PTGWD Extra 2: Toy

[Extra 2]
[About things in kindergarten ]

After growing up a bit, Fang Yanzhou didn’t look as much like Fang Xingzhou anymore.

People often say that appearances reflect personality. Although father and son shared identical facial features, they slowly developed completely different auras—it became obvious at a glance that their temperaments were not the same.

Fang Xingzhou had longer, narrower eyes. Yanzhou’s eyes were rounder, his lips fuller, with none of his dad’s sharpness. When he looked up at people, his pupils were bright and focused, giving him an especially harmless look that could melt any adult’s heart.

But not the hearts of children his own age.

A child’s world is a miniature version of adult society—raw, unfiltered, filled with both kindness and cruelty. Yanzhou was cute, always dressed neatly, had stylish dads who picked him up in a fancy car, and a face that screamed “innocent.” So, of course, many kids liked him—but just as many wanted to bully him.

Especially during free playtime in the afternoon. The little Liu kiddo from the next class often brought two little cronies over to corner Yanzhou, forbidding him from playing with the girls and even snatching his new stationery now and then.

And every time he got bullied, Yanzhou would just grin happily, never resisting, obediently doing whatever they told him.

…Which made Lu Xinning (in the big class) stomp her feet in rage.

Whenever she saw her little brother getting surrounded, she’d come charging over from the senior class and—sure enough—see Yanzhou handing over his new toy with a smile, sometimes even offering, “Wanna take my new smartwatch too? It’s the latest model!”

Lu Xinning’s little head practically buzzed with frustration.

She was already a firecracker at her age—one kick sent Liu kiddo to the ground, and she grabbed the other two by their ears and chased them away, yelling for ten minutes straight at the entrance to the middle class room.

“If you bully my brother again, I’ll have my uncle skewer all of you with his tentacles and roast you into kebabs!!”

Hands on her hips, she let out a final snort at the trembling trio before marching off.

Yanzhou stood nearby, starry-eyed, clapping in admiration.

“Sister, you’re amazing!”

Seeing him, Lu Xinning yanked his ear too, dragging him back to the classroom and scolding him in a syrupy toddler voice for always giving in. She even tried teaching him how to fight back.

Yanzhou nodded nonstop—left ear in, right ear out: “Mm-hmm, next time for sure!”

Lu Xinning, emotionally exhausted, called her two besties to act as lookouts in the future, then stormed back to the senior class, pigtails swinging.

But a few days later, she caught Yanzhou getting cornered at the school gate again—same expression, same defeatist posture, obediently handing over a pretty new pencil case to the bully.

Lu Xinning had never felt such defeat in her short, angry life. She burst into tears on the spot.

Snot running down her face, she clung to her uncle’s leg, hiccuping complaints:

“Second Uncle! Look, hic, Fang Yanzhou, hic, why is he so—hic—stubborn!”

Lu Jianchuan had no clue what was happening. He blinked in confusion, picked up the little girl, gently wiped her face, and—despite not understanding a single word—nodded anyway:
“Mm. Tangtang was totally out of line! Don’t cry, don’t cry, Uncle will beat him up when we get home.”

Lu Xinning: “…”

She gave her clueless uncle a few punches, jumped down from his arms, then charged over and tackled the bullies again, pummeling them until they wailed. She shoved the dirty pencil case back into Yanzhou’s arms, crying and scolding him all at once.

After disciplining the little ones, she marched up to Lu Jianchuan, lifted her head dramatically, and pointed at him with teary eyes:
“Second Uncle, you don’t care about Tangtang at all! I’m telling Second Uncle-Dad on you!!”

Lu Jianchuan: “…”

At last, he pieced it together and couldn’t help but smile—though he forced himself to stop when Xinning glared at him seriously.

He nodded. “You’re right, baby. Uncle will reflect deeply.”

Lu Xinning didn’t buy it. “Liar! Tangtang made the same face last time!”

Lu Jianchuan quickly crouched down and put on a serious face:
“Really! Totally! I’ll reflect. How about I make it up to you with an ice cream?”

Lu Xinning stared hard at him for a long while… then reluctantly nodded.

But one ice cream wasn’t enough. In the end, she ate two before her mood lightened, bouncing onto the Lu family’s car in high spirits.

Lu Jianchuan was left holding Yanzhou by the roadside. Yanzhou was still nibbling the last of the ice cream cone his sister had “generously” left behind.

“Did they bully you?” Lu Jianchuan asked casually as he picked up his son.

Yanzhou chomped into the cone loudly and giggled, “Yep!”

Lu Jianchuan opened the car door and popped him into the front seat.
“Want Daddy to go bully them back for you?”

Yanzhou froze mid-bite and stared at Lu Jianchuan, as if his dad had just said something absolutely scandalous.

Lu Jianchuan: “?”

Yanzhou: “Daddy, you’re already a grown-up. How can you bully kids??”

Lu Jianchuan: “…”

In that moment, he completely understood why Lu Xinning had cried out of rage.

He took a long, deep breath, started the car, and drove toward Xiangxing Street, determined to complain to his husband after work.

But alas… his husband was working overtime again.

Lu Jianchuan cooked a huge dinner and waited from 6:00 to 8:30. When his beloved finally got home, he pounced on Fang Xingzhou at the door with his tentacles, getting handsy while reporting their son’s crimes for a solid ten minutes.

…Mostly getting handsy. The rant was just to make it look justified.

After the chaos settled, Fang Xingzhou, now full to bursting, went to grab some digestion pills. He took Lu Jianchuan on a half-hour walk, hand in hand. By the time they returned, it was already bedtime for the little one.

At last, Xingzhou went to deal with kid stuff. He pushed open the door to Yanzhou’s room… and saw his kindergartener scribbling furiously in a workbook titled Five Years of Exams, Three Years of Practice.

Totally unfazed, Fang Xingzhou asked,
“Tangtang, why do you keep letting them take your toys?”

Without looking up, Yanzhou kept writing, his soft kiddie voice floating up:
“Because Daddy is rich.”

Lu Jianchuan clicked his tongue, just about to launch into a lecture—when Fang Xingzhou spoke first:
“You mean you’re trying to help the kids who bully you?”

“Of course not,” Yanzhou turned around with wide blinking eyes.
“If they weren’t bullying me, they’d bully someone else—someone even smaller. One of them have a really sick dad, and his family’s poor right now. He can’t afford new toys. If they took it from him, he’d be really sad.”

Fang Xingzhou paused.

Yanzhou giggled around the tip of his pencil. “Besides, when I get bullied, Xinning gets all worried. She watches over me every day and pretends to be full just so she can give me her favorite ice cream!”

Fang Xingzhou’s mouth twitched.

“And!” Yanzhou’s eyes sparkled brighter. “When you guys hear my answer, you’ll think I’m a kind and generous good boy—then you’ll give me more allowance, and I can buy back the toys they take!”

Fang Xingzhou, who had just decided to increase his allowance: “…”

Father and son stared at each other for thirty seconds.

Then Fang Xingzhou broke into a smile.

Luck always finds its way to kids who are both honest and kind. He walked in, ruffled Yanzhou’s hair, and said,
“Starting tomorrow, your allowance is doubled. And we’ll reimburse anything they steal.”

Yanzhou cheered with delight, dove into his dad’s arms, and flashed a triumphant victory sign at Lu Jianchuan.

Once again, destiny was walking exactly the path the gods had hoped for.

And in the far, far future… perhaps it always would.