Under the influence of pure psychological suggestion, Tang Can now felt as though bugs were crawling all over him.
He pulled open his collar and concentrated on searching, so he failed to notice the change in the child’s expression. The army of mom-fans in the livestream, however, caught it perfectly.
【AAAAAH, damn it! Hurry and hug Dengdeng! The light in our baby’s eyes went out!】
【Awww, Dengdeng is genuinely too cute. Even when he’s unhappy he can make Auntie faint from cuteness!】
【You can’t blame Tang Can. What if there really is a bug on him and it bites our baby? Since Tang Can can’t take care of Dengdeng right now, I recommend handing him to my professional custody. [winks.gif]】
【You calculating thief above, stay away from my baby!! Dengdeng, Auntie has something nice over here~ (pulls out colorful sack.jpg)】
The mom-fans were focused on admiring the child. When they vaguely heard that Tang Yichen had fainted, question marks began appearing too:
【Good grief, another one fainted? And it was Tang Yichen? Hiss, now there’s going to be drama…】
【It’s fun watching these rich people suffer, but isn’t Wei Kai being a little too fearless? Isn’t he worried about getting sued???】
【This is where the importance of having a shameless dad becomes obvious. As long as Tang Can is morally bankrupt enough, the production team’s traps can never catch up with him, hahahahaha.】
【Thank you, Tang Can, for protecting my Dengdeng!】
【Who could have imagined the most shameless one would somehow become the most reliable? [laughing-crying]】
At the livestream location, Tang Can did not care whether Tang Yichen lived or died, but hearing that the man had suddenly fainted still triggered his natural instinct to watch drama. He curiously stuck his head out to look.
When Youyou had fainted earlier, everyone had followed over, and Tang Yichen had naturally acted extremely concerned too.
But Tang Can had immediately taken charge of the child, while after being attacked several times, Tang Yichen had adopted the public strategy of yielding with hurt dignity. So he had not come forward to crowd around.
Once everyone learned that Youyou had probably caught a cold and developed a fever due to being soaked by mountain rain combined with hunger and exhaustion, the onlookers dispersed.
After all, only Tang Can, Dengdeng, and their team still had full batteries. Everyone else—staff and guests, adults and children alike—desperately needed carbohydrates and sugar to replenish energy. Otherwise, Youyou might not be the only person to faint.
Cen Jiaojiao had been driven half insane by Tang Can tempting her with food. She did not even stop to change the shabby clothes she had complained about all the way down the mountain before dragging both children straight toward the grilled-cold-noodle stand across the road.
Tang Yichen and his son chose the neighboring restaurant. He had been perfectly fine while ordering. After placing the order, he said he needed the restroom.
The restroom was on the first floor, while the filming team stayed behind to record Beisheng. Finally alone, Tang Yichen impatiently pulled out his phone as he went downstairs. The next instant, his vision went black and his foot missed a step. Man and phone both went tumbling down the staircase with a series of crashes.
The phone’s screen went black and Tang Yichen lost consciousness. At the restaurant’s peak traffic hour, chaos erupted instantly.
Tang Yichen’s nationwide recognition needed no explanation. Visiting tourists in the restaurant recognized him immediately, which was why he had gone straight to a private room upstairs in the first place.
Tang Yichen came crashing down the stairs with an enormous racket, not only unconscious but bleeding across his face. Someone immediately recorded a video and uploaded it online.
Tang Yichen’s fans had already been leaping everywhere to complain about the production team and report the Changyun Village guides. Once the video appeared, his fandom completely detonated.
Yet misfortune never came alone. Tang Yichen was not the only guest with a medical problem.
At first, everyone believed Youyou merely had a fever from getting chilled. Although the production team had indeed been cruel, only one of the five children had gotten sick, so most people attributed it to Youyou’s weaker constitution.
Then, following Tang Can’s reminder, Wen Tong removed her child’s clothes and carefully checked his entire body. She really did discover a tick swollen with blood at the back of his neck.
