Chapter 452 The Mischievous Kids' "Armed Conflict"

Su Yue stood by the window, looking at the night outside.

Gu Beichen stood behind her and draped a coat over her shoulders.

"Do you regret it?" he asked.

"Regret what?"

"That medicine, if auctioned off, could be exchanged for a better microscope."

Su Yue turned around and watched as the child's tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed and his breathing became steady.

"Gu Beichen".

She called him by his full name.

Do you know what I'm most proud of?

"What?"

"I want to be able to reduce one broken family in this world and increase one child who calls me 'Mom'."

The night breeze rustled through the coconut grove.

The production line in the distance was brightly lit.

That was the light of hope.

In more distant places, an even greater struggle for life and interests has only just begun.

The sea breeze rustled through the coconut groves, and the excitement of the celebration banquet at Blue Ocean Biopharmaceutical Factory hadn't yet faded, but life in the Gu family courtyard had already returned to the mundane routines of daily life.

Early in the morning, Gu Beichen hung his crisp deputy chief of staff uniform back in the closet and changed into a loose white undershirt and shorts.

On the stove, a large iron pot of white porridge was bubbling away, while a stack of scallion pancakes next to it was sizzling and emitting a fragrant aroma.

Su Yue came out of the bedroom yawning, her hair a mess on her forehead.

Last night, she stayed up until midnight again to keep track of the follow-up treatment data for that child with sepsis.

"Awake?" Gu Beichen didn't even turn his head, skillfully flipping the pancake over. "Go wash your face, dinner will be served in ten minutes."

Su Yue shuffled up behind him in her slippers and rubbed her chin against his broad back.

"Deputy Chief of Staff Gu, aren't you afraid of losing face by making breakfast and taking care of the children?"

Gu Beichen reached back and ruffled her hair; his palm was dry and warm.

"There's nothing shameful about cooking for your wife and kids."

Two screams came from the courtyard, followed by a series of loud footsteps.

Gu Ping'an held a wooden pistol in his hand, and Gu Ningjing hugged a naked doll. The two siblings rushed into the kitchen like two cannonballs.

"Reporting, sir! I want to report Gu Ningjing!" Gu Ping'an stood at attention, panting, pointing at his sister, "She stole my sailor shirt to use as a blanket for her ugly doll!"

Gu Ningjing, not to be outdone, hid the doll behind her back and shouted with her head tilted back, "It's borrowed! Borrowed! If I don't cover the doll with a blanket, she'll catch a cold!"

Su Yue's head was throbbing from the noise of these two clowns. She straightened up from Gu Beichen's back and flicked each of them on the forehead.

"If you make any more noise this early in the morning, I'll throw you both into the sea to feed the fish."

The two siblings immediately fell silent and obediently went to wash their hands and serve the porridge.

After breakfast, Gu Beichen drove the two little monsters to the military kindergarten and also took Su Yue to the factory.

As soon as the jeep came to a stop at the kindergarten gate, Su Yue saw the homeroom teacher, Ms. Wang, standing by the large iron gate, wringing her hands as if she wanted to say something but couldn't.

Teacher Wang is a young woman who graduated less than two years ago. She usually gets weak in the knees when she sees Gu Beichen in his military uniform, but today she unusually stood in front of the car.

"Um... Commander Gu, Factory Director Su," Teacher Wang forced a salute, her voice barely audible, "Could you... stay for a moment?"

Gu Beichen turned off the engine, opened the door and got out of the car. The oppressive feeling he brought back from the radar station had lessened considerably, but it still made Teacher Wang take a half step back.

"Did Ping An and Ning Jing cause trouble?" Su Yue got out of the passenger seat and asked bluntly.

Teacher Wang glanced at the brother and sister who were sneaking into the classroom with their schoolbags on their backs, and nodded with a wry smile.

“Yesterday afternoon during activity class, Ningjing and Panghu from Class 2 got into a fight over a new doll. It was originally just kids fighting over a toy, but when Pingan saw his little sister crying, he rushed over and gave Panghu a… sweeping kick.”

Su Yue raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Gu Beichen.

"Sweeping leg kick? Did you teach that?"

Gu Beichen touched his nose and remained silent.

That was the basic self-defense skill he taught his son at home. He never expected that the boy would put it into practice and use it in his first battle against a toy snatching incident at kindergarten.

"What did Fat Tiger's parents say?" Gu Beichen asked.

"Fat Tiger's father is Officer Zhang from the logistics department. He didn't say anything, but Fat Tiger cried all afternoon, saying he'd never play with the Gu family again." Teacher Wang said helplessly, "Although he wasn't injured, the nature of this..."

"Understood." Gu Beichen nodded. "Thank you for your help, teacher. I'll handle it when I get home tonight."

On the way back to the factory, Su Yue stared at Gu Beichen's profile with a half-smile.

"Deputy Chief of Staff Gu, your troops are quite capable. Are they the tyrants of the kindergarten?"

Gu Beichen stared ahead, tapping his long fingers twice on the steering wheel.

"This kid, he's just like me, always protecting his own."

"Who does Ning Jing take after when she snatches other people's toys?" Su Yue retorted.

Gu Beichen paused for a second, turned to look at her, and said confidently.

"Whatever you want. If you set your sights on something, you have to get it."

Su Yue laughed in anger, grabbed the hat from the car seat and threw it at him.

The "military court" after dinner was set up in the living room.

Gu Beichen didn't sit on the sofa, but instead moved a small stool and sat opposite the coffee table.

Gu Pingan and Gu Ningjing stood against the wall, their little hands behind their backs, heads down, counting the ants on the ground.

"Tell me, who started it?" Gu Beichen's voice wasn't loud, and he wasn't angry, but these two kids were most afraid of him when he was talking about serious matters.

Gu Ningjing pouted, tears welling up in her eyes.

"That doll...it's really pretty. It has blonde hair and it can blink. I wanted to touch it, but Gian wouldn't let me and even pushed me away."

"So you just grabbed it?" Gu Beichen asked.

"I want to trade my White Rabbit milk candy with him!" Gu Ningjing said, feeling extremely aggrieved. "He won't trade, and he even wants to eat my candy!"

Gu Pingan couldn't help but interject, "That fat tiger is bullying people! He pushed my sister, and I only hit her because I saw she was about to fall! Dad, you said that protecting women is a man's responsibility!"

Su Yue was peeling an apple when she heard the phrase "a man's responsibility," and her knife almost slipped from her grasp. She threw the apple peel, still attached, into the trash can, then cut the peeled apple in half and handed it to her two children.

"Ping An, protecting your sister is the right thing to do. But is there no other way besides resorting to violence?"

Gu Pingan took a bite of the apple, his cheeks puffed out: "He won't listen to reason, his fists are the fastest."

“If he were at the radar station, this would be called mutual assistance between comrades. But in a kindergarten, this is called an armed attack.” Gu Beichen pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was a “reconciliation letter” that the clerk had just delivered that afternoon. On it was a crookedly written letter of forgiveness from Fatty Tiger—clearly, it had been forced to be written by the adults at home.

Gu Beichen spread the paper out on the coffee table.

“Ping An, if you had kicked him in the knee, he would have had to go to the hospital today to have a cast on. You are stronger than your peers now, and that is your weapon. Weapons are for protecting our country, not for bullying the weak.”