poor brat hit me! Look, he even injured my face!”
The boy deliberately turned his face toward his father.
The fierce-looking man glared furiously.
“Who dares hit my son?!”
“To be frank, with the way you’ve raised him, if this child died, it would be doing society a favor.”
The man’s eyes widened.
“What did you say?!”
Luo Mingchen replied, “I said your child has a mother but no father to teach him. He’s grown into a complete menace. If someone beat him to death, he’d deserve it. What? Got a problem with that?”
The boy shouted indignantly, “You’re the one with a mother but no father to teach you!”
“But I have better manners than you. At least I don’t randomly insult my classmates’ fathers, steal other people’s things, or gang up on people with superior numbers. You’re nothing but a complete coward. Four of you beating two classmates who are half a head shorter and two years younger than you. If you’ve got guts, go bully someone bigger than you. Are you even a man? Why don’t you get yourself castrated and crawl into a pigsty? With all that fat on you, you could probably fetch a decent price.”
Huo Yuhui stared at Luo Mingchen in shock.
Huo Xiang looked equally stunned.
Huo Yan, who was carrying Huo Xinyue, wasn’t surprised at all. If Teacher Mo weren’t present, Luo Mingchen would probably have cursed even more viciously and might have already started fighting with the boy’s father.
“You—!”
The boy was so furious he could barely speak.
Unable to win with words, he grabbed the man’s sleeve.
“Father! Look at him!”
Before his father could speak, Luo Mingchen continued.
“What? You started insulting people first, and now that you can’t win an argument, you’re running to your father? Are you still nursing? Haven’t you learned that you should take responsibility for your own actions? Maybe you shouldn’t bother studying anymore. With your aptitude, you’ll never learn how to be a decent human being, no matter how many books you memorize. Even if you memorized every book in existence, you still wouldn’t understand what they mean. You’re wasting food, wasting air, and wasting the nation’s resources!”
“What did you say…”
The man had barely spoken when Luo Mingchen cut him off again.
“Can’t understand what I’m saying, or can’t hear me? Raising a son who bullies the weak with superior numbers means you’re not any better!”
“You…”
“What ‘you’? Is that the only word you’ve learned?”
The man was furious.
“I…”
Luo Mingchen rolled his eyes.
“Oh, so you know how to say ‘I’ too?”
“I’ll kill you!”
The man finally snapped. Roaring in rage, he raised his fist and charged toward Luo Mingchen.
Luo Mingchen had been waiting for exactly that.
If he couldn’t beat up the son, couldn’t he beat up the father instead?!
However, Huo Yan moved first, stepping in front of Luo Mingchen and grabbing the man’s wrist with one hand.
“So, because you can’t win an argument, you’re going to hit my husband?”
A sharp, piercing pain shot through the man’s wrist.
The large, burly man immediately howled in agony.
“It’s breaking! Let go! Let go! I won’t hit him anymore!”
Only after hearing that did Huo Yan release him.
Turning to the others, he said calmly, “Your sons assaulted my son. They provoked him first, destroyed his food afterward, and then ganged up on him. He is covered in injuries, and there are witnesses.”
Originally, Huo Yan had intended to mention the physician’s examination, but the chubby young boy hiding nearby timidly raised his hand.
“I… I can testify. Classmate Liu struck first and stepped on the two Huo classmates’ bowl puddings. The Huo brothers ignored him and said they would report it to Teacher Mo. Then they started insulting the Huo brothers’ Little Daddy, saying he was a male prostitute who sold himself outside and acted flirtatiously. That’s when the Huo brothers couldn’t hold back and fought back… I knew things were going badly, so I went to find Teacher Mo.”
Teacher Mo was surprised.
After all, this boy was the most introverted student in the entire class. He always moved slowly and seemed a bit simple-minded.
The fact that he had run to fetch him was already shocking enough.
He hadn’t expected him to step forward and testify as well.
The main reason was that the boy thought the bowl puddings were incredibly delicious. If the two classmates were beaten to death or expelled, their fathers would definitely stop selling them.
He absolutely had to help.
One of the other boys’ mothers immediately said, “My child has always been obedient. Teacher Mo, someone must have instigated this.”
The parents of the other two boys quickly agreed.
“That’s right.”
“Exactly.”
The main culprit was the landlord Liu’s son.
They couldn’t afford to offend him.
The witness was the grandson of Grand Tutor Ming.
They couldn’t afford to offend him either.
If they could remove themselves from the situation entirely, that would be ideal.
Teacher Mo had still been stunned by Luo Mingchen’s verbal assault earlier. Hearing this, he finally said, “The reason I called all of you here today is to discuss how this matter should be handled. Student Huo Yuhui has injuries all over his body. He was also struck heavily in the back and suffered internal injuries. Even the physician said his constitution was already weak to begin with, and now he’ll need medicinal soups for quite some time. You are clearly in the wrong.”
After hearing that, one of the fathers immediately understood.
“Then how about we compensate them with some silver?”
Teacher Mo turned toward Luo Mingchen and Huo Yan.
“What do you think?”
Luo Mingchen said, “We don’t want compensation. We only want an explanation. The four of them must properly apologize to my two children.”
If they took the money and left this time, wouldn’t the two boys become easy targets in the academy afterward?
To those people, money wasn’t a problem at all.
In the future, if they wanted to beat someone up, they’d simply think they could solve everything by paying.
Teacher Mo was somewhat surprised.
For a poor family, silver should have been the most important thing.
Yet Luo Mingchen had rejected it without hesitation.