Four generations of the Huo family lived under one roof, and their descendants were exceptionally numerous.
Old Master Huo had five sons. Every one of those sons had produced a whole crowd of grandsons and granddaughters. His eldest son—Huo Dengdeng’s grandfather—was particularly afflicted with a compulsive breeding obsession.
Aside from the three children formally recorded in the family genealogy, he kept more than a dozen illegitimate sons and daughters outside.
Huo Dengdeng’s other biological father, Huo Jingyuan, was one of the three entered into the genealogy, but he had not been born to the official wife. He was the result of the eldest Huo son fooling around abroad before marriage.
So although Huo Jingyuan had been quite favored by Old Master Huo since childhood and held the title of eldest son of the eldest son, his position in the Huo family was still somewhat awkward.
Especially in recent years, as the old master’s health declined day by day, Huo Jingyuan’s status had fallen with it. Tang Can, an unwanted appendage, ranked even lower—far beneath the favored mistresses and lovers the eldest Huo kept outside.
The Huo family had never lacked fresh blood. Their standard arrangement for all those people kept outside was the same: a house, a car, and spending money. The basic requirement was simply to keep their mouths shut, never make trouble openly, and never damage the Huo corporation’s reputation.
Because of the marriage agreement between their families, Tang Can had successfully registered a marriage while bringing the child with him. Yet not only did his biological Tang family ignore him, even now he did not know which direction the front gate of the Huo ancestral residence faced. The steward had never once shown him a pleasant expression. That was one reason the original host always felt unable to hold his head up within the Huo family and believed himself constantly belittled.
After they learned he was getting restless and wanted to debut with the child, every monthly transfer came with merciless mockery and severe warnings both before and after the money arrived.
But unlike the original host, who bullied the weak and feared the strong, Tang Can heard this kind of bullshit and wished he could shove his hand through the phone and slap the man awake from a distance.
Even if they were too far apart for him to actually hit anyone, a smooth little combo of verbal attacks rolled right off his tongue. “Did you hide when humanity was evolving? Amazing. Even shit can talk now? I treat you like a human being, and you bark at me like a dog?”
Tang Can had not violated the agreement, so he had absolutely no reason to fear the bootlicker serving beside his breeding-obsessed father-in-law.
The steward on the other end was already in his fifties, the golden age for high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol. Tang Can’s barrage left him gasping. After a long time, he managed only two words. “You! You!!!”
“Me, me? What about me? Me-me, oh-oh~ sweet and delicious in your mouth, oh! Oh-oh~ giving you fresh new energy! Oh-oh~ milk candy~ super-delicious milk candy!~” Tang Can suddenly caught the rhythm and, following the old steward’s stammer, launched into an impromptu rap of an ancient commercial jingle. Then he giggled and hung up.
The little wooden child beside him could barely keep playing wooden anymore. In the past, Bad Daddy had often changed faces too, but only between how he behaved in public and private; he had not been nasty to outsiders. Now it was completely reversed, and he was also… especially strange.
“Dad has money now! Let’s go spend it!~” Tang Can hung up, clapped his hands, and turned toward the child with a huge excited grin.
Huo Dengdeng nodded obediently on the surface while thoughts spun at high speed inside his head.
Tang Can first searched through Michelin restaurants in Yun City, but because this was a spontaneous decision, the best he could book was a one-star restaurant.
He dug the most ordinary tracksuit he could find out of the original host’s pile of useless designer clothes. The child changed quickly as well and waited silently by the door, so obedient he almost erased his own presence.
When Tang Can walked over, he found that the little one had not only taken out and neatly placed his own new shoes, but had also set out Tang Can’s sneakers.
He had to admit that after suffering the trash original host’s abuse, this child had become independent to an extraordinary degree. At the kindergarten where Tang Can used to work, many children this age had not even stopped using diapers. Huo Dengdeng, however, could eat, bathe, and dress completely on his own. After finishing McDonald’s, he had immediately known to climb around, throw away the rubbish, and wipe the dining table.
