Chapter 396 - 390: A Swift Resolution

Both girls were doted on at home, so they found they had plenty to talk about.

The first class of the school year was mostly dedicated to self-introductions.

Many of the students had come straight up from the preschool at Red Star School, so they already knew one another.

But there were plenty of new faces, too.

The self-introductions began with the first student in the row by the aisle.

Yun Jiao didn’t try to stand out. She gave a perfectly normal self-introduction, just like the other students.

Still, plenty of eyes fell on her.

It was only natural. A pretty little girl would draw attention wherever she went.

After the introductions, the teacher led everyone to pick up their textbooks and workbooks for the class.

Yun Jiao had all her school supplies neatly arranged.

Inside her pretty little bookbag was the latest model of a beautiful pencil case, which held pencils, a fountain pen, an eraser, and a ruler.

There was also a full set of colored pencils.

And a notebook.

Song Zhuzhu watched with envy. "Wow, your pencil case and colored pencils are so pretty!"

Yun Jiao replied, "Mhm, my mom bought them for me."

Song Zhuzhu said, "My mom made mine by hand. It might not be as pretty, but it’s still really cute. She sewed a little yellow chick on it for me."

Yun Jiao took a look and saw that it was true, giving her an appreciative nod.

It got a little boring after the books were distributed.

Yun Jiao flipped through her new books on her own.

The first-grade curriculum was very simple. Yun Jiao had seen her brothers’ books before, and for subjects like language arts that were purely rote memorization, she could already recite everything.

She had memorized the English words, too, but there were still many she didn’t quite know how to pronounce.

She remembered the ones she had practiced before, though.

She had just finished quickly flipping through all the books when class was finally dismissed.

Yun Jiao placed the neatly stacked textbooks into her bookbag.

She had just stood up, about to go find her brothers, when their voices echoed from outside.

"Jiaojiao!"

"Little sister!"

A group of tall, imposing older boys—who looked like you wouldn’t want to mess with them—appeared at the classroom door, causing all the younger students inside to stare.

Spotting Yun Jiao, Yun Xiaowu and a few of the others charged in like a pack of overeager huskies and scooped her right up.

Yun Jiao cried, "Put me down!"

’Yun Jiao had her pride, you know!’

"Okay, okay. Let’s go, Jiaojiao. Class is out, let’s go play."

Yun Jiao said okay, and after bidding farewell to Song Zhuzhu, she was whisked out of the classroom, surrounded by her brothers.

Inside the classroom, the other children began to buzz with whispers.

"Wow, she has so many brothers! And they’re all upperclassmen."

"Her brothers look so strong."

Children at this age have a natural sense of awe and fear toward teachers and older students.

Even though Yun Xiaowu and his brothers hadn’t done anything besides show up at Yun Jiao’s classroom, their brief appearance was enough to make the other kids in her class too intimidated to mess with her.

Bully her? They wouldn’t dare.

And so, Yun Jiao enjoyed a peaceful stretch of school days in her class.

Because she was so pretty, like a life-sized beautiful doll, all her classmates loved playing with her.

Unsurprisingly, Yun Jiao became the most popular kid in class.

When the homeroom teacher decided to choose a class president, nearly the entire class nominated her.

Truthfully, Yun Jiao didn’t really want the position.

Most kids her age loved to show off, and being a class officer was a perfect way to do so.

’But she was a mature ’big kid’ now; she had no such desire for the spotlight.’

’Besides, she was already super popular back in the village. She was used to it, okay?’

In the end, however, she became the class president anyway. The homeroom teacher made the final call.

The teacher felt that Yun Jiao was the only one who could keep the other children in line.

After school, Yun Jiao would walk home with her brothers.

Their first stop was always the little stalls outside the school to buy things, whether snacks or toys.

The boys now had a daily spending allowance of one yuan.

Yun Jiao had five yuan.

One yuan was her standard allowance from their mom, which every school-aged child in the family received.

The other four yuan was an extra allowance she had given herself.

Any spending over the five-yuan limit required parental approval.

According to Shen Yunlian and the others, children were still young and couldn’t be allowed to spend whatever they wanted. If they became extravagant with money now, they’d have no concept of its value later, and that would be a disaster when they grew up.

Yun Jiao applied the same rule to herself.

Especially when it came to snacks, she absolutely could not let herself spend money carelessly.

Still, for such a young child to have five yuan was truly conspicuous in this day and age.

Sure enough, not even a month into the school year, she and her brothers were cornered on the way home.

’Man, there really were a lot of delinquents and dropouts hanging around back then.’

’And not only were there a lot of them, they had no morals.’

’Robbing little kids!’

Eight punks armed with clubs blocked the path in front of Yun Jiao and her brothers.

"Hey, kids. We hear your family’s loaded. Your big bros here are a little short on cash, so why don’t you give us some to spend?"

"Yeah! You kids even know how to spend all that money? Let your big bros help you out."

With a lollipop sticking out of her mouth, Yun Jiao was encircled by Yun Xiaowu and the other brothers, who placed her in the very center of their group.

"Don’t even think about touching my sister!"

Yun Jiao pushed him aside. "Bro, get out of the way. I want to get home for dinner. Let’s get this over with quickly."

With that, she charged forward, leaped into the air, and slammed her head into the stomach of the man in front.

OOF...

The force of the blow sent him flying more than two meters away, and he doubled over, vomiting up the contents of his stomach.

Luckily, Yun Jiao dodged quickly, or it would have gotten all over her.

"Hurry up, hurry up."

’We’re having cured pork knuckle with pickled cabbage tonight. Grandma’s is the best!’

The other punks were so shocked they stood frozen for a long moment, unable to react.

It was only when they saw the kids about to leave that one of them finally shouted, "Quick, get them!"

He had barely finished shouting when a bookbag descended from the sky.

It slammed into him with incredible force, sending him flying.

He and the first guy, who was still on the ground clutching his stomach and screaming, now made a miserable pair.

"Damn it! Watch out, everyone! That kid’s a freak!"

When Yun Jiao saw that they were still pestering her and her brothers even after two of them had been taken down, her expression turned to one of pure impatience.

She planted her feet and struck a pose.

It was a move she’d learned from TV: she settled into a low horse stance, stuck out one hand, and crooked her little finger at them.

"Come on."

The tiny girl was extraordinarily arrogant.

But the punks were absolutely infuriated. They weren’t much older themselves, at that hot-headed age where they couldn’t stand being provoked.

Provoked by a little brat, they couldn’t contain themselves and all charged at once.

"She’s too damn arrogant! We have to teach her a lesson today, show her how to act!"

「A few minutes later...」

Yun Jiao pulled back her hands and feet, looking down at the pile of punks on the ground as she perfectly concluded her performance.

’Ever since she started dancing, her jumps had gotten even higher.’

’Now when she jumped to attack, she could smack someone right across the face and send them spinning a full 360 degrees.’

’She was no longer the Little Yun Jiao who could only jump high enough to kick an adult in the stomach!’

Yun Xiaowu wiped her hands. "Why didn’t you leave a couple for us? We didn’t even get to do anything."

The punks on the ground all shivered in unison, their pained cries dying down.

They were afraid that any loud noises would just earn them another beating.

’The youngest one was already that terrifying; just how much worse could the older ones be?’

’Oh, sweet mother, are all kids this badass nowadays?!’