A tick bite could range from minor to extremely serious, but overall, being bitten in northern mountain forests carried considerable risk. Ticks could transmit diseases such as tick-borne encephalitis, Lyme disease, and severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome.
Especially because Youyou had already developed a low fever, there was some possibility it had been caused by a pathogen carried by the tick.
Wen Tong naturally would not gamble with her son’s life. She immediately decided to withdraw early from the current livestream episode and fly directly to a leading hospital in a neighboring province with extensive treatment experience.
When Cen Jiaojiao heard, she did not even finish the grilled cold noodles she had just bought. She grabbed both children and sprinted back to the guesthouse to inspect them.
As for Gu Beisheng, his meal schedule had already been disrupted by his stepfather fainting. The moment he heard there might be “poisonous” little bugs crawling on his body, he completely exploded.
Gu Beisheng was obsessed with cleanliness. The only thing that had kept him crawling around inside the mountain was the pleasure of victory he had mentally borrowed in advance.
Now he was exhausted, hungry, and had lost completely. The only stepfather available to care for him had fallen unconscious. It amounted to the first comprehensive collapse of his short life, and his mentality disintegrated spectacularly.
No matter how talented, outstanding, and composed he normally was, he was still a child not yet five years old.
Gu Beisheng wanted to throw himself onto the ground and have a tantrum, but he still knew this awful place was filthy. It was nothing like home, where a team of housekeepers followed around constantly cleaning everything.
The floor was dirty, but the bed was acceptable. His gaze therefore locked onto his unconscious stepfather lying on the hospital bed.
The staff had also begun taking turns going to the restroom to check themselves for ticks. At that moment, only one cameraman remained in the health station’s tiny ward, so Gu Beisheng climbed onto the bed without obstruction.
The health station’s bed was the narrowest kind of single bed, barely large enough for Tang Yichen alone. Seeing no room beside him, Gu Beisheng simply rammed his head into Tang Yichen’s chest, flopped directly on top of his stepfather, and began thrashing and rolling wildly across the bed.
No one had expected Beisheng, the wealthy little young master considered the easiest child to trust, to possess a side like this. The cameraman carrying equipment had no time to stop him.
Although Beisheng was not the oldest of the five children on the parenting show, he was the tallest and strongest. Tang Yichen had often used this fact to advertise how well he knew how to raise a child.
Thus, everyone in the livestream watched this solid little dumpling weighing nearly twenty-five kilograms roll repeatedly across Tang Yichen’s body, directly crushing enough air from the unconscious man to make him choke again and again.
Fortunately, the older female doctor at the health station reacted quickly. She brought the intravenous needle intended for a glucose infusion directly in front of Beisheng’s eyes and threatened that if he kept misbehaving, he would be punished with an injection. Only then did Beisheng settle down.
With the needle acting as a deterrent, the doctor successfully examined Beisheng’s body too.
Although two ticks were shaken out from folds in his clothes, fortunately there were no bite marks anywhere on his skin.
That alone was enough to transform cleanliness-obsessed Beisheng into a screaming chicken.
Beisheng blamed everything on Tang Yichen. If his stepfather had not proposed joining the show, he would never have needed to come suffer here. And the parenting show was nothing like Tang Yichen had promised—it did not let him win competitions and enjoy the pleasure of crushing everyone else!
Tang Yichen was forcibly awakened by the screaming beside his ear. His eardrums hurt, his chest and abdomen ached dully, and he was so dizzy and nauseated he wanted to vomit.
Even in that agony, the first thing he remembered was what he had seen before fainting.
Not only had Cheng Ping failed to destroy Tang Can, he had multiplied every one of Tang Can’s popularity metrics more than tenfold and pushed him completely beyond his original audience!
Under normal circumstances, obtaining positive attention of that scale was difficult even for the biggest top-tier celebrities.
