The two boys nodded, accepting the punishment by the Principal, and their mother felt relieved. They stood up and bowed to the principal and Jiang Yuyan.
"We are sorry, Lu Lijun," the two boys said, and Lu Lijun just nodded lightly.
"I hope Mrs. Lu is fine with this, if so then we all can leave," the principal proposed.
"Not yet," Said Jiang Yuyan.
Hearing it, the two women and the boys felt their hearts were pounding faster to think about what happened now.
"We are yet to decide Lu Lijun’s punishment," Jiang Yuyan declared, and everyone felt puzzled.
Lu Lijun didn’t feel surprised or questioned her. Standing up from the chair, he said, "I am ready to get my punishment."
"May I ask why we need to punish him, Mrs. Lu?" the principal asked.
"Because he made a mistake," Jiang Yuyan said.
"I need to know what mistake so we can decide his punishment. Is it because he hit his friends?" the principal asked as he and others too waited to know what Lu Lijun did.
Jiang Yuyan looked at Lu Lijun who was standing there not having any guilty expressions, but he was ready to get punished.
"He can tell everyone by himself," Jiang Yuyan commented.
Hearing it, Lu Lijun spoke.
"My mistake is to hide the truth when others asked me and instead, I took all the blame on me. Hiding the truth that can encourage the culprit is a mistake. When it was happening for a week, I should have informed the teacher or the family so that things wouldn’t be this far and there wouldn’t be violence. I let them bully me, it was a mistake. Lastly, I don’t regret beating them and I am ready to get punished in advance because if they do it again, I won’t hesitate to beat them in an even worse way."
Lu Lijun finished talking and others looked at him in disbelief while Jiang Yuyan praised him, "That was good, especially the last one."
When Lu Lijun didn’t tell anyone and allowed them to bully him, it was not like he couldn’t get back at them even though they were two. The reason he was being calm and put up with them for an entire week was Jiang Yuyan. He knew, if he did something to these two, she had to come to the school to sort it out and what he thought came true. He didn’t want Jiang Yuyan to know about what those boys talked about her but in the end, he lost his calm as those boys crossed the limit, and in reflex; he beat them up.
The principal didn’t know how to react to it and the others too looked at Jiang Yuyan to know what exactly this woman was. How could she be so confident and what things she taught to this little guy at home that he understood what she meant and got ready to get punished even?
Xiao Min smiled at it and thought, "Boss would have been the best mother in the world only if...." the smile on his face disappeared as his thoughts reminded him about something painful.
The principal snapped out of the daze and spoke, "Lu Lijun, you too will clean the music room with them for a month." Then the principal passed his gaze across two boys, "And if there is any fight between you three, I won’t go this easy. The next punishment would be the suspension from a school for the month, got it?"
The three boys nodded, and everyone left the room. Jiang Yuyan had to go to the office while Lu Lijun still had the classes to attend. Both went for their own business.
----------
When Jiang Yuyan went to the office, she had to attend the meetings. As they had upcoming projects, they conducted the meeting to discuss it and what kind of opinions or suggestions experts had about the proposal. Jiang Yuyan had already studied about it the previous night, so she had an idea and most of the ideas given in the meeting couldn’t catch her attention. She listened to them and decided to think about it later.
"How many days we have for this project?" Jiang Yuyan asked as she looked at the pile of files on her work table.
"A week," Xiao Min replied.
Jiang Yuyan could only give out a deep sigh.
"Boss, how about we get Mr. Lu Feng’s advice on it?" Xiao Min proposed.
"We can’t depend on him all the time. One day I have to learn and do everything by myself and in that process, we might lose more than gaining."
"Right now, we are not in the condition to lose," Xiao Min informed.
Jiang Yuyan was frustrated with the few things and asked, "We have this big company and we must have so many experts we here, then why they are not of any use?"
"Though we have them, sometimes the people who oppose us might not let them help us with all they have so it’s better to get our person whom we can trust," Xiao Min suggested.
"Need to fix that opposing side soon. For now, let me go through it and let’s work on it till it’s time to leave."
"Yes, boss."
Being tired after finishing the work, Jiang Yuyan left the office to pick up Lu Lijun from the school and then to go home.
Lu Lijun sat in the car and they left for the home. Jiang Yuyan didn’t talk to him, and Lu Lijun was already expecting this.
"Are you still angry?" Lu Lijun asked.
"Do you even care?" Jiang was angry because he didn’t tell her even though she asked him again and again.
"I don’t care for anyone but you."
His answer softened her a bit, "Don’t go beating around people if you can solve the things first by just talking."
"If you can break someone’s bones for hurting me, then I can do the same when they talk bad about you. For me, talking bad about you is like hurting you," Lu Lijun countered.
Jiang Yuyan understood she set the wrong example in front of him by beating the man in the mall, but now there was no going back.
"This was the first and the last time you did it. After this, if there is something, first come to me."
"Hmm!"