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

Chen Ziran slept until two in the afternoon. Sunlight streamed in through the gaps in the curtains, casting a thin, long golden stripe on the floor. He lay in bed, staring at the chandelier on the ceiling for a long time, not lingering in bed as he usually did.

He rolled over, picked up his phone, glanced at the date, then put it down, closed his eyes, and then opened them again.

I'm leaving tonight.

The seven-day family exchange begins tonight. Seven days—not a long time, but not a short time either.

Seven days at school fly by in the blink of an eye, barely making a ripple. But living at someone else's house for seven days is a completely different experience.

It's like being uprooted from your original life and planted in a completely unfamiliar place.

Chen Ziran said to his father, "Don't worry, I will never recognize a thief as my father," sounding quite bold and confident, but that was because he didn't want his father to worry.

In reality, he knew very well what was going on; how could he not worry?

A strange family, a strange environment, strange rules, even the taste of food may be different.

This feeling is like when I first went to kindergarten as a child. The moment the bus drove away, I watched my parents getting smaller and smaller outside the window, and my heart immediately tightened.

He sat up in bed, rubbed his face to clear his mind of those chaotic thoughts, and then began packing his luggage.

He spread his suitcase on the floor and began stuffing clothes into it one by one: T-shirts, pants, socks, underwear. Toothbrush, towel, charger. Halfway through packing, he suddenly stopped, his gaze falling on a small compartment next to the suitcase. There lay a broken headphone cord, one he'd worn out a long time ago, which he didn't know he'd kept. He stared at the broken cord for a few seconds, then looked away and continued packing.

After packing his luggage, he walked to the top of the stairs, about to go downstairs to get a drink of water, but suddenly stopped. He stood at the top of the stairs, his view just right to see the coffee table in the living room.

Chen Xiayu was sitting next to the coffee table, her two short legs crossed on the floor, with a box of watercolor pens and a piece of white paper in front of her, intently coloring something.

The little girl lowered her head slightly, pursed her lips into a line, and held the pen clumsily but earnestly, pausing to examine her work after each stroke.

Chen Ziran stood at the top of the stairs watching her for a while. Then, instead of going downstairs to get water, he turned around and went back to his room. He picked up his phone, looked through the food delivery apps, and finally ordered a strawberry cake—Chen Xiayu's favorite flavor. When the cake arrived, he carried the box downstairs, deliberately hiding it behind his back. He squatted down next to the coffee table and magically produced the cake from behind his back, placing it in front of his sister.

When Chen Xiayu saw the cake, her eyes lit up instantly, like two little light bulbs that had suddenly been lit. But instead of immediately opening the box, she tilted her head, looked at Chen Ziran, and asked in a childish voice, "Brother, it's not my birthday today, why are we eating a small cake?"

Chen Ziran squatted down in front of her, reached out and gently poked her crooked little bun with his finger, smiled, then lowered his voice and made a mysterious "shh" gesture.

"Eat quickly, don't tell Dad. If he sees this, he'll definitely say that eating sweets will cause cavities, and then he'll start nagging again."

Chen Xiayu blinked her big, dark eyes, then suddenly leaned over and planted a loud kiss on Chen Ziran's cheek. The kiss was sweet and sticky, with a childlike milky scent and the aroma of strawberry candy, like a kitten nuzzling him with its nose.

After she finished kissing him, she held the small cake in both hands and said in a sweet, clear voice, "Thank you, brother!"

Chen Ziran squatted there, stunned for a second. Then, the corners of his mouth turned up in a way he himself didn't even realize, up very high, as if pulled up by an invisible thread.

He pulled a tissue from the tissue box on the coffee table and wiped the sticky strawberry candy mark on his cheek, but he couldn't suppress the smile on his face.

He lowered his voice, leaned close to his sister's ear, as if telling her a secret only the two of them knew: "When your brother comes home, he'll definitely bring you something delicious."

Chen Xiayu took a bite of the cake, and the white cream smudged on the corner of her mouth like a tiny white mustache. She looked up at Chen Ziran, nodded, and then lowered her head again, focusing intently on the cake.

