The little girl beside them seemed startled, letting out a sharp shriek and hiding under a large tree.
The boy felt that Lin Ze’s action had undoubtedly caused him to lose face in front of the little girl.
He stood up in a fit of rage, aggressively charged at Lin Ze, and started brawling with him.
Xiao Qingyao never expected that her obedient and well-behaved child, who was always so quiet, would one day end up fighting with another kid.
And she certainly didn’t expect the neighbor’s parent to come storming over in a fury to demand an explanation.
Looking at the bruises covering Lin Ze’s little face, Xiao Qingyao’s heart ached deeply. No matter how much she questioned him, he simply refused to say what had happened.
“Mom, it hurts, it hurts so much, wuwu.” The boy tugged at his mother’s collar, putting on a vulnerable act first.
Yiting Lan’s heart immediately ached intensely.
She held the crying boy in her arms to coax him while hurling vicious remarks, demanding that Xiao Qingyao properly discipline her unruly child.
“Lin Ze! Hurry up and apologize to our Yinyin! How dare you hit him this hard!” Yiting Lan grabbed Lin Ze’s collar and said with a ferocious look.
Lin Ze was terrified, his mind completely blank, unable to come up with any words of defense.
Even if Lin Ze was in the wrong, Xiao Qingyao couldn’t bear to see her child treated this way by others.
Anxious, Xiao Qingyao pulled away Yiting Lan’s hand, pushed Lin Ze behind her, and raised her voice with a hint of anger, “Don’t touch my child.”
Yiting Lan seemed taken aback by Xiao Qingyao’s sudden outburst.
She never expected that a people’s teacher, usually so gentle and approachable with everyone, could look so fierce when angry.
Xiao Qingyao didn’t know whose fault it was, but seeing that her child refused to speak, she could only lower her head and apologize to Yiting Lan in a soft tone.
“Mom, don’t apologize.” Lin Ze stood only as high as just below Xiao Qingyao’s thighs.
He cried softly, standing on his tiptoes as he tried to tug at Xiao Qingyao’s hem. “We shouldn’t apologize to her, wuwu.”
When Lin Zhixun returned home from work, the scene that greeted him was Xiao Qingyao sternly reprimanding the child.
“Zeze! Look at what you’ve become! You’re so young, and you’ve already learned how to fight with other kids?”
Xiao Qingyao put one hand on her hip and angrily pointed at Lin Ze.
Lin Ze lay flat on the sofa while his backside took the repeated strikes of Xiao Qingyao’s clothes hanger.
Lin Ze bit his lip, burying his face so deeply that it was almost completely hidden between his arms.
Seeing this, Lin Zhixun panicked, dropped his backpack, and ran into the living room without even taking off his shoes. He used his bulky frame to shield his child.
“What are you doing? Why are you hitting the child?”
With red-rimmed eyes, Xiao Qingyao dropped the clothes hanger. “Ask him yourself! Listen to the good deed your son pulled off today.”
With that, she wiped away the tear tracks on her face and walked into the kitchen.
Lin Zhixun pulled Lin Ze up from the sofa and sat down with him. A few strands of graying hair at his temples gently swayed with the warm breeze.
The early-morning-to-late-night workload at the construction site brought immense pressure to his body. The fair skin he once had was coated with a brownish hue by a life of wind and rain.
“Why is Zeze’s little face all bruised? Daddy’s heart aches so much.” He lowered his head and gently blew on Lin Ze’s wounds.
“Wuwu, Daddy.” Lin Ze burst into tears.
He hadn’t cried after being hit so many times by Xiao Qingyao.
Now, the moment he saw Lin Zhixun, he could no longer hold back the grievance in his heart and wailed loudly.
Lin Zhixun stroked Lin Ze’s hair. “What’s wrong, child?”
Lin Ze cried nonstop, speaking in intermittent fragments that made it hard to catch what he was saying.
Lin Zhixun gently laid Lin Ze back down on the sofa. “Wait a moment, Zeze.”
Before long, he pulled open a drawer, took out a bottle of medicinal oil, and carefully wiped it across Lin Ze’s bruised face.
“It hurts.” Lin Ze’s long eyelashes fluttered slightly, his red-rimmed eyes staring straight at Lin Zhixun.
“Can Zeze bear it for a moment? Daddy’s fingers are too rough. Next time I’ll buy cotton swabs to bring home, okay?” He coaxed Lin Ze softly.
Instead, Lin Ze suddenly grabbed Lin Zhixun’s index finger and shook his head. “No, it doesn’t hurt. Go ahead and apply it.”
Being so young, he didn’t know how to express his love to his father.
What he actually wanted to say was that Daddy had already sacrificed and suffered so much for him, so Zeze’s little bit of pain was nothing compared to Daddy’s.
Seeing Lin Ze’s breathing gradually steady, Lin Zhixun asked, “Zeze, why did you fight with others?”
Lin Zhixun’s gentle tone wasn’t as stern as Xiao Qingyao’s, making Lin Ze feel much less afraid.
