Chapter 40 Part 2

Before, she would have considered her in-laws’ and husband’s differing opinions on every little thing. But now, Kang Feier only wanted to consider her daughter and herself.

Her eyes curved into crescent moons as she smiled: “Of course, we can. Let’s go stomp together, okay?” After speaking, mother and daughter held hands and ran joyfully toward the puddles.

Watching from afar, Lu Aotian just thought it was childish. Silly sweet girl is indeed a silly sweet girl, he grumbled inwardly. But as they neared the dock, right in front of him was a large yet very shallow, clear puddle.

He couldn’t quite describe the feeling, but he found his gaze incredibly difficult to tear away from that puddle.

Actually, a love for water is an innate trait in children. After all, in the embryonic stage, humans float in amniotic fluid, and infants can instinctively swim. The influence of this innate nature generally fades as one ages.

The unknown surge in Lu Aotian’s heart at this moment was, simply put, his DNA kicking in.

Seeing the cub’s longing little expression, Ji Nuo and Han Cheng exchanged a smile. They could always find points of mutual understanding through the child, as if they were a truly close-knit family with perfect chemistry.

Han Cheng spoke first: “Do you want to stomp?”

Lu Aotian didn’t even think: “Of course…”

Before the word “not” could come out, Ji Nuo spoke first: “I want to stomp. Will Aotian keep Uncle company?”

Lu Aotian looked at Ji Nuo in disbelief, a hint of glittering anticipation unconsciously flashing in his eyes. “…Well, since it’s like that, alright then.” He suppressed the corners of his mouth threatening to curl up.

What could he do when he ran into such a childish stinky little brother?

But although Ji Nuo said he wanted to stomp in the puddles, he still considered that the child’s cold hadn’t fully recovered. When running over, he and Han Cheng avoided the puddle itself, preventing any splashes they might kick up from spraying onto the child.

As for little Lu Ao’ao, with one hand clutching Ji Nuo and the other clutching Han Cheng, he stomped his little feet with reckless abandon right in the center of the puddle, letting the high splashes of water drench the two people beside him.

Only when he’d nearly splashed all the water out of the puddle did he, wearing a huge grin, let Ji Nuo and Han Cheng swing him out of the puddle’s range.

Belatedly, Lu Aotian pursed his little lips. But he had to admit, stomping in puddles was so fun. Being swung up by the adults’ arms was so fun too. Though it couldn’t compare to his former days of flying through the sky and burrowing into the earth… being a kid wasn’t so bad…

A crystalline, happy light sparkled in the cub’s beautiful slate-blue eyes.

Ji Nuo helped him adjust his hat. “Did Aotian like it?”

Lu Aotian was so happy he hadn’t even noticed Ji Nuo didn’t stomp. Now being asked, he still pursed his lips with restrained poise, nodding with the air of a seasoned elder: “Not bad.”

Ji Nuo glanced up at Han Cheng. The two adults, with perfect silent understanding, swung the cub up onto the yacht. The tightly pursed corners of the little dumpling’s mouth instantly bloomed into a huge grin. “Wah~”

The yacht started, and the group quickly reached the small island again.

The familiar tidal flats, however, had undergone a massive transformation after the typhoon’s baptism. A few coconut trees on the island had been blown over. The coconut frond shelters the guests had painstakingly built were long gone. But the typhoon hadn’t arrived empty-handed.

Crabs, jellyfish, sea urchins, abalone… a wealth of fresh seafood normally hidden in the sea had been swept ashore by the earlier gale.

Lu Aotian even found two impressively sized blue crabs and a cluster of purple varnish clams, each one larger than his own hand.

This type of shellfish usually lives at depths of over a dozen meters. While not an extremely rare or precious species, large clams nearing a quarter of a pound each were still quite uncommon. Without the typhoon washing them ashore, finding ones this size would be a rare sight even over several years.

The more Lu Aotian picked, the more excited he got. Spotting an enormous brown crab in the distance, he shot off like an arrow released from a bow. Ji Nuo reached out but was already too late. He had no choice but to let Han Cheng take the already overflowing little bucket back first, while he took the net bag and chased after the cub.

Lu Aotian was still sprinting into the wind over there, the immense joy of his haul making him forget the very reason he was wearing a hat. A sudden gust of wind successfully flipped his white baseball cap off.

