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Prince Dylan's birth made the grandparents on both sides boundlessly happy. Their fondness for this child reached unprecedented heights. They cradled him in their hands and were afraid he’d fall, and held him in their mouths and were afraid he’d melt. They fed him the most nutritious food and dressed him in the best clothes, and still felt it wasn’t enough. When he hadn’t even reached a year of age, His Majesty prepared to build him a luxurious independent villa, so it’d be easy for him to marry a beautiful, gentle omega after he grew up.
Xi Wei vetoed his father’s plan without hesitation. They could dote on the child, but they couldn’t pamper him too much. Otherwise, if they spoiled him until he developed a problem, who could say but he might turn into the devil incarnate after he grew up? With His Majesty’s support, wouldn’t he be able to turn everything upside-down?
It was a good thing little Dylan seemed pretty well-behaved. He didn’t cry or make a fuss, he just had a strong sense of curiosity. Whenever he saw something he had to reach out and grab it, and his little hands were always holding on to something strange. Once empty-handed, he got restless.
For example, the flowers and plants growing at home, the decorations hung on the walls or set in the rooms, the mecha parts he found at Uncle Brian’s place, the craft supplies he took from Uncle Aiden’s place, the rare books Uncle Caesar collected in his study, and even the raw beef in the kitchen…
Xi Wei was lost for words with this kid. Whatever he saw, he had to grab. He could even ferret out the raw beef stored in the kitchen and use it for a toy. You’re so incredible, why don’t you just soar up into the sky!
Xi Wei really wanted to spank him, but Klaire shielded his infant son, laughed and said, “Little kids are all like this. Our son has a strong sense of curiosity, which means he’s eager to learn.”
Xi Wei believed what he said for the moment. What’s more, his baby was still small, and he was actually reluctant to beat him. All he could do was leave him alone and forget about it.
Dylan kept growing. After he’d grabbed up everything in the house he could grab, he seemed to lose interest, and started crawling around on the ground.
He’d clearly reached the age where he could walk, but he wanted to crawl instead. Every time Xi Wei pulled him up and tried to have him walk properly, he had to crawl back down like he was a mollusk. He got all of his new clothes completely filthy, and there was often a bunch of mud stuck to his little face!
When he saw this little creature crawling back and forth on the ground, Xi Wei really wanted to aim a kick at his behind.
—Can’t you walk properly?
—Is it that much fun crawling back and forth?
Xi Wei was one for cleanliness. When he saw his son covered in mud, he could only drag him to the bathtub every night before bedtime.
As it turned out, this kid wouldn’t quiet down even sitting in the bathtub, and just had to play with the water. He babbled and laughed and used his little hands to splash all the water and foam in the tub onto the ground. He got Xi Wei so angry he had shooting pains in his head.
—It sure wasn’t easy raising a child.
—Especially a naughty brat like this one.
But every time this little fellow opened his jet-black eyes up big, waved his little hands and threw himself into Xi Wei’s arms, shouting “Daddy” childishly, Xi Wei couldn’t help his heart softening.
Actually, the little fellow was pretty cute.
He was his own flesh and blood, after all, so if he was naughty then he’d just let him be naughty. He might become more sensible after he grew up.
Xi Wei’s hopes, however, weren’t fulfilled. After little Dylan grew up, he was still as naughty as ever, and stirred up trouble to no end.
When a child was three, according to imperial custom, the parents would hire a tutor to teach them some basics like grammar and counting. Xi Wei carefully selected a preschool teacher who had great talent from the capital planet, and hired him for a lot of money, thinking that this mentor had to be reliable, and wouldn’t teach his child wrong.
As it turned out, on the first day after the teacher arrived at their house, he grumbled again and again, and went to the eldest prince to lodge a complaint.
He sighed and said, “I really can’t teach Prince Dylan… Not only did he take my computer and use it to pad the table leg, I taught him how to write, and look what he wrote!”
Xi Wei took it for a glance, and immediately got a stomachache from anger. You call this writing? This had better be called chickenscratch!
He saw that little Dylan had drawn a bunch of weird lines on top of every word, just like the demon-expelling amulets that the grandmasters in ghost movies scribbled onto yellow paper with their own blood.
