Farm Girl's Manor
Chapter 1219 - 384 Zhenzhen Gets Spanked, Cui Qingrou Disciplines Her Child_3

Chapter 1219: Chapter 384 Zhenzhen Gets Spanked, Cui Qingrou Disciplines Her Child_3

Only Shengsheng was filled with concern, her large eyes already beginning to brim with tears. She worried not only about her two brothers being beaten badly but also feared that their foster father might be angered to illness by them. She wanted to push the door open to intervene, but feared that would only make her foster father angrier and cause him to beat her brothers even harder.

"Dad, we’ll write, we’ll write, okay?" Zhenzhen, clutching his burning buttocks, reluctantly agreed with a pained expression.

How could he be willing to miss the Lantern Festival that he had been eagerly anticipating? No matter how unwilling or averse he was to admit wrongdoing, he didn’t dare to butt heads with his own father at this moment.

Yun Zhao, too, covered his buttocks, nodding by his brother’s side. In fact, his injuries were much lighter than Zhenzhen’s. But seeing his brother in such pain, he felt too embarrassed to admit he was fine.

Upon hearing footsteps, Mo Yan quickly hid with her two sisters. Both of her brothers were proud by nature. They could bear being spanked by their father, but the thought of being seen like this by their sisters might strip them of the courage to even look at them face-to-face.

When Zhenzhen and Yun Zhao opened the door to the study, they saw only the Six Beasts sitting neatly in the courtyard, twelve eyes staring at them... at their buttocks. They knew full well the beasts understood nothing, but meeting such a gaze still made the brothers feel inexplicably ashamed.

Zhenzhen quickly scanned the surroundings and, seeing no trace of his sisters, he sighed in relief and hurried Yun Zhao along: "The Six Beasts are here, my sister must be close by too. Let’s hurry back to our room, otherwise, if they see us like this, it will be too embarrassing."

"Yes, let’s go quickly," Yun Zhao raised his hands in agreement, also wishing to avoid being seen by his sisters, especially by the younger ones; otherwise, they might be hard to appease.

It wasn’t until the two brothers hobbled away and rounded the corner out of sight that the three sisters came out of hiding.

"Sister Yan, do you have any ointment? Could you send a bottle to our brothers? I’m afraid they can’t even sit on a chair right now," Shengsheng pleaded with Mo Yan, her eyes red, truly distressed.

Mo Yan nodded, subtly took out a bottle of ointment from Space using her pouch as cover, and was about to have Mao Tuan deliver it so as not to make her brothers uncomfortable, when she saw her father coming out holding an identical bottle.

Mo Qingze noticed as well, and coughed dryly, casually concealing the medicine bottle behind him, then asked with concern, "You’ve come so early, have you had breakfast?"

All three sisters nodded together, indicating they had eaten.

Mo Yan didn’t inquire about the brothers’ fight and resulting punishment in front of their father, and instead stuffed the ointment into Mao Tuan’s mouth. The two brothers, seeing this, assumed it was their father who had sent it.

True to form, Mo Qingze said nothing about it. He called the three sisters into the study and carefully inquired about some family matters. Learning that the autumn harvest at home had been successfully completed, he felt relieved.

Seeing that it was getting late and the guests would soon arrive, the father and his daughters left the study to prepare to welcome the guests.

There weren’t many invitees this time; apart from Xiao Ruiyuan, Yan Junyu, the Cui family’s aunt and nephew, the Liu Family Couple, and the Han family, they were expecting no one else. Yan Junyu had already declared two days prior that he wouldn’t be able to make it, so that was one less guest. Today at noon, these people would dine at the Scholar Mansion. When evening came, they would each return home to worship the Moon God. After paying their respects to the Moon God, they would gather again at the Scholar Mansion and go to the Lantern Festival with the Mo Family people.

Xiao Ruiyuan was the first to arrive at the Scholar Mansion. In addition to a box of seasonal mooncakes, he traditionally brought various fun gifts for the kids. This was why, despite his rarely smiling and always appearing cold, the children couldn’t help but like him. Every time he visited, they would inevitably gather around him, talking at length.

Ah, they were playing to his interests, telling him what their eldest sister had done, detailing every little thing. It amazed how they remembered so much, even things that Mo Yan herself didn’t recall, yet they could dredge them up so easily.

