Tao Fangyi noticed Wang’s attacks on Liu Xuanyong were getting worse—escalating from insults about his looks to his parents.
He understood why Wang was doing it. Tao Fangyi also liked the feeling of being valued by a child, but he still had to guide Wang, to help him see things correctly.
Just because you’re angry doesn’t mean you should do cruel things, like turning the physical toys into third-class toys. That was a really cruel thing to do.
“Look at them—how naturally they’ve accepted the roles you gave them.” Tao Fangyi pointed with his short claw at the group of physical toys bowing and scraping.
After Wang finished assigning their roles, they had spontaneously started imitating the servants and maids from TV dramas.
They were toys dreamed up by a six-year-old child, basically extensions of that child, so the only way to tell who was a maid was by who was wearing a little red flower on their head.
Sophia covered half her face with a feather fan, looking the flower-wearing robot opposite her up and down. After a moment of scrutiny, she snorted in disgust. “You can’t even handle a simple task like this. How dare you show your face beside Brother Huangfu?”
The flower-wearing robot folded its hands over its chest and let out a whimper.
The Huangfu Yuan she mentioned was at that moment being touched by another “maid.” He hugged himself tightly. “You’d better put away those thoughts. I, Huangfu Yuan, will only ever have Wenwen as my woman!”
Huangfu Yuan kept retreating, only to be bumped by the attendant behind him.
Huangfu Yuan let out an earth-shattering scream and ordered that attendant to stay far away from him.
Tao Fangyi couldn’t understand. “Why can’t the attendant touch him either?”
“Because romance novel male leads are forbidden from selling male-male CP.” Wang explained.
“Huh? Oh, oh!” Tao Fangyi pulled out his notebook again and jotted down this new nugget of knowledge.
After recording it, he tried to persuade Wang again, telling him not to do this. Their focus now was finding the missing parts of Tao Fangyi’s true form, not oppressing these pitiful toys.
“Those physical toys aren’t pitiful at all. Their owner is still young—there’s no way he’d forget them.” Wang thought the two groups of fantasy creatures were the truly pitiful ones. Their owners had already grown up.
These past few days, those fantasy creatures had been constantly asking Tao Fangyi questions.
They thought Wang’s speculation was just prejudice. How could they possibly be forgotten?
“I’m so beautiful, elegant, and come from such a good family. That commoner must be insanely jealous of me! There’s no way she’d forget me.”
“That punk stole my junior sister and that’s just it? He says he forgets, so he forgets? Did he forget my junior sister along with it, too?”
“Wenwen and I went through so many trials together. I just misunderstood her! Our misunderstanding hasn’t even been resolved yet!”
“Big Brother still hasn’t practiced the martial arts manual he just picked up! He wouldn’t forget something like that, would he?”
But Tao Fangyi couldn’t give them any answers.
To Tao Fangyi, ten years was truly very short. Forgetting something would take at least a hundred years.
But he wasn’t human. Ten years was more than enough time for a human to undergo earth-shaking changes.
Wang’s attitude toward them had always been cold. Wang told them to accept reality, to accept that they were outdated.
“I thought you said they weren’t pitiful.” Tao Fangyi felt that Wang had been provoking these fantasy creatures all along.
“I know they’re pitiful. I just don’t choose to pity them.” Wang said.
Tao Fangyi’s tail gently tapped against Wang’s leg. Tao Fangyi sighed, “Being able to sense that they’re pitiful—isn’t that already pitying them, in a way?”
Wang: “I don’t have that kind of intelligence.”
Tao Fangyi: “You use such weird words.”
“Individuals abandoned by the era are pitiful. That’s exactly what they are.” Wang explained.
“But why are they being abandoned?” Tao Fangyi didn’t understand.
“Because the values in their stories are problematic. Haven’t you noticed?” Wang asked.
“Values? Weren’t they born from desire?” Tao Fangyi pointed at Sophia and that obese man. “They’re enemies to be defeated.”
Then he pointed at those glittering men and the women with exaggerated figures. “They’re there to prove one’s own attractiveness. They’re all there to prove one’s own worth.”
“Isn’t that all just desire?” Tao Fangyi asked.
“Nowadays, that kind of desire is too blunt and too naked. It gets looked down on.” Wang said.
“So people are abandoning this kind of desire now?”
“Not exactly. They’re just dressing desire up, making it more euphemistic.” Wang laughed. “It’s pretty interesting too.”
“Is that so?” Tao Fangyi thought Wang’s view was relatively extreme, but now wasn’t the time to argue about it. He still needed to help these physical toys shed their third-class status.
Tao Fangyi pointed at a certain brawny man with a full beard.
A triceratops wearing a little red flower accidentally tripped while passing by that male character.
It was actually quite strange, considering triceratopses have four legs—it’s still pretty hard for a four-legged creature to stumble.
Before the triceratops could hit the floor, the brawny, bearded man caught it.
“How could you be so careless?” the bearded man asked the triceratops.
The triceratops pouted. “I’m sorry. I’m too stupid.” The triceratops also had that rough, tough-guy voice, but it was trying hard to force it higher.
