Live Stream: Overly Pampered Education Creates Three Superstars in One Family

Chen Chu leaned back on the sofa, his fingers flying across the phone screen. The loading screen of Honor of Kings was reflected on his face, flashing blue-purple light.

His eyes were fixed intently on the screen, and he muttered things like, "The enemy jungler should have started with red buff" and "Support, follow me."

But his ears weren't in the game.

There was the sound of a faucet being turned on in the kitchen, and the water was splashing against the bottom of the metal sink, making a soft gurgling sound.

Then came the soft clinking of bowls and plates, so quiet it was as if someone was carefully controlling the volume of every movement, not wanting to be noticed.

In the old residential area at one or two in the morning, the soundproofing is not good, and the sound of water pipes comes up along the walls, which is particularly clear in the quiet night.

Chen Chu didn't go out. His fingers continued to slide across the screen, maneuvering his character through the jungle to support the top lane.

He guessed it.

He heard it when the kid sneaked out of the kitchen. The footsteps, deliberately lightened but still making a slight sound as slippers stomped on the floor, were hesitant and slow, with a guilty conscience.

He thought no one would notice, but he underestimated the soundproofing of the old house and Chen Chu's hearing.

Chen Chu didn't get up to look, nor did he intend to expose him. A teenager sneaking out in the middle of the night to wash the dishes he hadn't cleaned during the day—if you went over, turned on the light, and said, "Hey Zihao, why aren't you asleep yet?", that kid would probably blush to the point of spitting fire, and then avoid you for the next week.

They were already washing it secretly, and you still had to go and catch them. Only someone with no sense of propriety would do something like that.

He finished the game on the sofa and won.

The crystal exploded.

He heard the sound of water in the kitchen stop, then the sound of dishes being gently placed back on the dish rack, then the sound of slippers stepping on the floor, and finally a very soft sound of the door closing.

He then put down his phone, leaned against the headboard, closed his eyes, and let the quiet exhaustion and some indescribable emotions slowly settle down.

……

The studio of the production team was brightly lit.

Zhao Shuilan sat in the center of the guest area, with the monitoring screen in front of her divided into picture-in-picture, each displaying real-time footage of different family exchange groups.

She has regained the confidence that makes her the "only expert on this program".

Because Sun Xuerong directly joined the family exchange segment and went from being an observer to a participant, it meant that he was the only expert in the control room.

No one challenged her to speak anymore, and no one interrupted her comments in that condescending tone.

She stood up straight, her gaze sweeping across the monitor screen before finally settling on the footage of Chen Chu's home. The footage was playing back, showing Chen Chu praising Wang Zihao in the kitchen, saying, "This is the first time I've ever seen such clean dishes."

Zhao Shuilan frowned slightly as she looked at Wang Zihao's flushed face and foam-covered hands on the screen, and then spoke.

"Wang Zihao is a typical case of educational deficiency. At sixteen or seventeen, he doesn't even have the most basic household skills. There's so much dish soap in the dishes; even a normal adult wouldn't do that. It's clear he's the type who wouldn't even pick up a fallen oil bottle at home. This kind of child has no common sense and shows no basic survival skills. He's been spoiled rotten by his parents into a giant baby. The educational cost for this kind of giant baby is extremely high, and frankly, it's almost hopeless."

As soon as she finished speaking, Zhou Zhenyang looked up at Zhao Shuilan.

"Teacher Zhao, I'm afraid I can't agree with this view."

"Whether he washed them well or not, or whether he knew how to wash them at all, he did it anyway. Doing something is better than doing nothing. Wang Zihao never did any housework at home before, which is clearly shown in our records. Today, he took the initiative to go into the kitchen and wash the dishes at the sink, even if his method was wrong or his efficiency was low. This in itself shows that he is accepting the new environment and new rules. This is not a regression, but progress. Education is not just about the result; the process is equally important."

Zhao Shuilan frowned slightly. "Dr. Zhou, I understand your good intentions for the development of teenagers, but good intentions cannot replace standards. Household chores education is an important part of family education. If a child is sixteen or seventeen years old and still needs someone to teach him how to use dish soap from scratch, what does that mean?"

Zhou Zhenyang paused for a moment, then did not speak immediately.

Several live comments appeared on the big screen at just the right time. The direction of the comments quickly reversed, and the scene of Wang Zihao washing dishes was replayed on the big screen.

[Seriously, this is praiseworthy? Did Chen Chu pay the production team?!]

[To be honest, what's so praiseworthy about this? He can't even wash dishes; isn't he just a complete overgrown baby? If I had a son like that, I'd send him to the countryside for hardship and reformation, to practice playing the trumpet.]

[Same as above. They're definitely spoiled too much. Making such a fuss over washing dishes, pouring in half a bucket of dish soap—is this washing dishes or playing with bubbles?]

[What's wrong with not knowing how to wash dishes? Is it wrong for some people to simply dislike doing housework? Since when has being able to wash dishes become a moral standard?]

[Yeah, not washing the dishes isn't a cardinal sin. Why should a child be called a "giant baby" for not washing dishes? What are parents for? Shouldn't parents wash the dishes?]

To put it bluntly, Chen Chu himself is a lazybones. Making a kid who just arrived at his house wash the dishes? Isn't that ridiculous? What a lack of responsibility from a parent!

The barrage battle was in full swing, with both sides fiercely battling it out in the comments section.

Fortunately, just before things were about to get out of control, the production team switched the main screen on the control room screen in time.

The screen no longer showed the foam and dishes in Chen Chu's kitchen, but a live feed of another family: Sun Xuerong's family at dinner time.

