Chapter 74 – Extra: Lu Xiao and Yuan-yuan’s Kindergarten
The reason four-and-a-half-year-old Lu Xiao failed in challenging his two older brothers and then ran away from home has long since become impossible to verify.
Shen Ning was on a business trip in France, and Lu Fengge wasn’t home either. Lu Xiao heard that the housekeeper uncle and two other uncles were going back to the southwest for a while. At that time, his great-grandfather and great-grandmother were still alive. In a huff, Lu Xiao slung on his schoolbag and climbed into the housekeeper uncle’s car.
He was so small. The housekeeper had already driven all the way to the airport and was about to get out when he finally discovered the little young master hiding in the gap of the back seat.
“Uncle.” Lu Xiao climbed up, hugged his schoolbag, and tilted his chin. “I want to go to the southwest too, to see Great-Grandma.”
The housekeeper had seen the young master’s temper before. Once Lu Xiao set his mind on something, he would tirelessly find every possible way to make it happen. So instead of persuading him to go back directly, the housekeeper called Lu Fengge to ask how to handle it.
“They fought?” Lu Fengge was busy with investments all over the place. His way of dealing with conflicts was very adult-like. “Then let both sides separate and cool down for a bit. Take a couple more bodyguards along.”
So the housekeeper, together with three bodyguards, brought Lu Xiao back to the southwest—quietly but with some pomp.
Lu Xiao’s great-grandfather and great-grandmother were both in their nineties. They spent the four months of the year with the best climate in the southwest, and the remaining eight months in Nan Cheng, which had better medical facilities.
This trip was originally the housekeeper’s task on Lu Fengge’s behalf: to bring the two elders back.
Great-grandfather had participated in the War of Resistance. His right leg was injured, leaving him with a limp. As he aged, he grew even more unwilling to move. Even though Nan Cheng had better medical conditions, he insisted on staying in the southwest, saying it was “returning to one’s roots.”
Usually, the housekeeper would come first to assess the elders’ health—whether they could fly, what necessities to prepare—and then a son or grandson would come personally to persuade them.
Lu Fengge agreeing to let Lu Xiao go to the southwest wasn’t without the thought of having the child soften the elders’ hearts.
Although the great-grandson was stubborn, he was cute, and his words were sweet when he called Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma. After spending some time together, wouldn’t they naturally want to follow him back to Nan Cheng?
However, Lu Fengge’s careful plan failed completely. On his second day in the southwest, Lu Xiao announced that he wanted to attend kindergarten there.
The autumn term had already started. Lu Xiao had been attending the middle class in Nan Cheng for a month.
Lu Fengge’s head started to ache. Shen Ning had gone on a business trip and left the child to him, and Lu Third immediately rebelled.
“No,” he said. “I can’t explain this to Shen Ning.”
Great-Grandma said, “Alright, alright. Good boy, which kindergarten do you want to go to?”
Lu Xiao pointed out one kindergarten.
Every day he energetically followed the housekeeper out to run errands. At six in the morning they went to buy groceries, passing by a kindergarten. It was very ordinary—the big iron gate was even rusty—but there was a cute little younger brother at the entrance!
Brothers were the most annoying creatures. All of Lu Xiao’s youthful enthusiasm was devoted to younger brothers. He wouldn’t fight with a little brother like an older brother would—he treated little brothers like treasures.
Dad said there wouldn’t be a little brother. Lu Xiao thought, who says so? I’m about to have one.
Meng Xueyuan squatted obediently at the school gate, holding a dry branch from a cycad tree, writing numbers in the sand.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… 8.
Eight needed two round bubbles. Little bees were born with a demand for order, so his two bubbles were perfectly round, stacked steadily on top of each other, unlike other kids’ eights that flopped over sideways.
After finishing, he tossed the branch aside and pulled a boiled egg out of his pocket. A worry inappropriate for his age appeared on his fair little face.
Practice was done. Nothing else to do. Time to eat the egg.
Meng Xueyuan tapped the egg against the gatepost, wiped his fingers on his clothes, and carefully peeled it. The eggshell fragments that fell were smaller than his fingernails.
After peeling half of it, he stopped and gently took a bite of the pointed tip of the egg white.
Hm?
Sensing someone watching him, Meng Xueyuan alertly raised his head. Mom had said that if anyone approached him, he should loudly call for the police uncle—there was a police station across the street, and the on-duty officers would come right away.
Oh—it was a big brother.
Seeing him staring straight at him, Meng Xueyuan looked at his egg, then held it up. “Big brother, do you want to eat?”
Dad said many children didn’t have enough to eat, so you had to cherish food.
Lu Xiao, as if possessed, took a bite of the egg—a huge bite that took away a big chunk of egg white, revealing the round little head of the yolk.
The housekeeper’s heart jumped. He didn’t even dare let Lu Xiao eat food of unknown origin outside, and Lu Xiao didn’t even like boiled eggs. Why today— Just as he was about to stop him, Lu Xiao had already squatted down in front of the kid, no longer looking like a young master but like a little stray dog that had run away from home and couldn’t get enough to eat.
