The child might already have turned dark, but his age, height, and life experience severely limited just how dark he could be.
If he truly wanted revenge on Bad Daddy, he could only keep enduring until everyone discovered Bad Daddy’s true face.
So even after Bad Daddy falsely accused him of vomiting and diarrhea and turned him into a dirty child who pooped his pants, all he could do for the moment was become furious in silence—and even that fury had to stay secretly hidden inside.
The entire ride, the child sat obediently in the back seat with a stiff little face, swallowing all his grievance. Once he calmed down, he began reviewing everything that had happened that morning—
Make sandwiches for Bad Daddy so everyone discovers Daddy is a villain who enslaves toddlers. (✓)
Keep thinking about eating the sandwiches until he forgets to avoid Daddy, then voluntarily offer his paw to be carried just so he can eat sooner. (✗)
Worst of all, even after all that, he still had not gotten to eat!
The child lowered his head to look at the little lunch box he hugged tightly in his arms, the fragrant sandwiches inside. He swallowed, then pouted.
As a three-year-old toddler, his instinct when hungry and wronged was to cry and throw a fuss. But remembering Bad Daddy’s past torment, and remembering his grand plan to bring Daddy down, the child overcame both body and mind and endured it all.
He hugged the lunch box and clenched his little fists the entire way, using iron willpower to survive every fasting examination.
When Tang Can finally said they could eat, the child could barely suppress the corners of his mouth. He pursed his lips with effort, carried the lunch box over to a nearby sofa, and placed it on the seat, which was just the right height to serve as a table for a toddler.
Tang Can rubbed his hands together with equal anticipation. “Aiya, one look and I can tell our baby Dengdeng made something delicious!”
The child bit his lower lip with his upper teeth. The corners of his mouth curved faintly upward, and at some point light had appeared in his gray-blue eyes. His already exquisitely pretty little face became twice as adorable the moment he stopped pretending to be a wooden doll, and once again Tang Can melted.
His heart itched, and even worse, his hands were itching desperately to squish the child.
This was a severe test of self-control. There had been plenty of practical considerations behind his unwavering decision to become a kindergarten teacher after graduation, but he genuinely did like children.
And for someone who adored cute children and cute pets, a sweet face and an interesting personality were both bonus points. Little Huo Dengdeng was the rare kind of adorable child whose looks alone could max out every score. On top of that, there was a slight resemblance between his brows and Tang Can’s, and by blood he was now Tang Can’s biological son.
Not merely a conventionally biological son, either. Tang Can had personally given birth to him. At first, Tang Can had only thought the setting where men could bear children was ridiculously strange and had not felt anything particularly special about a child he himself had delivered.
Yet without realizing it, he had now put on the thickest biological-father filter. Every angle looked adorable. As for “dark little future villain” and “future final boss,” Tang Can simply could not connect those labels with the little fellow before him. He only wanted to fatten the child up and then bury his face in those future chubby cheeks!
In the short time it took the child to open the lunch box, Tang Can had already cuddled and squished him from head to toe in his imagination and was nearly transforming into a werewolf.
Then the lid opened, and the child’s incredibly adorable expression of anticipation vanished instantly.
“What’s wrong?” Tang Can immediately leaned over to look.
The child pouted. “The sammich… got cowd…”
Tang Can wanted to say sandwiches tasted fine cold, but then the tiny light bulb in the child’s eyes switched off with an almost audible click and he returned to being an expressionless wooden doll. Tang Can immediately understood that the little guy genuinely cared about this.
“If it’s cold, we can just heat it!” Tang Can picked up the child with one arm, carried the lunch box with the other, and power-walked along the directional signs.
The child occasionally had opportunities to sneak peeks at television, but the amount of education he could acquire from that was extremely limited. Naturally, he could not read the sign that said Dining Area.
Only after Tang Can carried him there did he discover that the medical-examination center not only provided ordinary breakfast, but also had microwaves for reheating food.
Very soon, father and son finally got to eat their fragrant, piping-hot upgraded sandwiches.
Cheese, meat floss, mini sausages, plus four pieces of lettuce—add a little sauce and there was no way that combination could taste bad. And considering that in his entire life the child had only ever eaten a Filet-O-Fish and one sushi meal that had not really suited his tastes, a sandwich this good was enough to conquer him completely.
His previously dark, heavy eyes instantly lit up like thousand-watt searchlights. His beautiful gray-blue irises shimmered brilliantly, and his whole face carried the silent baby-voiced exclamation: So yummy!
Father and son really were remarkably synchronized. The child had only just exclaimed inwardly when Tang Can said aloud, “It’s so good! Daddy has never eaten a sandwich better than the one Dengdeng made!”
“Is this what talent looks like? Daddy has made sandwiches so many times, but they’re not as good as Dengdeng’s very first one! Dengdeng is amazing, amazing, amazing! If we train this properly, could you become a Michelin chef someday?!”
