The Main Characters Won't Stop Pampering Me!-Chapter 91: Chi Song

The tension between Yuanying and her father, Chi Yuantian, was still palpable, even across the school grounds.

Earlier that morning, Huaijin had seen Yuantian drop Yuanying off. He had merely given her a curt nod and a stiff, "Ensure your performance today reflects the Chi standard," before driving off.

Yuanying hadn’t even looked upset; she simply looked resigned, used to the lack of direct affection.

The hours crawled by until the final period in the Homeroom. Huaijin’s teacher, a cheerfully exhausted young woman named Ms. Li, clapped her hands together with excessive enthusiasm.

"Alright, my little scholars! Listen up, because I have fantastic news!" Ms. Li declared, her voice ringing with the promise of something truly exciting.

Huaijin, ever the pragmatist, immediately braced herself for a new, mandatory logic competition.

"Next Friday, the entire Primary and Junior sections are taking a break from the books! We are going on an amazing, full-day Parent-Child Picnic Trip to Maple Creek Wilderness Park!"

The announcement was met with an explosion of pure, unadulterated six-year-old hawling.

Pens dropped, chairs scraped back, and a collective cheer erupted that threatened to blow the windows out. The entire room dissolved into a chaotic, joyous frenzy of screaming children.

Huaijin, despite her inner executive cynicism, felt a genuine, childlike skip in her heart. ’A picnic? With fresh air and no quarterly reports?’ And the best part is that her Daddy can accompany her!

She knew her father would be absolutely ecstatic. Yuanfeng was deeply committed to his work, but he cherished any opportunity to spend quality, unstructured time with his daughter.

He would view the parent-child picnic not as a mandatory chore, but as a chance to bond, to talk about the ecological dynamics of local flora, and probably to try and calculate the trajectory of airborne sandwich crusts.

He would jump in happiness, and his face would light up with the sincere joy of a man granted a reprieve from solving the universe.

The chaos followed Huaijin right out of the classroom door.

Standing in the hallway was Yuanying, vibrating with an energy Huaijin hadn’t seen since she first got a complex algebraic equation right.

Beside her was her older brother, Chi Song, the eldest grandson, a handsome, quiet boy two years older than Yuanying, who mostly seemed to exist in a state of weary acceptance of his family’s high expectations.

"Huaijin! Huaijin! Did you hear? The picnic!" Yuanying grabbed Huaijin’s arm, pulling her close. "It’s perfect! You, me, and Song! We’ll find the best spot by the creek, and we can practice our skit outdoors, imagine the authenticity! And we’ll make sure to get photos of us three having fun to show... you know..."

Yuanying trailed off, but Huaijin knew the unspoken destination of those photos: Grandpa Chi, a subtle, visual proof of the siblings’ charming, model behavior.

Chi Song, ever practical, sighed. "Yuanying, we all know Father won’t come. He has the shareholder meeting that day. And Mother will probably ask us to stay home and revise the history curriculum instead of ’wasting’ time on a stupid outing."

The cheerful effervescence immediately drained out of Yuanying.

Her face fell, and the previous excitement evaporated, leaving behind the familiar look of disappointment and resignation that always accompanied the mention of her parents’ priorities.

"I know," Yuanying mumbled, kicking lightly at a scuff mark on the tiled floor. "It’s just... it would be nice. I saw Ms. Li’s itinerary; they are doing a three-legged race. Father is really good at balance because of his golf."

The simple, heartbreaking longing in her voice, the desire for a simple, silly, normal father-daughter activity, was like a punch to Huaijin’s gut.

Huaijin looked at the two siblings: Yuanying, already mentally steeling herself for the rejection, and Chi Song, accepting his fate with weary pragmatism.

The vision of Chi Yuantian holding Yuanying’s lifeless body in the rain flashed in Huaijin’s mind.

That raw, agonizing love was real. It was just trapped behind a thick, impenetrable wall of corporate ambition and crippling awkwardness.

’This is it,’ Huaijin realized. ’This isn’t just a picnic; it’s a massive, flashing signpost of the future. I can’t let this opportunity slip.’

She took one of Yuanying’s hands and one of Chi Song’s. She looked Yuanying directly in the eye, her gaze firm, warm, and entirely without doubt.

"Absolutely not," Huaijin declared, her voice small but ringing with authority. "We are all going. I mean, we three, you, Elder Brother, and me. But more importantly, your father is going too, sister Yuanying."

Yuanying stared at her, her eyes wide with shock. "Huaijin, you don’t understand! Father has the shareholder meeting! And Mother already said last year that those school trips are for ’unfocused’ children. They won’t let us."

Huaijin gave her the confident, slightly patronizing smile of a financier who just found a loophole in the tax code.

"Your father is not attending a meeting," Huaijin stated with absolute certainty, leaning in conspiratorially. "Your father is attending the Maple Creek Wilderness Park Parent-Child Picnic. And your mother will happily agree because this is the perfect opportunity for you and Song to showcase the Chi family’s harmonious, well-adjusted domesticity for your grandfather."

She knew exactly how to phrase it to appeal to the family’s obsession with appearances.

"I assure you, Sister Ying Ying, I have worked out the calculus. The political optics of a cheerful, involved Chi Family heir engaging in wholesome, familial bonding far outweigh the importance of a single shareholder meeting he can easily delegate to a vice-president. Delegating, in fact, shows trust and confidence in his team, reflecting positively on his leadership."

Yuanying and Song gaped at the tiny girl who had just broken down their parents’ decisions into a corporate strategy memo.

"How... how do you know what he thinks?" Yuanying whispered, utterly bewildered.

Huaijin puffed out her chest slightly, exaggerating the drama for effect.

’I am the daughter of the brilliant Professor Yuanfeng. I speak the language of High-Level Delegation and Strategic Familial Engagement.’