Meng Xueyuan’s big eyes curved into a smile. He lowered his head, took a bite of the yolk, then held the egg up again—cleverly turning the side with more egg white toward Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao seemed to understand and helped him bite off the egg white.
Two little kids who didn’t know each other, without a word of communication, finished one egg bite by bite. Meng Xueyuan choked on the pure yolk and couldn’t speak.
With dry yolk powder stuck to his lips, Meng Xueyuan took out a box of soy milk from his schoolbag, inserted a straw, and let Lu Xiao drink first.
Lu Xiao shook his head. “You drink first.”
Meng Xueyuan took a sip, his cheeks puffing up, then handed it over. “Your turn, big brother.”
Lu Xiao took a sip. The two of them squatted side by side at the school gate. Ever since he was little, Lu Xiao was always surrounded when he went out—Dad said there were people who specialized in kidnapping children.
When he saw Meng Xueyuan alone from the back seat of the housekeeper’s car, a thought rose in his heart: he had to protect this little brother.
The little brother was so well-behaved. Surely there were many bad people who wanted to kidnap him.
But he didn’t say his heroic thoughts out loud. He just stayed squatting beside him, and when the kindergarten opened, he tried to follow him in—only to be stopped by the teacher at the gate.
“Child, did you come to the wrong kindergarten?”
The housekeeper hurried forward to take him away. “Yes, yes, wrong place.”
Lu Xiao: ???
Housekeeper: “This isn’t your kindergarten, so you can’t go in.”
Lu Xiao went home and immediately told Great-Grandma that he wanted to attend this kindergarten.
That very night, Great-Grandma paid the fees and arranged for him to attend as a temporary student.
Because wealthy children were easily kidnapped, just in case, there weren’t many bodyguards here either. When registering him, the housekeeper used the name “Lu Xio.”
Lu Xiao didn’t care about changing his name or surname. Anyway, when it came out of Meng Xueyuan’s milky little voice, it sounded almost the same. In fact, because “Xiao” got split up in pinyin, the three characters were pronounced even more carefully than two. The final tone shifted from level to falling, making Meng Xueyuan have to go “ao” at the end—super cute.
Lu Xiao said, “You can just call me Brother Xio.”
“Ah, Brother Xio.”
Lu Xiao: “Say it a bit faster.”
Meng Xueyuan: “Brother Xiao!”
An ordinary kindergarten didn’t have many toys or activities. There was playing and jumping, but also learning pinyin and numbers.
Every morning they squatted together at the gate practicing writing, ate eggs together. Lu Xiao brainlessly praised Meng Xueyuan’s 8 for being pretty, even though he already knew that 8 had to be written in one continuous stroke.
Except for the first day when he ate the other kid’s egg, from then on Lu Xiao fed Meng Xueyuan every day. His schoolbag had no books—he didn’t study anyway—only food.
When Meng Xueyuan came home from kindergarten, he would say, “Mom, I’m too full.”
At four and a half, Lu Xiao was already managing three meals a day. Before dismissal every day, he would take out a chocolate pie from his bag and supervise Meng Xueyuan eating it.
Or strawberry pie. Or orange pie.
Meng’s mom asked, “Did your friend share cookies with you again?”
“It was Brother Xio!”
Meng Xueyuan nodded, the chubby flesh on his face trembling. “Today it was chocolate pie!”
Children in Baihua Village wore clothes in rotation. Most of Meng Xueyuan’s clothes had been worn by older worker-bee brothers—well preserved, clean, and neat.
Meng’s mom cared about matching outfits and never mixed colors randomly. She occasionally bought new clothes too. But recently she noticed that when her son went to school in the morning, his jacket wasn’t the same one he wore home at night—it had turned into something from a high-end mall.
“Baby, where are your own clothes?”
Meng Xueyuan said in confusion, “Brother Xio wanted to trade with me.”
Meng’s mom said, “Then you need to change back after school.”
Meng Xueyuan hesitated. “But… but after school, my clothes were already broken.”
Lu Xiao said: Got snagged by a branch, so just take mine.
Meng’s mom said, “It’s fine. Mom can mend it. Change back and give it to Mom.”
Meng Xueyuan nodded. The next day, he brought several of Lu Xiao’s jackets—washed and dried—and returned them all in one bag.
Lu Xiao was very unhappy.
…
One day Lu Xiao overslept and nearly cried from anxiety. Meng Xueyuan must have been squatting alone at the gate for half an hour already—maybe he’d even been kidnapped!
He rushed to the kindergarten entrance and, sure enough, didn’t see Meng Xueyuan. Just as he turned to dash into the police station to report it, Meng’s dad pulled up on a motorcycle and took Meng Baby down from in front of him.
Meng Xueyuan hadn’t even had time to put on his schoolbag and shouted “Big brother!” first thing.
