After the Parenting Show, the Baby's Dad Came Looking for Us

[Paid chapter notice: This novel will become paid starting with Chapter 25 on Monday, November 20. Chapters 25 through 79 will be locked retroactively. Three new chapters will be released on the day it goes paid, so if you haven’t read them yet, hurry!]

An Xu was a C-list actor. One day, he woke up to discover that five years had passed. He still had no car, no house, and no savings, but now he had a pair of biological twins, a boy and a girl.

Even worse, he discovered that the world he lived in was actually a book, and he was one of its characters.

The book was a story about a domineering CEO falling in love with me, raising kids, and sharing happy times with them.

But none of that had anything to do with him. He was just a disposable side character, a foil meant to highlight how gentle, kind, and loving the protagonist was as a father.

In the story, he and the protagonist joined a parenting variety show together. On the show, he was portrayed as dark and cruel, with no love for his children. He beat and scolded them, deliberately starved them, gave them the silent treatment, and constantly gave the protagonist a hard time. Once the show aired, the whole internet condemned him. In the end, he lost his job and was sent to prison, while his two kids were sent to an orphanage.

After waking up, An Xu kicked over a stool. "To hell with that! He’s lived this long. Doesn’t he know what kind of person he is? Even without those five years of memories, he still knows what kind of person he is."

Even if the kids had come out of nowhere, they were still his precious babies.

So, on the show, when they were given the task of making dinner together, father and kids,

other families said: Wow, my baby is so clever! My baby is the best!

An Xu’s family said: Son, let me do that. Sweetheart, don’t move. Daddy will take care of it.

But An Xu, who never went into the kitchen, made a huge mess of it. The kids sighed and had no choice but to clean up after their dad. The twins even dutifully encouraged him: Daddy is so clever! Daddy is the best!

An Xu: Raising kids is hard. I’ve aged nine years!

Who knew that once the show aired, An Xu and his kids would become a hit? Not long after, a man who looked about seventy percent like the kids came to find them.

Gu Bohuai: You and the kids have suffered all these years. I’m here to take you home.

An Xu: Who are you?

Gu Bohuai: I’m your man, and the kids’ father.

An Xu scoffed: So you say. Where have you been all this time?

Gu Bohuai, awkwardly: What if I told you I got into a car accident and lost my memory? Would you believe me?

An Xu, expressionless: Do you believe yourself?

Gu Bohuai: I do.

An Xu: …

1. Same-sex marriage is legal in this setting. The two kids are the biological children of the pursuing partner and the love interest, their biological children. The two of them only ever have each other.

2. The parenting show takes up more of the story, with less about filming dramas. I don’t know much about the entertainment industry, so a lot of it is made up. Just have fun with it.

3. Each of you can decide for yourself what you find cute or off-putting, since I’m pretty much fine with anything.

4. Hope you enjoy the story!

Here’s a pre-release title, "The Foil Husband Wakes Up". If you’re interested, please add it to your collection.

After their engagement, Lin Qiu had a dream. In it, his fiance went into the mountains to hunt, hoping to earn enough money for their wedding, and was killed by a bear.

Unmarried, Lin Qiu became a jinx who brought death to husbands, according to everyone in the surrounding villages. His family couldn’t stand him and threw him out.

When he was at a loss and had nowhere to go, his fiance’s younger father found him, took him home, and had him marry his fiance’s spirit tablet.

His younger father was in poor health and overcome with grief at losing his son. He lasted only a month before passing away, and entrusted eight-year-old An Ge’er to Lin Qiu on his deathbed.

Lin Qiu knew that the younger father had brought him home not only because they were both men who could marry men and he pitied him for having nowhere to go, but also because he knew he was dying and wanted to find someone he could entrust An Ge’er to.

Even knowing the younger father had this in mind, Lin Qiu agreed and felt grateful. He knew that if the man hadn’t come to find him that day, he might have already taken his own life.

Afterward, he devoted himself to raising An Ge’er. The two relied on each other for ten years. An Ge’er found a match, and though they weren’t rich, they lived a stable life.

Lin Qiu was alone, and years of hardship and exhaustion took their toll. He died of illness in his early forties.

Only after he died did he learn that they were merely characters in a storybook, and he was a minor character meant to be contrasted with his cousin Lin Jin.

Though his cousin Lin Jin was also a man who could marry men, everyone in the Lin family doted on him. Their treatment of the two was like heaven and earth. When they grew up, Lin Qiu’s husband died at the hands of a bear, and Lin Qiu was driven out as a jinx. He spent his whole life in poverty, while Lin Jin married the village scholar, who passed the civil service exams and earned an official title. Lin Jin became an official’s husband.

It was also in this dream that Lin Qiu learned that his cousin had a soul from another world inside him.

After waking up, Lin Qiu was anxious and lost. The engagement had already been arranged, so calling it off was impossible. He didn’t envy Lin Jin’s good life, but he was afraid of spending half his life the way he had in the dream.

So he had to change his fate. He would start by changing the fate of his short-lived fiance and saving him.

The pursuer’s perspective:

Xiao Yan thought only of earning money to treat his younger father’s illness and raise his little brother. He had never considered getting married.

But his younger father was anxious, always afraid he’d die before seeing Xiao Yan marry and have children. So Xiao Yan could only follow his father’s arrangements and agree to an engagement.

His fiance was also a man from the village, but Xiao Yan barely knew him. He didn’t mind either way. Marriage would be the same whoever it was with. As long as his husband was a good person, his husband could run the household while he earned money to support them.

But not long after the engagement was arranged, the young man came looking for him...

Theme: People can overcome fate. Take control of your destiny and bring happiness to the kids