Chapter 24 p1
After leaving the Wang family’s house, Wen Dongyu, being the fastest runner, was the first to arrive at the Cheng family’s house three doors down and pushed open the courtyard gate. Then… he was startled by the clear sound of crying from inside and stopped in his tracks.
Two steps behind, Wei Maomao, also hearing Cheng Rongrong crying and calling for her sister, immediately grabbed Cheng Tingyan’s hand and subtly led her further inside.
Knowing the real dynamics within the Cheng family, Wei Maomao was well aware that Cheng Tingyan wouldn’t believe that Cheng Rongrong was genuinely crying for her… But Wei Maomao couldn’t let Cheng Tingyan, who had sensed something was wrong, stop here. In front of the cameras, Cheng Tingyan could choose not to be a good sister, but that had to be after Cheng Rongrong was exposed as not being a good sister.
“Is someone crying inside?” Wen Dongyu asked in a low voice, looking scared.
“It must be Rongrong.” Wen Jiangyue, who was originally walking at the back, quickly caught up, standing beside Wen Dongyu. She then looked back in confusion at the other four, who seemed to have slowed down in unison.
“Oh, it’s Rongrong, that scared me, I thought there was a ghost inside.” Wen Dongyu patted his chest and then looked at Cheng Tingyan. “She’s calling for her sister, is she calling for you?”
“Rongrong is crying so loudly, did something happen that she needs your help?” Wen Jiangyue also looked at Cheng Tingyan.
Wei Maomao clearly felt a slight struggle and retreat from Cheng Tingyan’s hand that was clasped in hers.
“It can’t be Rongrong crying!” Wei Maomao released Cheng Tingyan’s hand, stepped forward, and stood in front of her, then raised her hand high above her head and gestured. “Rongrong is so much taller than me, how could she cry louder than me! My daddy said there are many bad people now, they pretend to be in trouble and ask little children for help, then secretly sell them! People who are really in trouble won’t ask little children for help, they will ask strong adults like Daddy for help! So if Rongrong is in trouble, she would call for her dad, the one calling for sister inside must be a bad person who wants to sell us! We can’t be sold!”
The little dumpling, chubby and short, stood between Cheng Tingyan and Wen Dongyu, not really blocking anything. But Wen Dongyu, who was initially looking at Cheng Tingyan, had his attention drawn to Maomao the moment she started speaking. After listening, he thought… Wow, this little sister is so cool! Awesome!
“Boss, how do you know so much!” Wen Dongyu ran to Wei Maomao’s side and looked back warily at the closed door across the courtyard. “What should we do now? Should we go find our dads to beat up the bad guys!”
“That’s Rongrong’s voice!” Wen Jiangyue, not as easily fooled as Wen Dongyu, looked directly at Cheng Tingyan. “Yan Yan, listen, isn’t it?”
Earlier, Cheng Tingyan had walked around the village with Wei Maomao, receiving gifts from the other children and promising to give them the gifts she had brought when they reached her house. They had chatted about the gifts they were giving and receiving along the way, and it had been quite pleasant. She didn’t know if it was because the little chubby paw she was holding was so warm, but Cheng Tingyan almost felt like she was becoming close to everyone.
But after returning here, getting close to Cheng Rongrong, everything seemed to go back to the starting point.
They were all talking about Cheng Rongrong, asking her about Cheng Rongrong.
What should she say? Should she say that she could always affect Cheng Rongrong’s emotions, should she say that her presence had always made Cheng Rongrong cry, should she say that even now, separated by the courtyard, Cheng Rongrong might be crying because she had come back?
The six-year-old Cheng Tingyan’s understanding of cause and effect was still very simple. Her presence would make Cheng Rongrong cry, and then everyone would start blaming her, this was something that had happened countless times since she was young and was deeply etched in her memory. Even though Cheng Rongrong hadn’t done this for a long time, it was happening again now, and she couldn’t help but think of the past, suddenly feeling exhausted.
Cheng Tingyan knew that the one crying inside was Cheng Rongrong, not the bad person the little chubby bunny thought it was. But under Wen Jiangyue and the others’ gazes and repeated inquiries, Cheng Tingyan felt tired and pursed her lips, not even wanting to speak.
“Boss, it really sounds like Rongrong, is it a bad guy or Rongrong inside?” Wen Dongyu scratched his head.
“My daddy said bad people are really bad now, they record little babies crying and then play it where people can’t see. When people go to check, they get caught and sold!” The chubby little face of Wei Maomao was full of seriousness.
“Wow, so bad!” Wen Dongyu was a little scared, even his shock was expressed in a small voice.
“Then… what should we do now?” Wen Jiangyue, after all, was only five and a half years old, and she was still swayed by Wei Maomao’s serious demeanor. She even moved back a little, leaving the front row closest to the house and returning to the main group, standing beside Cheng Tingyan.
They were live on air, could there really be such bad people? Shen Zilin stood at the very back of the group, quietly watching the little chubby bunny wreak havoc. She was really interesting, but this team still needed him to lead.
“Ahem…” Shen Zilin cleared his throat and stepped forward resolutely.
“Don’t move, I’ll go check. If I get caught, go call my dad!” Wei Maomao said, and without waiting for a response, she ran towards the house with her short legs.
Shen Zilin: “…”
It was a bit… awkward.
Shen Zilin retracted his foot, stepped back to the last row, and secretly glanced at Wang Zhizhi beside him, who had also been silent, hoping he hadn’t noticed that he had just been ignored by Maomao.
Wang Zhizhi, who had been grumpy since morning, glanced at Shen Zilin, then turned back to stare at the back of the little dumpling running away, his face even grumpier.