Lu Xiao rushed over and hugged him.
From then on, Little Lu Xiao was never late again. He got up earlier every day—five o’clock—unzipped his schoolbag and stuffed it with Wahaha drinks, calcium milk biscuits, sea-salt cookies.
Shen Ning mailed snacks back from France. The eldest and second brother didn’t like them, so Lu Third called the family aunt. “Send all the snacks to me, please.”
The aunt laughed. “Little glutton, missing snacks this much? Want to come back to Nan Cheng? I’ll come pick you up.”
Lu Xiao said, “No, I’m going to kindergarten here.”
Middle class, then senior class, then elementary school.
Lu Xiao went to school with a bulging schoolbag.
Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma were astonished. “Such a diligent, disciplined baby—we only saw that back in the bee clan.”
The housekeeper was afraid these two little cuties would get taken out in one sweep, so he sent bodyguards to watch until the kindergarten opened every day.
The bodyguards looked like underworld bosses. The local police officers questioned them in turns: why are you hanging around the kindergarten gate every day? Are you plotting something?
Bodyguard: “That’s my kid.”
Lu Xiao nodded. “Yes, he’s my godfather.”
Godfather… that really did sound like underworld slang. The police uncle kept an especially close eye on them.
To Lu Xiao, Great-Grandma’s house lacked nothing—except ice cream. Especially ice cream as good as the kind in Nan Cheng.
Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma thought kids shouldn’t eat too much cold stuff, especially now that summer was over—it could upset their stomachs.
Ice cream didn’t transport well, and Lu Fengge rejected his son’s cold-chain ice cream request.
Lu Xiao didn’t want to eat it himself. But ice cream was delicious, and Meng Xueyuan had never tasted it. His little brother should try it.
He asked around. He could buy the best ice cream at the biggest mall in the city—but he couldn’t bring it back alone. He had to go with Meng Xueyuan.
Lu Xiao started instigating Meng Xueyuan to skip class with him. “This lesson’s too easy. You already know it—just adding teens together, right?”
Kindergarten had homework, but Lu Xiao never did homework.
Meng Xueyuan said, “I know it, but I haven’t done my homework yet.”
“If you already know it, why do homework? Let’s skip class and buy ice cream.” If they didn’t eat it now, it would really get colder and colder.
Lu Xiao pulled a rolled-up bill from his pocket—allowance from his grandma—and stuffed it into Meng Xueyuan’s pocket. “Let’s go buy it.”
They could go after school or on the weekend, but then Meng Xueyuan’s parents would know. Deep down, Lu Xiao felt this had to be done secretly.
“During nap time, Teacher Zhang also dozes off. We’ll cover the pillows with the blanket, then go down the east staircase—there’s a dog hole there.”
Meng Xueyuan blinked his long eyelashes. “But police uncles don’t doze off. We’ll get caught.”
Lu Xiao’s perfect plan failed. Meng Xueyuan wasn’t tempted at all and even advised Lu Xiao to do his homework.
He shared half of his picture book with Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao looked at the kids playing games in the picture book. How could they be as cute as his little brother?
The picture book wasn’t interesting.
“Do you want to eat sugar tangerines?”
“I’m too full.”
Kindergarten wasn’t supposed to allow food, but after Lu Xiao cried, made a fuss, and gave solemn promises that he’d only feed his little brother and wouldn’t let anyone else see, they let it slide.
His execution was terrifyingly strong—he brought a whole bag of snacks in and carried half a bag back out, and the other kids never noticed a thing.
Plus, with the housekeeper uncle’s money power, the principal turned a blind eye.
Two months passed in a flash.
Lu Fengge issued Lu Xiao an ultimatum: get back here, your dad is coming home.
Lu Xiao was instantly torn. His running away from home had a lot to do with Shen Ning not being around.
He missed his dad and couldn’t bear to leave his little brother. If only he could take his little brother with him.
The small boy struggled all night, wanting to ask his little brother if he wanted to come live at his house. But the next day at school, he was shocked to learn that Meng Xueyuan had already transferred away.
Meng’s dad had ridden his motorcycle through the night, carrying his wife, child, and belongings. The child sat in front, the wife behind, with two big burlap sacks tied to either side—a very common Spring Festival migration motorcycle setup.
Someone at the east end of Baihua Village had leased land to build a paper mill. There were no pollution controls—the wastewater pipe on the blueprints discharged directly into the stream that supplied Baihua Village’s domestic water.
The queen bee had studied and knew that if this continued long-term, the village might become a cancer village. She called on the entire clan to resist construction. At such a time, unity was crucial, so Meng’s parents rushed back overnight.
Little Meng Xueyuan was carried onto the motorcycle by his parents, still confused. When they passed the kindergarten gate in the night, he asked his dad to stop.
He tore a page from his notebook, left a note, and pressed it down with a small stone at the spot where they often squatted.
“The public phone number of Baihua Village, for Brother Xio.”
That night, the wind was strong—and it blew his phone number away.