Xi Wei was fuming. He grabbed his son and asked him, “Is this the way the teacher taught you to write? Do you know how to listen to what people say? And you even used the teacher’s computer to pad the table leg, you’re really something, huh?”
Dylan looked at the mass of chickenscratch and said earnestly, “Writing this way looks prettier, Daddy.”
Xi Wei was really angry about that chickenscratch. “Pretty?! Do you know what pretty means?”
He didn’t listen to what the teacher said, and wrote out “artistic” words like this. Xi Wei really took his hat off to him.
After being scolded, little Dylan pouted, looking wronged. His eyes looked like they were about to spill over with tears. He sniffled and said, choked up, “Daddy, you’re bullying me. I’m going to go find Father.”
He was still small, but he was a clever little devil. He knew Xi Wei had a strict temper, but Klaire always protected him. As soon as Xi Wei gave him a talking-to, he thought of finding his father to save him.
Xi Wei sneered and said, “Give up, your father isn’t on the capital planet.”
“Boohoo…” Dylan started crying, upset.
Xi Wei didn’t actually beat him. The kid was still small, so he really couldn’t lay hands on him. What’s more, the little fellow really knew how to act cute. He pouted and gazed at Xi Wei with big eyes, looking wronged, and readily said, “Daddy, I was wrong.”
Helpless, Xi Wei could only rub his head and warn him seriously, “You have to listen to what the teacher says, understand? Write the way the teacher teaches you.”
“Okay, Daddy.” Dylan nodded earnestly.
Xi Wei started filming his new movie, and once he got busy preparing, he frequently neglected this child. On top of that, Klaire was often away from the capital planet. Prince Dylan was free to roam for most of his childhood. When he turned five, Xi Wei and Klaire had a discussion and decided to send him to the capital planet’s St. Paul Academy.
Back then, Xi Wei and Klaire were also five when they started studying at this school. Almost all the descendants of the royal family went to this school, and Xi Wei felt more at ease with the teachers there.
On the day that they sent him to school, at the school gate, he held onto Xi Wei’s waist with both arms and said, “Daddy, I don’t want to leave you.”
The child looked up at him, his little face full of earnestness. Xi Wei couldn’t resist smiling and pinching his face. “If you can listen to what others say at school, I’ll be satisfied. If you’re naughty and make trouble, and you make the teacher call your parents, see how I’ll fix you.”
Dylan thought his dad wasn’t easy to please. He turned to hug Klaire. “Father, is it okay if I don’t go to school? I really don’t want to leave you.”
Klaire rubbed his head softly and exposed what he was thinking with one sentence. “What do you mean, you can’t bear to leave us? What you really hate is studying.”
“...” Exposed, the little fellow’s head immediately drooped. He looked like he was about to go to the gallows.
He hadn’t liked studying ever since he was little. When he was in preschool, every time his tutor gave him a test, he always hovered with difficulty on the edge of passing. Now that he was about to officially start school, of course the little fellow was afraid.
Klaire sighed helplessly and said, “Our requirements of you aren’t that high, and we’re not asking that you be number one in every test, so you don’t have to feel too much pressure. You can ask your classmates when you come across information you don’t understand.”
Dylan nodded earnestly. “Oh.”
Xi Wei looked at him for a moment, then said bluntly, “It’s about time, you should go register.”
Just when Dylan had walked forward two steps, he looked reluctantly back at Xi Wei. That wronged expression of his looked like his dad was about to push him into a pit of fire. Xi Wei said angrily, “Hurry up and go!”
“...Oh.” Dylan could only unwillingly go to line up for registration.
Klaire really didn’t have any high requirements for his son. The way he saw it, it was enough if the kid could grow up healthily. Things like grades weren’t important at all. If you were counting top students among their two families’ descendants, Xi Wei and him were enough. There was no need to make Dylan compete with them.
He was a little kid, so as long as he didn’t make a huge mistake on a matter of principle, he could be completely forgiven for something like failing a test.
As it turned out, in the first comprehensive exam for the new freshmen of St. Paul Academy, the little Prince Dylan took the second-to-last place.
Holding his report card, the little fellow was too scared to go home, worried that his dad would hit him.
Klaire had no choice but to fly Bluestar all over the capital planet searching for him, and finally found the kid in a little corner of a 24-hour café, sprawled across a table, fast asleep. Klaire walked over and picked him up.
