Free Web NovelChapter 431: Chapter 429: Getting Punished
Little Douzi waved to the three of them. "Mom, Grandpa, Uncle Xiangyang, we’re over here!"
"You little rascal, you scared Mom to death!" Lin Lan squatted on the ground and started sobbing.
Seeing Lin Lan cry, Little Douzi started crying too. "Don’t cry, Mom. I was wrong..."
Dandan and Little Hai looked at the three adults placatingly. "Auntie, Uncle Xiangyang, Grandpa Li."
Old Li didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he looked at them. "Little Hai is here too? When did you get in?"
Li Xiangyang pulled back the tarp and climbed into the truck. Furious, he went over and smacked each of them on the bottom twice. "Getting bold, huh? What do you think you’re doing? How dare you sneak onto the truck."
Dandan mumbled, "I... We wanted to take the big truck to Shilian..."
"I’ll deal with you all in a minute!" Li Xiangyang picked up Little Douzi and handed him to Old Li. "Dad, catch."
Old Li caught him and gave his bottom a couple of pats. "Look what you did. You terrified your mother."
"I was wrong!" Little Douzi went over and hugged Lin Lan. "Mom, I was wrong. I didn’t mean to. We were going to call for Uncle Xiangyang once we got out of the city."
Lin Lan pulled him over and smacked his bottom a couple more times. "If you wanted to go, why didn’t you tell me? What if something had happened?"
Little Douzi hugged her. "I won’t do it again. I’ll tell you next time."
Old Li said to Li Xiangyang, "Xiuyun’s family doesn’t know yet. I’ll go let them know. You take the kids inside."
"Okay!" Li Xiangyang said to Dandan and Little Hai, "Get inside. Tell me what happened. Whose idea was this?"
"Oh!" The three of them dejectedly followed the two adults into the house.
Lin Lan made the three of them stand in a line against the wall. "Tell the truth, and you’ll save yourselves a spanking. If you lie, I’ll beat your butts black and blue!"
The three exchanged a glance, scuffing their toes on the floor. "We know."
Li Xiangyang looked at Little Hai. "You go first. How did you get out?"
Little Hai glanced at him and scratched his head. "We planned it yesterday. We set an alarm before bed to wake up at five today. Dandan and Douzi opened the door for me."
Lin Lan looked at Dandan and Little Douzi. "What do you two have to say?"
Dandan said, "It was my idea. I told Douzi to find out when Uncle Xiangyang was leaving, and then..."
Little Douzi added, "...The alarm went off in the morning, so we got up... We were wrong. We shouldn’t have lied, and we shouldn’t have climbed into the truck..."
Just then, Yao Xiuyun, Yang Dingbang, Yang Xiaoman, and the old madam arrived with Old Li. They didn’t know whether to laugh or cry looking at the children standing against the wall.
The old madam stepped forward and smacked each of them once. "Such nerve! Make them stand against the wall all day. They’re not allowed to go anywhere."
Yang Dingbang gave each of them a knock on the head. "Stand up straight."
"That’s right. Daring to sneak out in the middle of the night. If your auntie hadn’t found you, you’d probably be out of the city by now." Yao Xiuyun twisted Little Hai’s ear. "Have you ever thought about what would happen if Mom woke up in the morning and couldn’t find you?"
She had been woken up by Old Li, and when he told her Little Hai was at his house, she hadn’t believed him. She’d even tucked the boy in during the night; he was definitely in his bed.
Even after Old Li explained, she still didn’t believe it. It was only when she went upstairs and saw he was really gone that the retroactive fear hit her.
"Ow... ow... ow..." Little Hai stood on his tiptoes. "Mom, let go! I’ll talk."
Yao Xiuyun let him go and pointed at the three of them. "That hurts? If you run off and get caught by traffickers, they’ll chop off your hands and feet."
Little Hai peeked up at her, then pointed at Lin Lan. "If you couldn’t find me, you’d definitely be just like Auntie, crying really loudly."
