The Cannon Fodder Dad of Three Villainous Cubs - Chapter 15

Shocking news: a single, near-thirty father of three was caught red-handed by his own son doing that kind of thing completely alone at home!

Was it a collapse of moral standards, or a distortion of human nature?!

The mere thought of it made Ji Zhiqiu mortified enough to construct the entire Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor with his toes. He had absolutely no idea how to look his two dear sons in the eye anymore, let alone face the entire livestream room full of his internet “family.”

On-screen, the user Evil Orange Head scratched the only two remaining leaves on their avatar and typed with a cheeky laugh: “Honestly, I don’t even know why I turned off the TV and hid everything either. It’s probably just a survival reflex hardcoded into my DNA.”

“Excuse me, I’ve completely disgraced the global fraternity of fatherhood. But seriously, who plays hide-and-seek to escape their own kids? This is my house! What crime did I commit by watching a little TV, eating some snacks, and drinking a beer?!”

“Did my voice just lose its confidence? Impossible. Why on earth would I feel guilty?”

“He isn’t someone else’s kid he’s my biological son, my absolute eldest boy.”

Looking at the wall of question marks flooding the chat, Ji Zhiqiu finally realized that because he had been maintaining a remarkably healthy schedule recently broadcasting during the day while Ji Zishen was at school the boy had never actually made an appearance on stream until now.

“Actually, I have three sons. My second son is out right now and hasn’t come back yet. He’ll show up on stream eventually too… My household setup is a bit unconventional, but it isn’t a total circus, so it isn’t terribly exhausting. Plus, I have all of you keeping me company.”

After chatting for a good while longer, Ji Zhiqiu finally ended the broadcast.

Time marched quickly into the evening. Remembering the homeroom teacher’s explicit instructions in the school assignments group, Ji Zhiqiu clicked the television on.

Lately, the trend was all about comprehensive development across morals, intelligence, physical fitness, and aesthetics. The Bureau of Education had produced a short educational film, requiring parents and children to watch it together, write a reflection report, and have the parent physically sign off on it.

Ji Zhiqiu originally intended for Ji Yanyan to play with his Lego sets on the floor, but the toddler insisted on joining the festivities. He scrambled up right between the two of them, plonking his bottom down with absolute zero consideration for personal space.

Ji Zhiqiu glanced down at him, asking without a shred of mercy, “What did you crawl over here for? Can you even understand this?”

A mini alpha male loathed nothing more than being underestimated. Ji Yanyan’s cheeks puffed up instantly as he pouted in complaint: “I can understand it! I’m incredibly smart!”

Instead of arguing, Ji Zhiqiu simply let out a couple of dismissive snorts through his nose, making his stance beautifully transparent.

Ji Zishen’s sole objective was to finish his assignment. Completely disinclined to waste energy on this foolish father-son duo, his eyes never strayed a fraction of an inch from the screen. He watched with immense focus, trying to isolate a sophisticated angle for his opening hook so his essay would stand out and secure a top grade.

While he was deep in strategic thought, a steady stream of background dialogue drifted into his ears like white noise.

“What’s that? Can I keep it as a pet?”

“That is Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. What do you mean ‘keep him as a pet’? Do you think you’re Patriarch Bodhi?”

Ji Yanyan got completely tangled up in the words. “Who? Sun-sun-sun-what?”

Ji Zhiqiu stroked the boy’s little head with immense, patronizing affection: “You’ll understand when you grow up.”

Sensing his father’s blatant deflection, Ji Yanyan dodged the hand with a resentful look, propping his face in his hands to keep watching. Children his age possessed a bottomless reservoir of a million whys: “Then why did Sun-sun pop out of a rock split?”

Ji Zhiqiu intentionally teased him, “How could Yanyan not know the answer to that?”

Ji Yanyan stared at him blankly for a moment, his eyes gradually widening into a perfect, real-life emulation of a shocked emoji. “Oh! Does that mean I popped out of a rock split too?!”

Ji Zhiqiu had been dying to pull this classic parenting move for a long time, and having finally trapped an opportunity, he deliberately leaned into the joke: “Take your pick: either you popped out of a crevice in a rock, or I fished you out from the side of a trash can.”

Ji Yanyan let out a heavy, weary sigh like a tiny adult, looking completely helpless against his father’s antics. “Daddy, could you please read a few more books? Don’t be so childish.”

Ji Zhiqiu: “……”

The fact that he had just been roasted by a toddler was unacceptable. Unleashing his wicked hands, he lunged at Ji Yanyan. “You’re actually judging me now? Where exactly am I being childish?!”

Ji Yanyan weakly flailed his tiny hands, trying valiantly to shield his soft, chubby cheeks.

