My Dreamy Old Husband
Chapter 871

When Stanley found out that his furkid had gotten itself in trouble again by biting someone at the kindergarten this time, he rushed over to the Fletcher residence. Judge had been hoodwinked twice for biting people. If it scored a hat trick this time around, it would definitely drive Stanley mad. Judge's dog-walking log tracker recorded its daily activities and whereabouts. It proved to be a handy tool that helped them tremendously the last time. Inspired by Stanley, Michael also installed the same monitoring device on his pets just to keep abreast with their daily adventures.

Thanks to this dog walking log tracker, Judge was once again vindicated of its assault charges that were uncalled for.

They sifted through the Cereberus’ tracking logs from the past few days to be analyzed, and they discovered that the trio had already been hanging around nearby the kindergarten just within days after Carmen started school.

As robots, Nicholas and Shae would follow a specific duration and route that was pre-programmed to complete their daily dog walking tasks.

The Cereberus would need to be walked a few miles a day in order to tire them out. Otherwise, they would have made good use of that excess energy to wreak havoc at home.

Linus was the one who programmed the walking route, while Nicholas and Shae were the ones performing the job. No one noticed that the dog walking route had been secretly altered!

All this while since the program had been tampered with, Nicholas had been walking the dogs near the kindergarten. They circled around from the front entrance to the alley with a dead-end at the back. Over there was a tree with a dog hole below it, which was connected to an abandoned lawn in the kindergarten!

At 10.00AM every morning, Nicholas would walk the dogs to the dog hole, and Carmen would call from the lawn on the other side. The dogs began digging the hole for two days until they managed to make a tunnel wide enough for them to travel in and out of the kindergarten conveniently. When the three hellhounds surfaced on the other side, it could be seen that the lawn was unoccupied, and so it became their secret base.

Carmen, Hope, and Ashton would always be waiting inside; one smuggled the dogs in while the other would be in charge of the lookout, and the last one would give out commands as she coordinated the operation.

As the video playback speed was sped up to 24 times, it could be observed that Carmen was smuggling the dogs in for the first few days just to play with them. Once they had their fun, the dogs would then return home. However, as time passed, other children at the kindergarten were fascinated by the humongous canines and came over to pet them as well.

The dogs gained popularity within a mere two days. As more children began lining up discreetly to pet the dogs, Carmen decided to turn it into a money-making venture.

She charged 1 dollar for a pet on the head, 2 for petting from the head all the way to the tail, and 3 for petting all three dogs together. They'd even get half price for the second petting, and 10 for a weekly pass of unlimited petting. Any banknotes above 10 were not accepted, simply because the cashier could not calculate more than two digits yet.

Ever since then, Carmen was in charge of the money while Hope was the dog keeper, and Ashton was responsible for maintaining order by making sure the children were lining up accordingly. Michael could not believe his eyes when he watched his daughter conscientiously counting the banknotes in the video.

The children were running a high-risk business with lucrative gains, for their underground operation could have been jeopardized by the kindergarten security at any time. For a startup with next to no capital to earn a daily revenue of over 100, even their loose change was already a sizable stack of banknotes.

At the end of every hard day's work, they would distribute the profits. Carmen only knew how to count up to ten as the total revenue of over 100 was clearly out of her arithmetical capabilities. Hence, she used the oldest method in the book and split everyone's share by handing out note by note until the pot was empty. Heeding her conscience, she took out a small share from hers and gave it to the dogs as a bonus.

As the venture grew, Carmen began exploring different business models, such as Husky petting on odd days, Samoyed petting on even days, with the occasional special appearance of the Bedlington Terrier. Even the Giant Poodle, which was too large to pass through the dog hole, was available for petting—the clients were to make their upfront payment at the kindergarten, and Carmen would then arrange for them to pet it at her house. Meanwhile, the Giant Poodle that was sponsored by Hope had a petting fee of 3 dollars, which yielded a higher premium than other dogs.