Chen Ziran squatted down beside her, watching her eat. He watched as the white cream smeared more and more on her lips, and watched as she reluctantly ate the strawberries after finishing the first layer of cake, carefully placing them in the corner of the cake box as if hiding a tiny ruby. He took out a tissue to wipe her mouth, then stood up, went into the kitchen, took out her little cartoon toothbrush, squeezed out a little strawberry-flavored children's toothpaste, and after she finished the last bite of cake, he carried her to the sink, squatted down, and carefully brushed her teeth.

"Open your mouth, ah!"

"ah--!"

Chen Xiayu obediently opened her mouth, but after only two seconds she couldn't help but start talking, asking indistinctly, "Brother, are you going to a very, very far place?"

Chen Ziran paused for a moment. "Not far." He looked down at his sister's white-bearded face, her mouth covered in toothpaste foam, and a slight smile appeared on his lips. "Just a week. A week goes by quickly. You count to seven nights, and your brother will be back. Count one a day."

"One a day?" Chen Xiaoyu tilted her head, holding up three fingers. "How many is that?"

"There are three. I'll be back when you count to seven."

Chen Xiayu looked down at her fingers, then looked up at Chen Ziran, her expression serious, as if she were receiving an important military assignment. But she quickly shifted her attention and started playing with the trickle of water flowing from the faucet by the sink.

After brushing his sister's teeth, Chen Ziran patted her head and stood up. He felt the small, soft head under his palm, still slightly warm, and suddenly felt a pang of sadness in his heart.

But then, something suddenly occurred to him: the medical expenses, the frozen bank card, and the image of his father whispering on the phone on the balcony. This 100,000 yuan was for his sister's treatment. And he only needed to stay somewhere else for a week to earn that money for his father.

When he thought about this, his mood suddenly changed. He stood in the kitchen, watching his sister continue drawing by the coffee table, coloring the crooked little house she had drawn red. Sunlight shone in from the window, falling on her hair and giving it a light golden hue.

Chen Ziran was happy.

He suddenly felt as if he wasn't staying at someone else's house temporarily, but on a business trip.

Yes, on a business trip.

An adult goes on a business trip to earn money to support their family. They go to an unfamiliar city, stay in an unfamiliar room, and eat unfamiliar food, but they feel at ease because they know they are doing something for their family.

He leaned against the kitchen doorframe, placed his hand on his chest, and felt a subtle but real change taking place somewhere there. It was like the moment before a seed sprouts from the soil; it hasn't grown into anything yet, but it's no longer the same soil.

……

Meanwhile, at the vegetable market in the east of the city.

Chen Chu pushed and shoved his way through the afternoon crowd of shoppers. The air in the market was a mixture of the fishy smell of live fish, the earthy scent of fresh vegetables, and the aroma of star anise and cinnamon wafting from the braised meat stalls. He squatted down in front of a meat stall, picked out two pounds of pork ribs, and had the vendor chop them up and bag them.

As he took the ribs and put them into the cart, he was mentally planning tonight's menu.

Braised pork ribs are a must, no matter if the child is well-behaved or naughty, it's always good to have a good meal.

Then stir-fry two vegetable dishes, two meat dishes, and make a soup. Five dishes and one soup is not considered stingy.

Since it's a new member visiting our home, we should treat them like guests.

But honestly, he found it a bit strange.

The switch is tonight, and the production team hasn't even made a single phone call to discuss the details.

What are some precautions? What are your daily routines like? Are there any dietary restrictions? There was none of this information. He checked his phone several times to make sure there were no calls from the production team or any unread messages in his call log.

He pushed his cart to the ginger and garlic stall, picked out a few pieces of ginger, and was still wondering about it.

He said that the production team's attitude was too lax, so lax that even he, an outsider, felt something was wrong.

Even if this is just routine work for the production team, for his family, it's a strange child coming to stay for a week. Cooking, accommodation, safety, and emotions—all of these require prior communication.

Did the production team place too much trust in him?