Good news rarely traveled far, while bad news crossed a thousand miles. Outside of Olympic events that brought national glory, only sensational scandals involving celebrities could attract attention from netizens across completely different communities. Otherwise, most entertainment news remained trapped within fandom circles congratulating themselves.
Tang Can achieving this level of popularity truly required the perfect combination of timing, place, and circumstance.
If the entertainment industry had not happened to be unusually quiet recently, and if there had been any fresh international event for the public to discuss, Tang Can’s scandal would never have climbed so smoothly to number one across multiple platforms.
Tang Can’s gossip had been like a timely rainstorm, instantly watering a gossip field that had been dry for far too long.
Secrets of wealthy families were already among the public’s favorite varieties of gossip. Added to that was the obscure yet eye-catching word #Mistress#, deliberately selected by gold-medal manager Cheng Ping. That combination successfully pushed Tang Can’s name completely into mainstream awareness through the scandal.
Then Tang Can produced the marriage certificate he carried with him and slapped the rumor down, immediately receiving the netizens’ new nickname: “Marriage-Certificate Guy.”
In fact, if this had not happened in Changyun Mountain—even if Tang Can had simply pulled a marriage certificate out at home in Yun City to clarify the rumor—it would not have created such a memorable effect as the bizarre act of “carrying his marriage certificate everywhere.”
The current social environment was competitive and increasingly absurd. Ordinary people all had their own hardships, and when they finally got a little free time they wanted to scroll their phones and find something entertaining. Tang Can, this bizarre new star steadily rising into view, was both sufficiently unhinged and exceptionally beautiful.
Anywhere in the world, top-tier beauty was an absolutely scarce resource. Once people noticed it, they rarely looked away easily.
As the reversal of the mistress scandal sent “Marriage-Certificate Guy” exploding into mainstream popularity, many parenting-show viewers came out to recommend Tang Can’s livestream.
Many people who had never followed parenting shows, or who had already lost interest in domestic entertainment entirely, only then learned that Tang Can was famously shameless and hilariously quick-witted.
And that was not all. He had a mixed-race toddler who had inherited his extraordinary beauty!
There were countless beautiful mixed-race children, but Dengdeng had not only inherited Tang Can’s striking looks. He also had Slavic ancestry that fit mainstream local beauty standards remarkably well, and at exactly the right proportion of one quarter.
Even though malnutrition had made him excessively thin and small, preventing his appearance from fully blossoming, the moment his face appeared during the first episode, he had rapidly captured the hearts of countless aunties and uncles.
Most of the curious spectators drawn in by “Marriage-Certificate Guy” were likewise unable to resist the adorable impact of the sweet, obedient toddler. They came to watch the drama and, without realizing it, settled permanently in the livestream.
By the time Tang Yichen saw the numbers, father and son’s livestream was no longer merely first place by a huge margin. Its real-time ratings were even crushing a neighboring national variety show that had remained popular for more than a decade.
Forget parenting programs, which usually had fixed audiences. Even during the first few years when outdoor reality shows were riding a massive trend, only genuine breakout hits had reached figures like these.
Even if the popularity lasted only a moment, the result was enough to make jaws drop.
And this was exactly the kind of effect Tang Yichen had always wanted and believed he could achieve.
But now… not only had all of it fallen onto Tang Can instead, it had been built on top of Cheng Ping’s planning and assistance… Combined with an entire day of hope, restraint, and effort collapsing into nothing…
Tang Yichen tasted a sudden metallic sweetness in his throat. Even though his stepson was still screaming beside him and urgently needed soothing, Tang Yichen could no longer hold on. His eyes rolled back and he fainted again.
*
After displaying his marriage certificate, Tang Can had spent the rest of the day busy taking Dengdeng around to eat and play, so he did not know he had become the hottest temporary celebrity of the day. His livestream had even gained a massive flock of wild Dengdeng fans determined to steal the child from him.
