Xie Changyu and Lu Huaiyu each held a tub of ice cream as they lounged far away from the “battlefield,” leisurely watching the group of old folks lose their minds.
“Are Dad and the others all out of their minds? Xiaomei is a day student. How did they manage to make it look like she’s leaving home to attend college in another province?”
“She went to school this morning and will be back tonight. What on earth is there to prepare?”
Watching everyone bustle around the living room packing things up, Xie Changyu felt as if he had somehow ended up in a psychiatric hospital.
Lu Huaiyu only shrugged after digging a huge spoonful of strawberry ice cream into his mouth. “Who knows?”
“Maybe Xiaomei’s going to school, and the house is losing one neurotic tuxedo cat, so they’ve gotten a little too excited.”
“If you also start going out to work, that’ll mean one fewer destructive husky. Mom and the others will probably be even more thrilled.”
The teasing in his voice was impossible to hide. Xie Changyu jabbed him with his elbow.
“Big Brother, don’t say things like that! What does this have to do with me?”
“I’m so well-behaved at home every day. How am I a destructive husky? Clearly, Xie Xiaoning is the troublemaker!”
Lu Huaiyu shot him a glance and insulted him with nothing but his face.
Don’t you know what you’re like? Where do you get the nerve to say something like that?
Do you really need me to spell it out before you’ll be satisfied?
Clearly, Xie Changyu understood every word his brother’s expression conveyed. He felt a little guilty for a moment.
So he chose to continue with the previous topic and began pointing fingers at the overexcited parents.
“Mom picking and choosing among dozens of identical school uniforms? Fine, I won’t comment on that.”
“But Dad’s famously questionable taste… Isn’t it a little unhinged for him to pick out a backpack for Xiaomei?”
Lu Huaiyu stopped insulting him with his facial expressions and merely indicated that he didn’t quite understand it either.
“Maybe he thinks it’s fun. Besides, whichever one Xie Xiaoning likes best is the one she’ll end up carrying out.”
“Let them pick if they want to! That’s what a bunch of people with no work to do and far too much free time are like. If they don’t find something to fuss over, they feel uncomfortable all over!”
As he said this, it never once occurred to him that whenever he was off work, he had too much free time and treated the older members of the family like toys to torment.
He was nothing if not shamelessly forgetful.
Xie Changyu nodded. Although he didn’t understand their bizarre behavior, he respected their right to engage in it.
Xie Tangning, the actual student in question, wandered around among the group, only to be told by everyone that she should go play by herself for a while.
No one had time to pay attention to her, so she wandered over to her two brothers, Lu Huaiyu and Xie Changyu, and invited them to join her team.
The two brothers happily agreed.
Thus, the three siblings cheerfully formed a party of three and played games off to the side, while the parents busied themselves preparing everything the young girl would need for school the next day.
Everyone had a clearly defined role!
For a while, the living room of the Xie family manor became an unparalleled symphony, with heated arguments over differing opinions occasionally blending with the intense sounds of the siblings battling it out in their game.
The atmosphere was incredibly harmonious.
…
Early Monday morning, Lu Huaiyu, who normally woke up and went to work at the very last possible minute, got up unusually early.
When he came downstairs with his hair sticking up like a bird’s nest, he successfully caught sight of his little sister, who had started cultivating a hairstyle worthy of the Evil Sword Immortal now that school was beginning.
At that moment, Xie Tangning was frantically stuffing breakfast into her mouth. If she didn’t speed up, she could easily receive the gift of being late on the very first day of school.
Meanwhile, her enormous group of parents—including her two “young parents,” Lu Huaiyu and Xie Changyu—had already begun cosplaying the professional butlers from those hilariously over-the-top short dramas Old Master Xie watched.
Because Lu Huaiyu had overslept, he had gotten up a little late and could only cosplay the head chef by the dining table, complete with bird’s-nest hair and pajamas.
Every time Xie Tangning stuffed another bite of food into her mouth, Lu Huaiyu would improvise a long-winded introduction to it.
For example, an ordinary basket of crab-roe buns, after eight hundred words of embellishment from him, was transformed into a top-tier delicacy made from imported ingredients from multiple countries—so expensive that even a president couldn’t afford to eat it.
He even used a full-on radio announcer’s voice. Clearly, he had inherited the true skills of those over-the-top wealthy-family dramas.
Listening to him, Xie Tangning began to suspect that the person in front of her wasn’t her brother at all, but some strange creature from who-knew-where that had possessed him.
If they hadn’t been running out of time, the girl would absolutely have performed a few simple exorcism techniques on him.
Seeing that she didn’t say a word and only kept stuffing breakfast into her mouth, Lu Huaiyu very deliberately began making a nuisance of himself.
“What’s wrong? Was my introduction not detailed enough?”
“Or was my announcer’s voice not pleasant enough? Didn’t you say I was the best in the world? Then why are you ignoring me?”
He displayed unreasonable fussiness to absolute perfection, and Lu Huaiyu was extremely pleased with his performance.
Still racing against the clock, Xie Tangning really wanted to smear the millet porridge in her bowl across his face after hearing his endless barrage of questions.
“Big Brother, if you dare imitate Second Brother again and speak to me in that disgusting, syrupy voice…”
“I guarantee I’ll show you the power of Princess Palm!”
The girl gritted out the words, then held up her palm demonstratively toward Lu Huaiyu.
Lu Huaiyu fought back his laughter and finally returned to normal.
“All right, all right. Ningning is the most powerful one in our family. You’re the boss!”
He answered perfunctorily while conveniently packing up some breakfast for her to eat on the way to school.
Xie Tangning got the answer she wanted. It was extremely perfunctory, but she was satisfied anyway.
She began drinking the porridge in her bowl while directing her big brother to pack whichever breakfast foods she wanted.
Lu Huaiyu was remarkably good-natured as well. Whatever the little girl requested, he packed.
The only people enjoying breakfast at the table were the two of them. The other parents, who were nowhere to be seen, had gathered at the entrance to the manor!
Old Master Xie was directing Xie Yanxun and Xie Heng’an as they stretched a banner across the entrance. It read:
“Wishing the Xie family’s little princess a happy first day of school!”
The grandfather and grandson’s taste was as consistently terrible as ever.
Qi Rou and Lu Wenhua, along with Chen Linmei and Lu Qiwu, stood in two lines on either side of the path, holding party poppers.
Xie Changyu wore a suit and white gloves, and stood beside a Hongqi car with a professional smile, fully immersed in his role as the chauffeur.
When Xie Tangning walked out to the entrance of the manor with her schoolbag on her back, the party poppers went off one after another, and the entire group of parents immediately began to lose their minds.
“Wishing our young lady a happy first day of school!”
That was followed by a burst of enthusiastic applause.
Seeing the painfully over-the-top banner and slogans, Xie Tangning was so shocked that the fried dough stick in her mouth fell straight to the ground.
“Do I really have to go to school in the middle of this chaotic circus?!”
“Can’t I go out like a normal high school student for once—plainly and quietly?”
For the first time in her life, Xie Tangning felt that dignity was a wonderful thing. At that moment, she desperately wanted just a little of it.
Once again, the facts proved that getting hit by your own boomerang was a truly unpleasant experience.
From now on, she would never again stand around preaching to others about how they should throw away their dignity.
Waaah…
Dignity really was a wonderful thing!
