Feng Yuan’s preemptive question left Li Heng in complete silence.
The little one’s soft, milky voice still lingered in his ears.
Li Heng raised a hand and pressed his temple.
His voice was also a little hoarse: “Yuan Yuan, when did you come back?”
Feng Yuan: “…”
For two seconds, Feng Yuan felt guilty. His small hand fidgeted with the strap of his schoolbag, his tone lacking both strength and confidence: “J-just now, I came back… when it got dark. Yuan Yuan didn’t run around.”
That last sentence was practically covering his ears while stealing a bell.
Li Heng looked at his weary wife leaning on his shoulder with tears in her eyes, then at the massive search team assembled.
He closed his eyes briefly, keeping his voice as calm and even as usual.
“Stay at home now. Don’t go anywhere. We’re coming back.”
“Okay!”
Feng Yuan agreed obediently.
After answering and seeing the call end, his little head suddenly processed it belatedly: “We?”
The little cub sat down on the sofa, swinging his short legs, thinking that this “we” must mean his brothers and sisters, and the butler, too.
He didn’t give it any more thought.
On the coffee table in front of the sofa, there were only a few pieces of fruit.
Feng Yuan was hungry.
He tossed his schoolbag onto the sofa and went deng deng deng into the kitchen to look for food.
There was quite a bit to eat in the kitchen.
Feng Yuan pulled over a stool, climbed up onto it, and found a plate of chicken drumsticks.
Inside the fridge, there were also drinks.
Since Feng Yuan was still young, aside from milk, the family didn’t allow him to drink anything else.
But now that the adults weren’t around, the little one stared at the drinks for a few seconds.
A few seconds later, one chubby little hand grabbed a bottle.
After getting both food and drink, Feng Yuan returned to the sofa.
He planned that once he was full, he would start on his homework.
While eating, he also discovered a game console on the sofa.
This game console… He knew how to play it!
Skillfully, he found the little game he liked and logged into his own account.
After logging in, he even got Qin Xun to come online, too.
This online mini-game was quite popular. It even had team voice chat.
As soon as Feng Yuan entered, he turned on the voice chat.
But when he switched it on, he accidentally set the team voice to all-team chat.
Which meant that instead of only Qin Xun hearing him, now all the teammates could hear his voice, too.
“Qin Xun, why aren’t you asleep yet?”
Feng Yuan knew it was already very late at this hour.
Qin Xun picked his game character while replying: “I slept for a bit, then woke up.”
But in truth, that wasn’t the case.
Qin Xun had set Feng Yuan’s messages to a special notification sound.
He had actually been woken up by Feng Yuan.
Qin Xun chose a very difficult character to control, while Feng Yuan chose one that looked very cool but was notorious for making teammates groan the moment they saw it.
A teammate, upon seeing their characters, couldn’t hold back and typed: “Do you two even know how to play? If not, just go to bed.”
Qin Xun ignored the message.
Within just a few minutes of the match starting, he secured the first kill.
After that, no one else in the team said a word.
One particularly skilled teammate even typed a flashy 666 to praise him.
Time ticked by bit by bit.
Feng Yuan sat cross-legged on the floor, taking a bite of chicken leg, then a sip of his cold drink, and then poking at the game console with his chubby little fingers.
This comfortable little life almost made him want to hum with happiness.
But halfway through a match, Li Heng came back.
Hearing footsteps, Feng Yuan looked up, just about to cheerfully call out “Grandpa!”
The very next second, he saw Grandma standing beside Grandpa.
Feng Yuan: “……”
His little face stiffened, instinctively sensing that he was done for.
The character he was controlling in the game hid in the bushes and stopped moving.
“Yuan Yuan, come here.”
Not far away, Grandpa’s face was dark as water as he called his name.
The game was still ongoing.
If he went, he’d be AFK, and going AFK would get him scolded.
But in this situation, if he didn’t go AFK, he’d really get it.
“Grandpa, I—I’m coming.”
Feng Yuan dropped the game console, crawled up from the floor, and timidly went to find his grandpa.
When he reached Grandpa, his soft little voice was already trembling with fear.
