【Know what? I think he’s just greedy.】
【This huge little glutton. Didn’t the production team remind them not to bring snacks? Otherwise they’ll be confiscated when they reach the filming location.】
【They never said you couldn’t eat them on the road. Tang Can didn’t do anything wrong. Look how happy my baby Dengdeng is eating~ Awooo, the swinging little legs are killing me! Auntie wants a hug~】
【Mystery solved. The earplugs were because Tang Can gets tinnitus when flying. The lollipops were because he’s greedy. Pure blind-cat-meets-dead-mouse luck.】
【With Tang Can unable to wake early and unable to stay up late, believing he can raise a child is less reasonable than believing I’m the First Emperor of China. [dog head]】
【They’re about to enter the mountains. I hope Tang Can doesn’t make our baby Dengdeng work too hard taking care of him. [wipes tears.gif]】
…
Cen Jiaojiao had been beautiful since childhood. Her family circumstances were ordinary, but she was discovered by a talent scout very young, and her debut role became an immediate smash hit.
Still, no matter how profitable the entertainment industry was, she personally had to endure the hard work. Especially back when Cen Jiaojiao’s career momentum was strongest, all three hundred and sixty-five days of every year were packed solid with schedules.
She had little career ambition and did not adapt well to the intense workload or relatively complicated environment at the time, so she chose to leave the industry and marry at the height of her fame. The man she married was an elegant young gentleman from a scholarly family, outstanding in background, talent, and appearance.
Her earlier “pampered little wife” comments had offended plenty of people, but once her painter husband’s information was fully exposed, he genuinely proved excellent in every respect. That made her previous remarks much easier to understand. Cen Jiaojiao was categorized as someone blessed in marriage and became the object of considerable envy.
The greatest hardship of Cen Jiaojiao’s life was probably bringing two firecracker children onto a parenting show and then being mercilessly verbally beaten by Tang Can.
Although she had suppressed both children with direct firepower after returning to her seat and therefore no longer needed earplugs, she still felt suffocated with anger whenever she looked at Tang Can ahead of her.
How dare Tang Can!
He had actually said she was a dung beetle wearing a mask—stinking and shameless!!
Was there any dung beetle as beautiful as her!!!
Cen Jiaojiao clenched her jaw. If this had not been a livestreamed parenting show, she would absolutely have cursed him back for three hundred rounds.
Then the plane took off the next second, and the two firecrackers in her family exploded again with a thunderous boom. Their crying immediately subdued Cen Jiaojiao completely.
And this time the children were not making trouble for no reason. They genuinely could not adapt to the ear pain caused by takeoff. Cen Jiaojiao could only use her two slender arms to hold the pair of chubby children in turns and soothe them, simultaneously heartbroken and exhausted. She nearly lost control and went to Tang Can to ask for lollipops.
But after the merciless verbal beating Tang Can had already given her, opening her mouth now really would turn her into the dung beetle he described. Even Cen Jiaojiao’s thick skin was not thick enough for that.
Fortunately, the plane soon reached its scheduled cruising altitude. The ear-pressure problems eased noticeably for both adults and children, and the twins gradually quieted.
But she had forgotten that if ears hurt during takeoff, they could hurt during landing too when outside air pressure changed too rapidly.
When the twins started crying again, another round of chaos erupted. This time Cen Jiaojiao did not only resent Tang Can in her heart. She started resenting Tang Yichen too.
If Tang Yichen had not encouraged her to ask Tang Can for earplugs, she would not have returned empty-handed after being insulted.
Besides, there might have been only two pairs of earplugs, but there had been an entire bag of lollipops. Without Tang Yichen pushing her into that confrontation, maybe her twins could have gotten some.
Cen Jiaojiao nursed resentment toward him, and Tang Yichen was not letting her off in his own heart either.
If he had not needed an excuse to make Cen Jiaojiao step forward, he would never have deliberately made his stepson uncomfortable enough to whimper. In the end, they did not obtain the earplugs and only succeeded in waking the child.
Throughout the journey, even when the twins quieted down, his stepson remained irritable and sleepy from airsickness. Tang Yichen did not get a single bite of food the entire trip because he was constantly soothing the child, and he could not show the slightest dissatisfaction.
Cen Jiaojiao and Tang Yichen were tortured by the children the entire way. Although only three hours had passed from boarding to landing, by the time they got off the plane, not only was the light gone from their eyes, even their skin looked noticeably duller.
The twins had cried their eyes swollen, while Shengsheng was pale from airsickness. Two adults and three children looked less like they had taken a flight and more like they had survived a heavenly tribulation.
