The Antisocial Stepfather's Spoiled Daily Life on a Parenting Variety Show

[My next novel is coming soon: Dr. Lu Always Wants to Steal My Kid. Please check it out! Blurb at the bottom ^3^] Blurb: A strange stepfather-and-son pair joins a reality show about kids. The stepdad, Pei Yu, is taciturn and wooden, and never takes off his sunglasses. Rumor has it he's an ugly, disfigured monster, too dark and twisted to show his face. Edited clips of the sunny celebrity guests make him look even worse by comparison. His son, Sheng Shi'an, has issues too. When the kids work together to sell vegetables, the others enthusiastically call out to customers, while he sits under a tree with a cold expression, watching. The audience frowns and floods into the livestream, ready to condemn the gloomy stepdad for being a bad influence. But they're surprised to find the kids constantly gathered around Sheng Shi'an, trailing after him like little ducklings. It turns out that Sheng Shi'an dug up all the vegetables they were selling, working so hard his palms turned red. He carried the waist-high basket all by himself from start to finish, not letting his younger siblings lift a finger. Audience: We were wrong! The editing fooled us. That little tough guy carefully holding his sister is so cute! A kid this wonderful absolutely can't be ruined by his stepdad. The audience keeps a close eye on the livestream, ready to protect him, but then... During the harvesting task, the other kids cheer their dads on, afraid they'll slack off and lose dinner. Sheng Shi'an pins Pei Yu down, then zips up a tree himself. "Stay down there and behave!" Audience: ...Kid, slow down! On an outdoor hike, the other kids run off and disappear in no time. Sheng Shi'an wishes he could tie Pei Yu to himself with a rope. "Mushrooms are poisonous. Don't touch them!" Audience: He's such a worrier... When the dads cook, the other kids refuse to eat the terrible food, even if they have to die trying. Sheng Shi'an, usually so proud, calmly eats all of Pei Yu's ridiculous glue-like mess. "Not bad. Remember to add salt next time." Audience:! You are way too in love with him! Wake up, good boy! What has Pei Yu done to deserve you? Look at him: he burns the food, gets lost whenever he goes out, and stammers so badly when bargaining for vegetables that it's enough to drive anyone mad. What does he even have going for him, besides... drawing little bunnies, sculpting big tigers, and recognizing 68 different Ultraman? What, he's also a bestselling children's book illustrator... and every kid in the country is a fan of his books? So what? He's still ugly and gloomy. No good! The audience, sour with jealousy, keeps muttering as they stare at the sunglasses welded to Pei Yu's face. Then the things fall off. Audience: Good grief, who is this stunning beauty? The stunning beauty, deprived of the "protection" of his sunglasses: Stay calm, stay calm. Just pretend I'm a rock and it'll be fine... Audience: Help... Is he turning red? He is. Any redder and he'll be cooked through... A certain domineering CEO politely blocks the camera. "Sorry, film someone else for now. My rock... I mean, my husband is allergic to cameras." Director: ...You're the big shot. Whatever you say goes. Sheng Shi'an: After all that effort teaching him, Uncle finally got his act together. Does he want to sleep in a room instead of the RV? Sheng Shi'an once thought that man was only using him and his uncle. Until he rushed into a burning building and shielded him with his own body. "Don't be afraid, An'an." Until after the man left, Sheng Shi'an found an entire notebook full of his parenting notes. By a stroke of incredible luck, Sheng Shi'an gets to return to the starting point. The daily life of a gorgeous, shy sweetheart who coasts through raising a kid, or gets raised by the kid. Notes: 1. Main gong. Pei Yu is the gong. [Shy sweetheart gong x sharp-tongued, secretly devoted shou who gets proven wrong] 2. The focus is on family affection. The CP appears infrequently and comes after the kid in the character order. 3. Only the kid is reborn. He was a kid before he was reborn too. This is a coming-of-age story, and neither the gong, shou, nor kid is perfect. No one is overpowered. If you want an idealized shou, this may not be for you. 4. The gong is frail, but the story has a happy ending. Medical science follows web-novel logic. 5. Same-sex marriage is legal. Marriage by agreement, marriage first, love later. 