Chapter 83 Father and Dad

Chapter 83: Father and Dad

Zhu Tingjia's name was registered in the adoption handbook, but in daily life, Zhu Shinian and Jiang Huaiyan called him Tingting more often.

When Zhu Shinian called him "baby," he would respond with even greater delight.

Grandma and Jiang Huaiyan both felt that speaking late wasn't a big deal. Being able to say a few words proved his intelligence was fine. As for whether he was clever or slow within the normal range, they both thought it didn't matter.

In this world, if there are smart people who do great in school, there are sure to be people who aren't as bright and don't do well.

Besides, Tingting was just a bit introverted, not stupid at all. As long as they patiently repeated things to him and encouraged him, he learned pretty quickly.

After staying at home for over two months, he had learned over a dozen simple words and could even combine two meaningful words.

When he wanted to be held, he would grab Zhu Shinian's pant leg and say "Mommy, hold me" in his baby voice.

The family had already taught him to call "Uncle" and "Grandma," but for some reason, when facing Zhu Shinian, he still mixed up "Uncle" and "Mommy."

Especially when he wanted Zhu Shinian to hold him, he always liked to call out "Mommy."

Zhu Shinian would always respond to him first, gently pick him up, and then softly correct him, saying it was "Uncle."

A few months later, Tingting turned three and was old enough for kindergarten. Zhu Shinian sent him to a kindergarten near home.

Tingting cried his heart out, especially since the kindergarten's style somewhat resembled the orphanage Jiang Huaiyan had brought him from, with buildings modeled after castles.

He probably thought Zhu Shinian and Jiang Huaiyan didn't want him anymore. When Grandma held his little hand and walked him to the kindergarten gate, he was crying so hard his whole body trembled.

Grandma spoiled the child and couldn't bear to leave him there. Not wanting to trouble the gatekeeper and teachers by lingering at the kindergarten entrance, she took him to a shop where they could clearly see the kindergarten gate and ordered him a hamburger, fries, and fried chicken combo that she usually wouldn't let him eat.

Seeing the hamburger and fries, Tingting immediately stopped crying.

As he ate, Grandma explained to him that he was just going to play with kids his age and that she would pick him up in the afternoon. They weren't abandoning him there.

If he didn't believe her, they could sit right here and watch. In the afternoon, the parents of those kids who went in would come to pick them up.

At four in the afternoon, the kids his age indeed filed out of the kindergarten one by one.

Only then did Tingting believe that Grandma wasn't trying to send him back to the orphanage. But even so, when he was sent to kindergarten the next day, he still cried a lot of pitiful tears.

Knowing that Zhu Shinian had to go to work, he didn't dare cry as loudly as the day before. With red eyes, he asked Zhu Shinian if he could come pick him up a little earlier.

"Okay. I'll have Uncle Jiang pick you up early."

Jiang Huaiyan was dissatisfied with Zhu Shinian's overly indulgent parenting style. He said, "If you want to pick him up, do it yourself. Who's going to spoil him like this? If everyone wants an early pickup, we might as well line up at the kindergarten gate right after lunch."

But he always said one thing and did another. He still showed up early at the kindergarten gate.

"Uncle—hold me." Tingting threw himself into Jiang Huaiyan's arms. When Jiang Huaiyan picked him up, Tingting stuck a sticker on his face. "A little red flower, for Uncle. The teacher gave it to me as a reward..."

...What the hell?

Jiang Huaiyan couldn't imagine how ridiculous he must look with a big red sticker on his cheek. He hurriedly carried Tingting into the car and told him to save the sticker for Zhu Shinian.

"Uncle Zhu and Grandma also have one each, so that's three altogether," Tingting counted on his fingers. "When I didn't cry once I got into the classroom, the teacher gave me one. When I finished all my lunch, the teacher gave me one. When I slept quietly during nap time, the teacher gave me another one..."

Tingting happily listed all his achievements, completely forgetting how desperate he'd been at the kindergarten gate that morning.

Jiang Huaiyan thought to himself that kids were really annoying, but until he dropped Tingting off at home, he didn't take off that silly sticker.

Although his first day at kindergarten was tough, Tingting gradually got used to his kindergarten life.

He had fair skin, big eyes, long lashes, and though his nose was a bit flat, he was still considered cute. Despite being introverted, he had a good temper, and other introverted, good-tempered kids liked to play with him.