Only Tang Can and his son had eaten their fill and slept soundly. When they stepped off the plane, their faces were rosy, and even the child’s dark circles had faded considerably.
The only flaw was that wearing earplugs too long was still uncomfortable.
Tang Can taught the child how to rub his ears while rubbing his own. When he met Cen Jiaojiao’s resentful gaze, ghostly enough to haunt someone, he immediately complained with a smile, “Wearing earplugs for too long really hurts. I’m so jealous of people like you who don’t get tinnitus. You don’t have to suffer like this.”
Cen Jiaojiao: …!!!
【Well damn, that was shamelessly wicked. Tang Can’s little mouth is still dipped in honey today. [laughing through tears]】
【Did Tang Can choose the panda outfit for Dengdeng because he knew his default skin already lets him cosplay a bamboo shoot—because he’s that damaging?】
【Panda Deng and his damaging dad hahahahahahaha!!!】
【Wait, wasn’t Tang Can planning to use this parenting show to debut? He’s clearly meeting one guest and destroying one guest, sweeping across the entire show with no escape route left for himself. Is he serious?】
【Cen Jiaojiao retired before, Tang Yichen shifted focus after marriage and doesn’t act, so those two can’t help his debut anyway. Let’s see how he treats Best Actress Wen. Personally, I kind of love Tang Can’s wicked mouth.】
【Hahaha same. The louder they tear into each other, the better. Fight! Fight!】
【Seriously? Tang Can has zero manners and zero empathy, and now he already has brain-dead fans licking his boots? No standards at all. I hope when you take your own children out, you also meet selfish fellow travelers like him.】
【Is the person above insane? How does wanting entertainment make someone Tang Can’s brain-dead fan? There are already too many variety shows where celebrities act fake and everyone pretends to get along. With Shining Little Ones’ guest lineup, I came specifically for blood and chaos!】
In reality, many viewers had indeed come precisely because these guests were controversial figures. Tang Yichen had thought the same way.
Cen Jiaojiao was hopelessly romance-brained and often spoke without thinking, making her extremely easy to criticize. Wen Tong was talented but withdrawn, arrogant, prone to diva behavior, and notoriously difficult to get along with. As for Tang Can, there was even less to say. He was supposedly useless from head to toe.
From the beginning, Tang Yichen had intended to use the three bizarre families as foils to make himself shine, while also stomping Tang Can down thoroughly enough to wash away the stain attached to his own name.
He had not expected Tang Can’s brand of bizarre behavior to exceed imagination. The trip had barely begun, yet Tang Yichen already felt that everything was going wrong.
Fortunately, his mother had already persuaded Manager Cheng Ping to cooperate. Now all they needed was for Tang Can to walk forward and kill himself socially.
*
By the time they reached Yunshan Airport, the vehicles arranged by the production team were already waiting.
There were two seven-seat vans, so the four guest families needed to split up.
Best Actress Wen Tong’s flight was delayed, which meant one guest family would inevitably have to stay behind and wait longer.
Tang Yichen’s perfect persona naturally allowed him to say he was fine with anything. Cen Jiaojiao had separate grievances against both men surnamed Tang, but between two evils, Tang Yichen was still preferable. In the end, Tang Can and his son were the ones left behind to wait for Wen Tong.
Tang Can did not care. Holding the panda child who had not slept enough on the plane, he climbed straight into the van and continued sleeping.
Wen Tong’s flight had originally been delayed, but unexpectedly the plane made up time aggressively during the latter half of the journey. Not long after Tang Can got into the van, she arrived holding her son’s hand.
Mother and son both wore sunglasses, and their expressions were identically cold.
Throughout the journey, whether meeting enthusiastic fans or dealing with staff, both behaved as though they could barely be bothered. They responded only with cool nods from beginning to end, never once producing even the curve of a smile.
Even fans in Wen Tong’s livestream could not force themselves to praise it. They ran to her studio’s Weibo account and suggested she stop attempting reality shows. Every second of livestream footage was personally confirming one of her old scandals. Compared with Cen Jiaojiao, her problem looked much more serious.
When viewers learned that mother and son were about to share a vehicle with Tang Can and his panda-and-bamboo-shoot father-son pair, the livestream started taking bets in advance on how many minutes it would take before they tore into each other.
Wen Tong and her son got into the van and continued with the same perfunctory nodding routine, but Tang Can and his son were already asleep. There was absolutely no interaction for the entire trip.
And in a quiet environment, drowsiness was contagious. Wen Tong and her son had sat through the flight as upright as model soldiers. Not long after getting into the van, Tang Can’s group lulled both of them to sleep too.