Before coming home, Feng Yuan had still been firmly convinced that Grandpa wouldn’t hit him.
But when he saw Grandma’s reddened eyes, as if she’d been crying, that conviction in his little heart instantly collapsed.
Meanwhile, after Feng Yuan went AFK, one of the teammates in the game lost it.
“I told you, we can’t play with elementary school kids!”
“See! He went AFK!”
“If it weren’t for his cute little baby voice earlier, I would’ve started cursing already!”
“This is infuriating. Games like this shouldn’t even let elementary schoolers play!”
As the teammate’s complaints flooded the screen, Qin Xun typed a few lines expressionlessly:
“He’s not an elementary schooler. He’s in kindergarten.”
“We can still win this round.”
Right after Qin Xun sent that, another particularly skilled teammate cheerfully typed:
“Don’t argue. Relax. While I’m here, there’s no way we’ll lose this round.”
That player’s ID was Little Deer Doesn’t Eat Grass. He was a retired e-sports pro, now working as a game streamer.
And at this very moment, Little Deer Doesn’t Eat Grass happened to be streaming.
His channel’s popularity was sky-high. Just the active viewers online numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
Right now, those hundreds of thousands of people have started bickering noisily in the live chat.
Some people in the chat started cursing about how annoying the kids were.
Others said if they were the ones running into this situation, their mentality would probably collapse on the spot.
And just as everyone was criticizing, suddenly, a bit of team-only voice chat was picked up.
It was from that kid who had just gone AFK. His voice came through the in-game mic.
And the voice was surprisingly loud:
“Wuuuah, Yuan Yuan was wrong!”
“Don’t spank Yuan Yuan anymore!”
“Uwaaah, Yuan Yuan will never run away from home again!”
The sound of a child crying, mixed with the unmistakable noise of getting spanked, came clearly through the team voice chat.
Moments later.
The entire live stream exploded.
“Hahahaha, I’m dying! The kid went AFK because he was getting spanked!”
“I can’t take it, Little Deer, drag this game out longer, I want to keep listening!”
“Hahahahaha, live-stream spanking. What kind of new content is this?! Little Deer, you sure this kid isn’t someone you hired?”
Even the streamer, Little Deer Doesn’t Eat Grass, froze for a second.
He really hadn’t expected that using a newly made smurf account for a casual queue, he’d end up matched with a kid in the middle of getting spanked.
Thanks to this child, his live stream’s popularity was skyrocketing like crazy.
He had originally only had a few hundred thousand live viewers, which wasn’t considered particularly big on the platform.
At least, compared to some of the top-tier streamers, it was nowhere near.
But now, in just a short span of time, his live viewer count broke past a million.
Modern netizens might not be good at much, but when it came to eating melons, they were lightning fast.
A whole crowd of viewers who loved to watch drama without fearing chaos gathered in Little Deer’s stream, listening to the AFK child getting spanked while, from time to time, they were throwing Little Deer a wave of tips.
Seeing this sudden flood of fortune, Little Deer’s smile nearly twisted off his face.
Qin Xun was playing in a rush.
He heard Feng Yuan getting spanked. He also knew that the teammates could hear Feng Yuan getting spanked.
To protect Feng Yuan’s dignity, Qin Xun fought fiercely.
He wanted to hurry and win the game.
Unfortunately, Little Deer didn’t cooperate with him.
After dragging the match out for nearly half an hour, the opponents lost their patience.
They typed: “This is so damn dragging, you guys are way too good at stalling. I’m done, I’m surrendering.”
As soon as this message came out, the viewers in the livestream all panicked.
“Little Deer, quick, don’t let them surrender!”
“Little Deer, stall them for another round!”
The rewards Little Deer had just received in this short while were almost equal to half a month’s worth of his usual income.
So, of course, he didn’t want to lose this rare wave of traffic.
His fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed: “Hey friends on the other side, don’t rush to end the game. There’s a little kid on my team who’s AFK because he’s getting spanked.”
The moment the opponents heard there was a kid getting spanked, they instantly gave up on surrendering.
