Chapter 14
Sun Baiyi was completely overwhelmed by Lin Huaixi’s imposing manner. He froze where he stood, shoulders drooping, eyes blank, like a shivering little quail.
The other children were dumbfounded too.
In their minds, Lin Huaixi was like a little glutinous rice dumpling—sunny and cheerful, always smiling, and very good-looking too. His cheeks were plump, and they felt especially nice to pinch.
On top of that, Lin Huaixi was one of the shortest children in the class, like the adorable little younger brother in the family. Everyone liked him and treated him well.
So much time had passed since school started, yet no one had ever seen Lin Huaixi lose his temper. None of them had imagined that cheerful-to-the-point-of-silly Lin Huaixi could be so fierce and carry such a strong presence.
By now, Lin Huaixi could no longer notice the surroundings. His heart was full of anger and the urge to protect. He glared fiercely at Sun Baiyi, looking as though he was one step away from rolling up his sleeves and charging forward with his little fists swinging.
Sun Baiyi had been lawless for so long that he was not so easily frightened off. Coming back to himself, he stretched out his neck and said, “You’re talking nonsense. I like chocolate best. I would never sneak your cake, and besides…”
He seemed to forget the rest and rubbed his head with his hand, stammering, “Who… who played games with you? This is the first time I’ve ever spoken to you. Y-you, I really didn’t!”
Lin Huaixi gave two little snorts through his nose. “What do you know? I was only using an example to explain what despicable means. Otherwise, do you even know what despicable means?”
Sun Baiyi pursed his lips and, for some reason, felt a bit wronged.
He did not know what it meant right now either. All he could see was Lin Huaixi smacking the thermos cup over and over.
At home, Sun Baiyi was a little emperor, and he was very popular at school too. At such a young age, he had already learned to care about saving face. He stepped forward and insisted on confronting Lin Huaixi. “I’m not despicable. You’re the one who’s despicable!”
“I’m not despicable at all. You’re the despicable one!”
The two tiny little radishes quarreled into a tangled mess, throwing the same few words back and forth until it almost sounded like a tongue twister. Even the little thermos was dragged into it, getting smacked back and forth between them with loud pa pa sounds.
Since neither side could win with words, then they could only compare strength.
Lin Huaixi and Sun Baiyi moved closer and closer until their foreheads were nearly touching. Baring their teeth, they glared at each other fiercely, like two little bulldogs on the verge of biting each other into a ball.
Seeing that the situation was going wrong, Qi Wang pulled Lin Huaixi back and tried to calm him down. “Stop being angry. How about we go outside and play?”
Only then did Lin Huaixi remember Qi Wang. He took a step toward him and used his body to shield Qi Wang, trying to protect him.
At the sight of that, Sun Baiyi suddenly felt a little pitiful himself. No one was standing on his side, and his tone turned sour. “I wanted to treat you two to chocolate, and you two still called me despicable. I’m never playing with you again!”
Lin Huaixi’s intelligence suddenly came online, and he said very logically, “You clearly think we did something wrong just because we didn’t eat your chocolate. You never wanted to play with us in the first place. And you even changed your name. You’re despicable!”
Sun Baiyi could not out-argue Lin Huaixi, and his little brain was no longer enough to keep up. Pushed into a corner, he squeezed out a sentence as if someone were choking him. “When did I change my name?”
“You did change your name! You’re obviously Zi Xiao Mu Bai Tu, but you lied to me and said your name is Sun Baiyi.”
Back in kindergarten, Lin Huaixi had learned those three characters. At the time, he did not understand stroke order at all. He drew them like talismans, clutching the pen in all five fingers and scribbling them down in twisted, crooked lines.
At the time, he had only felt that those three characters looked like strange little shapes. They were so hard to write that the form had changed, and somehow they had forcibly turned into five characters.
On top of that, Lin Huaixi could not recognize complicated characters, but once they were broken apart, he could more or less guess them. That made him believe it even more firmly, convinced that Bad Guy Number One was definitely called Zi Xiao Mu Bai Tu.
Sun Baiyi was a little tyrant, but when he encountered someone even less reasonable than himself, he felt nearly wronged to death. “My name really is Sun Baiyi! My mom has always called me that. I’ve never changed my name. Everyone calls me that. They call me Yiyi!”
Lin Huaixi’s attention was diverted at once, and he asked curiously, “Aren’t you called Tutu? Why are you Yiyi?”