In child psychology, praise was rule number one. After so many years, it had soaked all the way into Tang Can’s bones, and long strings of encouragement came automatically.
The child, absorbed in eating, jolted when Bad Daddy suddenly spoke. He was debating whether he should perform some dramatic acting on the spot when Tang Can’s lavish compliments instead left him dizzy.
A flash of excitement raced through his beautiful gray-blue eyes: Was he really that amazing?
Could it just be that Bad Daddy was too stupid? Still, he also thought the sandwich he made tasted extremely good…
After rigorous consideration, the child tentatively believed more than half of the claim that he was a culinary genius and future Michelin chef.
For a toddler who had only ever endured criticism, suppression, and scolding since birth, and had never once been praised, every habitual word of encouragement from Tang Can was like an ultra-concentrated potion of enchantment.
Even though the child had already turned dark, he still found the corners of his mouth difficult to control. His suddenly lively little expression successfully sent the comments into a frenzy.
【Baby Dengdeng is just way too cuuuute!!!】
【Every frame of this father-son pair is pure visual bliss, sob sob sob, a feast for face-lovers!】
【Baby, you’re a fragrant little cake!】
【The government encourages having children, and I’ve decided this is the one I want!】
【Baby, tell Auntie, what color sack do you like?】
Father and son happily finished their sandwiches and then completed the rest of their examinations one after another. The results proved that young bodies still had decent foundations.
The original host had stayed up late and dieted every day until he looked like a praying mantis, yet he only had mild malnutrition and was otherwise fairly healthy. The doctor did warn him, however, that if he continued dieting, his gastrointestinal function would inevitably become disordered, and fixing it afterward would not be easy.
Tang Can repeatedly agreed. Given a second life, only an idiot would continue mistreating himself.
The child, however, had not only malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies severe enough to suggest developing night blindness, but also a mild strabismus.
Perhaps because the child often pretended to be vacant and his gray-blue irises were as large as oversized cosmetic contacts, leaving little visible white in his eyes, Tang Can had never noticed the strabismus. At first he was quite surprised, but after thinking back carefully, he quickly found the likely cause.
The original host found the child irritating, so naturally he would never sit and watch television together with him. The child was confined to the villa every day without even toys to pass the time. One of his few sources of entertainment was probably secretly watching from the side while the original host had the television on.
And the angle from which he could sneak those looks was extremely limited. After doing that for a long time, how could his eyes not begin turning sideways?
Fortunately, the strabismus was still mild. After learning it had likely resulted from sneaking sideways looks at television, the doctor merely told Tang Can to first correct the child’s habit of watching from an angle. If the strabismus did not improve, they could pursue further treatment.
Thus father and son remained at the hospital until mid-afternoon and left with two sets of medical advice saying they were underweight and malnourished and needed balanced diets.
Tang Can was very satisfied. With this impression established, even if Tang Yichen tried to frame him for drug use again, most viewers would instinctively think “malnutrition” first and have more patience to let the bullet fly a little longer before reaching conclusions.
Tang Yichen obviously understood this as well. But watching Tang Can and his son break open the situation with nothing but beautiful faces—and seeing their livestream rise from absolute last place to second in barely one morning, on the verge of overtaking him and his stepson—made Tang Yichen unable to sit still.
Everyone knew the importance of a strong opening. Otherwise television dramas, movie premieres, and variety-show launches would not spend heavily buying trending topics and paid commenters. It was an open secret in the entertainment industry.
Even with his huge fan base, organic public interest warmed too slowly. He had purchased several trending topics first thing that morning, each with only a hundred or so comments before suddenly appearing high on the ranking. The other two families had done the same. Yet even if you stacked all three guests’ purchased trends together, they still brought less traffic than #Tang Can’s Divinely Beautiful Father and Son#, which had climbed naturally and remained firmly at number one.
Not to mention the many later topics that popped up: #Tang Can, the “Paralyzed Old Father,” Gets Fed by His Kid#, #Premium-Quality Human Toddler#, #Dengdeng Sandwich#, #Shameless Tang Can Makes His Kid Take the Blame#…
These amusing, roast-style trends naturally attracted more interest than the painfully wholesome “perfect father” topics Tang Yichen had purchased to cultivate a positive image. Even though they were still farther down the trending list, their click rates rivaled the bought topics placed above them, and their comment-to-view ratios were exceptionally high.