Both sides started dragging the game out in a laid-back, stall-for-time way.
Qin Xun, fighting all by himself: “……”
So annoying.
Why did these people all love joining in on the fun so much?
Qin Xun knew he couldn’t end this match alone, but he still kept fighting with everything he had.
He had to fight to the very last moment. For Feng Yuan’s dignity!
Time ticked by little by little.
A few minutes later.
Having finished taking his spanking, Feng Yuan, sniffling and teary, came to the sofa to grab his little schoolbag.
He spotted the game console, his chubby little hand froze for a moment, then he picked that up, too.
After being punished by Grandpa, Feng Yuan wasn’t clinging to him anymore.
He wasn’t clinging to anyone now. Hugging his schoolbag, holding back his sobs, he ran back to his own room.
As soon as he entered his room, Feng Yuan locked the door behind him.
After locking it, he pressed the button to light up the game console and lifted his little hand to wipe away his tears.
On the glowing screen, the game was still ongoing.
Feng Yuan froze for a moment.
He had thought this round would be lost for sure.
But seeing that it wasn’t, Feng Yuan sniffled, then once again started controlling his little game character.
While moving his character, his milky little voice, still hoarse from crying, explained,
“Yuan Yuan just went to eat, that’s why I AFK’d.”
“Now we can keep playing.”
Qin Xun didn’t call him out on the lie.
“Mm. Yuan Yuan, follow me, I’ll take you to fight the little soldiers.”
“Okay!”
The two little ones kept playing together.
Listening to their voices, Little Deer, just like the viewers in his livestream room, was nearly laughing himself silly.
“This kid is too funny! He even said he went to eat. I swear he was eating stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork!”
“Hahaha, listen to his little milky voice. It’s killing me with cuteness.”
“So cute. I just wanna squish him!”
“Did you guys notice how nice this kid’s milky voice sounds? Better than all the child voice actors I’ve heard in audio dramas!”
The livestream chat was still buzzing with excitement.
But Feng Yuan and Qin Xun had no idea about all this. They were both still fully focused on their game.
As Feng Yuan played, his little heart—just bruised from punishment—was slowly being soothed.
Bit by bit, he even started to grin again.
However.
Tonight, Feng Yuan’s fate was destined to be full of trials. That fleeting smile of his was destined not to last.
Before this game round could even end, someone knocked on his door.
Three knocks.
And then, the door was opened from the outside.
Feng Yuan: “!”
The sound of the door opening startled him so badly that he dropped the game console.
He turned his head, lifted his little face, and looked at the one who came in.
“Dad…”
Feng Yuan was so frightened that his eyes went wide. He never expected Dad to come back this quickly!
Feng Qi had rushed all the way home without resting for even a moment.
He hadn’t even sipped water after arriving. He came straight over.
Before he stepped into the room, he had already heard from Li Heng about Feng Yuan’s antics tonight.
After explaining what had happened, Li Heng also mentioned that he had already given the little one a spanking.
Li Heng was soft-hearted after all.
Even though the spanking earlier wasn’t heavy, Feng Yuan had cried pitifully. In the end, Li Heng couldn’t help but ache for him.
So now, seeing that Feng Qi’s face was dark, Li Heng worried the little one would be punished a second time.
Li Heng quickly tried to persuade Feng Qi: “Yuan Yuan already knows he was wrong. Just now, after getting spanked, he took his schoolbag and went back to his room—probably to read a little before bed.”
Li Heng spoke a whole string of good words on Feng Yuan’s behalf.
Convinced by Li Heng, Feng Qi also assumed the little one truly knew he was wrong and was now doing homework.
But when the door opened, the sight that greeted him was the little rascal in the middle of playing a game.
“Yuan Yuan, it’s already three in the morning.”
“Tomorrow is the first day of school, and you haven’t written a single line of homework. Instead, you’re still playing games.”
“Tell me. What exactly are you trying to do?”
Feng Yuan: “……”
He rubbed his butt, his eyes rimmed red.
Grandpa’s spanking just now hadn’t really been hard.
He had cried so pitifully to make Grandpa not want to hit him.