Tiantian, who was showing a small starfish to the camera, looked up to see a hurtling explosion of hair charging toward her and let out a surprised “Wah.”

She was a little girl quite conscious of appearances. The impression Lu Aotian had left on her before was very different from the monkey-like male classmates she usually encountered. So Tiantian’s face showed surprise at Ao’ao’s sudden transformation: “Ao’ao didi, your hat fell off.”

Hearing this, the cameraman following Tiantian also turned his lens over.

Lu Aotian only then realized he had wildly lost control of his image. He clamped a hand onto his messy head and ran back, crashing straight into Ji Nuo’s waiting arms.

Ji Nuo quickly held onto this “hold my hand or I’m gone” cub and fastened the baseball cap back onto his head. “Alright, alright. It’s fine now that the hat’s on.”

Lu Aotian’s face fell into a terribly sour expression. “It’s not fine. It was filmed…”

Ji Nuo thought to himself, if this cub knew his hairstyle had already been seen far and wide in all its hideous glory, wouldn’t he just jump into the sea?

After thinking, he switched angles to comfort: “Our Aotian is so good-looking, any hairstyle works. Really, Uncle thought your style today was exceptionally cool.”

Lu Aotian pouted, not particularly comforted. But after Ji Nuo spouted a continuous stream of rainbow farts, Lu Aotian got lost in it again.

Mouth saying, “You’re only saying that because you’re biased with your filter for me…”, he still felt a happy little flutter inside, marveling that his top-tier character model was indeed a world-class masterpiece, and even dressed ugly, he was ten thousand times more handsome than others.

However, the good mood stabilized by Ji Nuo’s rainbow farts eventually crashed.

The cause was that at the end of beachcombing, when staff asked each group what side dishes they needed—since the villa was remote, the production team planned to order delivery—Ji Nuo, planning to make pine nut corn, egg foo young, and tomato, enoki mushroom, and tofu soup, reported a long list of ingredients.

Lu Aotian frowned in confusion. “Can’t we just steam the seafood plain?”

Although he liked Ji Nuo’s other dishes too, he hadn’t forgotten that Ji Nuo’s back needed rest.

Ji Nuo had actually wanted to tell him earlier that sick children couldn’t eat seafood anymore, but seeing the cub having so much fun beachcombing, he couldn’t bear to interrupt.

Seeing Ji Nuo struggling to speak, and long accustomed to the little tyke’s eye-daggers, Han Cheng stated directly: “Your cold isn’t better yet. You can’t eat seafood.”

Lu Aotian: “!!!”

A bolt from the blue!!!

“What?!”

“My cold is better!” Lu Aotian was truly infuriated. A breath caught in his throat, and he abruptly burst into a fit of coughing, further confirming the heartless reality that he was still sick.

Lu Aotian had boarded the yacht happily and beachcombed with super high spirits. When disembarking, he was instantly transformed into a frostbitten eggplant.

Han Cheng bent down. “Ao’ao tired? Uncle carry you back, okay?”

Lu Aotian couldn’t be bothered to correct him for calling himself uncle again. He glanced at Ji Nuo’s waist. Thinking it over, he reluctantly agreed.

Han Cheng picked up the child with one arm. Watching Weng Kai walking ahead, also carrying a child in one arm and holding his wife’s hand with the other, he felt that since earlier they had held the cub’s hands left and right to match the other groups, they should match them now too.

Thinking this, he extended his free left hand, intending to take Ji Nuo’s. Lu Aotian, though wilted, still had eyes in the back of his head and ears all around. Seeing this, he directed five consecutive sneezes right at Han Cheng’s face.

Then he gave a cold snort toward Han Cheng: “Now you’ve been infected by me. To avoid passing it further to him, you two stay one meter apart.” Pausing here, Lu Aotian’s breath hitched, then he added, the corner of his mouth quirking up: “You’re gonna catch a cold too. You can’t eat seafood either.”

Han Cheng: “…”

Standing to the side, Ji Nuo had been feeling a bit shy from the touch of fingertips a moment before. Now, he really couldn’t help it, and a pfft of laughter escaped him.

The seafood brought back from beachcombing was all steamed plain. As for the pine nut corn, egg foo young, and tomato, enoki mushroom, and tofu soup prepared for Lu Aotian, the ingredients were prepped by Han Cheng under Ji Nuo’s guidance. The cooking part was completed by Ji Nuo personally.