Sun Baiyi immediately denied it. “I’m not a rabbit! Rabbits are too weak. I’m a big tiger, the king of all beasts!”
Lin Huaixi liked little rabbits best of all. The moment he heard this, he got anxious. “Little rabbits are soft and fluffy and so cute. They’re not weak at all. They can definitely beat you and become that… um… king of a hundred hundred.”
“It’s king of all beasts.” Discovering that Lin Huaixi also had words he did not know, Sun Baiyi instantly grew smug and deliberately said, “The king of all beasts is the tiger, which is me. It wouldn’t be like you, only knowing how to knock on cups!”
Lin Huaixi was so angry his mouth puffed out. He had already forgotten his original purpose and now only wanted to clear both his own name and the rabbit’s.
“You’re the one who only knows how to knock on cups. Little rabbits are the best.”
“No, tigers are the very, very best.”
“Rabbits are the very, very, very best!”
“Tigers are the very, very, very, very, very best!”
Qi Wang: “…”
He truly could not keep listening to this elementary-school-level argument anymore. Pulling Lin Huaixi’s hand, he dragged him back to his seat. “All right, stop being angry. I know little rabbits are super amazing. Little rabbits can become the king of all beasts too.”
The moment he heard that, Lin Huaixi’s tail nearly shot into the sky. He cast Sun Baiyi a smug glance, his expression unbearably self-satisfied.
Sun Baiyi could not accept it. He grabbed a little boy nearby and hurriedly asked, “Do you think tigers are strong? Would you want to play with a tiger?”
The little boy had seen tigers at the zoo before. Fear showed in his big eyes, and he shook his head again and again. “No, I don’t want to play with a big tiger.”
Sun Baiyi: “…”
He was about to go mad. Steam practically rose from his head, and without realizing it, he even started walking sideways like a crab. After returning to his seat, he kicked his chair hard, and it scraped sharply against the floor with a grating sound.
Lin Huaixi lifted his head to look at him, and Sun Baiyi turned back as well. The two little ones’ gazes collided in midair, throwing off crackling sparks.
In the end, both of them let out a cold snort in unison, crossed their arms, and turned away.
Lin Huaixi’s cheeks were already plump with baby fat, and now that he was puffing with anger, they bulged even higher, like the soft cream on top of a little bunny cake.
Qi Wang glanced at him, lowered his head, and poured him a cup of hot water. But in the end, he still could not resist reaching out to pinch that soft little cheek.
Lin Huaixi froze for a second, then turned to look at Qi Wang. The anger in his eyes vanished in an instant.
Qi Wang took the chance to say, “Your mouth must be dry by now. Hurry and drink some water.”
Lin Huaixi thought the thermos lid was too tiny, so he directly picked up his little yellow duck cup and chugged in big gulps. At the end, he even managed to drink with the swagger of someone downing alcohol and let out a dramatic “Ha!”
Qi Wang knew the water was not hot, so he did not stop him.
Lin Huaixi put the cup down heavily, and only then did he feel a tiny bit more at ease.
This bad guy did not only hit people and scold people—he was despicable too!
He became worried about Qi Wang again and tried his best to describe the strange things inside his head clearly. “He’ll hit you and scold you and say a lot of messy nonsense. He’ll stand at your door and stop you from going out to play. He’ll also do some things I don’t understand either. You get really angry too, and you fight with him, and there’s so, so much blood.”
Lin Huaixi’s voice grew much quieter. He tucked in his chin a little, which only made his round, bulging eyes look even bigger.
Sun Baiyi had been spoiled into complete lawlessness and already saw himself as a little emperor. Anything he wanted had to be his, and he believed everyone ought to listen to him. Right now, when he got angry, he kicked tables. He was already showing violent tendencies. If he were allowed to grow up like this unchecked, then in the end he would become the first scum gong—someone who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, paranoid and insane, treating violence as love.
Lin Huaixi was still too young to understand all that. He only knew that Sun Baiyi was a bad guy who would bully Qi Wang, so he did everything he could to protect him.
Lin Huaixi had already said these things many times, and Qi Wang had taken them to heart. He just found it strange that Lin Huaixi thought this way. Yet every time he asked, Lin Huaixi would hem and haw, unable to explain a complete sentence.
It was not deliberate concealment. He simply could not explain it.
After thinking for a while, Qi Wang tried to coax him. “If someone bullies me, I’ll definitely tell you. I believe you can protect me well.”