He pressed the corners of his lips together, his little brain spinning wildly as he slowly recounted the cause and course of today’s incident.
“Daddy, Yinyin said, said Daddy is a worker, that you’re dirty. But Zeze felt what he said wasn’t right! And then, and then, he also said Zeze.”
The bridge of Lin Zhixun’s nose burned, and he tilted his head back to take a deep breath.
His round pupils glistened with moisture, and his small lips pushed out slightly. “He said Zeze is dirty, didn’t let Xiaoxin play with Zeze, and even said Zeze eats slop.”
Lin Zhixun bit his own lip, using who knows how much force to bite his lip until it bled.
Lin Zhixun had always been able to endure. Even when others gossiped behind his back, he would just brush it off and choose not to argue.
But the moment he heard from his own son how others described his family’s child,
Lin Zhixun’s facade of strength instantly shattered into dust, and he could no longer maintain the expression that was on the verge of collapsing.
The crisp sound of a spatula dropping and striking the kitchen floor echoed clearly, and the room fell into an eerie, heavy silence.
Lin Mother walked silently out of the kitchen.
Her vision was already blurred with tears, and her body trembled slightly as she walked toward Lin Ze.
“Zeze, did that person really say that?”
Seeing Xiao Qingyao’s red eyes and emotional reaction, Lin Ze was truly startled.
He had never seen Xiao Qingyao in such a disheveled and broken state.
Lin Ze shrank back slightly against the sofa behind him.
“Zeze, my Zeze.” Xiao Qingyao pulled Lin Ze into her arms, her voice trembling slightly. “Don’t be afraid. Mommy wronged you. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Zeze.”
She tremblingly lifted Lin Ze’s delicate arm, looking at the faint blue mark on it, and swallowed hard with a heavy heart. “Zeze, does it hurt?”
“It must hurt so much, Mommy’s heart aches just looking at it.” She muttered to herself, her large hand gently stroking Lin Ze’s back.
“Mommy, Zeze doesn’t hurt, don’t cry anymore.” Being very sensible, Lin Ze used his small hand to gently wipe the tears from Xiao Qingyao’s face.
“It really is hard on our Zeze.” Xiao Qingyao squatted on the ground, burying her head and weeping bitterly.
Lin Zhixun could also hear the deep-seated guilt and heart-wrenching pain inside Xiao Qingyao’s heart.
He roughly wiped away the tear drops at the corners of his eyes, picked up Lin Ze, and walked outside.
He knocked on the neighbor’s door so loudly that it could be heard echoing up and down the stairwell.
“What’s going on? What happened?” Residents from the upper and lower floors all opened their doors, walked out, and gathered around to watch the spectacle.
Within thirty seconds, Yiting Lan angrily opened the door. “What are you knocking for? Knocking so heavily!”
Yiting Lan hadn’t seen clearly who was at the door, but once she recognized them, her temper reined in slightly.
After all, Lin Zhixun’s tall and sturdy build completely overpowered her in terms of presence!
“Yiting Lan, hurry up and call your son out to apologize to my son!” Lin Zhixun spoke with a dark expression, his voice tinged with anger.
“What?” Yiting Lan was momentarily surprised.
Did an honest man just lose his temper for the first time?
That’s a rare sight!
Yiting Lan had always assumed Lin Zhixun was a docile and loyal person who wouldn’t dare talk back even when bullied.
She was certain this paper tiger of a Lin Zhixun couldn’t last three minutes before scurrying back home with his tail between his legs!
“Your son beat up our precious child until he was covered in bruises and hasn’t even apologized to him yet, and now you’re turning things around and asking our Yinyin to apologize? Are you dreaming?”
At home, Yiting Lan acted like a fierce tigress who kept her husband completely under control, and out in the world, she remained haughty and looked down on everyone.
She spoke righteously and with such a loud, resonant voice that she seemed terrified the neighbors wouldn’t hear.
“Yiting Lan, it was clearly your son who started by hurling verbal abuse! Saying that our Zeze eats slop? For a child so young to utter such malicious words, did you teach him that yourself?”
The surrounding neighbors began to whisper amongst themselves.
“Ah, how could she teach her child like that?”
“Exactly, what does a child that young know? Most of it is taught by adults!”
“Besides, that’s way too malicious! If my child suffered that kind of grievance from others, I’d be heartbroken to tears.”
Yiting Lan’s expression became a bit unnatural under the accusations. After letting her gaze float around the crowd for a few seconds, she forced herself to look calm and said,
“I don’t know what nonsense you’re talking about! Do you have any evidence? Stop spreading rumors here! If you slander me, be careful I don’t sue you for defamation!”
In truth, she knew very well. When her son had come back, he had already explained the whole sequence of events to her, but how could she ever tolerate the son of a mere manual laborer riding roughshod over her own son?
She didn’t care even if her son was the one who started it, and even if she had to twist the facts, she was determined to go demand an explanation from Xiao Qingyao!