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

Xu Ziang lowered his head, his eyes reddening.

He clutched the hundred-yuan note that his father had given him.

The money was already crumpled from his grip.

"I'm sorry, Father, it's all my fault."

"I shouldn't have spent money recklessly..."

"It's good that you know you were wrong." Xu Danian's tone softened slightly, but his face remained stern. "Then go and return this pizza."

Xu Ziang was stunned.

He looked down at the pizza box on the table.

I've been buying it for several hours now.

The pizza was long gone.

The cheese had solidified into a hard film that stuck to the bottom of the cardboard box.

How could it possibly be refunded?

"Dad...it can't be returned anymore, we bought it a long time ago..."

"Why can't I get a refund? How is it possible that I can't get a refund?"

"You're not going to refund it, are you? I'll refund it for you."

Xu Danian stepped forward and snatched the phone from his hand.

Xu Ziang instinctively tried to snatch it back, but stopped halfway through his outstretched hand.

Xu Danian scrolled to the order page, found the merchant's phone number, and dialed it.

"Feed? I need to return this pizza."

"What? No refund?"

"Why won't you give us a refund! We're consumers! Do you have any conscience in doing business?"

"I don't care, if you don't refund me, I'll file a complaint! Don't you know about 12315?"

"What do you mean 'no returns after purchase'? Are you trying to bully your customers because you're a big store? Selling a cheap flatbread for fifty dollars? Why don't you just rob us?"

"What? We have to send it back ourselves? Why should we! I paid for it, can't you come and get it yourselves?"

Xu Ziang stood to the side, head down, his face looking as if it were being roasted over a fire.

He dared not look at the camera next to him, nor at his father's expression; he could only stare intently at the tips of his shoes.

On the other end of the phone.

The merchants probably couldn't take it anymore and finally relented.

Refund approved.

I don't want the pizza anymore.

Xu Danian then hung up the phone, satisfied.

He handed the phone back to Xu Ziang and snorted coldly, "Isn't it refunded now? You insist on indulging them. These businesses are spoiled by people like you."

Xu Ziang took the phone but didn't say anything.

His lips moved, but in the end he said nothing.

Xu Danian glanced at him again: "How much money should we return?"

"……Fifty."

"Consider this fifty yuan your allowance for this month." Xu Danian slapped the fifty yuan in cash on the table. "Anyway, you eat at home every day, so you don't need to spend any money."

Xu Ziang nodded.

His gaze fell on the pizza box.

He bought it with his allowance saved up over two weeks.

He wanted to celebrate his father's birthday.

The live chat exploded.

[I can't take this anymore. What kind of family is this? A child gets yelled at for wanting to celebrate their father's birthday?]

[The part where they called to return the pizza made me want to dig my toes into the ground... It was so embarrassing... I lost face in front of the whole country.]

The poor vendor made a pizza, didn't make any money, and even got yelled at.

[Our parents work so hard; they really shouldn't waste money on food.]

[Yes, a pizza costs fifty yuan, enough for a family to eat for a day. It's really wasteful.]

Are those two people serious? This is about the sentiment, okay?

Anyway, the merchant's cost price isn't high, probably only ten or twenty yuan, so they're not losing money.

In the studio, Zhao Shuilan frowned: "Although this father's approach is somewhat extreme, his intentions are good. Letting his child know that earning money isn't easy and that thrift is important is perfectly fine."

Zhou Zhenyang glanced at her but didn't say anything.

Screen switch.

The Chen family.

In the living room, Chen Ziran was scratching his head, looking at a math problem.

He bit his pen, staring at the challenging quadratic function problem, his brow furrowed.

The draft paper was covered with auxiliary lines and formulas, but I got stuck halfway through the calculation.

Chen Chu plopped down next to him with some food in his hand.

"Son, have you been getting enough allowance lately?"

Chen Ziran looked up, his eyes lighting up: "Dad, are you going to increase my allowance?"

"Will 300 yuan a week be enough from now on?"

"Three hundred?!" Chen Ziran's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "Dad's so generous! But... why did you suddenly decide to increase my allowance?"

Chen Chu leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and said, "You're in your final year of junior high, about to go to high school. Shouldn't you be dating or something?"

"Pfft!" Chen Ziran almost choked on his saliva. "Dad, what did you say?!"

"I'm serious." Chen Chu looked at him. "Even if you're not dating, when you go out with your classmates, you always need to have some money in your pocket to buy a drink, right? Your dad doesn't want you to be standing there watching everyone else buy things."

Chen Ziran was stunned for a moment.