Qi Wang rarely coaxed people, so his tone was very unpracticed—stiff and wooden, with every word landing heavily.
Lin Huaixi paid no attention to such details. Qi Wang seldom praised him, so he opened his mouth in surprise, like he had just been injected with chicken blood, and his whole being seemed to swell by a full circle.
“Of course!” Lin Huaixi patted his chest. At such a young age, he had already learned how to brag. “A despicable bad guy with no teeth like that is nothing compared to me. Even the king of all beasts can’t compare to me and the little rabbit!”
Qi Wang quickly grabbed his wrist before he could float all the way into the sky. “Okay, okay, okay. Help me look at how to pronounce this pinyin.”
Lin Huaixi’s attention was instantly diverted. His fluffy little head leaned toward Qi Wang, and in his baby-soft voice he asked, “Which one?”
He had already completely forgotten what had just happened, laughing carelessly again and clinging to Qi Wang to play games.
Sun Baiyi, however, was still furious. Turning his head and seeing that bright smile on Lin Huaixi’s face only made him angrier.
What was there to laugh about?!
Lin Huaixi was so annoying. He would never play with him again in the future, and he definitely would not give him chocolate either!
With nowhere to vent the anger inside him, Sun Baiyi simply climbed onto his chair, dumped all the chocolate and miscellaneous things out of his schoolbag onto the desk, and then threw the bag onto his innocent deskmate.
“Does anyone want chocolate?” Sun Baiyi shouted at the top of his lungs.
Those words were like some kind of startup password. The ears of the children nearby immediately perked up, and with shining eyes they all crowded around. But what they were looking at was not Sun Baiyi—it was the chocolate on the desk.
Sun Baiyi looked down at them from above, full of smug satisfaction. A hidden sense of pleasure rose inside him. He felt that this was exactly how everyone ought to be in front of him.
After being suppressed by Lin Huaixi just now, Sun Baiyi finally straightened his back again. He turned toward Lin Huaixi with arrogant pride, wanting to show off. But Lin Huaixi was busy chatting with Qi Wang, a dimple blooming in his cheek as he smiled, not sparing Sun Baiyi even the corner of an eye.
Sun Baiyi: “…”
He could not understand it. He clearly had so much, so why did Lin Huaixi still look so much happier than he did? Anger rose in him again, and he deliberately said, “You can eat chocolate, but you have to agree to one condition.”
The children were so tempted by the chocolate that saliva was almost dripping from their mouths. Hearing that, they nodded again and again and asked what the condition was.
Sun Baiyi deliberately glared at Lin Huaixi, his tone full of malice. “From now on, you’re not allowed to play with Lin Huaixi anymore, and you’re not allowed to talk to him either!”
Both he and his chocolate were very popular. Sun Baiyi had thought that everyone would agree right away—but suddenly, the whole scene fell silent.
Wang Xiaohu frowned. He was very reluctant to part with the chocolate in his hand, but he still put it back on the desk and shook his head like a rattled drum. “No. Xixi is my good friend. I want to play with him.”
With Wang Xiaohu taking the lead, the other children all followed suit and put the chocolate back down.
Children had a sense of beauty too. Lin Huaixi was cute and pretty, and his personality was also very good. He smiled at everyone, helped whenever there was something to do, and everyone liked playing with him. As for Sun Baiyi, he was popular among the children only because he had chocolate—not because anyone genuinely liked him.
Sun Baiyi panicked. He grabbed a huge handful of chocolate and stuffed it into Wang Xiaohu’s pockets. “I’ll give you all of this. Do you still want to play with him?”
Wang Xiaohu pulled the chocolate back out and did not keep a single piece. “No. No matter how much chocolate there is, it still can’t compare to my good friend.”
By the end of it, his mouth was practically watering. Afraid he would not be able to hold out, Wang Xiaohu gritted his teeth and turned away.
The other children followed one after another. Some of them even went to play with Lin Huaixi. Even though Sun Baiyi had a whole desk full of chocolate, no one paid him any attention.
This was the first time Sun Baiyi had ever encountered such a thing. A strange emotion rammed wildly through his body. He did not know how to let it out, and he acted without thinking of the consequences, furiously throwing all the chocolate on the desk into the trash.
Hmph. He was the king of all beasts. He would never admit defeat. Sooner or later, he would give one great ao-woo bite and “eat up” Lin Huaixi, that little white rabbit!