Now it was over. There was no saving his butt this time.
“Dad, Grandpa already spanked Yuan Yuan just now.”
Feng Yuan knew he was still going to be punished, but he still protested a little: “But—didn’t we say we wouldn’t get hit twice for the same thing?”
“Your grandpa spanked you because you left home in the middle of the night without telling anyone.”
“Dad will spank you because you didn’t do your homework and played games.”
Feng Yuan: “……”
Listening to his dad’s reasons for the spanking, his chubby little face filled with indignation. Although Grandpa and Dad weren’t wrong to punish him, the idea of getting spanked twice put him in a foul mood.
He flopped onto the bed in a huff, sticking out his plump little butt.
“Go on, hit Yuan Yuan then!”
“Just beat Yuan Yuan to death!”
The little one squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself. He is so tragic and resolute, as if telling Dad to just beat him to death and be done with it.
Feng Qi walked over. But instead of spanking him right away, he first picked up the game console.
Click. The console was powered off.
The viewers still listening to the livestream froze for a moment. Then, in disbelief, the chat exploded with comments:
“Did that kid just quit the game?!”
“I think it was his dad who shut it off.”
“Aaaaaah nooo! I haven’t even heard him get spanked by his dad yet!”
“Wuwuwu, my poor baby. Come back! Big sis hasn’t had enough of listening yet!”
“Little Deer, are you sure this isn’t staged? That kid Yuan Yuan… He sounds exactly like a professional voice actor! And his dad’s voice? Way too good.”
“Staged +1. I refuse to believe a kid could be this unlucky, getting spanked twice in one night.”
“Uh, no… this isn’t staged. I think I know this Yuan Yuan. He used to go to Little Sun Kindergarten, in the same class as my son. I’ve talked to him before when picking up my kid. That’s definitely his voice.”
The livestream chat was still going wild.
Meanwhile, inside the game, Qin Xun saw that Feng Yuan had logged off. He immediately stopped playing, too.
Little Deer: “?”
Wait, what? Two people just quit at once?
Little Deer saw Qin Xun exit the game. He wanted to stop him, but didn’t even get the chance.
With both kids logging out, Little Deer also stopped dragging the match out.
Very quickly, he solo-carried and finished the game.
After wrapping up that round, he even sent friend requests to the two kids in-game.
As for all the noise and chatter online, Feng Yuan knew nothing about it.
Right now, he had already cried himself to sleep.
Considering how late it was, Feng Qi in the end didn’t spank him a second time, nor did he make him catch up on his homework.
Compared to homework, the little one’s sleep was more important.
Still, Feng Qi made it clear that once Yuan Yuan woke up the next day, he had to make up a bit of homework.
It wasn’t that Feng Qi was overly strict about homework. He simply understood his son’s temperament too well.
It was one thing for him to be careless about studying in school, but once home, he needed to at least write something to reinforce what he had learned.
If he were allowed to keep skipping homework, his attitude toward learning would only become more careless.
And once he developed bad study habits, Feng Qi worried that this boy who disliked studying might really grow up into a little illiterate.
Feng Qi didn’t expect Yuan Yuan to be exceptional in his studies.
He only hoped that this little one could, like every other human child, stay in school obediently before he became an adult—
And steadily complete his education.
“Alright, close your eyes and sleep.”
Feng Qi sat by the bed, watching Feng Yuan, now changed into pajamas, trying to fall asleep.
Feng Yuan’s eyes still shimmered with tears. His little hands clutched the blanket.
In his soft, milky voice, grievance mixed with rebellion: “Yuan Yuan won’t sleep!”
Feng Qi: “Is that so?”
Without even blinking, Feng Qi simply turned on an English children’s story.
A few minutes later.
The little one who had just declared he wouldn’t sleep had already closed his eyes, snoring softly.
Feng Qi lowered his gaze, watching his son drift off, staring at him for a long while.
He bent down and placed a gentle kiss on the soft little face.
“Day after day… can’t you just behave a little?”
Feng Yuan didn’t hear his Dad’s words. He let out a couple of sleepy hums, mumbling something incoherent in his dreams.
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152