“I don’t have games on my phone. Go ask your mom!”
The little boy, with a cheeky grin, pleaded, “Brother, can I have the next one?”
Xiao Xun’s face suddenly turned serious, and he stated matter-of-factly, “No.”
Unexpectedly, the little boy tilted his head back, spat at Xiao Xun, and made a face at him.
Xiao Xun’s temper flared. He shot up from his seat, and the little boy, looking terrified, quickly ran back to his mother.
Watching the boy’s reaction, Xiao Xun simply wiped himself with a tissue without saying anything more.
To his surprise, the little boy sat next to his mother and burst into loud sobs. His crying attracted a server. “What’s wrong, little one?”
The boy just cried. His mother tried to comfort him for a long time, but it didn’t help. Annoyed and unable to enjoy her meal or conversation, she grabbed the boy and headed toward the door. “Which brother bullied you?”
The boy led his mother over to Xiao Xun. The mother, around forty, was dressed and presented as a well-maintained, stylish mom.
She sized up Xiao Xun, noting his ordinary office-worker attire. “You’re a grown man. Can’t you just lend my son your phone to play with? He’s just a child; he’ll get bored quickly and won’t break it.”
Xiao Xun glanced at Mu Jiahe. Mu Jiahe seemed disinclined to meddle, leisurely scrolling through his phone.
Xiao Xun leaned back, crossing his legs, and with a mischievous grin, said, “Someone your age wouldn’t be without a phone, would they? Your own child wants to play with a phone, and you have to ask someone else for it. How embarrassing is that to say out loud?”
The boy’s mother immediately took her phone out of her handbag and waved it around ostentatiously. “Who says I don’t have one? This phone cost nearly ten thousand yuan. What if he breaks it? And you, instead of just saying no, you had to make snide remarks.”
Xiao Xun crossed his arms. “I think people like you could open a cellar to grow mushrooms. But looking at you, you don’t seem like you’ve done any ‘cellar cultivation.’”
The boy’s mother didn’t understand at first. She thought to herself, *Why is this guy talking nonsense?*
After a moment, she caught on.
Looking at the server nearby and the harmless-looking Xiao Xun, her anger flared. “You…,” she began.
Before she could finish, her friend pulled her away, apologizing to Xiao Xun as they left.
Xiao Xun stood up and said to Mu Jiahe, “I don’t want to eat here anymore.”
Mu Jiahe said calmly, “As a man, be more magnanimous. Getting angry over trivial matters is unnecessary.”
Listening to Mu Jiahe, Xiao Xun took a deep breath, let out a heavy hmph, and sat back down.
That little boy was no easygoing child either. Seeing he couldn’t play with a phone, he started playing with the food in his pot.
He used his chopsticks to push the meatballs down into the pot. When they floated back up, he pushed them down again. He did this several times, finding it highly amusing.
The boy’s mother, seeing that her son wasn’t bothering anyone else, resumed her conversation with her friend.
At that moment, the boy fished out a meatball and popped it directly into his mouth. The heat was unbearable, not just for a child, but even for an adult.
Normally, he would have spat it out, but this boy didn't.
He insisted on imitating a ‘pea shooter,’ wanting to ‘shoot’ the meatball out.
This kid truly had talent; he shot it incredibly far. The meatball traced a beautiful arc through the air and landed precisely into the pot of a table by the window across the aisle.
The scalding hot red broth instantly splashed everywhere. Two couples enjoying their hot pot jumped up with cries of alarm, their clothes and bodies splattered with oil stains.
One of the men pointed at the boy’s mother, “Can you control your brat?”
The hot mom glanced at the man but said nothing.
The man, however, didn’t have Xiao Xun’s patience. He strode over aggressively, and the man sitting opposite him also came forward.
As the two men stood in front of her, the hot mom pulled the boy into her arms, patted the back of his head, and yelled at them, “What are you two doing? Don’t scare my son.”
“Your son spat a meatball into our pot, and you’re not even apologizing, yet you say we’re scaring him?”
The hot mom gently stroked her son’s head a couple more times. “Why are you yelling so loud? He’s just a child; he doesn’t understand. You’re grown adults; why are you picking on a child?”
A server came to mediate. “Forget it, forget it. We’re all here to eat; let’s prioritize harmony.”
The man pointed at the server, “Scram, you’re not needed here!”
The server quickly stepped aside, her duty fulfilled.
The man rested his hands on the table, tilted his head, and looked at the hot mom. “How do you want to resolve this incident today?”
The hot mom was startled by the man’s demeanor but maintained her composure. Noticing that many people were staring, she raised her voice. “After all this talk, you just want to extort money from me!”
The man’s brow furrowed. “Extort money?”
Then, he extended his right index finger and shook it gently. “Let me tell you, I don’t care for money.”
Seeing that everyone around had stood up and was watching them, the hot mom immediately pulled out her phone, took pictures of the four people in front of her, and shouted to the crowd, “Everyone, please be fair! These grown adults came specifically to bully my child, and now they want to extort money from me.”
The man’s gaze was sharp. He scanned the gazes of those around him, nodded, and said, “Is this how you handle things after you’ve made a mistake?”
The hot mom adopted an ‘what are you going to do about it’ attitude. “It’s just a child playing; he even gave you a free meatball. That’s at least two yuan for one meatball. My son is bringing you good fortune; don’t be ungrateful.”
The man suddenly smiled and began to clap. “Fine, I happen to be ungrateful.”
He then said to the man beside him, “We can’t just casually accept someone’s good fortune. Come on, let’s return the good fortune to them…”
As he spoke, the man directly lifted the scorching hot soup pot in front of him and overturned it onto the hot mom.
The other man was equally ruthless; he also splashed his hot pot onto them.
The hot mom let out a heart-wrenching scream, followed by the boy’s shriek.
The man gave a sinister smile. “This is the consequence of being born but not being raised properly.”
He then glanced at his companion behind him. “Let’s go.”
Two security guards from the hot pot restaurant entered from outside. “Don’t leave, we’ve already called the police.”
The man kicked one of them. “Get lost, what are you?”
The man next to him slapped the other security guard.
The two women accompanying the two men seemed unfazed. They hadn’t said a word throughout the incident and showed no sign of fear. The four of them then walked out the main entrance as if nothing had happened, after the assault.
The onlookers dared not intervene, but many took out their phones to record the incident and posted it online.