The Cannon Fodder Dad of Three Villainous Cubs - Chapter 14

Time flowed silently by, and the weekend arrived in the blink of an eye. For Ji Zhiqiu, however, it didn’t feel any different.

On school days, his only real chore was getting up early to cook for Ji Zishen. The boy was the absolute definition of well-behaved and sensible proactively tackling his homework and looking every bit the picture-perfect, fair-skinned little gentleman. If Ji Zhiqiu didn’t already know that the kid was playing the long game pretending to be a harmless lamb while destined to grow into a massive villain he would have genuinely wanted to scoop him up and plant a giant kiss on his cheek.

He was light-years better than that little brat Ji Yanyan!

But for Ji Zishen, the weekend was anything but ordinary. It meant he no longer had a legitimate excuse to escape the apartment; he was forced to spend every waking moment under the same roof as Ji Zhiqiu.

Then again, this was exactly what he wanted.

It had been several days since his rebirth, and he still hadn’t figured out how to confront Ji Zhiqiu head-on. He was constantly paranoid that his foster father was pulling strings behind his back, fully convinced the man hadn’t given up on the idea of dumping him back at the orphanage.

On Friday night, Ji Zishen lay perfectly still in his bed. Sleep eluded him completely as he stared at the sliver of light cutting through the gap under his bedroom door.

Ji Zhiqiu is still awake. What is he doing? Is he preparing the paperwork to send me away?

His resting hand curled into a tight fist. A suffocating sense of crisis urged Ji Zishen to take the initiative as quickly as possible.

After what felt like an eternity, the living room lights finally clicked off. Only then did Ji Zishen close his eyes, going as still and silent as a wooden puppet.

……

Early Saturday morning, Ji Zhiqiu was hit with an absolute dream of a surprise.

Ji Zishen ran up to him, volunteering to take Ji Yanyan down to the local community activity center to play.

“Don’t worry, Daddy. I’ll take excellent care of Little Brother. The elderly grandma next door is taking her grandson there too,” Ji Zishen added, dragging an outsider into the equation to systematically lower Ji Zhiqiu’s defenses.

He fully expected Ji Zhiqiu to play hard to get. What he didn’t expect was for the man to deploy such a rigid, icy silence, staring back as if trying to force him to retract the offer.

Ji Zishen’s expression didn’t waver. Keeping his bright, innocent smile firmly pinned in place, he pressed on, “Can we?”

In reality, Ji Zhiqiu had simply been utterly stunned by the sudden stroke of cosmic luck. His eyelashes fluttered as his eyes rounded into massive circles of pure ecstasy. “Of course you can! When are you leaving? How long are you staying?”

Ji Zishen hadn’t anticipated such an enthusiastic green light. He shot his foster father a deeply analytical look, his smile unchanging. “Probably the whole morning.”

Ji Zhiqiu didn’t waste a single millisecond. He bolted into the kitchen, packing a massive bag of pastries, snacks, and fruits, genuinely terrified that a lack of rations might cause the kids to return home prematurely.

When he hurried back into the living room balancing the mountain of snacks, he finally looked down at the tiny human in front of him and felt a wave of awkwardness. He offered a sheepish laugh. “Is this… a bit too much?”

The amusement in the depths of Ji Zishen’s eyes deepened as he snatched the heavy bag right out of Ji Zhiqiu’s hands. “It’s totally fine, it’s not heavy at all! Don’t worry, Daddy, I can handle it!”

Without giving his foster father, a single frame to change his mind, he turned on his heel and marched into the bedroom to retrieve Ji Yanyan.

Ji Yanyan was entirely brainless. Though he wasn’t particularly attached to this cheap older brother of his, the sheer prospect of going outside to play was enough to make him ecstatic. He happily bounded out the front door right behind Ji Zishen.

Ji Zhiqiu exchanged a brief, polite greeting with the neighbor auntie through the doorway, watching their retreating figures slowly disappear down the corridor. The moment the front door clicked shut, his elegant facade shattered instantly.

He let out a triumphant cheer and made a mad dash for his bedroom.

Rummaging through his closets, he dragged out every piece of contraband he had hidden away in the deepest recesses of the room. To fully manifest his solitary euphoria, he even booted up his livestream channel, slapping on a wildly clickbaity title:

【Kids aren’t home / Solo indulgence / Lonely / Passionate video / Come enjoy with me】

The loyal subscribers who received the broadcast notification were instantly bewildered: Wait, what?! Did our streamer get hacked by a spam bot?!

Unable to resist their burning curiosity, they flooded into the livestream room only to be hit with an absolute visual assault right at the opening frame.

The curtains were drawn tight, plunging the bedroom into dim, cinematic gloom.

Ji Zhiqiu was sprawled entirely devoid of posture across the sofa, his bare feet propped unceremoniously on a round stool. Spread out before him were three wide-open family-sized bags of potato chips, with a chilled bottle of beer clutched in each hand.

Well… the kids were indeed out of the house, he was technically indulging solo, and it did look rather lonely.

Meanwhile, the television screen was blasting a strictly-not-for-kids horror film, the visuals incredibly gory, bloody, and violent.