He only watched Tang Yichen’s drama briefly before running to the bathroom to continue checking for ticks.
Tang Can feared creatures like this more than almost anything. Changyun Mountain’s geography and climate meant poisonous snakes and insects were comparatively uncommon, but no mountain forest or grassy field could entirely avoid these deadly little bloodsuckers.
He had always known ticks existed and bit people to drink blood, but because he had never owned a dog and no one around him had ever been bitten, he had never understood how dangerous they could be.
Only when his kindergarten organized a spring outing and invited an expert to teach everyone about ticks in advance did that gap in his knowledge disappear.
Ticks were tiny and looked insignificant, but sometimes their heads burrowed into the skin while feeding, leaving the outside looking like a small mole. Without careful observation, they could be missed entirely. Yet if a person was unlucky enough to contract a pathogen from one, the result could be fatal.
Some people developed obvious symptoms early and could seek medical care promptly. Others were bitten without realizing it and initially showed no unusual reaction, making dangerous delays in treatment very easy.
People who lived in forest regions often received the latest available tick-borne-encephalitis vaccination each year. Although it could not prevent every tick-borne illness, combined with insect repellent it provided useful protection.
For the production team’s temporary mountain trip, there had been no real need to arrange special vaccination. Before entering, the local guides had taught everyone to secure their sleeves and trouser legs tightly, while anyone with a wider neckline had been reminded to wrap a towel around it for protection.
When applying insect repellent, they had sprayed thoroughly from every angle, covering themselves as carefully as possible. They had essentially taken every practical precaution available.
So Tang Can had remained attentive throughout the mountain trip. When father and son returned to the guesthouse for their afternoon nap, he carefully checked them both again and found no sign of ticks. He assumed their precautions had been sufficiently strict.
Looking back now, perhaps the real reason was simply that he and Dengdeng had never gone deep into the mountain. The other three groups had traveled farther, then been caught in rain, sheltered, and changed clothes—creating opportunities for ticks to slip through.
Just thinking about the insects made Tang Can’s scalp crawl. Fortunately, he soon confirmed there were none on his body and finally went out to find the child.
When Tang Can pushed open the door, Dengdeng was standing exactly three steps away from the bathroom, once again transformed into a dazed little wooden child.
Seeing Tang Can, he slowly blinked and woodenly called, “Daddy.”
He looked like an entirely different child from the one who had smiled brilliantly that afternoon, actively holding Tang Can’s hand and pulling him toward snack stalls. Tang Can immediately became alert. Wrong. Something was definitely wrong.
They had finally grown a little closer. There was no way their relationship would suddenly retreat by a mile for absolutely no reason. Tang Can had even planned to press his advantage and try stealing a kiss from the child’s little cheek while they soaked in the hot spring that evening.
Tang Can hurried forward as though nothing were wrong and, before the wooden child could react, scooped him into his arms and gave him an exaggeratedly tight hug. “Daddy missed you to death after not seeing you for just a little while!”
He clearly felt the wooden little body in his arms begin to soften, and Tang Can immediately relaxed. The old formula still worked, so the problem could not be too serious.
Tang Can continued his clingy speech. “Daddy was terrified just now. I was so afraid a tick might have gotten onto me and then transferred to my precious Dengdeng. What would Daddy do if Dengdeng got bitten like Little Youyou and fainted with a fever…”
Tang Can genuinely meant every word. After all, he was an adult. No matter how fragile his body was, it was still stronger than his malnourished child’s. If a tick had to torment someone, better him than Dengdeng. His voice therefore carried completely sincere emotion.
And the wooden child in his arms did not merely relax physically this time. His little nose inexplicably began stinging too.
During the period after Daddy rejected his hug, every second had felt unbearably long. For one moment, Dengdeng had even thought Bad Dad had returned.
No. He thought Daddy had turned back into the terrible villain!