While Mo Yan was in the kitchen with Aunt Sun preparing the noon feast, she could hear the clamor from the hall. It was fortunate that Zhenzhen and Yun Zhao were hiding in the study, writing their reflections; otherwise, it would have been even livelier.

Before long, the Cui family’s aunt and nephew arrived, with Cui Pingan bringing along his wife Fangcao as well. The couple had been married for half a year, and their affection for each other seemed to grow stronger each day; they could hardly bear to be apart for even a moment.

With Old Lady Cui protecting them, even if Princess Fuyun harbored deep hatred for the couple, she couldn’t find the opportunity to take action against them. Yet, after all, she was a princess—Fangcao’s legitimate mother-in-law—so Fangcao had to pay respects daily and, inevitably, endure some grievances, which was an unavoidable predicament.

Fortunately, Fangcao had a broad-minded nature and strictly observed her responsibilities. Faced with Princess Fuyun’s difficulties, she always responded with neither servility nor overbearingness. Even if the princess wanted to find fault, she lacked a legitimate reason to do so; otherwise, Old Lady Cui would firmly protect her.

Mo Yan received the news and came out of the kitchen with clean hands to see Cui Pingan and Fangcao, the young couple, sitting upright beside Xiao Ruiyuan, while on the other side, Zhenzhen was holding Cui Qingrou’s hand, making a complaint.

"Aunt Cui, you must judge for us. It clearly wasn’t Zhenzhen and elder brother Zhao’s fault, yet father punished us without distinguishing right from wrong. Is there such a cruel father who treats his sons this way?"

While Cui Qingrou was pleased with her future stepson’s closeness to her, it didn’t mean that she would blindly agree with Zhenzhen’s words to maintain the image of a kind mother in his heart, nor would she speak ill of Mo Qingze.

Seeing Mo Qingze’s stern face as he fiercely glared at his son, she concealed the smile at the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief. Instead of directly answering Zhenzhen’s question, she asked back, "When you fought with those schoolmates, did you get hurt yourself?"

Zhenzhen instinctively touched his thigh and told a small fib, "No, the two of us made short work of the four of them. They were no match for us."

Cui Qingrou didn’t expose Zhenzhen’s lie but nodded and continued to ask, "What if there were six of them? Would the two of you have been able to beat them?"

Zhenzhen hesitated for a moment, knowing that no one would believe his boast, and then shook his head, "We couldn’t."

Defeating those four yesterday had already taken a great effort, and both he and elder brother Zhao had been kicked a few times; they were still sore from it when they went to bed last night.

Cui Qingrou smiled gently and slowly said, "You see, retaliation doesn’t truly resolve the problem, does it? If yesterday there had been six of them, it would have been you two brothers who suffered a miserable defeat. In that case, would you still have fought?"

Zhenzhen clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, "I would. I can’t just accept being beaten for no reason."

Cui Qingrou shook her head and asked another question, "Are they really that bad? Do they often cause trouble for other classmates?"

Zhenzhen spoke angrily, "No, they haven’t troubled anyone else. They’re just jealous because in every examination my brother and I perform better than them and because the Master favors us, so they always seem to have a problem with us."

Cui Qingrou stroked Zhenzhen’s head and spoke softly, "So you’re saying that they’re not actually bad, right?"

Zhenzhen nodded. Those guys might look down on others from atop their high horses, but at heart, they really weren’t bad people. There was that one time a cat invaded the school, and the Chef in the canteen who hated cats wanted to beat the poor thing to death, but they were the ones who saved it.

Receiving the expected answer, Cui Qingrou’s smile grew wider, "Since they’re not bad, wouldn’t it be possible for you to find a way to make friends with them? Having one more friend is always better than having another enemy, right?"

Zhenzhen, looking at the gentle and likable woman before him, finally understood that she had taken such a roundabout way to teach him a lesson. But he didn’t mind this way of teaching at all.

"Aunt Cui, I’ll listen to you!" Zhenzhen cast a resentful glance at his father, then clung to Cui Qingrou’s arm and acted coquettishly, "If only my father could reason like Aunt Cui, I wouldn’t have been punished. After all, I was wrong, but my father was also wrong."