A Billionaire CEO Brings His Child Home: The Awakening of the Stay-at-Home Dad System

After arranging the five paintings on the desk, Tingting ran back to the worktable in the yard, leaned on the edge of the table, and watched her father pack up his paintbrushes and paints.

"Dad, besides cartoons, can you draw other kinds of pictures?" she asked, tilting her head up.

Chen Hao put the watercolor pens back in the box, thought for a moment, and said, "Dad can also paint landscapes."

"What is landscape painting?" Shen Xiaoting tilted her head and blinked twice.

"It's about painting mountains, water, trees, and houses."

Draw a mountain with a small river in front of it, several trees by the river, and a small house next to the trees.

It looks like a real landscape.

Shen Xiaoting's eyes lit up. She sat up straight from the edge of the table and clapped her hands: "Dad, draw one for me to see!"

Chen Hao looked up at the sky—it was still light, and there was still some time before dinner.

He nodded: "Okay, Dad will paint a landscape painting for Tingting."

He turned on the camera in the live stream—he had turned it off for a while while he was drawing because he wanted to focus on teaching Tingting, and now he was turning it back on.

As soon as the live stream started, viewers flooded in.

There were still several thousand people waiting when the broadcast ended, but in less than thirty seconds, the number of viewers has exceeded eight thousand.

"It's on! I thought the streamer had ended the broadcast!"

"Tingting's finished drawing? Let me see Tingting's drawing!"

"The host just mentioned painting landscapes? Did I hear that right?"

"Landscape painting? Traditional Chinese painting? The anchor can paint traditional Chinese paintings?"

"I'm starting to doubt it. Carpentry, bricklaying, electrical work, cooking, medicine, origami, planting, painting—this isn't just being an all-rounder, this is being a polymath."

"Let's wait and see, maybe the streamer really will."

"I think it's unlikely. Traditional Chinese painting isn't something you can just do casually; it requires many years of practice."

"The streamer has been proven wrong every time before, but this time I choose to believe him."

Chen Hao sent a message using his mind—

"Tingting wants to see me paint a landscape painting, so I'll paint one. I need to prepare the tools, please wait a moment."

He went inside and rummaged through the painting tools he had bought that day, pulling out items specifically for traditional Chinese painting—

Xuan paper, writing brush, ink, inkstone, brush washer, brush rest, paperweight, palette, Chinese painting pigments.

The Xuan paper is raw Xuan paper, three feet long, approximately 50 cm x 100 cm, folded into a rectangle, and has not yet been cut.

He laid the Xuan paper on the worktable and used a brass paperweight to hold down the four corners, making the paper smooth and wrinkle-free.

He chose three calligraphy brushes—

One wolf-hair brush for small regular script, used for outlining; one sheep-hair brush for large white cloud, used for rendering; one mixed-hair brush with a central tip, in between, used for texturing rocks.

The ink was from Yidege. I poured it into the inkstone, added a few drops of water, and gently ground it a few times with the ink stick. The ink was even in color and had a warm, lustrous sheen.

The paint was squeezed into the palette—indigo, ochre, gamboge, malachite green, and vermilion—five colors, not many, but enough to paint a small landscape in shades of blue and green.

[Ding! Preparation of Chinese painting tools complete. God-level painting experience points +126!]

Shen Xiaoting leaned on the edge of the table, watching her father lay out the items one by one.

She saw her father spread out a large white sheet of paper, several times larger than the paper he used for drawing before.

"Dad, this piece of paper is huge!"

"Landscape paintings require large sheets of paper to capture the grandeur of the mountains."

Just as Chen Hao was about to start writing, footsteps came from outside the courtyard.

Chen Zhenhua walked over carrying a glass teacup. He was wearing a dark blue short-sleeved shirt today, and his belly was still slightly protruding.

He was just passing by, on his way to pick some vegetables from the garden behind the village, when he saw Chen Hao fiddling with brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones at his workbench. He slowed down, turned a corner, and walked into the courtyard.

"Hey, Hao, what are you doing?" He peeked at the Xuan paper and brushes spread out on the worktable, and the corners of his mouth curled up again. "Painting landscapes?"

Chen Hao didn't look up, but simply responded with a faint "Mm".

Chen Zhenhua walked to the worktable, looked at the Xuan paper, then at the brush and paint, took a sip of tea, and smacked his lips.

He had heard that landscape paintings were something only great painters could create, and that a single painting could sell for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Landscape paintings by ancient painters were even more priceless.

He felt that this kind of thing was not something an ordinary person could draw, let alone Chen Hao.

"Ah Hao, I heard that landscape painting is not something that ordinary people can do. It takes many years of study to learn how to paint it."

"You're a coder, so it's fine if you do some interior design or carpentry, but don't embarrass yourself by drawing."

Chen Hao didn't say anything, picked up the ink bottle, and poured a little ink into the inkstone.

Seeing that Chen Hao ignored him, Chen Zhenhua said again:

"Your third uncle is doing this for your own good. You know, it would be so embarrassing if people saw what you drew. There are so many people watching your live stream—"

Shen Xiaoting looked up from the edge of the table, glanced at Chen Zhenhua, and then at her father.

She didn't speak, but the expression on her little face was already quite unhappy.

Chen Hao picked up a wolf-hair calligraphy brush, dipped it in ink, scraped the tip of the brush against the edge of the inkstone, and adjusted the amount of ink.

He took a deep breath and focused his attention on the Xuan paper in front of him.

He didn't make a draft.

A complete picture already forms in my mind—

A main peak rises abruptly from the left side of the picture, with steep slopes and several ancient pine trees on its summit;

The mountainside is shrouded in mist, and a waterfall cascades down from the clouds into the stream at the foot of the mountain.

The stream meanders to the right, passing a small bridge. On the other side of the bridge are several thatched huts, nestled among the bamboo groves.

In front of the thatched hut was an open space with a stone table and two stone benches; in the distance were faint, indistinct mountains.

This is the "Peach Blossom Spring Thatched Cottage" he envisioned in his mind.

An ideal place to live in seclusion in the mountains, far from the hustle and bustle of the world.

His god-like drawing skills allow him not only to accurately translate the images in his mind onto paper, but also to continuously optimize the composition and brushstrokes as he puts pen to paper.

He began to write.

The first stroke is the outline of the main peak.

He dipped a wolf-hair brush in thick ink, placed the tip of the brush on the lower left of the Xuan paper, and started from the foot of the mountain, moving the brush upwards.

His hand was steady, the pen tip moved across the paper slowly and steadily, the ink went from dark to light, the lines went from thick to thin, and the outline of the mountains and rocks gradually appeared on the paper.

He didn't pause during this stroke, working seamlessly from the foot of the mountain to the mountainside and then to the summit, as if the mountain's shape had always been there, and he had simply sketched it out with his brush.

[Ding! The outline of the main peak has been completed. God-level painting experience points +142!]

Shen Xiaoting leaned on the edge of the table, her eyes fixed on her father's hand.

She saw the shape of a mountain appear on the paper. Although it was only an outline, it was already clear that it was a very tall mountain.

"Dad, the mountain is coming out!"