Tang Can knew that doing these things could provide the child with a certain sense of security, so he did not stop him. He merely put on his shoes while pouring on praise in his professional cutesy teacher voice. “Oh my gosh, our baby Dengdeng is way too amazing! Daddy has never seen a child more sensible and capable than you!”
“I hereby announce that Dengdeng is the number-one, super-duper, invincible best baby in the entire universe! Daddy hasn’t bought any little red-flower stickers yet, so Dengdeng gets an honorary thumbs-up first!” As he spoke, he gave Dengdeng a thumbs-up.
Tang Can had originally wanted to press his thumb against the child’s forehead, but when the little wooden child instinctively leaned backward again, he suspected the thumbs-up gesture looked too much like a fist. He immediately opened his palm and tried again with a smile. “Dengdeng, shall we hold hands and walk together?”
The child still showed no expression, but the tremor of his eyelashes seemed to betray a trace of emotion. A moment later, an excessively thin, pale little hand settled into Tang Can’s palm, and the smile on Tang Can’s face instantly widened.
He had not expected much at all, yet progress came this quickly. He really had to admit that little Tang Can had a gift for childcare! The heavens had personally chosen him to be a kindergarten teacher!
“Come on! Let’s go eat well and live it up with Dad!” In an excellent mood, Tang Can took the child’s hand and walked away with a cheerful bounce in his step.
The child: “…” His dark little brain analyzed the situation for a long time, but every road led to the same four words—Bad Daddy went crazy.
*
Only after Tang Can got into the taxi did he pull out his phone and check the latest developments online.
Tang Can had posted the case-filing notice completely uncensored. The time, incident, parties involved, and handling officer were all written clearly. Most importantly, the lower-right corner carried the highly conspicuous official seal of the Yun City Public Security Bureau.
Even Tang Yichen’s fans, who rushed over immediately, could at most grit their teeth and say: 【Photoshopped, right? This can’t be real!】
They were quickly educated by casual spectators: 【Are you insane? Who would Photoshop something like this and still dare post it publicly?】
【So his car really was stolen? That is genuinely rotten luck for everything to happen at once. I knew it—he already signed the contract, so it never made sense that he simply wouldn’t show up.】
【Seriously? Seriously? A stolen car means he just doesn’t come record the show? Would he die if he called a taxi and came over for the pre-interview first? At the end of the day, Madam Golden Toad is still a nobody acting like a superstar.】
【To be fair, I hate this privileged class too, but the address written there really is remote and hard to reach by taxi. Last time I went around there, I even had to add extra money to get a ride.】
…
【Am I the only one who noticed Tang Can drives an S480? That doesn’t exactly scream rich… Tang Yichen never drove anything under two million even before marriage.】
【Exactly, bro. The S480 is a special domestic-market model. Put bluntly, it’s the beggar edition of a Maybach. A proper Maybach costs three or four million. Tang Can’s “Madam Golden Toad” title is looking pretty watered down.】
【Tang Can is just a low-class person driving a low-class car. How could he possibly compare with Chen-baby?】
【Ummm, the internet really is crazy. There are actually people calling a car worth more than a million “low-class.” I assume everyone here earns tens of millions a year, then? [dog head]】
Tang Can had not expected the comment section to derail completely over whether a lower-spec Maybach counted as a luxury car. Even the remote villa district where he lived, Brocade Elegance Gardens, was dragged into the discussion.
But because everyone had a new topic to argue about, the negative trending page accusing Tang Can of arriving late and lying was quickly washed clean. In its place appeared #Tang Can S480# and #Tang Can Brocade Elegance Gardens#.
Tang Can was not surprised at all by the negative trend caused by missing the pre-interview. Compared with the original plot, merely accusing him of clinging to an older man and acting like a diva despite being a nobody was nothing.