"Dad..."

"Alright, alright, don't get touched." Chen Chu waved his hand. "Continue working on your problem."

Chen Ziran lowered his head and looked at the math problem in front of him.

But right now, he's not thinking about functions at all.

He remembered the time he spent with his mother.

Every time the school organizes a spring or autumn outing, his mother would give him ten yuan, saying, "That's enough." But while his classmates were buying snacks and drinks, he couldn't even bear to buy a bottle of mineral water.

Because he knew that if he spent even a penny more, his mother would say, "Do you know how hard it is for me to earn money?"

My mother isn't short of money; she just firmly believes in the principle of raising sons frugally and daughters lavishly.

But Dad said, "I don't want you standing there watching."

He took a deep breath and looked up: "Dad, I must get into a top high school."

Chen Chu looked at him and nodded seriously: "I believe you."

"Dad, I want to prove myself." Chen Ziran gripped his pen tightly. "Wake me up at seven o'clock tomorrow morning!"

"Are you sure?" Chen Chu raised an eyebrow. "Tomorrow's Sunday, our only day off. Are you sure you want to get up early?"

"Sure."

"Okay! You remembered that, you said it yourself."

Chen Chu stood up and patted him on the shoulder: "Then go to bed early tonight."

Chen Ziran nodded and continued working on his problems.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and he had planned to sleep until noon. But just now, he suddenly felt that sleeping in would be letting his father down.

The barrage of comments has started again.

The contrast is stark... On one hand, you get scolded for buying a pizza, while on the other hand, you proactively give your child pocket money and worry that they won't have enough.

[Waaaaah, this dad is so open-minded! He even gives me money for dating!]

Although early romantic relationships are bad, this kind of dad is really great!

[Haha, what kind of true friends can you make with money?]

[Is the person upstairs an idiot? You can't make true friends with money, but if you don't have a single penny, and you're just standing there watching others buy things, you don't even have a chance to make friends!]

That's right, money isn't everything, but you can't do anything without it.

We didn't have such good conditions back then. A simple white flour bun was enough to fill our stomachs, and a pair of shoes could last three years. Kids these days are so spoiled; they get three hundred yuan a week in pocket money!

Seeing this scene brings back so many memories. When I was a kid, I would go to the corner store with my friends. Everyone had money to buy snacks, but I just stood there watching.

[Damn, a veteran!]

[Indeed. Kids these days are so ungrateful. We didn't have these conditions back then. We barely had any protons, some didn't even have neutrons, just one proton inside and one electron outside. We were happy just to capture one electron. Back then, the surroundings were empty; we had to gather together in large numbers, colliding and collapsing to generate energy. Now, you guys don't care about fusion or fission, you want to do all this organic stuff and condensation. I really don't understand.]

[Did you misinterpret the previous comment?]

Wait, is that guy alive from the time of the Big Bang?

[This is hilarious! What weird stuff got mixed in with the comments?]

In the studio, Zhao Shuilan frowned as she watched the scene on the screen where Chen Chu gave Chen Ziran pocket money.

"Three hundred yuan?" Her tone clearly showed disapproval. "Three hundred yuan a week for a junior high school student is too much. Children need to be hardworking and resilient. If they have so much money, they'll just squander it. They won't know how hard it is to earn money when they grow up."

Zhou Zhenyang leaned back in his chair, his hands crossed on his knees.

I think it's fine.

Zhao Shuilan looked at him.

"Times have changed," Zhou Zhenyang said. "When I was a kid, I didn't have much pocket money. I only had five yuan a week, which was gone after buying a bag of spicy strips. But then again, seventy or eighty years ago, let alone white flour buns, it was a problem to even have enough to eat."

He pushed up his glasses: "We can't just apply the standards of the past to today's children, after all, the times are different now."

"We can't spoil the child like that," Zhao Shuilan insisted. "Three hundred yuan can buy so many books!"

"But children also need social interaction," Zhou Zhenyang smiled. "Teacher Zhao, you said children need to be hardworking and resilient. So I'd like to ask a question: what do you think is the purpose of children enduring hardship?"

"Of course, it's about building willpower."

"If a child feels ashamed in front of their classmates because they don't have money, and is isolated and ostracized, eventually becoming self-conscious, introverted, and afraid to socialize, wouldn't that be considered building willpower?"

Zhou Zhenyang continued, "I think that hardship is not the same as suffering. It's right to let children know that money doesn't come easily. But we can't let them lose even basic dignity in front of their peers. Every family is different in this regard, but I don't think Mr. Chen's approach is a big problem."