Back into the Bad Dad who would not let him cry or smile and only allowed him to exist as an invisible little wooden child.
Or perhaps Bad Dad had realized he was not as cute as big brother Youyou, not as obedient and sensible, not capable of being Class Leader of Eating or a Medicine-Drinking Raptor…
He had clearly decided he would never expect anything from Bad Dad, yet at this moment his little heart still felt sour, swollen, and painfully uncomfortable.
The child had to admit he was still a tiny bit immature. Facing Bad Dad’s unpredictable changes made him lose control just a tiny bit, causing his nose to sting just a tiny bit and his eyes to become just a tiny bit wet.
But it was fine. He would never let anyone discover it!
The child’s method was simple: no matter how Tang Can tried moving him, his little head remained buried firmly against Tang Can’s chest—if no one could see it, it did not exist.
Tang Can discovered that the wooden child in his arms had transformed into a tiny gecko clinging to him. Amused and helpless, he gently patted the child’s back and asked softly, “Dengdeng is sleepy?”
The child heard this and thought: That excuse is really good!
With his face buried in Tang Can’s chest, he gently nodded. “Sleepy…”
Although he deliberately squeezed his baby voice tightly to hide the nasal sound, the child might be clever but his father was cleverer. Tang Can heard something wrong immediately.
Besides, it was midsummer and Tang Can wore only a thin T-shirt. With the child’s face buried against his chest, the damp sensation was faint, but careful attention made it noticeable.
Still, the child had gone from pretending to be a wooden doll, to showing lively expressions, and now even to secretly crying. This was a change in a positive direction. The transparent hard shell around Dengdeng was continuously softening, allowing richer emotional expression. Tang Can should have been happy.
The logic was correct, yet feeling the hot damp tear marks against his chest left only sour heaviness and pain in Tang Can’s heart. If only he had arrived in this world earlier…
Tang Can kept smiling outwardly and coaxed him gently. “Then Dengdeng can close his eyes for a while. The ride to the hot-spring villa will take more than ten minutes anyway. When we get there, how about we soak in the hot spring together?”
The child answered muffledly, then remained against Tang Can’s chest and began pretending to sleep.
Even after Tang Can carried him into the car and tried adjusting him into a more comfortable horizontal sleeping position, Dengdeng insisted on being held upright. His short legs knelt against Tang Can’s lap while his fluffy head remained buried tightly against Tang Can’s chest.
Tang Can knew no one could sleep properly like that, but he cooperated by supporting the child’s little bottom so he could rest as comfortably as possible. His other hand patted Dengdeng’s back gently.
After a moment, his soft lips parted and he began quietly humming an improvised lullaby: “Sleep now, sleep now~ my precious little baby~ Daddy’s hands are gently patting you~”
“Daddy loves you~ quickly fall asleep~ night has gone quiet~ dreams are warm and deep~”
“Sleep now, sleep now~ my precious little baby~ Daddy’s arms will always keep you safe~”
“May every happiness in this world, every bit of warmth, all belong to you…”
The child in his arms did not move. Tang Can simply hummed the gentle, simple lullaby over and over again.
He was willing to wait until the little boy completely lowered his defenses and came out on his own. So even when he felt the dampness against his chest increase rather than fade, Tang Can did not force Dengdeng to admit he was secretly crying.
When the car finally stopped, the child who had remained attached to Tang Can’s chest jumped out first.
He shot away like a little monkey before Tang Can had time to react. Fortunately, he did not run off after jumping down. He merely stood with his back to the car door and tilted his little head high toward the sky.
First monkey behavior, now raising his head to stare at the moon. Tang Can almost wondered whether his child truly had some supernatural creature in his ancestry and had automatically begun a moon-worshiping cultivation routine.
But when Tang Can immediately climbed out after him, the child raised both little pale paws and started rubbing his eyes while making small whining noises.
Tang Can leaned closer and finally understood. He was acting as though something had blown into his eyes.
