The chaos-loving viewers were delighted. Plenty of people camped in Tang Can’s livestream specifically to watch him attack people, and they immediately began teasing:
【Jiaojiao, you fool! Why would you provoke him?! Hahahahahaha!】
【Is Cen Jiaojiao poisoned in the brain? Tang Can showed her mercy during the presentation trade and only charged her one bar…】
【She’s stupid. Can’t tell kindness from hostility. She deserved that comeback.】
【I like Cen Jiaojiao exactly like this. Without her, where would I get this kind of entertainment?】
【It’s over, it’s over. Cen Jiaojiao is on Tang Can’s list now too. Looking forward to Teacher Tang opening his mouth next time. [dog-head]】
【The funniest thing is how many Tang Yichen fans are picking up stray insults and having breakdowns on the trending-topic plaza, hahahaha.】
【Tang Can fans, stop pretending bad manners are some kind of “authentic personality” branding, okay?】
【Tang Yichen fans smelled blood and came running again, huh? You people volunteer to get cursed at every day. Are you addicted to humiliation or what?】
【We’ve said it a hundred times—we’re not Tang Can fans! We’re distinguished spectators who merely watch his livestream twenty-four hours a day, follow his Weibo, and check in at his fan forum while we’re at it. [grinning]】
【I’m different. I’m a Tang Can face fan. I only care about his looks. [rose] So may I ask Tang Yichen’s fans why his cheek apples have dropped so much in the past two years? Is something weighing on his mind?】
Perhaps Tang Can had set the tone, or perhaps his livestream had simply gathered too many people who lived for chaos. Every time Tang Yichen’s fans jumped up in outrage, they triggered a massive wave of wicked teasing.
As for Cen Jiaojiao, the actual person Tang Can had attacked this time, she barely had any fans willing to defend her.
Back when she was at the height of her popularity, Cen Jiaojiao had suddenly married and retired from the industry, breaking the hearts of countless career-focused fans and devoted supporters. Over the past five years, the few pieces of news about her had mostly consisted of lovestruck-wife comments. She had already driven away nearly all of the fans she once had.
On top of that, this time she had clearly repaid kindness with hostility and started the trouble herself. Most neutral onlookers naturally sided with Tang Can.
And Cen Jiaojiao was not exactly evil. “Stupid” was more accurate. Every little scheme she had was immediately exposed. Her mouth often took off flying before her brain had even started chasing after it.
So after Tang Can snapped at her, she stewed for a long time and could only squeeze out, “How can you talk to people like that?!”
This was normally the point when someone nearby needed to step in, calm both sides, give everyone a graceful way out, and let filming continue.
But although Wen Tong was standing beside Cen Jiaojiao, mother and son wore sunglasses and stood with cool expressions and folded arms the entire time. Expecting her to mediate was completely impossible.
That left Tang Yichen to play peacemaker. After all, his public image was the perfect stepfather, the embodiment of truth, goodness, and beauty. Even after being inexplicably dragged into the insult and called a pig, he still had to smile elegantly and let it pass, refusing to lower himself to argue with someone as crude and ill-mannered as Tang Can.
That did not mean the mediation did not leave him furious. Ever since he had encountered Tang Can on this parenting show, it felt as though the anger inside him had never once flowed smoothly.
If the mountain had signal, he would already have been unable to resist checking the results of Cheng Ping’s work.
*
The location for the third-round tree-climbing competition was the farthest away. They still had to walk another half hour deeper into the mountain.
Along the way, the children first listened to the old guide tell myths and legends of Changyun Mountain, then heard the guides introduce the valuable tree species around them.
They saw Korean pine, Manchurian fir, and red-barked spruce, along with little squirrels and snails. They even tasted leaves that had cucumber-like and apple-like flavors.
The half-hour journey was remarkably rich with experiences. Even the twins, who loved causing trouble most, did not complain about the difficult mountain path. Their attention was completely absorbed by all the new things around them.
The parents had a much harder time. Although each group’s guide was leading the children so the adults had their hands free, all four adults spent the entire walk foraging.
They looked east and west, detoured to inspect anything they could not identify, then hurried anxiously back because they were afraid of falling behind.
After searching the whole way, they found only some low-value blue honeysuckle berries, a little not-yet-fully-ripe schisandra, and medicinal fungi such as chaga and mulberry yellow polypore growing so high in trees that they could not reach them at all.
Seeing something without being able to touch it was even more depressing than finding nothing, so eventually everyone simply stopped looking upward.
They divided the blue honeysuckle berries and ate them. They were sour with a hint of sweetness, not especially delicious, and were generally useful only for replenishing a little moisture while hiking.