But none of them, neither Shen Zilin, Wang Zhizhi, nor anyone else, knew that behind the little dumpling’s heroic gesture was the effort to analyze the situation using childish language, and the stubborn determination to divert attention.
This body was only three years old, so Wei Maomao couldn’t use logical analysis to clearly explain that Cheng Rongrong was deliberately creating trouble. But it was precisely because she was only three years old that she could randomly pick up things she had heard and then force them together, muddying the waters.
As for whether she would look stupid when it was edited into the main episode, Wei Maomao didn’t care. As long as there was even a single viewer who thought Cheng Rongrong’s behavior was a bit problematic because of what she had just said, it was progress for her. If no one felt anything was wrong, then she would distort the topic even more. The more random elements she could cram in a short period, the more attention she could divert.
Solving the root of the problem wasn’t something that could be done overnight, at least she was trying to blur the label for now…
But what Wei Maomao, who was trying her best, didn’t know was that there was no “main episode,” her silly act was being broadcasted live the whole time.
The viewers in the live broadcast room were completely overwhelmed by her wild punches. The comments criticizing Cheng Tingyan for “leaving her sister and running around” gradually decreased, replaced by a mixture of shock…
“Maomao is so knowledgeable! I feel like I could be sold and she would still be fine!”
“This is terrifying, when I was in elementary school, an adult asked me for directions, thankfully, he only scammed me out of ten yuan for a taxi and didn’t sell me!”
“I’m numb, reminded of that horror story where there’s the sound of a baby crying outside the door after a power outage, and you get kidnapped and your organs harvested if you open the door!”
“What does Director Wei talk about with Maomao every day! Why does it all seem to make sense but not be age-appropriate!”
“It’s too early to tell these things to a three-year-old, it’s just right for me… Director Wei, please teach me too, I don’t want to be sold and have my organs harvested!”
“Hahaha, so why did Maomao call Rongrong sister, isn’t she the biggest in the world!”
“I guess Maomao knows that the one crying inside is Rongrong, she’s saying this so that she can cover up the embarrassment of crying so many times today, after all, Rongrong, whom she called sister, is crying much louder than her, hahaha!”
“??? Does a three-year-old have such a strong desire to protect her image!”
“Hahaha, Maomao is so good at talking, the legal example she gave sounds so real, if I couldn’t see Rongrong’s live broadcast, I would have almost believed her!”
“Poor Rongrong, so pitiful, she woke up and her dad wasn’t there, her sister wasn’t there, only a bunch of strangers, she cried for a long time, the people outside didn’t even comfort her, they were actually saying she’s a bad guy, hahaha…”
“Honestly, children are more vulnerable when they just wake up, it’s quite normal to cry out of fear when they find themselves alone with strangers, but why did Cheng Rongrong only call for her sister? I don’t think Cheng Tingyan is better to her than Cheng Feiying.”
“She’s a child, she’s crying, of course she’ll call out for whoever comes to mind, is this even worth analyzing?”
“When a child is scared, their first reaction is to seek comfort, I think Maomao is right, Yan Yan is only six years old, she’s still a baby, what power does a baby have? Of course, Cheng Feiying, an adult, can provide more security.”
“When I was young, I only called for my brother when I cried, not my parents, because my parents never cared for me, only my brother did.”
“Tsk, tsk, then according to this logic, it’s interesting, Cheng Feiying seems to be very good to both Yan Yan and Rongrong.”
“For Rongrong, a seemingly good father and a seemingly cold older sister, the latter is actually more reliable? Tsk, tsk, tsk, the Cheng family is quite interesting…”
…
After being shocked by the Wei family’s educational content, the viewers in the live broadcast room did start to think more about the situation in the Cheng family. Although their line of thinking was completely different from what Wei Maomao had anticipated, in terms of the ultimate goal, it was somewhat similar.
As for Cheng Rongrong, when her family had just arrived at this small courtyard at noon, Cheng Feiying had received the task card, so she knew that the dads and babies would be doing their tasks separately in the afternoon and that the dads would go first. When Cheng Rongrong woke up from her nap the first time, it was before 3 pm, she could still hear Cheng Feiying’s voice outside, it wasn’t her turn yet, so she rolled over and went back to sleep. When she woke up the second time, it was already past 3:40 pm. Cheng Rongrong calculated the time, sat up, and started crying.
When the staff member entered the room, she cried out “Daddy” as a formality, and after getting the explanation from the staff member, she naturally switched to crying and shouting “Sister.” According to Cheng Rongrong’s plan, Cheng Tingyan wouldn’t be willing to come in and comfort her. Even if she was dragged in by the staff, she would just stand there like a stubborn log. Then the viewers in the live broadcast room would see how pitiful she was, how dependent she was on her sister, and how cold, heartless, and selfish her sister was.
But Cheng Rongrong didn’t expect that Cheng Tingyan wasn’t home either. She could only cry and shout “Sister” for a while longer by herself, letting the viewers realize that Cheng Tingyan shouldn’t have left her, such a pitiful little sister, alone at home while she went out to have fun. Although the effect wouldn’t be as good as if Cheng Tingyan was there and they could be compared, Cheng Rongrong believed that as long as she kept calling for her sister and cried more pitifully and helplessly, the viewers’ impression of Cheng Tingyan would definitely plummet.
According to her plan, Cheng Rongrong cried alone for nearly ten minutes. Just as she secretly glanced at her watch, calculating that it was almost time for the task, and was about to gradually stop crying under the staff member’s comforting words, there were two loud bangs outside the door.
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