With one dodging and the other pursuing, the father and son devolved into a chaotic, giggling pile on the sofa—forming a stark, night-and-day contrast with Ji Zishen, who remained seated right beside them as straight and rigid as a board.

Ji Zishen usually went to great lengths to preserve his mask of pure, innocent childhood, but this time, his patience shattered. Expressionless, he turned his head and shot them an icy, freezing glare.

It was as if someone had slammed a pause button on Ji Zhiqiu and Ji Yanyan. They locked eyes, their faces instantly written with profound guilt, before slinking back to their respective corners, not daring to make another peep.

Only then did Ji Zishen settle his mind back into the educational video, though the more he watched, the more juvenile it felt. Children of this demographic couldn’t digest high-brow moral philosophies; the content was predictably limited to standard themes like “filial piety, health, and joyful growth.” After detailing the milestones of childhood, the narrative naturally transitioned into a segment showcasing deep paternal affection and filial devotion.

A rare wave of discomfort washed over Ji Zishen, and he awkwardly licked his dry lower lip.

They were an adoptive father and son. Ji Zhiqiu’s universe revolved strictly around his biological child, while Ji Zishen possessed absolutely zero yearning for paternal affection his mind was entirely occupied by cold calculations. Forcing the two of them to sit through this deeply emotional segment was pure psychological torture.

Yet, it appeared he was the solitary person burdened by this thought. The other father-son pair was deeply invested, whispering animatedly to one another.

“Look at that, Yanyan. The little boy in the video is massaging his daddy’s shoulders and pounding his back. Why don’t you have any questions this time?”

Ji Yanyan stiffened his neck, arguing with absolute conviction: “Didn’t you literally just say I popped out of a rock crevice? If you aren’t my real daddy, why on earth should I wash your feet?”

“……” Ji Zhiqiu’s brow twitched upward. “In that case, go find your rock. There are a few sitting right downstairs. Remember to pick a pretty one.”

Ji Yanyan blinked, staring wistfully at Ji Zhiqiu before executing a sudden, flawless pivot: “Then where is my other daddy?”

Ji Zhiqiu’s brain instantly short-circuited.

Ji Yanyan had never posed a single question regarding his lineage before, which had systematically lowered Ji Zhiqiu’s guard. He hadn’t formulated a script in advance. With the crisis staring him down, his brain spun at maximum velocity trying to construct a flawless narrative, but before he could utter a single word, Ji Yanyan narrowed his tiny eyes suspiciously. “Are you trying to trick me?”

Having his bluff called sent a fleeting micro-expression of pure panic across Ji Zhiqiu’s eyes. “I’m not trying to trick you. Your other daddy turned into a star, and he’s up in the sky watching over you forever.”

Ji Yanyan: “……”

Ji Zishen: “……”

The two children simultaneously flashed a look of utter, deadpan exhaustion, their faces virtually screaming: “I am merely young, I am not a literal idiot.”

Seeing that the situation was spinning entirely out of control, Ji Zhiqiu could only execute a brutally clumsy topic change. “Zishen, aren’t you supposed to be writing an essay? Watch the screen with more focus! Yanyan, look how incredible the little boy on TV is. Can you do that too?”

The innate pride of a mini alpha male instantly flared up within Ji Yanyan. He bounded off the sofa cushions. “Of course I can! There isn’t a single kid in this world more incredible than Yanyan!”

Seeing that the diversion had succeeded, Ji Zhiqiu let out a long, ragged exhale, his chest thumping with lingering guilt.

In truth, he had committed a monumentally foolish mistake in his past.

Before his graduation, he had gone out to party wildly at a bar. Thoroughly intoxicated, he had ended up in a one-night stand with a stranger. He couldn’t recall the man’s exact facial features, but the guy had indisputably been an absolute god-tier stunner otherwise, Ji Zhiqiu wouldn’t have lost his mind so thoroughly as to proactively pursue him.

The man’s physique had also been absolutely phenomenal. That night, Ji Zhiqiu had screamed his voice entirely hoarse, nearly dying right there on the mattress.

When he woke up the next morning, cowardice had gotten the better of him. Not daring to steal a single backward glance, his legs shaking violently, he had practically rolled and crawled his way out of the room to escape. He figured it was simply a minor, standard adult indiscretion they would never cross paths again, and he could pretend it never happened. He had no idea karmic retribution would strike that very evening; the moment he closed his eyes, his consciousness skipped four entire years into the future.

During those blank four years, events hadn’t unfolded the way he imagined. He and that man shared an immense web of complex grievances and entanglements to be precise, it was a chronicle of Ji Zhiqiu relentlessly badgering the man. Yet, for reasons entirely unknown, the tycoon had actually agreed to marry him.