What a clever and rigorous little child. Not only had he cried all his tears and saliva onto Tang Can, he was now pretending windblown sand had gotten into his eyes and rubbing them furiously, thereby providing a reasonable explanation for the red rims.
There were only two tiny flaws in the performance. First, there was not the slightest breeze in Changyun Village tonight. Second…
Tang Can lowered his head and saw the matching patch on his T-shirt. The child’s tears had created an entire face, complete with distinct features. Looking carefully, there were even two broad noodle-like tear streams and the outline of a round, pursed little mouth.
If sadness had a shape, it would undoubtedly be the crying face Dengdeng had left on his shirt.
But since the child had performed to this extent, Tang Can naturally had to cooperate.
He gently pulled the child’s hands away and seriously examined the imaginary grit in his eyes. A moment later, he cupped the child’s face and blew softly over each eye. “Does it still hurt?”
The child blinked his reddened eyes and sniffled. “I think it doesn’t hurt anymore…”
Tang Can immediately acted relieved. “That’s great. But next time Dengdeng shouldn’t rub his eyes by himself. You could push even more dirty things inside. Let Daddy blow them out for you, okay?”
Under the moonlight, the child’s large eyes darted around. After confirming Bad Dad had not noticed anything suspicious, his stiff little shoulders finally relaxed. He gave a thoroughly perfunctory nod. “Okay.”
This silent drizzle-turned-downpour that had taken place inside Tang Can’s arms had caught even Dengdeng, the child involved, completely off guard.
When Tang Can took his hand, he could clearly feel the little boy was no longer as soft, sweet, and easy to cuddle as he had been that afternoon. A constant layer of vigilance and resistance followed him. Of course, this resistance was obviously different from the original fear with which he had guarded himself against the former Tang Can.
Dengdeng needed time to adapt to changing emotions. Tang Can was not in a hurry. If he could not steal a kiss from the soft, fragrant little cheek while they soaked in the hot spring, he would simply wait until the child fell asleep that night and secretly kiss him then. No problem~
For the hot spring, father and son changed into matching short-sleeved swimsuits provided by the hotel. Several different colors of children’s swim rings were available too.
Tang Can carried Dengdeng past the swim rings once, then stopped in front of the green one at precisely the point where the child’s eyes had shone brightest. “Dengdeng, how about this one?”
The child blinked, wearing the obedient expression of someone who would accept whatever Daddy chose. “Okay!~”
Hearing the high little upward lilt at the end of his baby voice, Tang Can knew he had guessed correctly again.
And so Tang Can carried the child while Dengdeng hugged his favorite fluorescent-green swim ring. They soon arrived at the private outdoor hot spring.
Digging for treasure in the mountain that morning, spending the afternoon eating their way around town, then soaking in a warm natural hot spring on a cool summer night among the mountains—life could hardly have been better.
The only imperfection was that his arms were missing a little child he could freely cuddle and ruffle.
Forget cuddling. He could not even touch a strand of the child’s hair.
The hot-spring villa they had won was the highest grade, with an enormous private pool. The moment Dengdeng put on his swim ring, he transformed into a turbo-powered child, churning his strong, agile little legs and swimming rapidly through the warm water.
One moment he zipped over here; the next he whooshed over there.
His gray-blue eyes sparkled more brightly than the stars in the night sky. He clearly loved swimming very much.
Tang Can therefore left him alone and even began planning to take him swimming more often after they returned home.
Still, hot-spring soaking was best kept under twenty minutes, and children should spend even less time in the water. So at twelve minutes, Tang Can warned Dengdeng in advance that they would need to leave after a little more play.
The child’s wet little face visibly dimmed. Tang Can pulled the swim ring toward himself and pointed to a brighter area some distance away. “After we finish here, we can go walk around the evening garden fair over there. There are performances, games, and tasty food. Dengdeng, are you hungry?”