And this… was apparently the legendary “passionate video.” Technically accurate, you certainly couldn’t deny that his adrenaline was absolutely skyrocketing!

The chat section fell into a collective, stunned silence.

• [User_99]: …Streamer, you are so abstract. I was genuinely terrified your channel was gonna get banned for adult content, and it turns out to be THIS?!
• [HorrorFanatic]: What’s there to be happy about? This is literally my exact routine every single weekend.
• [MomLife_99]: I envy you single sisters so much. Once you have kids, your entire universe revolves around them. This kind of private time is literally a fantasy.
• [Spicy_Cat]: Yikes, remember that the streamer’s biological kid is a literal demon incarnate. My condolences. Sending you 10x Fairy Wands.

Ji Zhiqiu fiercely treasured every second of this fleeting paradise. He watched the screen with absolute, unblinking devotion, looking the absolute part of a disheveled, greasy shut-in. Potato chip crumbs accumulated all over his shirt, and his crumpled trouser legs were pushed halfway up his calves in a wrinkled mess.

……

While Ji Zhiqiu was thoroughly basking in the glory of his temporary bachelorhood, life on the other side of town was pure, unadulterated misery for Ji Zishen.

In Ji Zishen’s eyes, Ji Yanyan was basically a stray dog the moment you let go of the leash, he would vanish into thin air, and there was a non-zero chance he might secretly try to eat dirt. Terrified of an operational failure, Ji Zishen was forced to sprint constantly behind the toddler.

After enduring this for over an hour, he reached his absolute psychological limit. He kept throwing frantic glances toward the entrance of the activity center.

Ji Zhiqiu treasures his biological son like a fragile glass doll. How could he possibly be at peace leaving the two of us alone out here? Right now, he must be pacing the apartment floor like an ant on a hot pan, dying to run over and find us.

When that moment came, the gathering of local parents and children would serve as the ultimate, unbiased witnesses. Everyone would see with their own eyes that he was violently biased toward his biological child while treating his adopted son like an disposable outsider. From there, Ji Zishen would only need to deploy a few subtle, manipulative linguistic cues, and Ji Zhiqiu would inevitably expose his selfish nature. There was no way the man could slip out of it with smooth talk like last time.

Yet, he waited and waited, but Ji Zhiqiu’s figure never materialized on the horizon.

Where on earth is that idiot wasting time?! Why isn’t he here yet? Hurry up and claim your precious son!

He stared at Ji Yanyan, who was currently spinning around the playground like a flesh-and-blood spinning top, driving himself to the absolute brink of madness. His neat, tidy hair was now completely fried and sticking out in all directions. He looked and felt as though he had aged a decade in a single morning coincidentally achieving his desperate wish to grow into an adult ahead of time.

For the very first time across two lifetimes, Ji Zishen experienced a profound, empathetic understanding of Ji Zhiqiu’s daily suffering. Unable to take another second, he proactively approached the neighbor grandma. “Grandma, I’m a bit tired. Can we please go back now?”

The neighbor auntie offered a warm, maternal smile as she handed him a water bottle. “Of course, dear. Go call your little brother over.”

Ji Yanyan fiercely resisted leaving. To preserve his meticulously crafted persona as a saintly older brother, Ji Zishen had to grit his teeth and deploy monumental diplomatic efforts, practically draining his life force just to drag the deeply unwilling toddler back home.

All the way back, Ji Zishen was entirely checked out mentally, burning with a furious desperation to open that front door and see exactly what kind of elaborate scheme Ji Zhiqiu was plotting inside.

……

Time flies when you’re having unholy amounts of fun. Just as the horror movie reached its absolute narrative climax, Ji Zhiqiu’s body leaned forward completely unprompted.

On screen, the protagonist was creeping down a pitch-black corridor. The second he crossed the threshold into the topmost attic, the true identity of the female ghost would be laid bare, revealing the ultimate blueprint to escape the haunted castle.

The audio engineering was masterfully immersive; heavy, disjointed footsteps echoed directly into his ears. Ji Zhiqiu blinked, just about to mentally commend the director’s impeccable cinematic taste, when a high-pitched, childish voice suddenly pierced the audio mix.

??? Wait a minute… there aren’t any children cast in this movie?

It took his brain several agonizing seconds to process reality: His two dear sons were back!

Ji Zhiqiu’s entire nervous system went into high alert. He shot upward like a startled cat.

The extreme time constraint left absolutely zero room for logical deliberation. The actions he executed next were driven entirely by raw, primal survival instinct the absolute purest reflection of his inner soul.

Zero-frame animation startup: he bounded off the sofa, slapped the television power button off, scooped up the open potato chip bags and beer bottles in a single fluid motion, and sprinted into the guest bedroom to bury the evidence. Then, he whipped his body back around, sprinting back into the living room to execute a split-second touch-test of the television’s back panel to see how hot it was.

The very next millisecond, the fingerprint lock clicked open, and one tall, one short figure stepped into the entryway.