Grandma asked him every day if anything fun had happened at kindergarten, and he would happily tell her what games the teacher had led them to play and what dishes they had for lunch.

Then one day, Tingting came home looking like he had been crying.

Zhu Shinian's heat was coming up, and he happened to be working from home that day. Usually, when he came home around five or six, Tingting would hear the door open and wobble to the entrance to greet him.

But today, when he opened the door, he saw Tingting's eyes were red, clearly from crying.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Zhu Shinian quickly picked him up and sat down on the sofa with him.

Jiang Huaiyan shook his head. "Not sure yet. We're still asking."

When Tingting came back, he was crying and mumbling something, but neither he nor Grandma could make out what he said.

They first coaxed the child to calm down and stop crying, then learned what had happened.

"They said everyone has a mom and dad, but I don't. They said my mom and dad are dead, and I'm an orphan nobody wants."

Zhu Shinian got anxious and immediately stood up, wanting to find the kindergarten teacher's contact information, but Jiang Huaiyan pulled him back, signaling him to hold off.

"Someone bullied you, and you came home to tell us. That's good, good job." Jiang Huaiyan coaxed him patiently. "Next time, you should come home and tell us too, okay?"

Tingting nodded.

Jiang Huaiyan continued, "Do you want us to find the parents of the bully and make him apologize to you, or would you rather go and beat him up yourself tomorrow, so no one dares to say you don't have parents anymore?"

The family made sure Tingting ate plenty of meat, eggs, and dairy. Compared to kids his age, although Tingting wasn't chubby, he was by no means weak. He wouldn't lose in a fight.

Hearing this actively encouraging a kid to fight, Grandma was stunned. "How can this be? Xiao Jiang, really, teaching a kid to fight..."

"I already beat them up..." Tingting sniffled, rolling up his sleeve to reveal a red scratch mark on his arm. "He scratched me here. I pinned him to the ground. I think I won. His family came and took him home early."

Zhu Shinian immediately got worried, grabbing his arm to examine it closely. Luckily, the other kid's nails weren't long, so the skin wasn't broken.

He was both upset and anxious, and while he didn't approve of Tingting fighting, he knew Jiang Huaiyan had a point.

"Uncle Zhu said Mom and Dad love me very much, but they died protecting us. When I heard them say that, I felt really, really sad..."

"No way." Jiang Huaiyan was totally on board with this. "You did a great job fighting. What's his name? I'll call his parents and ask if we need to pay for the doctor."

Zhu Shinian grabbed his phone. He definitely didn't trust Jiang Huaiyan to talk to the other kid's parents. With Jiang Huaiyan's big mouth, he'd probably say something that would make things worse, like "Your kid deserved it with that mouth. I thought he had no parents to teach him."

"His name is Yu Chengxuan," Tingting answered honestly.

Zhu Shinian found the parents' group on his phone and saw that the teacher had already messaged, explaining everything. The other parents had taken their kid to the hospital, and the kid was fine, just a little swollen face. They had bought some ointment to put on it.

The teacher also said the other parents knew their kid had a big mouth and didn't ask for any medical fees. They were really sorry for what he said and would teach their kid a lesson at home.

Tingting must have been talking to others, always talking about "my uncle," and when asked about his parents, he honestly said he only had an uncle and a grandma at home.

Kids can be really mean sometimes. Zhu Shinian blamed himself, thinking he shouldn't have told Tingting so early that he was adopted.

After Tingting learned to speak, he and Jiang Huaiyan had always had him call them "Uncle," telling him that his real parents probably died in the war and that he should remember that his real parents gave him life.

But how could a child be responsible for all this? Zhu Shinian now felt that he was being hypocritical, pretending to be smart but actually just being foolish.

What could be more important than a child living happily and joyfully?

If he himself died and left a child to be adopted by others, he would only hope that the adoptive family would treat the child as their own, and that the child would never find out he wasn’t their biological son.

“Here, a reward for winning your fight. I’ll buy you a box of building blocks,” Jiang Huaiyan said, pulling Tingting onto his lap and showing him the phone. “What do you think? This one should take a long time to build.”

“...Uncle,” Tingting looked at the blocks Jiang Huaiyan had picked and hesitated for a moment before saying, “I don’t want blocks... Can I pick something else?”

“What does Tingting want?” Zhu Shinian asked.

“Can I call you both ‘Father’ and ‘Dad’ from now on?”

“I’ll remember that my birth parents died protecting us,” Tingting quickly added, as if he felt it was a bit selfish and wrong to ask them to pretend to be his parents. “I’m sorry, but all the other kids have parents...”

