"What is this?" Su Yuyan asked Su Miao with confusion.
Su Miao blinked her bright eyes. "It's tomato and egg stir-fry."
"Why is there meat in the tomato and egg stir-fry?" Su Yuyan's chopsticks held a piece of pork, with a long pig hair still attached to the skin.
Su Miao gave him a fleeting glance and said nonchalantly, "Innovation."
Su Yuyan's brow remained furrowed.
"Tomato and egg stir-fry is too plain. Doesn't adding some meat make it tastier?" Seeing his disgusted expression, she thought, if he's so capable, he should cook himself.
It was his fault for insisting that takeout wasn't healthy.
She didn't think takeout was unhealthy at all. Her own cooking was the real health hazard.
It was all Xia Zhoujian's fault. His mouth really needed a filter.
"Please don't innovate next time. The hospital is quite far from here," Su Yuyan said as he put the meat back and ate plain rice instead.
Su Miao: "..."
Ordering takeout would be less damaging to their health, she thought bitterly.
The taste might be a bit odd, but it surely wouldn't send them to the hospital. Su Yuyan was just being fussy.
"Fine, don't eat it. I'll eat it myself." The food had barely touched her mouth when— "Ugh—"
Su Yuyan's lips curled into a smile, a hint of amusement dancing in the boy's youthful and delicate features.
His small hand quietly pushed the water towards Su Miao.
Su Miao gulped down several mouthfuls of water before recovering. She wiped her tongue while muttering incessantly, "The tomatoes must have been bad when I bought them."
Su Yuyan: "..."
She'd rather believe there was something wrong with the tomatoes than admit her cooking skills were the problem.
In the end, they ordered takeout anyway.
After dinner, Su Miao sent Su Yuyan to wash up on his own while she went to her room.
In the bedroom.
Su Miao stood by the window, her beautiful features cold and indifferent. After a brief ring, the phone was quickly answered. "Hello, this is Su Yuyan's mother."
"Hello, Yuyan's mom."
The person on the other end was clearly surprised that Su Miao would call at this hour, so their voice carried obvious astonishment.
"Yuyan's mom is calling about what happened today, I presume." After a brief moment of surprise, the other party quickly adjusted their tone.
Su Miao's gaze was extremely calm as she looked out at the scenery beyond the window. "As a parent, I believe I have the right to know what happened to my child at school."
"Of course," the other party agreed. "Yuyan's mom, the situation isn't as serious as it might seem. It was just a small disagreement between two children."
"A small disagreement?" A smile, both alluring and eerie, played on her red lips. "What kind of small disagreement would cause my son to run away from kindergarten in the middle of the day?"
Hearing the sarcastic tone from the other end of the line, the person hurriedly explained, "This incident occurred because our teachers didn't handle it well. They didn't resolve the misunderstanding between the two children in time. The main reason was that the primary teacher for the senior class was on sick leave today, and the intern teacher lacked experience, which led to this situation."
Hearing this, Su Miao let out a cold snort.
Though brief, the snort was full of mockery.
Su Miao retorted directly, "The child disappeared from the kindergarten for so long and you didn't even notice. I don't think it's as simple as one teacher being on sick leave. Did the school security guards take sick leave too?"
The principal fell silent at these words.
There was no way to refute this. They only realized the child wasn't on school grounds after receiving a text message from the parent.
When the two children had an argument, the teachers didn't investigate or even inquire about it. They simply assumed the injured party was the victim and locked Su Yuyan in an empty classroom.
He was left in that classroom for an entire afternoon, and not a single teacher checked on him. Otherwise, they would have discovered that Su Yuyan had climbed out of the window and secretly run away.
"After such an incident, if I hadn't called, when did the principal plan to call me back?" Su Miao asked with a smile.
Though she was smiling, her tone was terrifying.
"Does the school feel no remorse at all?"
Su Miao's tone suddenly became sharp.
"You should be thankful my son didn't have an accident. Otherwise..." She would show them what a real news story looked like.
Su Miao's words fell like a bucket of ice water, chilling the principal to the bone.
"Yuyan's mom, this incident was indeed our negligence. I have already reprimanded the teacher and reflected on my own failure. We will never let something like this happen again."
Logically, she shouldn't be this panicked. After all, the other party was just a single mother who delivered takeout. But Su Yuyan's mother gave off an overwhelmingly intimidating aura.
In fact, today's incident was quite simple. A child who couldn't stand that the newly arrived Su Yuyan was more popular than him had somehow heard that Su Yuyan came from a single-parent family.
At first, he just mocked Su Yuyan for being a fatherless child. Seeing no reaction from Su Yuyan, he started talking about Su Yuyan's mother.
He said Su Yuyan's mother was just a delivery person, and with her good looks, she must be delivering "improper" services.
Upon hearing this, Su Yuyan immediately tackled the boy, pinned him down, and beat him until his face was bruised and swollen, refusing to stop.
So when the teacher saw Su Yuyan straddling Bai Shu and beating him violently, they immediately assumed Su Yuyan was at fault.
"I will not allow my child to continue attending your school," her voice was as cold as biting frost. "But I must receive a proper apology for this incident. From the school, the teachers, and the child who bullied my son."
"If I don't receive an appropriate apology, you'll face the consequences."
With that, she hung up the phone.
Her usually vibrant and alluring face was now overshadowed, resembling a thousand-year-old jade, devoid of any warmth.
What Su Miao didn't know was that the little boy she had sent to wash up was now standing outside her door, having overheard her entire conversation through the closed door.
Su Yuyan had originally wanted to ask Su Miao to get his pajamas from the cabinet, as they were placed too high for him to reach.
He silently lowered his hand that was about to knock, his dark eyelashes trembling twice in an attempt to blink away the moisture in his eyes.
Hadn't he agreed not to have any expectations or hopes for her? And yet...
The next day, Su Miao didn't take Su Yuyan to school, and Su Yuyan didn't ask about it.
"Will you be okay at home by yourself?" Su Miao asked, fully dressed.
Su Yuyan nodded. "I'll be fine."
Surprised by his unusually gentle tone, Su Miao felt uncomfortable. "Kid, your tone is so gentle today. Something's not right."
Su Miao stared at him. "Don't tell me you drank the milk tea I hid in the fridge?"
Su Yuyan: "......"
"I... did... not." His tone was cold.
Su Miao let out a sigh. "It seems you really didn't. This tone is more like you. You were too gentle earlier. It was a bit weird."
Su Yuyan: "!!!"
"Well, don't sneak any for yourself when you're home alone either," Su Miao added, still feeling uncertain.
Su Yuyan's face hardened. "Only you like drinking that junk food. I wouldn't touch it."
How had she become more and more childish? Could it be that her intelligence was regressing?