Schisandra could sell for around ten yuan per half-kilogram, but divided among four adults, they did not even have a proper handful each.
Seeing the parents run around everywhere only to collect a tiny amount of schisandra, the old guide could not help laughing. “What can you do with that little? Stop wearing yourselves out. This area is too close to the tourist route. Visitors have been coming so often lately that they’ve practically trampled paths into the ground. How could anything be left? If you want mountain goods, either go deeper in or head toward an out-of-the-way slope.”
Changyun Mountain was enormous. An “out-of-the-way slope” did not literally mean the reverse side of the mountain. It meant leaving by a different route and finding somewhere tourists rarely visited.
However, the Ganoderma patches that mountain foragers regularly visited generally required at least three hours of walking. Even near the foot of the mountain, places undeveloped for tourists were often visited by nearby villagers. If they truly wanted to forage, they would still have to venture much deeper into the mountains.
The moment Tang Yichen heard there were patches of Ganoderma deeper inside, he immediately asked the old guide whether he could take them there.
“We definitely can’t lead you directly there. The production team won’t let us help that much. But if you want to go deeper into the mountain, of course we’ll accompany you for safety. Whether you can find anything will depend on your luck.”
The three rounds of competition had already taken the guests an hour’s walk into the mountain. If they pushed for another two hours, they could reach the resource-rich interior. Even if they failed to find a Ganoderma patch, they would probably still come across other common edible mushrooms…
Thinking this, Tang Yichen and Cen Jiaojiao both relaxed considerably, their faces filling with anticipation.
The little children blinked pairs of bright, lightbulb-like eyes and almost shouted in unison, “Pick! Ling! Zhi!”
Wen Tong’s sunglasses hid her expression, but Tang Can looked openly hesitant.
A seasoned mountain forager needed three hours to reach those spots. Ordinary people like them could not compare. Even if they somehow reached the deeper area with only two more hours of mountain hiking, after an exhausting gathering session they would still need more than three hours to descend—and they would be caring for children the entire time.
There was no need to explain how difficult children became when sleepy, hungry, and exhausted. That level of exercise would be hard even for adults, much less toddlers.
Before they made it halfway, Tang Can estimated that these children, currently pumped full of excitement by the novelty, would transform into heavy accessories hanging from their parents’ bodies…
Just imagining it made Tang Can numb. He bit his lower lip with a troubled expression and muttered, “Honestly, maybe eating isn’t that essential…”
He spoke so quietly that it was purely talking to himself. Between insects chirping, birds calling, and plant life absorbing and scattering sound through the forest, no one walking before or behind him heard a thing.
Only the recording equipment, which converted sound into electrical signals, faithfully transmitted Tang Can’s first beat of retreat to the livestream and the director’s central control system.
Wei Kai had always loved making trouble worse for entertainment. He immediately sent a staff member running ahead to ask, “After the tree-climbing event, is Teacher Tang Can the only one planning to go back down the mountain?”
Everyone looked surprised. “You’re going straight back down?”
Cen Jiaojiao had twice thought of useful comebacks only after losing their verbal clashes. Although she was still annoyed, this time she managed to restrain herself from saying anything provocative and merely curled her lip.
Tang Yichen pretended to be concerned. “That little bit of schisandra is worth maybe two yuan. Even with prices around here being low, that won’t be enough, will it?”
Tang Can’s attention had already shifted to the child beside him, whose eyes had suddenly gone dark. He nodded and answered perfunctorily, “It’s not really enough. But I still have Snickers.”
Now not only had the light disappeared from the child’s eyes, even his fluffy little head drooped.
The fans in the livestream were heartbroken:
【Tang Can is way too unreliable. Every other child wants to go into the mountains and give it a try, but Dengdeng’s useless dad is giving up in advance…】
【To be fair, didn’t we all gather in Tang Can’s livestream today precisely because we wanted to watch him be unreliable, shameless, and morally bankrupt? His character setting is extremely stable. [rose]】
【Watching him go crazy and insult people is fun, but a mom-fan like me can’t stand seeing my sweet baby disappointed!】
【Damn you, child trafficker! Stealing my baby was already bad enough, and now you won’t even be a decent dad!】
In truth, Tang Can had not even made up his mind yet. The production team had simply exposed his hesitation in advance.
It was rare for the child to become lively after winning the fishing event instead of continuing to pretend to be a little wooden statue. Yet less than half an hour later, he was disappointed and deflated again.
Tang Can pulled the miserable little child closer and asked, “Dengdeng wants to go deeper into the mountain, right?”