The van drove for more than three hours before smoothly arriving at Changyun Village at the foot of Changyun Mountain. At last, all four guest families were assembled.
Unlike Tang Can and Wen Tong’s groups, who slept the whole way, Tang Yichen had been tormented by the twins for another entire trip. Although the sky was dark by then, it was still obvious that exhaustion had deepened on both Tang Yichen and Cen Jiaojiao’s faces.
Even so, Tang Yichen still approached Wen Tong first with exceptional humility and courtesy. “Sister Tong, long time no see. Youyou, do you still remember Uncle?”
Wen Tong’s five-year-old son was named Wen You, with the nicknames Youyou and Little Pomelo.
Although the news that Best Actress Wen had secretly married and had a child had only recently been exposed, she often brought the boy onto filming sets, so many people in the industry had known of his existence.
Tang Yichen had happened to work with Wen Tong on her first drama after giving birth, so he had met Little Pomelo back when the child was still an infant.
After sleeping for three hours on the road, Wen Tong’s mood had stabilized considerably. Since she had also formed a decent impression of Tang Yichen during their previous collaboration and they could count as half acquaintances, she unusually showed a slightly warmer face. When she nodded, the corner of her mouth lifted by perhaps one or two degrees.
Little Wen You, however, gave him no face at all. Wearing sunglasses, he coolly shook his head. “Don’t remember.”
Tang Yichen had approached specifically to highlight how uniquely well he got along with them. Faced with the expected cold response, his smile only became gentler and friendlier, as though he had heard nothing. He continued enthusiastically introducing the children. “Shengsheng, Youyou is half a year older than you. You should call him Big Brother Youyou.”
Gu Beisheng had been the treasured heart of the entire Gu family from the moment he was born and had never suffered the slightest neglect. Added to the fact that he was used to being the only child at the center, he could accept calling someone his little brother, but calling someone else big brother was much harder. Still, he had always matured early and understood priorities well.
Unfortunately, today he had first gotten airsick, then carsick, and had been tormented by the twins’ noise the entire way. In a bad mood, he had no desire to cooperate. He crossed his arms and snorted coldly. “I don’t remember having any big brother either.”
His stepson’s lack of cooperation embarrassed Tang Yichen, who had always advertised himself as a perfect stepfather. At that slightly awkward moment, Tang Can could not hold back and burst out laughing, instantly drawing everyone’s gaze.
Tang Can hurriedly waved his hands. “I’m not laughing at you. I just suddenly remembered a funny joke and couldn’t hold it in.”
A staff member, always happy to make trouble bigger, asked, “Teacher Tang Can, would you like to share it?”
Tang Can was not stingy. He selected the cool little guy Youyou standing nearby and demonstrated. “Youyou, how could you not remember Shengsheng? You two grew up playing together when you were little. You played at your house, and he played at his.”
Some jokes were only funny inside your own head and became awkward when spoken aloud. So after delivering it, Tang Can immediately mocked himself. “Hiss, too cold, huh? Hahaha, sorry. My standards for jokes are low.”
Tang Yichen’s face instantly darkened: Wasn’t he just mocking them for pretending to be close when they barely knew each other?!
In reality, apart from Cen Jiaojiao, who was still calming her children, basically everyone around them understood the joke instantly. But with one person wearing a cold face and another wearing a dark one, nobody dared laugh.
The spectators in the livestream had no such restraint. Comments that had previously been attacking Best Actress Wen and her son for acting pretentious were suddenly washed away by laughter.
【Hahahahaha, was Tang Can wicked today? Yes! Extremely wicked!】
At the filming site, the director had already begun urging everyone forward with a loudspeaker. Tang Yichen did not even have time to repair the situation with a few extra words.
Fortunately, he had only lost a little face. Anyone with eyes could tell that the truly unpleasant people were Wen Tong and her son. Of all four guest families, only Tang Yichen appeared normal.
Unexpectedly, just as the room-allocation segment began, the silent, cold-faced Best Actress suddenly let out a tiny laugh. She immediately covered it with a cough.
A while later, the director announced that not only snacks but also toys and storybooks all had to be handed over. The children erupted in cries of despair. Only little Wen You suddenly started giggling.
While everyone remained baffled by his laughter, little Wen You covered his mouth with both hands, suppressed the sound, and secretly leaned close to Wen Tong to whisper, “I played at my house and he played at his. Doesn’t that just mean we didn’t know each other? Hahaha, Mom, that uncle is so funny!”
Unfortunately, although he covered his mouth, he forgot that the recording microphone was still on. And thus the parenting show’s first adorably slow little fool was born.