6. The shou isn't weak. His leg has some issues early on for plot reasons. Next up: Dr. Lu Always Wants to Steal My Kid After adopting a fallen comrade's orphan for three years, He Chen, commander of a battleship, has worked himself to the bone and memorized every parenting book cover to cover. But the little one was born with an extremely unstable S-rank spirit form, and spent most of his first three years in the capital's hospital. At long last, the kid's condition stabilizes and they're reunited. He Chen puts on the loving smile he's practiced in the mirror eighteen times, but the kid bursts into tears, his wail reaching the heavens. "I don't want Daddy! I want Papa!" For the next six months, He Chen lives under the shadow of that "Papa." The stories he tells aren't as good as Papa's, he isn't as patient as Papa when they play, and even the baby formula he mixes doesn't taste as good as Papa's... In a world where children are precious, viewers who regularly monitor the livestream to spy on the kid are outraged when they see the ugly, clumsy hand with a mechanical finger that often appears onscreen. How can a roughneck like him raise a kid? Send the child back to his Papa! He Chen's resentment practically drips like black water. "I've been single since birth. Where the hell did this so-called 'Papa' come from?" Audience: Fair point. This lucky bastard is apparently an illegitimate son of the He family and isn't well-liked at home. He's stationed in the chaotic frontier all year, his mental powers are unstable, and even after getting engaged, his fiance begged to break it off. Who'd pair up with him? What's in it for them? He Chen proudly straightens his back. "Obviously, because I've got a kid!" When he returns to the capital planet for leave, Commander He takes the kid to the hospital for a checkup himself. He plans to meet the doctor's Papa, show off his manliness in front of the kid, and warn the scoundrel not to get any ideas about taking his child. But the moment they arrive at the hospital, the kid rushes toward He Chen's nightmare: his senior from school who kept him in line for eight years, the nation's heartthrob, a medical expert on the National Assembly's special stipend list, the youngest academician at the Federal Medical Academy... Dr. Lu Changqing. The kid calls out "Papa" loud and clear. Lu Changqing lifts the little one off his leg and casually sweeps He Chen with a cool gaze. "Your son?" He Chen's knees go weak. "He could be yours too..." Lu Changqing smiles faintly and takes the kid for an examination. Afterward, he offers a two-for-one deal and gives his junior a friendly checkup too. Lu Changqing is a nationally treasured mental-power healer. Countless people beg him for a single examination or treatment and never get one, let alone He Chen, who's plagued by mental-power surges. But He Chen firmly refuses. A mental-power examination will reveal his spirit form, and his spirit form is a gigantic fluffy... The whole galaxy knows Lu Changqing doesn't like fluffy things. Back at school, he'd given every fluffy creature his fair share of "special treatment," including He Chen, the top-ranked fighter. The humiliation of being knocked down by a healing-system senior despite being ranked number one is etched into He Chen's memory. His heartthrob turned into a nightmare. Healers are precious treasures, and he can't very well beat one up. From then on, He Chen has kept his distance from Lu Changqing. "There's no need, Senior Brother, " Before he can finish speaking, a special mental wave sweeps over him. He Chen is in a sensitive period and transforms on the spot into a gigantic, pure-white snow wolf. He covers his eyes, mortified. What a loser! I got knocked down again! A pale, jade-like fingertip gently scratches beneath the snow wolf's chin. Dr. Lu sighs silently: At last, I get to pet him again... Later, the child-monitoring viewers peeking at the livestream are surprised to discover the kid really does have a "Papa." The galaxy's Top 1 healer, the "Papa" no one dares aspire to, gives lessons to a kid who may well become the galaxy's next Top 1. Together, they use powerful, sacred healing-type mental energy to comb the fur of the snow wolf lying flat on the ground, utterly bereft of the will to live... Comb! His! Fur! Viewers, spitting blood: Get up! What do you mean, you have no will to live?! [Strength ceiling, but no match for his nemesis. (Really) innocent snow wolf gong x (Fake) aloof beauty shou who hates fluffy things but can't resist a little wolf] My author page has completed novels and more upcoming stories. Come take a look :) Completed novels: "After We Swapped Bodies with a Repressed Academic Big Shot" | I helped the big shot's ancestor embrace his true nature "When Will the Obsessive Big Shot Kill Me? (Quick Transmigration)" | Why does his blade never come down? "The Humble Deaf Gong Wants to Rise to the Top Today Too" | An amnesiac CEO humbly begs for love online "The Frail, Blind Boy Becomes a Fan Favorite Through His Combat Skills" | The blind boy wreaks havoc in a full-immersion game Theme: Make up for life's regrets and cherish the people you have