Serve as Contrast Team in a ‘Dad with Baby’ Show

Early the next morning, Lin Cheng left Lin Momo at home and went to the farthest destination first to purchase flour and fuel for the stove.

The pile of honeycomb briquettes left on the tricycle was mostly burned through, and the remaining half-burned ones were basically useless; they had no choice but to buy some again.

However, Lin Cheng did not go to the coal market to buy honeycomb briquettes1, but instead directly replaced the charcoal with a gas tank, and also spent some money to change the previous charcoal stove into a gas-fired stove.

[Wow, dad is pretty amazing!]

[The hands-on ability is very strong.]

In the livestream channel, many people were amazed to see Lin Cheng use the items he bought from the hardware market, and—simply by following the tutorial on his mobile phone—change the charcoal stove into a gas stove.

[But why change the charcoal stove to burn LPG? ]

[For more convenience.]

[But wouldn’t it cost a lot of money in this way?]

[Not necessarily.] Someone said, going against the flow.

[When I was a child, my old house was charcoal-fired, but it was later changed to gas-fired, which was much more economical. ]

[I see. ]

… …

Everyone guessed that the reason why Lin Cheng did this was to save costs.

But in fact, Lin Cheng didn’t calculate the cost in this matter—he was more concerned about safety.

With the character of the child at home, when he went out to sell buns, the child would definitely follow.

The space at the back of the tricycle was limited, and the only place where a person could stand and move around was too close to the stove. If one was not careful, you could easily be burned by the outer wall of the stove.

In contrast, it was safer to use a small gas-fired stove instead.

Lin Cheng didn’t realize it himself, but before he knew it, he was already starting to think about Lin Momo.

After getting two cans from the LPG station, Lin Cheng went to the East District Market to buy flour.

… …

At this time, Lin Momo, who was staying at home, was full of worries, fearing that Lin Cheng would be fooled by vendors, unable to bargain properly because he didn’t know the fair price.

Little did she know, after Lin Cheng arrived at the market, he directly turned on the ‘merchant mode’, and after a few back and forths, he successfully got the lowest delivery price from the boss.

Lin Cheng walked out of the market carrying two large bags of flour, as well as yeast samples and other items presented by the boss.

When passing the entry way of the market, Lin Cheng was stopped by two young persons wearing advertising shirts.

“Hello, sir, we are doing a love initiative. As long as you take a picture with a smiling face, you can get a little toy plushie for free. Are you interested in participating?” the girl asked.

There was a public welfare exhibition board not far away from where they stood. It can be seen that many people had already participated in the activity and had their smiling pictures taken.

Lin Cheng just glanced at it, then looked away without changing expression, “Sorry, no.”

Lin Cheng was about to leave, but stopped when he passed by the pile of toy plushies.

“Is this what you will give as a reward?” Lin Cheng asked the staff.

“Yes, you can choose from among them.”

“How do you take a photo?”

“It’s very simple: just stand in front of our public service board and make a heart gesture,” the staff explained.

Lin Cheng was already standing in the queue next to the public service board, but he still hasn’t figured out what he was thinking just now to agree to this.

Before, when recording the pilot episode of the show, he heard Lin Momo say that her grandma had spent the whole night lined up in the shopping mall to get her a free desk lamp. At that time, Lin Cheng’s thoughts were: this way of getting a desk lamp was really not worth it.

But Lin Cheng never expected that he himself would be so crazy that he would do such a ‘foolish’ thing just to get a little plushie.

… …

After a while, Lin Cheng finally reached the public welfare board and made the designated gesture of love.

“Can you smile a little?” the photographer staff reminded him.

Hearing this, Lin Cheng slightly bent his mouth.

A few voices of ‘so handsome’ immediately came from the sides.

It wasn’t until after Lin Cheng had picked a little plushie and already left that someone among the staff made a realization.

“Why did that person just now look familiar?”

“All handsome guys look familiar,” one colleague joked.

“No, I’ve seen him somewhere…,” the girl muttered. She suddenly thought of something and said, “I remember now! That person seems to be a star, and he’s participating in the same variety show as Duan Bei. What’s his name….”

She was looking at Duan Bei when she watched the program’s trailer, but during the process, Lin Cheng’s figure did appear for a few seconds. It was only that Lin Cheng was not well-known, and there were not many shots of him in the trailer, so she didn’t have much of an impression.

“What variety show is this? I’ll go see it too.”

… …

Lin Cheng wasn’t aware of this conversation.

After putting the flour sacks in a bucket, Lin Cheng rode the tricycle back to their residence.

Before entering the alley, Lin Cheng could already see Lin Momo from a distance.

At this time, Lin Momo was squatting on the side of the curb by the entrance of the alley2, resting her chin on her hands, and glancing in the direction of the passing cars from time to time.

Before Lin Cheng could call her, Lin Momo had already seen Lin Cheng first.

Seeing Lin Cheng’s return, Lin Momo’s eyes showed surprise. She stood up from the ground, stood there for a while blinking, and then trotted two steps towards him.

Seeing the girl bouncing towards him, an inexplicable warmth flashed across Lin Cheng’s heart. He, who had never considered the issue of starting a family, actually had a feeling in his heart that ‘having a child of my own feels good’.

“What are you doing squatting here and not staying home?” Lin Cheng asked.

“Waiting for you.” After Lin Momo finished speaking, she walked around to the side of the tricycle with an expectant expression on her face, curiously leaning on the side of the cart to see what Lin Cheng had purchased.

Lin Momo saw something like a ‘sandbag’ hanging on the corner of the cart.

Before Lin Momo could study it, Lin Cheng took the thing off and handed it to Lin Momo.

“This is?” It seems to be a little plushie.

“It was distributed at the gate of the market. I got one for you when I saw it.” Lin Cheng explained lightly, not wanting to mention the matter of having to take pictures to get it.

“Really?!” Lin Momo was surprised.

She took the toy and looked at it carefully.

It was a caterpillar with a khaki-colored sausage for a mouth. It looked ugly. There was also a promotional slogan of ‘Green Shoot Fund, Let Love Pass’ printed on the front.

But this didn’t affect Lin Momo’s liking for it at all.

“Thank you, Dad,” Lin Momo said to Lin Cheng with a smile while hugging the plushie.

“Let’s go in.”

“Okay!”

… …

Because the time for purchasing what they needed was tight on the first day, the two had lunch outside.

In the afternoon, Lin Cheng still had to go out to buy other ingredients.

Before going out, he looked back and saw Lin Momo sitting obediently on the bench, with a pitiful expression on her face, looking at him with eyes full of expectation. 

Lin Cheng sighed—and finally took Lin Momo with him.

Footnotes

‘honeycomb briquettes’ are a type of charcoal popular in East Asia. They are of uniform sizes and can be stacked together for ease of storage.Throughout the story, Lin Momo squats a lot lmao. There’s something called ‘Asian squat’. It’s very stable and can be held for a long time.