Thus, the final products, while clearly showing disastrously poor knife skills, still tasted quite good.

Lu Aotian, smelling the fresh, savory aroma of seafood filling the entire house, slurped his tomato, enoki mushroom, and tofu soup, finding today’s tomatoes exceptionally sour.

After the sumptuous feast, it was time for the draw again.

This time, the draw was for the performance items the guests had written down before beachcombing. Tiantian’s family was the musical “Snow White.” Zhenzhen’s family was a piano ballad sung by Kang Feier, accompanied by a ballet dance from the chubby little swan Zhenzhen. Ruirui’s family was the relatively simple family classic “Auspicious Three Treasures.”

Ji Nuo had originally wanted to sing too. After all, aside from poetry recitation, it was the easiest performance to prepare. But it was unanimously opposed by the cub and Han Cheng.

In the end, they changed it to a universally known classic skit, “Justice Bao.” The more interesting twist was having the cub play Justice Bao, and Han Cheng play the villain.

However, what Bai Yong wanted wasn’t just a family variety show. Since his debut, Han Cheng had never sung. If he could get Han Cheng to open his mic on the show, that would undoubtedly be another huge selling point.

Plus, even years later, when people talked about Han Cheng singing, they’d remember “Where Are the Cubs Going?” as the show where Best Actor Han sang for the first time.

So, Bai Yong schemed and added a draw segment. After all, except for the performance Ji Nuo’s family had reported, the other three groups all involved singing. Unless Ji Nuo drew his own family’s slip.

To prevent this, Bai Yong specifically required a parent to draw the slip this time.

After drawing, each family was given half an hour to digest their meal and prepare for the upcoming performance.

The guests had long since grown accustomed to Bai Yong’s unpredictable twists. Quickly, Ji Nuo returned holding a paper slip that read “Auspicious Three Treasures.” He also had three copies of the lyrics provided by Ruirui’s family.

Han Cheng was in the bathroom taking a call from Xu Li. The more he listened, the tighter his brows furrowed. “Wasn’t the hotel surveillance already dealt with?”

Xu Li also felt a headache coming on. “They bribed a staff member from the surveillance room. That person quit their job to come forward as a witness, claiming they personally saw Ji Nuo enter a room with a man first, and only came out half an hour later to find you… The Xu Family is pulling out all the stops to muddy the waters. They’re already having people push the narrative that Ji Nuo is the one who…”

Han Cheng already knew all these details. Even that wealthy heir Ji Nuo had nearly crippled—Han Cheng was the one who had handled the aftermath.

Han Cheng opened the latest online revelations. His cold, stern face was covered in a layer of frost.

After instructing Xu Li to gather evidence on the marketing accounts and trolls pushing the narrative for a future lawsuit, Han Cheng called his childhood friend Chu Haohan.

Fifteen minutes later, as Han Cheng walked back into the room, the big one and the little one were listening to a song playing on the phone.

Ji Nuo smiled and handed him the lyrics sheet. Seeing Han Cheng’s dark expression, he immediately asked with concern: “What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”

Meeting Ji Nuo’s clear, gentle dark eyes, the creases between Han Cheng’s brows relaxed slightly. The pent-up chill in his heart intensified, but he quickly adjusted his emotions.

Han Cheng lowered his cool voice, infusing it with a unique tenderness: “It’s nothing. What do we need to perform?”

Lu Aotian lifted his eyelids and glanced sidelong at the two of them. “Cough! Cough! Cough!!! The intro’s over, it’s about to start singing!”

This was a song intended to be sung together by a child and parents. The lyrics were very simple and fun. It consisted of the child continuously asking the parents questions, and the parents answering patiently and brightly. The back-and-forth brimmed with the warmth and happiness of a perfect family atmosphere.

After listening, Han Cheng breathed a sigh of relief. Though he was completely tone-deaf, the “Daddy” parts in the lyrics were very few. It was more like speaking rhythmically than singing.

Due to his terrible sense of pitch, Lu Aotian generally never listened to music, let alone an old-school classic like this.

After he finished listening, his dark little face fell so hard it practically hit the floor.

In the song, Lu Aotian’s child’s part not only had an especially high number of lines, but he also needed to call the little broken celebrity and his stinky little brother “Daddy” over and over again!

Ab-so-lute-ly im-possible!