On the absolute eve of the wedding, the man’s long-lost “white moonlight” first love miraculously returned from the dead. The CEO’s powerful mother had tracked Ji Zhiqiu down, slamming a massive check directly onto his face and ordering him to disappear.

Wounded, devastated, and completely heartbroken, he had chosen to execute a highly fashionable trope: running away while secretly pregnant with the tycoon’s child.

Yes, he was structurally capable of childbearing. This little demon incarnate was the literal crystallized fruit of his love with that powerful man conceived on the exact, singular night he had been completely blinded by male beauty.

With highly complex emotions, Ji Zhiqiu looked down at his own lower abdomen, mentally comforting himself with the reminder that he was merely living inside the parameters of a novel. Since he possessed zero memory of those events, it was fundamentally nothing more than a narrative backstory setting—there was absolutely no need to take it to heart.

However, this specific genre of narrative setting was usually a use-and-discard mechanic. Surely he wouldn’t… be structurally capable of conceiving again, right?

An involuntary shudder rippled through his spine. Forcefully purging the thoughts from his brain, he redirected his attention, pretending none of these existential crises existed. What he completely failed to anticipate, however, was that every single flicker of panic and nuance on his face had been perfectly captured by Ji Zishen’s calculating eyes.

Ji Zishen’s brow knit into a deep furrow, his expression intensely peculiar.

Ever since his rebirth, he had consistently been half a step behind, constantly finding himself manipulated and teased by Ji Zhiqiu. A massive reservoir of suppressed fury was currently boiling in his chest.

I must find an opportunity to thoroughly unleash this grievance!

As the strategy gradually solidified in his mind, Ji Zishen retreated to his bedroom. Within a mere half hour, he emerged with a flawlessly completed essay, presenting it to Ji Zhiqiu for inspection and signature.

For a child of this age bracket to sit quietly and finish homework was already a miracle, let alone doing so without dragging their feet. Ji Zhiqiu hadn’t expected Ji Zishen to possess such an extraordinary level of self-discipline. His eyes filled with genuine admiration as he accepted the notebook, asking, “What’s your essay topic?”

“My Father.”

Ji Zhiqiu froze for several seconds, lifting his head to look at the expressionless Ji Zishen, thoroughly taken aback.

How exactly would Ji Zishen depict him?

Would it be a narrative of a father with a deeply hunched back, balancing a heavy bag of mandarin oranges as he watched his son’s silhouette slowly disappear down the train platform?

Would it be a story of a father carrying a feverish child on his back through a torrential downpour to sprint toward the hospital?

Or perhaps a silent, uncommunicative man whose paternal love loomed as vast and unyielding as a mountain?

During his own school days, Ji Zhiqiu had written his fair share of these cookie-cutter composition prompts. Carrying a heart full of sentimental assumptions and theories, he flipped the essay notebook open.

《My Father》

I have an exceptionally wonderful father. I hold him in profound respect and esteem.

Ji Zhiqiu nodded repeatedly, lavishing praise without an ounce of stinginess: “The choice of the word ‘esteem’ is magnificent! If I were your teacher, I would absolutely circle it with a bright red pen.”

Ji Zishen: “……”

He fell into a heavy silence for two seconds before murmuring, “Keep reading.”

Ji Zhiqiu nodded merrily, fully prepared to bathe in a sea of beautifully embellished compliments. The exact millisecond his eyes swept down to the very next line of text, however, his brain went entirely blank.

Whenever I take my little brother out to play, my daddy stays home completely alone to watch television, eat family-sized bags of potato chips, and chug cold beer. Furthermore, right before I unlock the front door to come back inside, he snaps the television off and sprints into the guest bedroom at maximum speed to bury all the snacks, moving so fast he completely forgets to put his shoes on.

Ji Zhiqiu: “……”

Ji Zhiqiu: “……”

Ji Zhiqiu: “……”

The blood rushed violently to his face, his entire body hitting maximum thermal capacity as his temperature skyrocketed. “This—this—this! Why on earth did you write this into your school essay?!”

Ji Zishen was an absolute master of deception. He blinked his large eyes, asking with the most pristine, innocent bewilderment, “Why shouldn’t I? That is exactly what Daddy did.”

Ji Zhiqiu opened his mouth to retaliate, but found himself entirely devoid of ammunition, shutting it again in defeat.

Ji Zishen flashed a brilliant, radiant smile, determined to elevate his father’s state of euphoria to the absolute next level: “The homeroom teacher even said my essay possesses magnificent realism. She plans to use it as a model composition and have me read it aloud in front of the entire class.”

Ji Zhiqiu sucked in a sharp, agonizing breath of cold air, his face painted with pure, unadulterated horror.

As expected of a future villain.

What a truly diabolical, ruthless heart. The kid was systematically engineering a full-blown public execution for him in front of the entire PTA community!!!