Hearing this, Yao Xiuyun got angry and smacked him a few more times. "You heard your auntie crying and you still didn’t come out? You just hid there and let the adults worry?"
Dandan glanced guiltily at Lin Lan. "Auntie, we didn’t mean to not answer. We were asleep at first, so we didn’t know you were all up. We only heard you later."
Little Douzi nodded. "We climbed into the truck and waited and waited, but Uncle Xiangyang never came to drive, so we fell asleep leaning on a pile of soft stuff. Then, we heard Mom crying and calling ’Douzi,’ and that’s when we woke up. I answered, but you didn’t hear me."
The adults exchanged a glance. Li Xiangyang pointed a finger at the children. "Keep standing against the wall. This punishment ends when you’ve properly reflected on your mistake."
The three nodded listlessly. "We get it."
"The older they get, the harder they are to manage," the old madam sighed, then left with Yang Dingbang, Yao Xiuyun, and Yang Xiaoman.
Old Li came out of the kitchen and said to Lin Lan, "The wontons are ready. Let them eat first, then they can continue standing."
Lin Lan nodded and looked at the three children. "Go wash your hands and eat."
"Okay!" The three of them obediently walked to the kitchen.
Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang brought the wontons to the table. After they finished eating, the three little ones obediently went back to standing against the wall. freēwebnovel.com
Li Xiangyang came downstairs with his bag. "I’m leaving."
Lin Lan and Old Li saw him out, giving him a few last-minute reminders. They watched him drive the truck out of the yard before turning back into the house.
Little Douzi looked at Lin Lan sincerely and said, "Mom, we know we were wrong. We won’t sneak out and scare you again."
Dandan and Little Hai also said, "Auntie, Grandpa Li, we really know we were wrong. From now on, if we want to go somewhere, we’ll tell you first. We won’t sneak away again."
Old Li looked at Lin Lan. "They know they were wrong. Why don’t we let them off the hook this time?"
Lin Lan nodded, then looked at Dandan and Little Hai. "Go home and apologize to your mother and great-grandmother."
"Okay!" The two of them left together and went to their respective homes.
Old Li looked at Little Douzi. "Are you going to the bakery with Mom, or to the department store with Grandpa?"
Little Douzi glanced at Lin Lan. "I’ll go with Mom."
"You little rascal, you gave your mom such a fright," Old Li said, ruffling his hair. He then grabbed his keys and left.
Lin Lan grabbed her bag and keys and pushed her bicycle out the door. Little Douzi climbed onto the back seat and wrapped his arms around her waist. "I’m sorry, Mom."
Lin Lan turned and hugged him for a moment before getting on the bike and pedaling toward the South City market.
When the mother and son arrived at the bakery, Lin Yuezhen and the other two had already finished making the morning’s small bread rolls and pumpkin cakes. They were starting to knead dough for sachima.
Tong Xinglan looked at Little Douzi, who wasn’t cheerfully helping with the dough like he usually did. "Huh, what’s wrong with Douzi today? Did you get a spanking?"
Little Douzi shook his head. "I didn’t get a spanking. I had to stand in the corner."
Tong Xinglan grinned at him. "You must have done something bad! Let me tell you, standing in the corner is nothing. A real punishment is getting whipped on the legs with a thin bamboo switch. That’s what really hurts. And after the whipping, you have to kneel. The feeling... tsk tsk, it’s awful."
Qiaohui glanced at her with a smile. "Xinglan, did you get spanked as a kid, too?"
Tong Xinglan shook her head, smiling. "Not me. My brother, though... my old man used to beat him something fierce. Every time, his legs would be covered in welts that looked like caterpillars."
Little Douzi thought of the caterpillars on vegetable leaves and shivered. "He got hit that badly? Poor uncle."
Tong Xinglan looked at him. "Your uncle did bad things, so he deserved to be hit! What bad thing did you do to get put in the corner by your mom?"
"I..." Little Douzi glanced at Lin Lan and lowered his head. "We climbed onto the big truck..."