The little lightbulbs in the child’s eyes instantly switched on. He swallowed. “…Not—not very hungry.”
Tang Can burst out laughing.
Not hungry was not hungry, and very hungry was very hungry. Dengdeng’s answer reminded Tang Can of a middle-school classmate who could never remember the difference between two similar-looking characters meaning “not yet” and “end.”
Whenever that classmate had to write either one, he made the two horizontal strokes exactly the same length and left the decision to the teacher grading the paper.
Tang Can rubbed the child’s fluffy head and sighed sincerely. “Our Dengdeng is just too cute!”
And from the moment this “not very hungry” little Huo Dengdeng heard the garden fair had delicious food, he stopped swimming entirely and stared longingly toward the lights in the distance.
Seeing this, Tang Can simply scooped him up and went to shower and change.
The garden fair was organized by the hot-spring hotel. It was not especially large, but it was exquisitely decorated. The scenery imitated an ancient town, staff wore traditional historical clothing, and many tourists had dressed up carefully to take photographs and check in.
Tang Can and his child, however, were there purely to walk around and eat. They wore only the dark bathrobes provided by the hotel.
Yet an old saying proved true: beautiful people looked good even in burlap sacks. Somehow, father and son made loose bathrobes resemble elegant cross-collared robes.
Tang Can looked like a refined, handsome academy student from the Song era, while the matching toddler holding his hand looked like his miniature cartoon version.
Placed within the imitation ancient street, father and son instantly became the most striking figures in a painting.
Viewers admired Tang Can’s face or squealed over Dengdeng. Everyone became more excited than the last, with rapidly scrolling comments overlapping in every variety of screaming sound effect. For a while, the livestream sounded like the gorges beneath White Emperor City—nothing but endless monkey cries.
Although the scenery was ancient in style, the food on offer remained the same local specialties they had spent the afternoon sampling.
Since they had already tried the driver’s carefully recommended favorites, they felt relatively unenthusiastic about the food at the garden fair. Besides, bedtime was approaching, so it was not suitable to eat too many strongly flavored or greasy foods.
Tang Can chose a serving of seaweed rice rolls and shared it with the child.
He had originally worried that such simple food would not satisfy the little glutton. Instead, the child’s attention was first captured by a nearby sandbag-tossing game.
“Want to play?”
“Daddy…”
Father and son spoke almost at the same time. But Dengdeng’s “Daddy” was not addressed to Tang Can. His gaze was directed toward the dim little alley beside the sandbag stall.
Tang Can’s heart jolted. He thought the child was young enough to see something he should not be seeing, but it was not even the Ghost Festival… His imagination ran so wild he briefly wondered whether his bargain-bin husband had died early and appeared as a ghost…
At that moment, the child raised a hand and pointed toward the sandbag stall at the alley entrance. “Daddy~”
Tang Can: ?
Looking closely, he finally saw a green squash plush standing in the center of the stall. It looked somewhat like the Squash character from *Plants vs. Zombies*, only even more abstract. If one studied it carefully, that abstraction genuinely resembled the photograph Tang Can had pressed out of shape.
In short, it was not his dead husband’s actual ghost. It was merely a misunderstanding caused by the child’s slight strabismus.
When Dengdeng was first diagnosed with mild strabismus, Tang Can had paid close attention. After seeing no further signs for a while, he had somewhat forgotten about it. That sudden sideways gaze nearly made him jump out of his skin.
Once the false alarm passed, Tang Can quickly returned to normal. Hearing the child’s voice lift with desire, he took Dengdeng’s little pale paw and led him toward the sandbag stall.
The game rules were obvious at a glance. More than ten holes of different sizes covered the wall, with different prizes positioned inside each one. The prizes were all inexpensive little toys. The most valuable-looking item was probably the green squash Dengdeng wanted. Correspondingly, the squash’s target hole was also the smallest.