He carried the kid all the way home. Xi Wei, who’d long since known that this little idiot had gotten second-to-last place on the test, had a belly full of anger that he was waiting to vent. As it turned out, while sleeping in his father’s arms, the kid was still murmuring in a daze, “Daddy, don’t hit me...Daddy, I’m scared…”
Xi Wei: “...”
Thinking that this kid was really asleep, Xi Wei’s heart softened a bit. Then, while Klaire was carrying him upstairs, Xi Wei took a careful look and found that this little fellow’s eyelashes were trembling, and he was peeking out at him.
“...” Xi Wei walked up in two quick steps to block Klaire’s way, and seized the little fellow’s ear. “Aren't you capable, daring to act in front of me? You’re really smart, wanting to pretend you’re asleep to escape punishment.”
Dylan saw that he couldn’t hide, and reached out and hugged Klaire tight, thrusting his head desperately into his father’s arms.
Xi Wei pulled him out and put him on the ground, and was just going to hit him when he nimbly ducked behind Klaire.
“...”
One big and one small one chased each other around Klaire. Caught in the middle, Klaire was quite helpless. He could only reach out and gently hold Xi Wei. “Don’t be too angry, it was only because he was afraid of you beating him that he didn’t dare to come home. Don’t worry if his grades aren’t good. We’ll hire a teacher over break to give him remedial lessons slowly, and it’ll be fine.”
Xi Wei took a glance at the little idiot who was sneakily poking out his head from behind his father to look around, slapped his head and said, “What are you looking at? You’re still not going off to bed?”
As if he’d gotten amnesty, Dylan immediately flew upstairs, ran into his room and locked the door.
Xi Wei looked at the closed door and gave a long sigh. He said, “I’ve already given up on him. From now on, I’ll leave it to you to manage him!”
Klaire smiled and hugged Xi Wei tight. “Alright, alright, besides his bad grades, isn’t he doing well? The little fellow’s pretty smart. Look, he’s learned to act in self-preservation at such a young age, isn’t this inherited from your talent for acting? Maybe he isn’t interested in studying at all. Let’s wait until he grows a little bigger and then see.”
Xi Wei rubbed his temples in exhaustion. “Fine, fine, I won’t manage him, as long as he doesn’t commit murder or arson, he can grow up however he likes.”
“Have you been very tired lately?” Klaire asked him softly, as he took him up in a princess carry. He walked towards the bedroom and said, “I’ll give you a massage. Don’t get too angry because of that little brat.”
In his bedroom, Dylan pricked up his ears and listened carefully to the movements outside. When he heard his parents go into the neighboring bedroom and close the door, he let out a long breath, patted his chest and said, “Great, I’ve escaped another disaster.”
Lying on his bed, Dylan rolled his whirling eyes and earnestly prayed, “Please let Daddy hurry up and have another baby, preferably a little omega sister. That way he can give all his attention to my little sister, and not pay attention to me anymore.”
Maybe it was due to little Dylan’s prayer taking effect, but that night, Klaire and Xi Wei took a roll in the sheets, and a month later, Xi Wei let out the news that he was pregnant again.
Dylan was wild with happiness. He hugged Xi Wei and curiously stuck his head against him. “Daddy, is my little sister inside? How come she’s not moving?”
Xi Wei rubbed his head and said, “It’s still early, you won’t be able to hear her. How do you know it’s a little sister?”
Dylan lifted up his little face, and his eyes were bright with expectation. “It’s definitely a little sister, a little sister would be so cute. I can give her lots of beautiful flower skirts to wear, and I’ve drawn her lots of comics. After she’s born she can see them. I’ll help Daddy take care of her in the future.”
“...” Xi Wei said with a headache, “Forget it, you’ll definitely lead your sister astray!”
Dylan felt that his young heart had taken a big blow.
How would he lead his sister astray? He’s clearly the best big brother in the world!
***
4 hours and 8 minutes for 2,549 words, or 9.7 minutes for every 100 words. An increase in rate by 2.1 minutes...that's a veritable jump... 😅
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Thank You for the updates!!! Huhuhu the end is already near😭😭
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ReplyDeleteDylan... this little nugget is the cutest thing ever. So entertaining! 😂
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