Ji Zhiqiu’s breathing hadn’t even leveled out yet. Forcing a serene, utterly untroubled smile onto his face, he walked over casually. “Oh, you guys are back already? I was right in the middle of some intense remote work, so I didn’t hear you come in.”

The livestream audience went wild:

• [Tech_Bro]: The roles are completely reversed! Since when does a parent have to play hide-and-seek to escape their own kids?!
• [Anxiety_Lord]: Ahhhhh why am I getting second-hand anxiety from this?! I literally can’t breathe!
• [Pro_Gamer]: It’s over. Streamer forgot to blow a fan on the TV to cool it down. The second the kid touches the back panel; the cover story is utterly blown.
• [RIP_Streamer]: There’s too many bugs in his defense strategy. Light a candle for the streamer.
• [Meme_King]: Even if he gets caught, so what? The streamer doesn’t have homework deadlines. What’s the kid gonna do, spank his ass? 😂

Driven entirely by sheer adrenaline, Ji Zhiqiu’s internal panic didn’t subside in the slightest. He stared sheepishly at Ji Zishen, praying to whatever gods were listening that the boy would immediately retreat to his room and ignore the environment.

Naturally, Murphy’s Law prevailed. Ji Yanyan launched himself forward like a miniature rocket, impacting his father’s legs and transferring a thick layer of playground dust onto his clothes. The toddler tilted his head up, sniffing the air. “It smells so good! Daddy, what did you eat?”

Ji Zishen stepped into the living room, his eyes instantly locking onto the sofa. He fell into a prolonged, heavy silence.

Ji Zhiqiu had been lounging in complete defiance of spinal physics earlier; consequently, the sofa cover was halfway dragged onto the floor, covered in chaotic wrinkles and a sprinkling of highly suspicious chip crumbs. Most damning of all, a pair of house slippers was sitting empty right in front of the couch!

Ji Zishen quietly retracted his gaze, turning his head to look directly at Ji Zhiqiu. His voice was the absolute pinnacle of pure, innocent curiosity: “Daddy, why are you walking around barefoot?”

Ji Zhiqiu: !!! In the heat of the tactical retreat, I completely forgot to step back into my shoes!

An awkward chuckle escaped his lips as he scrambled over, sliding his feet into the slippers while frantically smoothing out the sofa cover. “Oh, I was just sitting on the couch… when a sudden, violent stomach ache hit me! Yes, exactly! I rushed to the bathroom so fast I forgot my shoes.”

Completely blind to the suffocating atmospheric tension, Ji Yanyan trotted over on his little feet. “But Daddy, why did you come walking out of the bedroom just now? Stinky-stinky!”

“……” Ji Zhiqiu reached out, placing a heavy hand on Ji Yanyan’s head. “Yanyan, Daddy just discovered a magnificent virtue in you. You are genuinely, incredibly filial.”

Ji Yanyan entirely missed the fierce, teeth-gritting undertone of the compliment. Assuming his father was praising him from the bottom of his heart, his tiny expression turned immensely smug.

A three-year-old toddler was easily managed, but the household still contained a formidable eldest son whose psychological acuity rivaled a fully grown adult. Ji Zhiqiu’s anxiety levels breached maximum capacity. He stood frozen between the television and the bedroom door, so paralyzed with tension he literally forgot how to breathe.

Watching this transpire through the screen, the livestream viewers experienced intense, relatable flashbacks:

• [Corporate_Slave]: I’ve been in the workforce for three years now, and yet, whenever I’m home alone watching TV and hear footsteps in the hallway, I still instinctively shut off the screen and pretend to reply to corporate emails… There is no cure.
• [Haha_11]: Hahaha, do these guys remember who the actual adult is here?!
• [Reverse_Card]: The cosmic hierarchy has been completely inverted. Who is the child and who is the parent here?!
• [Life_Is_Hard]: Inversion +1! You can’t just keep squeezing our generation like this! We spent our childhoods hiding from our parents, and now we spend our adulthoods hiding from our kids. Life is far too bitter!
• [Pray_For_Ji]: Praying the streamer passes this inspection. I’m getting actual palpitations just watching this.

Perhaps the collective manifestation of the chat worked. Ji Zishen acted as though he hadn’t detected a single anomaly, turning around to head toward the bathroom to wash his hands. Just as Ji Zhiqiu was about to let out a massive sigh of relief, the tiny figure suddenly executed a sharp trajectory change, bypassing him entirely and throwing the guest bedroom door wide open!

Ji Zhiqiu: !!! Ahhhhh my beer! My potato chips! My chocolate bars!

His soul effectively left his body. He stood frozen in place like a statue of pure awkwardness, waiting for the inevitable interrogation and judgment. To his utter bewilderment, when Ji Zishen spun back around, the expression on the boy’s face was infinitely more broken and devastated than his own.

Behind Ji Zishen’s eyes, a montage of his agonizing morning at the park being run ragged by Ji Yanyan flashed like a near-death experience.

I went out of my way to manufacture the ultimate, flawless window of opportunity for you! And you used that sacred, precious time just to do THIS?!

Are you genuinely serious right now?!