Chapter 283: Chapter 283: Lectures and Villages
"Okay, okay. Daddy is here. Tell Daddy what happens, okay?"
Xiaoyun lifted the two in his arms as he gently swung and rocked them back and forth.
Slowly, their crying stopped as they calmed back down.
"So what happened? Did something break or something?" Xiaoyun curiously asked as he gently put the two back down.
Both of them pointed at their toy car on the ground, which had no wheels.
"Where did the wheel go?" Xiaoyun asked.
Both of them shook their head at the same time.
"Let me look for it..."
After looking for a minute, he finally found it right below the sofa.
"How did it end up here? Did you guys take off the wheel on purpose?"
Both of them instantly pointed toward Yongyi, who looked back at Xiaoyun with an innocent face.
"Yongyi, did you take the wheels off?" Xiaoyun questioned as he put the wheels back onto the two toy cars.
Yongyi nodded in agreement.
"Why?"
"I-I win!"
"Win what?"
Yongyi looked back at Xiaoyun\'s face with a confused look, as if he expected Xiaoyun to understand it.
"Okay. Let me guess, you guys are racing with the toy car, right?"
As Xiaoyun moved both of the toy cars on the ground, both of the girls clapped their hands in excitement.
"Yongyi, you don\'t win by taking other people\'s wheel, okay? You win by having your car be faster than others."
Qiaolan excitedly cheered as Lianrong looked disappointed when Xiaoyun moved Qiaolan\'s car in front of Lianrong.
With a switch, Lianrong was cheering next as her car was back at the front.
As Xiaoyun handed the car back to two girls, he forced Yongyi to open his hand and took his car away.
Yongyi looked up at Xiaoyun with a confused face until Xiaoyun took off the wheel and handed the car back.
"If you are going to make something unenjoyable for someone, you better expect them to do the same to you."
Yongyi tried to move the car, only to have it swirling left and right.
"Now, do you think winning is important?" Xiaoyun asked as he handed the two wheels each to the two girls.
Yongyi shook his head.
"Good, now go apologize to your sisters."
Yongyi immediately nodded in agreement as he walked over to the two, who looked confused about what was happening.
"I-I am sorry."
The two got even more confused as they didn\'t react to the apology at all. But they both handed the wheels back to Yongyi.
"No play fairly with each other, okay? Winning fairly and legitimately is what matters."
As Xiaoyun tried to lecture the three of them, they all already went back to playing together with their cars.
"What am I doing? Am I really trying to teach a bunch of one-year-old life lessons?"
Xiaoyun laughed out loud at himself as he headed upstairs.
"But why do I feel like they understood what I was talking about?"
Xiaoyun thought to himself as he was still a little surprised to see Yongyi actually apologizing.
And even more shocking to him was seeing the two girls handing the wheel back as if they accepted their brother\'s apology.
"They\'re probably just giving it back because it\'s not theirs. I\'m probably just overthinking it."
As Xiaoyun took out fresh clothes and entered the bathroom, all seven of them were sitting in the giant bathtub in the middle.
"Good morning."
As Xiaoyun walked toward the shower area, all of them welcomed him with a smile.
"Good morning!"
Seeing their faces, Xiaoyun suddenly had a bad feeling as he turned on the water.
And soon enough, the bad feeling came true as they suddenly got out of the bathtub one by one.
"Honey... we still have three hours before you have to go to work..."
Leyan, along with the six of them, surrounded Xiaoyun as if they had been discussing among themselves what to do when he came inside the bathroom.
"Wait——"
Before Xiaoyun could talk, Yuqi covered his mouth as they carried him over to the bathtub.
---
Although it was exhausting for Xiaoyun, he was happy to see Tianci being able to merge in and enjoy herself alongside the six of them.
Even when the other Tianci appeared, the six of them were understanding enough to accept her and treated her as if she were the normal Tianci.
By the time everyone was out of the shower and fully dressed for work, it was already nine in the morning.
"Crap, I completely forgot to cook breakfast."