The child fell silent. A moment later he shook his head. “No. Daddy is sick. Dengdeng wants to go down the mountain.”
Even though all Tang Can could see was the fluffy crown of his head, that obedient baby voice nearly melted his heart.
The scales inside him, which had been wavering, immediately tipped. Tang Can slapped his thigh, tossed his head, and stood. “It’s just going up a mountain!”
Tang Can had barely shouted the first half of his passionate declaration when he raised his eyes and happened to spot an extremely familiar medicinal plant growing high on a large Korean pine not far away—pyrrosia, also known as kidney-tonic tea.
The nearby market-price chart he had found online said the dried plant sold for eight hundred yuan per half-kilogram, more expensive than plenty of proper tea leaves.
It was also growing near the crown, and this tree was a full thirty meters tall. Under normal circumstances, it would still have been far beyond Tang Can’s abilities.
But this particular Korean pine happened to be the one the production team had selected for the children’s climbing competition. Not only had foothold ladders been strapped to the trunk for the children, safety ropes hung all the way down from the crown.
Tang Can’s eyes lit up. Wasn’t this someone delivering a pillow the moment he grew sleepy?
This time, however, he did not mutter aloud. He pressed his lips together, quietly shifted his gaze back to the child’s face, which had just begun to glow with expectation again, and was forced to make a sharp turn. “Uh… Daddy will think about it a little more, okay…”
Dengdeng lowered his little head. “…………Oh. Okay.”
The child’s crushing disappointment was visible to the naked eye. The mom-fans in the livestream could not take it: 【Is Tang Can practicing plot twists over there? Does he think he’s funny???】
If he had any choice at all, Tang Can definitely did not want to go deeper into the mountain, so for the moment he could only act along and deceive the child too.
The Korean pine used for the competition looked close, but the group wound around the terrain for a while before finally reaching the opposite side of the tree.
A staff member stepped forward to explain the competition rules.
In simple terms, the children had to climb the tree and collect flags. Every three meters upward, they could take one small red flag. Each flag was worth one point. There were eight flags in total, meaning the maximum height was twenty-four meters for eight points.
At present, the four groups’ cumulative scores were: Dengdeng, 5 points; the twins, 5 points; Beisheng, 4 points; Youyou, 3 points.
Much like the previous night’s room-allocation competition, the third round was worth double, once again giving children who had fallen behind in the first two rounds a chance to reverse the standings.
But asking toddlers aged three to five to climb more than twenty meters was an unprecedented level of difficulty and challenge. Turning the rankings around would not be easy.
When the camera tilted upward from the base of the massive tree to its highest point, the already towering trunk looked as though it pierced straight into the clouds. Viewers exclaimed one after another:
【Good grief, Wei Kai, you’re actually serious!】
【Is this a parenting-show competition or a selection trial for tiny special forces soldiers?】
Unlike the other children, who showed traces of fear, Gu Beisheng was an extraordinary toddler with extensive experience in rock climbing and outdoor combat games. He curled his lips into a confident smile and was the first to raise his hand to take the challenge.
—Yes. This was exactly the feeling. Children looked up to adults with envy, and he would forever be number one!
“Wait.” Tang Can stepped forward and grabbed the safety rope first. He yanked it hard, his face full of concern as he asked, “Are you sure this rope is safe? They have to climb as high as twenty-four meters. Falling from there would be no joke.”
The production team had commissioned the guides to prepare the safety ropes and ladder, and staff had already inspected and accepted them in advance.
So the moment Tang Can asked, the person in charge immediately stepped forward to answer. “We even had Little Yang, the heaviest person on our crew, test it. It can safely support up to one hundred kilograms. And when the children climb, we’ll stretch a large net underneath to catch them. It’s absolutely safe.”
They had to explain it not only to Tang Can but also to the vast audience watching. As the staff member spoke, others spread out the thick safety net for everyone to see. They feared both an actual accident and viewers reporting them to the authorities.
“Really? I don’t believe it.” Tang Can propped his chin in an exaggerated skeptical-host pose while quickly glancing toward the kidney-tonic tea growing diagonally behind the treetop. “How about this? I’ll climb it once first and test it.”
Comments:
【Tang Can doesn’t want to go deeper into the mountain, but he’s afraid he won’t have an excuse, so he’s putting on a performance as a good dad in advance to save face?】
【So that’s what this is! Damn it, he almost fooled me again!】
【I don’t care what stunt he’s pulling. If he dares let my precious Dengdeng go hungry, I’ll personally cross mountains and oceans to come for him!
