The Useless Stepmom Brings Her Kids to Reality TV Shows to Photograph Them

44 You Only Need to Show Your Face

The livestreaming rooms of the five families had closed and they had entered their break time.

Li Yanchen did not know that Lin Wan and his youngest son were talking. He thought that Lin Wan had fallen asleep. In order not to disturb the rest in the house, Li Yanchen occupied the lounge chair in the courtyard.

He was glad the broadcast was closed for now. He had some things to take care of. A message was in his mailbox from Lu Yao.

Li Yanchen had seen some photo albums that Lin Dalu had left behind. It had photos of him, his wife, and his daughter, Lin Wan. He noticed that high school had been the dividing line in Lin Wan’s life. She appeared very happy and full of joy before high school. But all her photos taken in and after high school were all bleak. She never smiled, always wore a hat to hide her face with the brim.

Lin Dalu had told him that Lin Wan might forget the past one day. It was strange that Lin Wan had shown no reaction when she had seen Song Jing today. Li Yanchen wondered if perhaps she had sealed away that part of her memory or forgotten Song Jing completely.

When Li Yanchen had found out that Song Jing would be a participant on the show, he had asked Lu Yao to investigate Song Jing’s background. Now that he finally had an answer, he still needed to ask Lin Wan on whether he should expose Song Jing on the show.

Inside the house, the little boy, who had discussed the plan with Lin Wan, walked out with his hands behind his back and pouted. “Bad woman, vicious woman.”

Li Yanchen turned around. “What?”

Li Zekai’s face suddenly turned serious upon seeing his father. “Daddy, did you drop Tutu home?”

Li Yanchen nodded and lifted up the boy. “Go and take a nap. There will be chores and activities after you wake up.”

“Okay, daddy. I want to eat fries and ice cream tonight. Can you get them for me?” Li Zekai’s hands were on Li Yanchen’s face.

“Alright, as long as you go right to sleep and don’t disturb daddy.” The man with a heavy heart wanted to arrange for his son to go to bed as soon as possible.

“Alright.”

That night, the Festival Group had arranged for a large purchase for everyone. All the families could leave the village. Li Zekai was very happy to hear this.

Lin Wan, who was unable to fall asleep, couldn’t wait any longer after listening to Li Zekai’s story about Tutu. She walked to the courtyard and saw Li Yanchen lying down on his chair.

“Get up.” Lin Wan placed her hands on her waist.

Li Yanchen placed his hand on the armrest of the chair and shifted slightly to the side. “Why? It’s big enough.”

‘Was this man hinting for her to sit down together? Eh, could there be a camera in the yard?’ Lin Wan looked around carefully and confirmed that the livestream was all closed for now.

“It’s alright. No one’s watching.” Li Yanchen stretched. “If Song Jing makes you uncomfortable, I can have her withdraw from the show. No one can bully you now.”

Lin Wan didn’t quite understand what Li Yanchen was trying to say but she realized that whatever it was, he was on her side.

‘Uncomfortable? Is there some kind of grudge between Song Jing and the original owner of this body?’ she wondered. Lin Wan had no recollection of the past. But judging from Li Yanchen’s face, he was disgusted and angry at Song Jing.

Lin Wan pulled a small stool and sat down. “Just ignore her.”

“Alright,” Li Yanchen said.

In the afternoon, Song Jing had taken the initiative to bring some handmade jelly pudding to Lin Wan.

When she arrived, Li Yanchen almost looked hostile. Even though he knew that Song Jing wasn’t the instigator of the incident in high school, she had been part of it anyway.

Song Jing clasped Lin Wan’s hand. “I remember that you liked jellies when you were in high school. I made this myself. Try it.”

‘So, the original owner of the body used to love jellies…,’ thought Lin Wan.

Lin Wan realized that Song Jing was trying to hide something by getting on her good side. Judging from Li yanchen’s reaction, Lin Wan was sure that she shouldn’t accept Song Jing’s kindness and be indebted before she found out the whole story.

She extracted her hands from Song Jing’s. “I am sorry I don’t like jellies anymore.”

Song Jing froze. Even when she insisted, Lin Wan didn’t accept her pudding.

Seeing that Lin Wan was determined to reject her, Song Jing changed the topic. “Then I will get you something else next time. There’s something I want to discuss with you. Do you want to be my model tonight and do a live makeup show with me?” Song Jing offered. “We were classmates. Ten years later, fate allowed us to meet on the same program! We used to be best friends who talked about everything. From being classmates at a young age to being best friends in the future, it’s incredible! Of course, I know you don’t lack money, but it can still increase the popularity of your family. Li Zexuan is a big star, so it will gain him even more fans. There will be at least 100,000 people in my live broadcast.”

Lin Wan knew very well how popular a live stream with 100000 viewers was. However, she needed more time to figure out the relationship between the original owner and Song Jing. “I am a very lazy person.”

After watching the livestream and people’s comments, Song Jing understood how Lin Wan was. She smiled. “You just have to sit down. You don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to. At most, it’ll be an hour and a half. Just treat it as an extra activity for the program and for your children. A lot of people definitely will want to see our collaboration. As a mother, aren’t we all doing this for the family?”

‘For the family?’ Lin Wan didn’t really count this as her family but she did want to find out more about the original owner’s past. He hesitated a moment and then decided to take a look.

When Song Jing and Lin Wan walked out of the courtyard together, Li Yanchen was shocked. He was very good at reading people. Interacting with many people had trained his eyes to find out if they were hiding something. Lin Wan didn’t look like she was hiding anything, in fact, it looked as though she was completely unaware of what was going on. He felt that it was only normal for her to have forgotten about her past due to her illness.

He wondered if he should just expose Song Jing, if that was the case. He decided to take one step at a time and see how it panned out.

At XiaoYi’s house, while he and Xiao Tianlin took a nap, Xia Mo kneaded the flour. Although she had said that she didn’t want to participate in the competition, she was still studying the steps for making Napoleon cake.

Lin Wan could smell butter from afar. “Uh… Song Jing, I just remembered that I have something to take care of. You can go back first. I’ll find you later.”

If Lin Wan’s guess was right, Xia Mo was making Napoleon cake. This dessert was something she had had to make for every live broadcast in her original world.

Following the scent, Lin Wan reached the open-air stove in the Xiao family’s backyard.

Xia Mo was pressure-mixing butter, and next to her was the Napoleon cake, which she had secretly made in the morning. The pastry looked very dense and had already shrunk. It looked deformed.

“The oil is too hard. You need to hit it to make it softer.” Lin Wan took the Blitzer and hit it a few times with appropriate strength. “Alright, let’s try again.”

Xia Mo was shocked at Lin Wan’s arrival, but she saw that the woman’s technique was very professional. She didn’t have the time to ask how she knew about baking. She just wrapped the dough according to Lin Wan’s method.

While baking the cake, Xia Mo asked Lin Wan many questions, and Lin Wan answered them all.

The difficult doubts that Xia Mo had were all solved. ‘Why is Lin Wan not among other famous chefs in Yun City?’ she wondered.

She remembered a mysterious dessert chef who had never shown their face. ‘Could that be Lin Wan?’

“XTT?” Xia Mo asked cautiously.

“What?” Lin Wan was confused.

“You’re not XTT?”

“Who’s XTT?”

After some probing, Xia Mo was sure that Lin Wan really did not know who XTT was.

“It’s just a simple hobby of mine. But please keep it a secret from everyone.” Lin Wan emphasized her words.