Leyan apologized as she carried a simple bowl of oatmeal to the three who hadn\'t eaten anything for the morning.
"It\'s okay. It\'s a nice change of pace eating something basic." Kate replied as she and Kate began eating the oatmeal.
"You guys are not hungry?" Anna asked curiously as she noticed all seven of them were sitting at the table watching them eat.
"We\'re still a bit full from last night\'s dinner."
Yuqi replied as all seven of their faces, including her, all blushed as they thought back to what had happened in the three hours.
"Why does Brother Xiaoyun look so tired?" Lily curiously asked as she noticed Xiaoyun just lying his head on the table.
"I just didn\'t sleep well last night..."
Xiaoyun got back up from the table as he tried to wake himself up a little.
"Xiaoyun, maybe you can just take a break today..." Yueyue suggested as they all started to feel a little guilty about what they had done to him.
"No, I\'m good. Don\'t worry about it. I still have to meet with the village leader today."
After taking a sip of the coffee that Leyan had made, Xiaoyun was much more awake.
---
When Xiaoyun arrived at the administrative office, it was already almost ten.
"Sorry for the wait. Had something come up last minute."
Xiaoyun apologized as he took a seat in front of the village leader, whom Renqin had reported to be a new one who had just been elected to replace the old one.
"No problem. I can wait as long as possible——"
"Okay, let\'s just be frank with each other. What business do you have today?"
Seeing Xiaoyun wanting to be direct, the village leader was more than happy to reply directly.
"We want to join your city."
Xiaoyun froze for a second as he was completely caught off guard by the request, then quickly recovered back to the conversation.
"Why?" Xiaoyun curiously asked as all the different village leaders he had met had refused it when he did offer them to join.
Especially the old village leader he talked to at first, who flat out rejected the offer and ended up in a compromise where the village sent extra people that they couldn\'t handle to Luoping.
"There\'s just too many small zombie hordes that are wandering into the countryside. We can\'t deal with them...
We know you already sent troops to our villages to protect us, but even your soldiers had said it\'s just not feasible to hold any longer."
"Really?"
Xiaoyun looked surprised by the man\'s answer as he couldn\'t recall the soldiers that he sent reported back anything about it.
"Yes, just two days ago, we had over five thousand zombies that wandered from Foshan to our villages——"
Suddenly, Xiaoyun\'s phone started ringing as it interrupted the village leader from finishing.
"Sorry, I\'ll be right back."
Xiaoyun quickly left the room as he picked up the phone call from Yezi.
Ten minutes later...
"Sorry about that... Just got a phone call about some security issue."
Xiaoyun apologized as he sat back down in front of the village leader.
"No problem. The town security is more important."
"Okay, so I\'m willing to send more soldiers to protect you guys. But I can\'t accept your people to Luoping."
Hearing Xiaoyun\'s answer, the village leader immediately looked a little disappointed.
"Why not?"
"Your town has roughly Twenty thousand at this point, right?"
The emotion on the villager leader\'s face changed to shock for a second before changing back to normal as he nodded in agreement.
"I simply can\'t handle that many people anymore. But I\'m willing to turn your village into a fully defended city with more soldiers guarding it." Xiaoyun offered.
"What\'s the catch?" The village leader asked as an alarm rosed in his head.
"You wanted to join us, right?"
Xiaoyun avoided his question as he stared into the village leader\'s eyes.
"Of course. I\'m just asking so I can prepare the villagers to have a smoother transition."
The village leader wiped a drop of sweat on his forehead as Xiaoyun stopped looking at him with a questioning look.
"Don\'t worry, you\'ll always be the village leader and run the civilian part of the town... Perhaps you can grow your village to be just as big as Luoping and be a mayor."
Xiaoyun reassured the village leader as he only wanted full diplomatic and military control of the villages.
"Commander Xiaoyun, I would never dare to be equal to you. I\'m just a small village leader."
The village leader immediately changed his tone as he learned he could keep his position.