Chapter 884 - 882: Energy Exhausted

In the distance, Zero, hearing Candy’s complaint, turned around and made a funny face at her.

Candy was so mad she stamped her foot.

"Ugh, I’m so annoyed! And I still can’t go over there."

Candy didn’t know what would happen if other kids knowingly ran to the water’s edge where it was off-limits, but as the study committee member, if she ran over there she’d definitely get a full-on lecture from the homeroom teacher.

If it was serious, they’d even call her parents.

Plus... Zero would definitely secretly tell her brother.

After carefully thinking through the consequences, Candy turned around and rejoined the game team.

Let Zero go fish by himself!

Seeing that Candy was playing with the classmates again, Zero shifted his gaze back to the male teacher whose rod had just snapped.

"Tsk tsk, that fish just now was probably over twenty jin, huh."

"For sure!"

After that snapped rod, everyone suddenly had hope again.

Their goal wasn’t big—just to catch a ten-jin-ish big fish.

Only it was like the heavens were messing with them.

By the time the cafeteria delivered the lunchboxes at noon, the dozen or so teachers had only caught five little river fish.

All together, they didn’t even weigh three liang.

Feeling Zero’s weird look, the teachers were so embarrassed they didn’t know what to say.

"We’ll try again this afternoon, maybe we’ll hook a big one."

Listening to Zero’s sincere tone, the principal just felt like this AI was trying to gaslight him.

Are big fish really that easy to catch?

As the students started lining up for lunchboxes, Mo Jingchun, who had just eaten and returned to the office to rest, turned on his computer to check the outing location in real time via satellite.

On a big green lawn, it was packed with students in matching uniforms.

Suddenly, the satellite camera locked onto and zoomed in on Zero by the riverside testing out the feel of the fishing rod.

At the same time, Zero, sensing something, instantly looked up at the sky hidden behind the clouds.

Zero grinned and waved at the sky.

Sitting at the computer, Mo Jingchun saw Zero waving at him and couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his mouth.

"You fishing like that is basically cheating."

Others might not know, but he sure did—Zero Energy could see clearly whether the fish under the water were biting the bait or not.

As if to prove Mo Jingchun’s point, just as he was about to switch the camera to see what Candy was doing, Zero suddenly jerked up the rod.

"Got one!"

"Come on over, take a look, fish is on the line!"

For some reason, Mo Jingchun felt Zero was kind of asking for a beating right now.

If looks could kill, those teachers’ eyes would’ve killed Zero a dozen times over.

Ten-odd minutes later, after playing the fish for ages, it finally surfaced.

Zero took one look and said regretfully,

"Oh! What a pity, this one’s probably only a bit over eight jin."

Listen to that, seriously, listen to that—how is that something a human being would say? Huh?

Wait, right, this guy isn’t human in the first place.

Cold heart, cold words—no surprise there.

Only... how were they supposed to deal with this fish?

Under everyone’s gaze, Zero silently pulled a red plastic bag out of his pocket and stuffed the fish into it.

With everyone watching, a drone flew down.

Everyone stared blankly as the fish flew away with the drone, not recovering for a long while.

That operation... nobody could top it.

Only Candy, who was eating under the shade of a tree, watched the flying fish with squinty eyes and a smile.

"Hehe, we’re having fish tonight～"

"Everyone, after you finish eating, put your lunchboxes all together into the trash bags. Class monitors and study committee members, keep an eye out—if anyone dares litter, tell me directly."

Faced with the homeroom teacher’s authority, the whole class nodded seriously.

Candy and Xiang’Er were even more on it; their little eyes were scanning everywhere, ready to pounce on anyone who littered.

"Xiaopang."

In the middle of stuffing his face, Xiaopang looked up at Candy in confusion.

"What?"

"No littering, okay～"

Hearing that, Xiaopang glanced around himself—he didn’t see a single piece of trash.

"There isn’t any."

"Study committee, you’re not getting back at me, are you?"

"How could I? This is called a gentle reminder."

Xiaopang went quiet for a while, then scooted over a bit.

Yep, the study committee member holds grudges.

All he did was mention her sister-in-law once, and it’s been days—she still remembers.

He sighed and made up his mind: he couldn’t run his mouth like that anymore.

The old man was right—misfortune comes from the mouth.

Luckily the old man didn’t know what he’d said in front of Mo Xiaoxue, or the belt would’ve snapped from all the whipping.

Imagining that scene made the flesh on Xiaopang’s face quiver a little.

Too scary.

Candy saw Xiaopang actually get spooked by her and scratched her head in confusion.

The kid who’s not afraid of heaven or earth but only his dad—what was up with Xiaopang today, getting scared just from one sentence from her?

Could it be because her mighty tiger aura shook him to his core?

"What’s wrong?" Xiang’Er looked up and asked.

"Nothing, eat up. We’re going to play soccer later."

"Okay. But we’ve gotta be careful. This morning some sixth-grade senior kicked the ball right into a classmate’s face."

"Huh? They weren’t hurt, right?"

"Nah, they just cried."

After closing the computer, Mo Jingchun stretched and headed for the bedroom.

In the afternoon, when the students hiked back again, they were all dragging their feet, their energy nearly spent.

As soon as they got on the school bus, Candy leaned against the seat, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

There were lots of kids like Candy, she wasn’t a special case.

The driver glanced at the rows of passed-out students in the back and was kind of impressed the teachers had managed to get them to walk all the way back to school.

Next to Candy, Xiang’Er, still full of energy, took a sip of hot water and watched everyone lying around exhausted with a bright smile.

When he got the notification, Mo Jingchun was a bit stunned.

The students had all fallen asleep on the bus? Parents who got the notice should come pick up their kids.

Looking at the group message sent by Zero, Mo Jingchun, who had just walked out of Building No. 2 of the lab, rubbed his temples in frustration.

Looked like the kids had gone a little wild on this autumn outing.

When he usually took Candy out to play, she very rarely ended up so tired she fell asleep the moment she got in the car.

Mo Jingchun was the first parent to arrive.

But when he saw Candy, she was already standing outside the bus with Zero, ready to leave.

"Didn’t they say you were asleep?"

Still a bit groggy, Candy yawned and said helplessly,

"The second we parked, Zero yelled and woke me up."

As she spoke, Candy yawned again.

"Brother, I want to sleep."

"Sleep after dinner."

"Okaaaay～"

Mo Jingchun looked up at the time—it was already four-thirty.

"Zero, call your sister-in-law and Zhou Yaling, tell them to leave work early. Let them know we’re waiting for them downstairs."

"Got it, boss, calling right now."

Bzz bzz bzz～ bzz bzz bzz～ bzz bzz bzz～

Zhou Yaling, who was in the middle of making a spreadsheet, heard her phone buzzing nonstop. Puzzled, she picked it up and looked.

Short number: six zeros.

"Hello, Zero, why are you calling me?"

"Boss says you can get off work early and head out. Candy’s going home to sleep."

"Leaving early? Nice!"