They think he can handle everything on his own, so they don't give him any necessary information?

This is incredibly irresponsible!

He tossed the ginger into the plastic bag, took out his phone, and was about to call Li Minghui to get some answers when his phone rang by itself. The caller ID that popped up on the screen was none other than Li Minghui.

Chen Chu answered the phone, but before he could speak, he heard a slightly deliberate cough from the other end.

Before saying something that's inconvenient to say, a person who isn't good at lying will cough to fill the awkward silence.

Most of the people he knows know this trick.

"Well, Chen Chu, there's something I need to talk to you about." Li Minghui's voice sounded calm, but there was a deliberate understatement in that calmness, like a teacher casually mentioning something while grading a clearly problematic assignment. "Didn't our production team say before that we'd be having a competition to see which school's teaching methods were more advantageous? Do you remember?"

Chen Chu hummed in response but didn't reply, waiting for him to continue.

"Now, your first task has arrived..."

Li Minghui's voice grew faster and faster, as if he were rushing to finish a statement that wasn't entirely convincing. "Here's the mission: Wang Zihao has run away from home. Your first task is to find him and bring him back. How about that? Not too difficult, right? I'm confident you can do it!"

He got more and more excited as he talked, and by the end, it was as if this mission was some kind of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Chen Chu stood by the aisle of the vegetable market, still holding the bag of pork ribs in his hand.

The woman selling fish next to him was tapping a crucian carp on the head with a wooden stick, making a dull sound. He was silent for a moment, then switched the ribs to his other hand and spoke slowly.

When did this happen?

Li Minghui paused for a moment, then continued, "It's about what happened last night..."

"Don't tell me that Wang Zihao's running away from home was scripted."

"Of course it's not scripted! Absolutely not scripted!" Li Minghui's voice suddenly rose. "Our production team emphasizes authenticity; there's absolutely no script. You can rest assured!"

"Okay, since it wasn't scripted," Chen Chu spoke slowly, but every word seemed to hit the bullseye, "then this running away from home wasn't a pre-prepared act either, right? Does that mean you didn't know when he would run away, and now that he's gone, you can't do anything about it, so you're trying to shift the blame to me?"

There was a moment of silence on Li Minghui's end.

"Ahem, you can't say that. We're all in the same boat..."

"It's a script," Chen Chu interrupted him. "I just need to act in it to bring the person back."

Li Minghui's voice immediately became righteous and indignant: "Of course it's not scripted! I said, our program doesn't have scripts, don't try to slander me out of thin air!"

Chen Chu's voice remained calm, and he even shifted to a more comfortable position leaning against a pillar in the market: "So, they're just trying to shift the blame onto me."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

The silence was longer than ever before, as if declaring that all efforts to conceal the truth had failed.

Then Li Minghui's voice rang out again, this time deflated, lacking the previous casualness, and pleading.

"...I'm begging you this time. Please help me with this, and I'll make it up to you later. When have I ever gone back on my word?"

Chen Chu sighed. The sigh wasn't long, but it wasn't short either; it was just enough for an adult to weigh the pros and cons and make a decision they didn't really want to make: "Fine, I'll go find it. But forget about compensation; you owe me a favor."

There was a sudden silence on the other end of the phone.

Li Minghui realized what the word "favor" meant. For a director who relies on his reputation, owing money is not terrible; owing favors is.

Especially with favors like those from Chen Chu, who are known for their deceit and manipulation, who knows when they'll be returned with interest?

But Li Minghui had no other choice.

Wang Zihao had been on the run all night. If he wasn't found soon, it would be difficult to explain to the Wang family, and Wang Wenwu might even explode. He gritted his teeth and said, forcing a smile, "Okay, I'll send you his hotel address and room number."

Chen Chu hung up the phone and stood there lost in thought for a moment. The woman selling fish next to him glanced up at him and figured that this big guy who had been standing there motionless for so long with his ribs probably had heatstroke.

A few seconds later, the phone rang.

A message popped up on the screen, displaying the name of a hotel and a room number.