Everyone received three free throws. Tang Can picked Dengdeng up and let him try first for fun.
The child had never played with sandbags before and lacked enough strength. Unsurprisingly, all three throws missed.
The child looked deeply disappointed. He raised a pair of dark, watery eyes and stared longingly at Tang Can.
“You want it that badly?” Tang Can seized the opportunity to vigorously ruffle the child’s fluffy head several times.
The corners of Dengdeng’s eyes drooped like an aggrieved puppy, but his gaze wandered evasively. “Not very much.”
The moment Teacher Tang heard this familiar brand of toddler logic, what else was there to understand? He waved his hand grandly. “Daddy will try. If I can’t get it, we’ll pay and keep trying. Ten yuan for three attempts—even if I have to borrow from the production team, I’ll win it for our baby!”
His declaration rang with magnificent confidence. Even the stall owner could not resist rubbing his hands together eagerly. There were not many reckless suckers like this these days!
The toddler genuinely wanted the Big Daddy squash doll very badly. Hearing this, it was difficult for his little heart not to be moved. It almost… almost felt like he truly was a very important child to Bad Dad. Otherwise, why would Bad Dad spend so much money on him?
An auntie on television had once said: where a person spends their money is where their love is…
The thought had barely appeared when Tang Can picked up all three sandbags at once, tossed them into the air, and effortlessly completed several rounds of three-ball juggling.
After warming up for just over ten seconds, Tang Can caught one falling sandbag and immediately threw it toward the squash target. The very first throw hit perfectly.
Dengdeng: …?
Tang Can did not waste the remaining two either. One flew toward an old-fashioned jumping-frog toy, while the other hit a neighboring little green spinning top.
Three throws, three hits. Childhood skill built over years really was effortless.
Tang Can, an utterly ordinary little prince of sandbag throwing. Though he had always hated that nickname, because the losers beneath him liked shortening it to initials that looked suspiciously like an insult.
Still, showing off in front of his child felt excellent. Tang Can brought his hand to his lips and blew over his fingers as though blowing smoke from a gun barrel after firing. But he could not maintain the cool pose for even one second before raising his brows excitedly and asking, “Was Daddy handsome?!”
The child flattened his little mouth and shouted in an angry baby voice, “HANDSOME!!!”
Big liar! You tricked me again!
Little did he know that the sight of the child’s eyes blazing while he desperately pretended not to be angry delighted Tang Can beyond measure. He scooped Dengdeng up and ran toward the next throwing-game stall. “Come on, come on! Daddy will teach Dengdeng every secret technique of the Tang family!”
As for the squash plush Tang Can had won, he hung it from the belt of the child’s bathrobe. Other ancient-style young masters wore jade pendants; his child wore a squash.
They were both green, so from a distance it looked almost appropriate. One simply could not examine the squash plush too closely—it was excessively ugly-cute.
Father and son played at the garden fair for more than an hour. Only when Dengdeng began swaying as he walked did Tang Can pick up the reluctant child and head back.
“Sleep first tonight. Daddy will take you to even more fun garden fairs in the future~”
The child lay against Tang Can’s shoulder and answered quietly. Before long, breathing in Bad Dad’s pleasant scent, his eyelids could no longer stay open and drifted closed.
Tang Can chuckled softly, tilted his head toward the brilliant river of stars across the night sky, and carried the treasure in his arms step by step toward the villa district.
The filming team also found the moment unusually beautiful and lasting. They deliberately fell farther behind father and son and lowered the camera to capture a wide shot.
Tang Can had taken only a few steps when he heard footsteps approaching not far ahead.
The quiet, elegant path was narrow. Afraid he might collide with whoever was coming, Tang Can lowered his gaze from the starry sky.
Then, on the silent path caught between patches of light and shadow, a tall figure suddenly appeared before his eyes.
Tang Can almost blurted out a curse. Was he seeing a ghost?! How was he looking at Old Huo?