The petting business continued to flourish, so Carmen stepped up to recruit specialized teams under her employment. There was the lookout team and the security team to maintain order; they would receive a certain salary by the end of each day.

Watching the playback up till then, the adults froze in disbelief.

No wonder Carmen's arithmetic skills had improved lately; no wonder there had been a number of children who came over to pet the dogs; no wonder the Bedlington Terrier's hip turned bald! Everyone shifted their gaze to the three unsuspecting toddlers, who were playing with sand outside the house.

How are toddlers their age capable of such business acumen?

At the final part of the video playback, they had arrived at the climax.

It was the day before they closed their last petting sale and finalized their earnings for the day. Having done that enough times, Carmen had a rough idea of how much she could make. With a lollipop dangling from the corner of her mouth, she looked like a seasoned hustler as she masterfully split the cash and gave them out to her partners and employees. Not forgetting the dogs, she slipped her share and theirs into the zipped pocket in her pants with bear prints, looking like a seasoned businesswoman.

Suddenly, Albert and a few of his friends came over and immediately went ahead with their prank. They lifted Carmen's skirt up and attempted to remove her pants.

In a fit of anger, Carmen fought back with a hard slap on his face and yelled at him, but that did not deter Albert for long. He giggled as he continued to lift her skirt and tried to remove her pants, which were filled with wads of cash. Judging from his movements, it was not his first time doing it to girls.

That further escalated Carmen's wrath. She grabbed Albert and gave him a good beating.

It was unfortunate that the video playback had no audio recorded. All that could be seen was Carmen's lips wiggling as she scolded Albert, while her nimble hands landed countless slaps on him, leaving him crying. At her orders, Hope and Ashton effortlessly pinned Albert and his friends down on the ground as they squirmed in pain.

It was exactly the same way Sophia pinned Sandra down on the floor yesterday.

When they were done, Albert retreated to a corner to cry while the three children regrouped to start a discussion. Carmen gnawed on her lollipop with a solemn contemplation on her expression, which was a contradictory look for her age. Sophia was guessing that they were formulating a convincing explanation for the teachers when they found out what happened.

At last, they seemed to have come up with a solution and turned to look at the three hellhounds. Carmen then pulled Albert over while Hope held on to Judge and opened its mouth, revealing its rows of sharp teeth. He then pulled Albert's arm over into Judge's mouth and imprinted its teeth on his forearm. By repeating another bite mark on Albert's leg without breaking his skin, they effectively framed the poor canine for something it did not do. It also proved that the bandages Sandra wrapped around her brother's limbs were grossly exaggerated, with the aim to escalate the drama.

As they were imprinting the second round of Judge's dental marks on Albert, the teachers heard his cries and tracked it to the abandoned lawn. They wasted no time in shutting down their secret base and covered up the dog hole. In a state of panic, Carmen led the dogs into the sports equipment room and waited for her parents to come.

Now that the mystery was solved, everyone felt an awkward mix of feelings.

Michael was dumbfounded, for it reminded him of the first time he witnessed from the control room how Sophia fought with a misfit girl in the bathroom. He recalled the pitiful expression on Carmen's face when he found her in the sports equipment room and realized he had truly fallen for his daughter's masterful acting.

My goodness... She really took after her mother—they're like wolves in sheeps’ clothing! She's acting all nice and sweet at home, but she’s behaving like a seasoned hustler at the kindergarten! Sophia, on the other hand, was filled with relief. She was glad that her daughter's modesty was not compromised, and Albert got what he deserved for crossing boundaries. He had had it easy as the injuries were not as severe as they claimed to be. If he ever dared repeat it again, she would send her Bedlington Terrier to break his arm!

Cooper was also surprised to find his granddaughter to be such a streetwise kid. Streetwise is good; that way, she won't be easily taken advantage of.

Stanley jumped up with displeasure after the video ended.

"Sophia, look at your daughter—she’s been exploiting my furkids for her hustle! And she even framed it! Worst still, he even got the smallest share! All of you... give back my son his money, right now, immediately, all of them!”