In the original story, the host had been late but did eventually arrive. Director Wei Kai ended the broadcast in time, so viewers never saw the original host appear. That meant the original host had also carried all the same blame Tang Can was carrying now.
The difference was that despite being late, the original host brought the child and appeared in front of the fake young master, Tang Yichen. Father and son were both so strikingly good-looking that Tang Yichen immediately felt threatened.
Appearance was not the most important part of a parenting show, but during the early stages of a new broadcast, good looks were absolutely the strongest possible bonus.
Tang Yichen had met Tang Can four years earlier, but Tang Can had not finished growing into his features then. He had been far inferior to Tang Yichen, a pampered young master raised in luxury, and his temperament and manners had both been terrible. Even if his face initially inspired some expectations, it would only make his later collapse more dramatic.
But four years later, Tang Can’s looks had fully blossomed. Even though father and son were both thin enough to look like strings of dried food, they accidentally matched the entertainment industry’s warped aesthetic perfectly—being excessively thin looked just right on camera.
So Tang Yichen had gifted Tang Can an additional trending topic accusing him of using drugs, turning his opening situation into a landscape of total devastation.
After the rumor fermented, the original host had gone for urine and hair testing to prove his innocence, but he missed the golden twenty-four-hour window for responding to public opinion. The bad impression had already branded itself into the public mind. Combined with the story that he had latched onto a powerful Golden Toad, people were even more willing to believe every rumor had simply been buried with money.
For the child, however, it had not been entirely bad. Precisely because viewers watched so closely, the original host’s garbage abuse was exposed. Later, drugs were even planted on him, and the combined charges sent him straight to prison, where he became a nationally notorious champion among scumbags.
Tang Can immediately booked comprehensive medical examinations for both himself and the child. While taking precautions, he also became genuinely curious. Were rich people’s methods always this wild? Could they really frame someone with drugs just because they wanted to?
Even though he now had an extra hundred thousand in his bank account, he still would not know where to buy drugs even if he had money. Was that really something an ordinary person could simply decide to purchase?
Tang Can wrinkled his nose. For some reason, he smelled the faint scent of lawless criminals.
*
At exactly seven the next morning, Shining Little Ones officially went live.
The first episode’s livestream was simply meant to introduce viewers to the four families by following the daily lives of the eight adult and child guests. Outdoor-location filming would only begin with the second episode.
Setting aside the rumored preliminary invitation list, all four fixed guest families were currently highly topical and popular.
The hottest of all were Tang Yichen, formerly known as the “Nation’s Son” and now the “male spouse of a ten-billion-yuan family,” and his wealthy stepson, Gu Beisheng.
Next came the aloof Best Actress Wen Tong, recently trapped in a storm of public controversy over her secret marriage, hidden child, and diva behavior; then Cen Jiaojiao, who had once stunned the public before rapidly leaving the industry to have a child, only to return to public attention because of her “pampered little wife” comments.
Compared with those three groups, Tang Can and his son also had plenty of sensational appeal, but they unquestionably had the worst reputation and the lowest expectations. Tang Can’s title of “Madam Golden Toad” was especially widespread.
Although his Maybach S480 and remote villa had already made many people suspect he had married into a counterfeit rich family, even removing the word “golden” merely turned the golden toad into an ordinary toad. Most viewers, even out of morbid curiosity, had no desire to wake up early just to watch Tang Can’s little toad.
So after the livestream began, Tang Can’s room contained only a handful of viewers and sat dead last in traffic statistics.
The filming team’s bonuses were tied directly to livestream popularity. The crew members who had hauled equipment over at the crack of dawn all felt miserable. They had expected Tang Can’s numbers to be bad, but not this pathetic…
Intern Xiao Jia, however, was not discouraged. Nor was she the only one. Even Brother Guo, the seasoned cameraman who had come for yesterday’s pre-interview, had voluntarily requested Tang Can’s group after seeing the clarification post on Weibo.