Sun Xuerong's restaurant and Chen Chu's restaurant have completely different styles.

The family is very ordinary.

Five people.

Grandparents, Sun Xuerong, Wu's father, Xu Ziang.

Mr. Wu sat opposite, eating at a moderate pace, occasionally glancing up at his parents, but not saying much.

Sun Xuerong's gaze was mostly fixed on her parents, occasionally serving food to Xu Ziang.

Xu Ziang, on the other hand, was noticeably relaxed and carefree. He ate very quickly, as if completing a task, and didn't pick and choose his food with his chopsticks, eating whatever he could find. He didn't speak up, but he would answer when Sun Xuerong asked him questions. When asked if he liked the food, he said it was fine. When asked if he had a lot of homework today, he said it was okay.

The responses were brief and polite, answering each question with a single word, never uttering an extra word.

After finishing his meal, Xu Ziang put down his chopsticks, cleared away his bowl and chopsticks, put them in the kitchen sink, nodded slightly, and tiptoed back to his room.

The entire action was performed in one smooth motion, polite but distant.

The table lamp was on in the room.

Xu Ziang sat at his desk, with a math tutoring book and a workbook spread out in front of him.

He's thinking about things.

He wasn't surprised when he learned that his father wanted him to participate in the family exchange program.

During live-streaming sales, he was made to stand in front of the camera for several hours in a row, to laugh at the audience's teasing in the chat, and to endorse products he wasn't very familiar with, saying things like, "This is really good, I've been using it," even though he had never even seen what the product looked like.

So when his father told him in a tone that said, "This is a good thing, it will help you grow," he just sneered inwardly and said "I know" in a calm, almost indifferent tone, without even asking where he was going or who he was exchanging with.

There's no need to ask.

Asking won't change anything.

He no longer had any expectations of his father. Without expectations, there would be no disappointment. This was the most important survival rule he learned after countless disappointments.

But he was still unhappy.

That feeling of displeasure wasn't anger. Anger requires intensity, and he no longer had any intensity left to give to his father.

That kind of annoyance is more like a weariness of being reused by a cheap tool. It's like someone has repeatedly told you that he is not trustworthy, but when he proves it again, you still feel annoyed.

Before coming to Sun Xuerong's house, he also did some online research.

Sun Xuerong is a well-known education expert who has her own column on the education channel and has published several books on family education and adolescent growth.

He read several reports about her and watched a few clips of Wu Zixi. In the videos, Wu Zixi was well-behaved, obedient, had excellent grades, and played the piano very well. She was the perfect "other people's child" that couldn't be more perfect.

In the comments section, some praised her self-discipline, some said she was a model student, and others said she didn't seem to be doing it voluntarily.

After reading it, Xu Ziang found that this expert Sun's management style was strict enough to make most of his peers worry: meticulous time management, strict control of work and rest, and highly standardized learning process.

An average young person would probably feel anxious or even scared about being managed by such an education expert for a week.

But he didn't feel anything.

Whether he's strict or lenient, it doesn't really matter to him.

He's been disciplined before, at most he's been disciplined more strictly, what's there to be afraid of?

Besides, he understood this principle a long time ago: crying won't help.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but some children who cry only get slapped.

He is the latter.

So he didn't make a fuss.

In the control room, Zhao Shuilan tapped the screen, signaling the technicians to freeze the image on the scene of the Sun family's dinner.

"That footage contained a lot of information. I'd like to mention two points."

"First, I'd like to ask Ms. Sun Xuerong, you're so strict with your own daughter, implementing a high-density, high-standard management style at home. But after Xu Ziang came, you clearly adopted a more lenient attitude. After dinner, you didn't ask him to help clear the table, nor did you stop him from going to his room, completely respecting his choice not to participate in housework. The standards of these two approaches are inconsistent. So the question is, as an education expert who advocates strict discipline, are you teaching according to aptitude, or are you treating people differently? Can your educational philosophy truly be implemented in practice, or is it too flexible and varies from person to person?"

"Secondly, I'd like to say something about Xu Ziang. Although your visit to Sun Xuerong's house was arranged, you are still a sixteen or seventeen-year-old young man. The elderly are still eating at the table, and you just get up and leave after you finish? Without even saying 'Grandpa and Grandma, please enjoy your meal'? You have no manners at all. This isn't a matter of family education; it's the most basic table manners that don't need to be taught. Even saying 'Please enjoy your meal' would be a sign of basic upbringing. From this perspective, Ms. Sun Xuerong, your lenient approach to education probably hasn't yielded good results."

The number of comments increased sharply after Zhao Shuilan's comment.

【Wait a minute, Zhao expert? Am I having a memory problem? Didn't you have a grudge against Sun Xuerong? You two argued so much on the last show, and now you're taking Sun Xuerong's side? And saying she "teaches according to aptitude"? What's going on between you two?】

[I'm a bit confused too. It says Sun Xuerong should strictly adhere to her educational philosophy, so, Expert Zhao, are you against or support Sun Xuerong? What is your stance?]

[Expert Zhao is right. Xu Zi'ang has absolutely no manners. The old man was still eating at the table when he simply took the bowl and went back to his room. If this happened in our village, he would have been beaten up long ago.]

【No, upstairs, where are you from? I'm asking which dynasty you're from? The Qing Dynasty? Do you expect me to kowtow to an elder before leaving after my meal?】

[This person criticizes Sun Xuerong for differential treatment while simultaneously criticizing Xu Ziang for being impolite, so the conclusion should be that Sun Xuerong should also be stricter with Xu Ziang, thus resolving both issues? I don't understand what's there to argue about.]