【I’m dying. When it comes to screwing over a kid, nobody beats his biological dad. Tang Yichen and his son next door are a fairy tale; these two are a Spring Festival Gala comedy sketch!】
【What is this? Tang Can, that low-class guy, already cleared his name?】
【At first I also thought it was a scripted reputation-cleanup, but sisters don’t lie to sisters. It really isn’t. That man is… completely unrestrained.】
【No idea whether he’s been cleared, but the father and son are genuinely gorgeous. I took a hundred screenshots in ten minutes!】
【+1 +1 Dengdeng really is so cute! My new internet child!】
【Now I’m suddenly curious what Tang Can’s husband looks like. Dengdeng is obviously mixed-race and has zero flaws from head to toe. Could Tang Can and that rumored giant toad really have produced him?】
Seeing the direction of public opinion turn wrong, Tang Yichen sent his manager a message halfway through the livestream.
This time, however, he did not use the drug accusation from the original plot. Instead, he deliberately dug up the old scandals left behind by the trash from the poor Tang family.
Back then, those people had accepted countless television interviews and repeatedly made scenes at Tang Yichen’s door in an effort to get money from him. As a family, they had perfectly displayed the image of greedy, lazy, idle parasites willing to use any method available to suck blood from others.
Anyone who had followed the mistaken-at-birth incident remembered vividly how morally rotten the poor Tang family had seemed. When people learned that Tang Can’s current manager, driver, and nanny were all former relatives from that same poor Tang family, the slight improvement in his reputation immediately plunged back toward freezing point.
Sleeping late, making a toddler cook, being picky, tricking a driver by saying his child had soiled his pants… Behavior that had originally seemed shameless in a strangely funny way suddenly tasted very different once paid commenters began steering the discussion.
【Birds of a feather really do flock together. Other than having a good face, isn’t Tang Can exactly the same inside as that whole trash Tang family?】
【He isn’t close to his biological parents from a respectable household, but spends every day mixing with those rotten people instead. That says plenty.】
【Tang Can and those pieces of trash can stay locked together forever, but please don’t ruin our baby Dengdeng!】
By sheer coincidence, Tang Can—currently livestreaming while shopping for clothes with the child—received a call from the police.
The earlier negative trend had already scattered once he posted the case-filing notice, but there was no such thing as too much clarification. After asking permission, Tang Can immediately put the call on speaker.
For a moment, everyone in the livestream clearly heard the news that the car thief, Tang Xinrong, had been arrested.
When the case-filing notice was issued yesterday, Tang Can’s Cheap Uncle Tang Xinrong had still only been the prime suspect, so the notice contained no specific name. Spectators knew Tang Can’s car had been stolen, but not that his Tang-family uncle was the thief.
What was more, Tang Xinrong had been arrested while participating in illegal group gambling at an underground casino. The stolen vehicle was parked nearby. He had already admitted that he lost the car in gambling, but refused to admit he had stolen it, stubbornly insisting Tang Can had given it to him.
With Tang Can’s statement on record, naturally the police did not believe him. The purpose of this call was simply to update Tang Can on the case and tell him to come collect the vehicle from the station.
Before hanging up, the officer even kindly asked, “Did you figure out that online lawsuit process for recovering the money that I explained yesterday?”
“Thank you so much. I’ve filed everything and I’m waiting for the review process now,” Tang Can replied with a smile.
Since Tang Xinrong had already been arrested, why had Tang Yaozu and the others not come make trouble? Tang Can was actually looking forward to tearing them cleanly out of his life on livestream.
While Tang Can was thinking, the child had already changed and walked out of the fitting room.
The original host had bought the child new clothes before, but all of them were deliberately cheap and plain for the show, with no item costing more than thirty yuan. He had probably been dreaming of creating a “model parent who raises his child frugally” persona.
Tang Can did not support bankrupting yourself to dress a child in luxury brands either. But the original host had a whole closet of designer clothes for himself while many of the child’s clothes were made from cheap synthetic fabric. Tang Can had nothing but profanity to say about that, so the moment the medical examination ended, he brought the child shopping.
Right now, the child was trying on a sweet-but-edgy overall set: a powder-blue puff-sleeved shirt paired with black suspender shorts, a cute lop-eared rabbit embroidered on the chest, and two long cream-colored ears attached at the back waist of the shorts.
Combined with the child’s fluffy, slightly curled black hair and exquisitely delicate face with a hint of mixed ancestry, he looked exactly like an elaborate doll that had stepped out of a shop window. Forget the sales assistant—Tang Can’s own eyes went straight.
This! Is! Way! Too! Cute!
Huo Dengdeng was not used to situations like this. He lowered his gaze and waited, but after receiving no feedback for a while, he grew increasingly uneasy. His pink-white fingers lightly picked at the seam of his shorts before he finally looked up and murmured, “Daddy…”
Tang Can grabbed the child and pulled him toward the mirror. His acting addiction struck, and without caring whether the child lived or died, he insisted on performing a “Duanmu of Metersbonwe” impression. “Shh. Don’t call me Daddy. Call me Duanmu.”
Huo Dengdeng: ?