Intern Xiao Jia was beside herself with excitement. “Brother Guo, did you turn from a passerby into a Tang Can fan too!?”
Brother Guo bit down on an unlit cigarette and gave her a speechless look. “In the language you young people use, I’m a die-hard solo stan of Chinese currency.”
Xiao Jia: “…”
The filming team needed to set up their equipment in advance. Since Tang Can could not get up early, he had given Xiao Jia a temporary entry code. Thus, by the time everything was ready, neither Tang Can nor his child had appeared once.
The other three families had all gotten up one after another before the livestream began. Even if they showed a “waking up” scene after going live, it was a carefully arranged second take. Only Tang Can and his son were genuinely asleep.
The crew waited until seven, when the broadcast officially began, and finally got something from Tang Can… his alarm clock ringing.
With his head buried in the blanket, Tang Can did not even look. His hand shot out and accurately slapped the alarm off. After that it rang again every five minutes, and without exception, Tang Can silenced it the instant it sounded.
Xiao Jia, newly converted into a fan of his face, was nearly frantic—especially after seeing Tang Yichen personally make breakfast for his stepson, prompting a screen full of extravagant praise.
Meanwhile, in Tang Can’s livestream—
【I’m dying. It’s been half an hour. Is Tang Can still not getting up?】
【Tang Can is literally acting out my life. Every morning I get violently assaulted by an alarm that goes off every five minutes.】
【This is absurd. The other three families are almost eating already, and we haven’t even seen Tang Can’s face…】
The moment that comment floated past, a small mound suddenly rose in the middle of the picture.
The mound grew larger and larger until a round, fluffy little head emerged from it.
Huo Dengdeng first gave an enormous yawn and rubbed his eyes in a daze. After waking up a little, he suddenly realized that he had actually slept beside Bad Daddy!
Although he had not dared refuse Tang Can’s invitation to share the bed, when he fell asleep the child had been lying at the far edge away from Tang Can, beneath his own little blanket, on his own little pillow.
But he had no idea what happened after he fell asleep. Not only had he abandoned his blanket and pillow to crawl under Bad Daddy’s quilt, he had spent the entire night sleeping back-to-back with him.
The still-drowsy toddler woke completely. His round, bright gray-blue eyes met the black camera lens not far away, and in a single second those huge eyes powered down again. He returned to being a vacant-eyed little wooden doll.
Yet even with no expression and empty eyes, his little face—more exquisite than a porcelain doll’s—was enough to shock the entire audience.
【??? The little toad looks like THIS??? Holy shit! He’s even prettier than the ten-billion-yuan golden grandson next door???】
【Help! He’s way too cute! AHHHH I want to cuddle him and squish him—come give Auntie a hug!!!】
【Awooo he rubbed his eyes and even rubbed his little face!!! I can’t take it, I’m about to pass out from the cuteness!!!】
【Impossible! Absolutely impossible! Tang Can definitely paid to rent a mixed-race child!】
Little Huo Dengdeng had no idea how powerful his face was. The moment he fully woke, he moved away from Bad Daddy, sat on the edge of the bed, rubbed his little stomach, and stared into space.
In reality, his little brain was spinning rapidly. First he tried to remember what happened after he fell asleep. Then he reconfirmed the revised plan he had made before bed the previous night. Finally, as he rubbed his growling stomach, he inevitably remembered what Tang Can had said before sleeping: “What does Dengdeng want to eat most? Dad will make it for you tomorrow morning!”
Thinking of that, the wooden child turned around without expression and looked at Tang Can sprawled on the bed, sleeping like a dead pig. He snorted inwardly: Big liar!
Remembering the huge bags of food brought back from the supermarket, the child still could not stop himself from swallowing. He wriggled off the bed, slipped his feet into the cat-paw slippers Bad Daddy had bought him, and quietly walked out of the master—