“Third-class toys aren’t allowed to marry first-class fantasy creatures. Seeing a love like that, doesn’t it make your heart soften?” Tao Fangyi asked.
Wang: “I never forbade them from marrying.”
“But if they can marry, then what’s the point of ranking them into different tiers?”
“Fair point. Then as of now, they can’t marry.” Wang said coldly.
Tao Fangyi tried to persuade him again. “That’s inhumane. You can’t do this.”
“I was never about humanity to begin with.” Wang pointed at the ground. “Who standing here right now is a person? Creatures that aren’t people are forbidden from demanding human rights.”
Tao Fangyi wanted to argue further, but suddenly he noticed a fierce-looking male character grabbing the large bucket of an excavator, saying something like, “We’re brothers for life—I’ll definitely save you.”
Tao Fangyi felt they were way too intimate. “I thought you said selling male-male CP was forbidden?”
“Oh, upgrade power fantasies can hint at stuff like this. It helps snag more readers.” Wang added.
“How do you know so much?!” Tao Fangyi admired Wang even more.
“Because I’ve always been at the cutting edge of trends. Ask me anything, and I’ll know it.” Wang puffed up proudly and let out a peculiar purring sound.
Tao Fangyi rubbed his front paws together, his eyes practically sparkling with stars.
This kid really understood how the world worked.
“It’s not that big a deal.” Wang scratched his head, a bit embarrassed.
“Then can we stop making them third-class toys?” Tao Fangyi asked.
“Haha, sure.” Only after Wang agreed did he realize what he’d just said.
But by then, it was too late to take it back, because the owner of this toy room had already come home from school.
The fantasy creatures vanished one after another, while the toys all returned to their places.
This time, Liu Xuanyong didn’t go straight into the toy room. Happily, he went off to wash his hands and get ready.
Wang poked his head out to observe.
After observing for a while, he pulled his head back. “He says his older cousin brother and older cousin sister are coming back.”
The fantasy creatures didn’t stir.
Wang emphasized, “Your masters are coming back.”
The fantasy creatures poked their heads out of their boxes one after another.
“You’re mistaken. His cousin sister is not my Wenwen.” Huangfu Yuan said. “I’ve met that cousin sister before.”
Their creator was fragile and kind. No matter what kind of hurt she suffered, she would never let it crush her hopes for her own future.
But Huangfu Yuan had seen what that cousin sister looked like when she answered a call from her boss.
At first, she was just as gentle as ever, but the moment she hung up the phone, she erupted into a string of curses. Now she seemed to sneer at the title “CEO.”
Huangfu Yuan had personally seen the cousin sister open her phone, and for some reason, it jumped to a TV drama.
In it, there was a “CEO,” and the cousin sister snorted coldly, muttering words under her breath that would need to be censored.
“That person isn’t the commoner I knew.” Sophia also said.
Although they looked very alike, Sophia had been scared to tears by the way that cousin sister cursed. There was no way she could bully that woman.
The muscular man below also expressed that the cousin brother wasn’t his boss.
Even though his boss had an ordinary face, his boss had been a “genius youth.”
This cousin brother had a severely receding hairline, and he always had stubble, wore black-framed glasses, and dressed in plaid shirts.
Even though the cousin brother and cousin sister were twins, the cousin brother looked at least ten years older.
When the cousin brother smiled, it also felt like his soul had been sucked dry. That and their high-spirited Big Brother were not even the same kind of creature.
It was said that the cousin sister had gotten a job at a big company, but she didn’t wear a little blazer and little high heels, didn’t stride around a high-rise office with vigor and a clicking sound with every step.
Flat shoes, cropped pants, and an oversized t-shirt had become her standard outfit. She’d even cut her long hair short.
They were as ordinary as standard NPCs.
Not fashionable at all.
Not even kind.
“So you’ve met them. I thought they had completely forgotten you.” Wang reconsidered and felt it made sense.
Though he didn’t know why these two boxes of things had been shipped here, the fact that the parents in this house had done so at least meant they cared deeply about these two children.
Since their relationship was so good, there was no reason for those two kids not to come back as guests.
“Oh! So the truth is, you can’t recognize your own creators?” Tao Fangyi understood.
“They are not our creators! Our creators aren’t like that. They just look a bit alike—they probably stole our masters’ bloodline!” Someone waved a fist, filled with righteous indignation.
“They just grew up. I read the novels of your true forms. The handwriting was childish, and all the plotlines were very blunt.” Tao Fangyi explained. “They’ve just become more complicated now.”
“Not true! That’s not them!!” The fantasy creatures refused to accept it at all.
“That’s what growing up is like.”
One fantasy creature pulled an eraser out of a toy box and raised it, ready to throw it at Tao Fangyi.
“I’ll spank your bottom.” Tao Fangyi pointed a claw at the fantasy creature holding the eraser.
The fantasy creature froze for a moment, then slowly lowered the eraser.
Why did even the Commander-in-Chief spank people too?
