Chapter 7: The Child Is Very Happy

For a moment, the entire room fell silent. Everyone at the table wore different expressions. Except for Second Aunt’s Husband, who snorted with laughter, the others all furrowed their brows slightly.

Grandma’s voice abruptly cut through: “Hmph, the elder doesn’t even know how to yield to the younger. You’re doing a fine job as parents.”

Upon hearing this, Lin Guizhi and Cen Feng immediately changed their expressions, but neither said a word.

Luo Shisi’s gaze shifted from the mess on the floor to the child beside Lin Chao. Her pupils narrowed slightly, a flash of coldness passing through her eyes.

The child showed no remorse for his actions. Instead, he turned his head and snorted, rolling his eyes at Lin Chao. His flushed cheeks were smeared with grease: “Serves you right for not giving me any.”

Luo Shisi watched him. Just as she felt Lin Chao stand up and turn to leave, she gently patted his back.

She took his wrist, seated him in her own spot, and swapped places with him. Quickly, she whispered something in his ear.

Her voice was so low only Lin Chao could hear it.

After she finished speaking, Lin Chao watched her smile as she met the gazes of the elders and picked up her chopsticks: “It’s no big deal. Come on, let’s eat.”

Second Aunt’s Husband’s smile widened even more, and he shot a rather smug glance at Cen Feng. The others were quite pleased with how things had unfolded, increasingly impressed by Luo Shisi’s tact.

First Aunt even raised her glass and nodded at her: “The Her family’s child is truly different.”

Lin Chao could no longer process all this information. His mind was completely occupied by Luo Shisi’s words “I’ll get even for you.”

What was she going to do?

Lin Chao’s gaze drifted from Luo Shisi’s hand resting on the table to his own wrist, which he subtly withdrew into his sleeve.

When she had grabbed him earlier, the warmth of her palm had felt scorching. He recalled those videos saying that Alphas are unbearable even to dogs in the summer.

Ah, what was he thinking…

Lin Chao shook his head, feeling as though it was half-filled with water and half with flour swirling it just turned everything into paste.

He carefully observed the girl beside him. Luo Shisi wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary; she was solely focused on picking out the cola chicken wings to eat.

She didn’t seem to be eating quickly, yet the plate in front of her was soon down to just one piece.

Just as Lin Jian finished gnawing on one chicken wing, he realized his favorite cola chicken wings had only one left.

Frantic, he reached for the last piece, his eyes wide with urgency. But his arms weren’t as long as Luo Shisi’s, and he could only watch helplessly as she picked up the final chicken wing and placed it in someone else’s bowl: “You worked hard cooking today. This is delicious to have one.”

Lin Chao watched her put the chicken wing into Second Aunt’s Husband’s bowl and blinked.

Immediately, he saw Lin Jian throw another tantrum, crying to Second Aunt’s Husband: “Dad, I want to eat it!”

Just as Second Aunt’s Husband was about to pass it to him, Lin Chao saw Luo Shisi frown and block him. She turned to Lin Jian with a smile: “Dad worked so hard cooking for so long and hadn’t had any yet. Let him have it.”

“I don’t want to! He doesn’t like what I eat, he can’t have it…” The child wouldn’t listen to her at all, crying and fussing incessantly. He stood up from his chair, flailing his arms impatiently and stomping his feet, causing several people to set down their chopsticks.

Chai Xiaoqing, who had originally intended to give her son the chicken wing, felt as if her heart had been pricked by a needle upon hearing those words. Bitter tears welled up, and she set down her chopsticks.

While the others remained silent, Grandma, growing impatient, complained without hesitation: “It’s just a chicken wing, give it to him. How old are you to be arguing with a child over this?”

Chai Xiaoqing’s face immediately changed. She bit her lower lip, her fingers gripping the chopsticks so tightly they turned white, and her eyes reddened.

Just then, Lin Chao caught a faint, almost imperceptible whiff of pheromones, minute yet overwhelmingly potent that rushed into his nostrils and made him dizzy.

The next second, he was jolted awake by waves of screaming, then someone deftly grabbed him by the collar and pulled him backward.

The clatter of porcelain plates and utensils rang out as everything on the table flew to the ground with the tablecloth.

Lin Jian stared blankly at the tablecloth in his hand for a moment before seeing his mother pull out the Seven Wolves switch and scream as she tried to run away.

But how could he possibly outrun Lin Guilan?

In two strides, Lin Guilan caught up with him, raising her hand to strike: “Looks like you’re itching for a beating! Do you think you’re some kind of royalty just because I haven’t disciplined you? You even learned to flip the table? You little brat! If I don’t whip you to death today, I’ll take your surname!!”

Grandma sat up, took a deep breath at the mess on the floor, and slapped her thighs, lamenting the tragedy…

Everyone else was busy cleaning up the aftermath.

As Lin Chao considered whether to help with the cleanup, Luo Shisi pressed his shoulders and turned him around, urging him forward: “Come on, come on, I’ll take you to eat something delicious.”

In a daze, Lin Chao was pushed out the front door.

Luo Shisi, tall and sturdy, reached for the coat hanging on the rack and handed it to him: “Put it on.”

Lin Guizhi glanced at the two leaving, smiled and shook her head without a word, then immediately returned to her usual expression as if the smile had been an illusion.

By the time Lin Chao gathered his wits, he was already wearing his coat and standing outside the gate.

On the way to Luo Shisi’s house, Lin Chao turned to her with a furrowed brow and asked, “You…”

He had only uttered one word when the girl beside him burst into a rapid-fire speech, brimming with uncontrollable joy, her smile practically overflowing.

“Let me tell you, you missed the look on your Second Aunt’s Husband’s face it was a total slap in the face! And your grandma was a great accomplice; her impact was just massive!”

“I never expected~ your cousin to be so spoiled and willful. I just provoked him a little, and hey, he took the bait, just like my younger sister…”

“You have no idea; I was so happy I almost jumped up… If it weren’t for being too obvious, I’d have set off firecrackers, hahaha~”

Amid Luo Shisi’s hearty laughter, Lin Chao averted his gaze, his hand in his coat pocket tightening slightly. He found it hard to describe what he was feeling.

After a long while, seeing that he hadn’t spoken just silently burying the lower half of his face in his sweater collar, eyes downcast, walking quietly Luo Shisi stopped smiling and smiled to ask, “What’s wrong? Did I… go too far? If so, I apologize…”

Lin Chao shook his head at her and muttered, “No.”

“Then what is it?” It can’t be that time of the month, can it?

Her dad would become emotionally volatile every time he had his “monthly blues” sometimes roaring with anger, sometimes sinking into melancholy, hugging the family dog Da Huang while lamenting that raising her was worse than raising a dog.

Lin Chao was such a well-behaved child that Luo Shisi found it hard to imagine him being as sensitive and moody as her father.

But since Lin Chao didn’t speak, she had no way of knowing what was troubling him, so she could only walk quietly beside him in silence.

After a long while, she noticed him stop walking, his toes tracing circles on the ground, and she grew somewhat puzzled.

Then she heard the boy’s voice, soft and slightly muffled:

“In your eyes… is our whole family… particularly terrible?”