“You can call us that. From now on, just call us Father and Dad,” Zhu Shinian said, ruffling Tingting’s head. He agreed almost without thinking, roping Jiang Huaiyan into it.

Jiang Huaiyan turned his head and glanced at him.

Father, Dad...

He and Zhu Shinian weren’t even a married couple, yet Zhu Shinian had just agreed to let the child call them that.

In front of the child, Zhu Shinian kept lowering his defenses.

If someone else were the one closest to Zhu Tingjia instead of him, and Zhu Tingjia wanted to call that person Father or Mom while calling Zhu Shinian Dad, if that person agreed, Zhu Shinian would probably say yes without a second thought.

Jiang Huaiyan’s finger slipped, and he accidentally placed the order for the blocks.

He couldn’t be bothered to cancel; he just told Zhu Tingjia to go finish the blocks he still had at home.

Tingting, even more cheerful, shot out of his arms like a cannonball, hugged his unfinished blocks, and plopped down on the floor to continue building.

“Let’s go to the room,” he said to Zhu Shinian. Zhu Shinian rarely came home this early; arriving at five-thirty meant his heat was likely approaching and he needed a temporary mark.

A temporary mark... At the thought of it, Jiang Huaiyan grew even more annoyed.

If there were another trustworthy person with high compatibility with him, someone who could give him a temporary mark and act as a side-effect-free suppressant, Zhu Shinian would probably agree without hesitation too.

Someone like Nie Hang, or countless others whose names he couldn’t even remember.

That’s what made Zhu Shinian so annoying. He was even less aware of basic physiological facts than the average omega, and since he himself had been an alpha, he assumed all alphas were like him—righteous and pure of heart.

“...Are you upset?” Once in the room, Zhu Shinian looked at him and was the first to ask.

Zhu Shinian asked a bit cautiously; he always cared about how others felt.

“I’m not upset,” Jiang Huaiyan replied. “I just don’t agree with your parenting philosophy.”

“He wanted a ‘Father and Dad’ today, so you played house with him,” the harsh words slipped out before he could stop them, prompted by Zhu Shinian’s gentle, considerate inquiry. “Tomorrow he’ll want the stars from the sky—are you going to pluck them for him too?”

As soon as the aggressive words left his mouth, Jiang Huaiyan regretted his harsh tone.

Zhu Shinian hadn’t done anything wrong. He had only agreed to a child’s reasonable request—was that worth him losing his temper over?

Jiang Huaiyan regretted it immediately. He wanted to apologize to Zhu Shinian, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say the real reason he was angry.

The two of them stood in silence, neither speaking.

Zhu Shinian was easygoing, but hearing Jiang Huaiyan snap at him left him stunned.

He couldn’t help but feel wronged and a little confused.

He didn’t agree with Jiang Huaiyan’s parenting style of solving everything with violence either, but he hadn’t shown his displeasure.

But Zhu Shinian quickly realized—this was the first time Jiang Huaiyan had ever lost his temper at him since they reconnected.

Jiang Huaiyan wasn’t a bad-tempered person. Most of the time, even when arguing, he could calmly leave the other person speechless.

Why had he... suddenly gotten this upset?

Just because he thought Zhu Shinian was spoiling the child too much?

But Jiang Huaiyan spoiled Tingting a lot too.

The room was uncomfortably quiet. Before Zhu Shinian could figure out why Jiang Huaiyan was angry, Jiang Huaiyan spoke first.

“Sorry... I couldn’t control my temper. You still have work to do—I’ll mark you first.”

This really wasn’t something worth arguing about, Zhu Shinian thought. Maybe Jiang Huaiyan had a rough day at work, or maybe he was upset about the whole thing with Tingting.

Sometimes, he just said the opposite of what he felt, thinking it was embarrassing to show kindness—like back when he didn’t know Zhu Shinian was his brother. He had just finished saying he’d be a fool to meddle in Zhu Shinian’s affairs, then turned around and helped him kill the Jiang father and son.

Zhu Shinian obediently bared the back of his neck, and Jiang Huaiyan skillfully removed his own patch.

But just as he leaned in, Zhu Shinian stepped back abruptly.

Suddenly, he realized something important.

Was Jiang Huaiyan unwilling to let him allow Tingting to call them ‘Father and Dad’ because those were terms meant for a married couple?

Was it because... he had someone he liked?