Rebirth: Pampered by My Children and Husband

Chapter 232: Chapter 232 Apology

Xie Changyan and Ji Tingyang locked gazes, as if the air had frozen, filled with a thick scent of gunpowder.

For a while, nobody dared to speak, fearing the rage would turn upon them.

Xie Changyan’s eyes were indifferent yet carried a stern air, his gaze fixed on Ji Tingyang, “How so, can I not discipline you?”

Ji Tingyang sneered coldly, his eyes filled with disdain as he looked at him.

He wouldn’t think that just because he was with his mother, he had the right to educate him, would he?

“What happened to the politeness I told you about before? Where did you forget it?” Xie Changyan lifted his eyes and said harshly.

Ji Tingyang looked into those frosty eyes, his heart trembled, and memories of his father flashed in his mind.

When she was in kindergarten, there was a little girl who often came over to play with him.

He had just built a big tank with blocks, and the girl knocked it down, insisting that he build her a castle for a princess to live in.

Seeing the tank knocked down for the third time by the little girl, Ji Tingyang became thoroughly enraged, his chubby little cheeks set firm, “Get lost!”

The little girl was stunned for a moment, then reached out to pull him.

Ji Tingyang shook off her hand and repeated, “Get lost, I don’t want to play with an idiot.”

Although the little girl didn’t understand, she could tell from the tone that ‘idiot’ was an insult, and she burst into tears, “I’m not an idiot!”

“You are an idiot. You can’t build a castle by yourself, and you don’t even know the basic arithmetic within 1000,” Ji Tingyang said.

“But I know how to do it within 100, and both my dad and mom say I’m a smart kid,” the little girl retorted with sobs.

The little girl was not without intelligence; for a child of three or four to achieve that was quite smart and deserved praise.

It was just that Ji Tingyang, under the education he received at home, was expected to do even better, to be even smarter.

“Isn’t that still an idiot? Your parents are lying to you,” Ji Tingyang repeated.

The crying of the little girl grew louder, and she raised her little fists to hit Ji Tingyang.

That afternoon, the parents of both children were called in.

The little girl’s parents, upon hearing that their daughter had been bullied, rushed to the kindergarten in a fury.

However, upon seeing that the other child’s parent was the President of Ji Group, they didn’t dare release their pent-up anger, instead holding it back.

“President Ji, I’m terribly sorry. The child is ignorant. I will discipline her when we get home,” the little girl’s parent said with a bow and scrape.

“I heard from the teacher that it was our Ji Tingyang who was at fault here, no need to blame your child,” Ji Yanli said.

After speaking, Ji Yanli then glanced down at Ji Tingyang standing by his side, his tone leaving no room for argument, “Apologize.”

Ji Tingyang’s little body quivered, but he stubbornly retorted with his neck stiffened, “I don’t want to apologize; I’m not wrong, she is an idiot.”

Hearing this, the little girl buried her face in her father’s chest and cried even more.

Ji Yanli’s eyes narrowed, and a layer of icy coldness covered his cheeks, the severe chill pressuring one to the point of breathlessness.

The subordinates in the company already found it hard to handle such a Ji Yanli, let alone a child like Ji Tingyang.

Ji Tingyang clenched his hands nervously, his head lowered, not daring to speak.

“How did your mother and I educate you? Where have your manners gone? Have you forgotten how to be polite to others?” Ji Yanli stared at him sternly.

“I will say it again, apologize.”

Ji Tingyang’s nose felt sour, and tears swirled in his eyes, yet he dared not let them fall.

He knew tears were useless to his father.

He sniffed, struggling not to let the tears fall, his soft and glutinous voice tinged with a sob, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you an idiot.”

On the way home with Ji Tingyang, Ji Yanli took out a math test paper and threw it at him.

“You think you’re so smart, huh? Then finish this test. For every question you get wrong, you’ll skip a bite of dinner tonight,” Ji Yanli said mercilessly.

Ji Tingyang, looking at the math test that might as well have been a foreign scripture, felt his vision blur. He couldn’t even understand the questions, let alone solve them.

Any small pride that had built up in the child’s heart suddenly crumbled away.

By the time they got back to the villa, Ji Tingyang finally couldn’t hold back his tears anymore and ran into Lin Xu’s arms, his little legs pumping.

“Mommy… wuwuwu… Daddy is a baddie…” His little hands clung tightly around Lin Xu’s neck as he cried so hard he gasped for breath and hiccupped.

Lin Xu felt a piercing ache in her heart.

However, after Ji Yanli told her about the incident, even Lin Xu stopped siding with her son, “A child who has no manners isn’t Mommy’s good child.”

“I was wrong, Mommy. Don’t hate me,” Ji Tingyang pleaded, shaking his head wildly in her embrace.

“It’s good that you know you were wrong. Now go to the bathroom and wash your tear-stained face,” Lin Xu said as she put him down.

Ji Tingyang wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and obediently followed the servant to the bathroom.

After he was gone, Lin Xu glared at Ji Yanli and said with irritation, “You’re really something, giving a calculus test to a three- or four-year-old child.”

Ji Yanli just smiled indifferently, “If we don’t knock him down a peg now, he’ll become too arrogant in the future.”

That night, because he couldn’t complete the test paper, Ji Tingyang didn’t get a single bite to eat and went to bed on an empty stomach.

Even now, Ji Tingyang still had a vivid memory of that event.

Looking into Xie Changyan’s sharp eyes and feeling the forceful aura emanating from him, Ji Tingyang thought that this version of Xie Changyan was somewhat similar to his father.

At that thought, Ji Tingyang

“Apologize to the person.”

No sooner had Xie Changyan finished speaking than Ji Tingyang reflexively blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

Everyone in the private room was stunned.

No one had expected that the subtle war between President Ji and President Xie would end with President Ji’s submission.

When Ji Tingyang came to his senses, the expression on his face turned even uglier.

Why should he listen to Xie Changyan?

Ji Tingyang clenched his fist at his side, the words he’d been about to hurl swallowed back down when he caught sight of Xie Changyan’s somewhat intimidating face.

He gritted his teeth and, with a cold snort, stood up, slammed the door, and left.

After a few seconds of silence, someone in the private room broke the awkward atmosphere, “President Xie, shall we continue eating?”

“You guys go ahead, I have something else to take care of,” Xie Changyan said as he stood up to leave.

As he walked away, he pulled out his phone and called Lin Xu, his tone light and teasing, “Ji Tingyang will probably be back to cry to you in a bit.”

In the past, knowing their father was too strict, and getting no traction from wheedling him, they would always turn to cry to their soft-hearted mother, Lin Xu.

Unexpectedly, he hadn’t changed one bit even after growing up.

Lin Xu asked in shock, “What have you done to our son?”

“I’m innocent. I only gave him a little lesson,” Xie Changyan said.