Chapter 41: Going Viral

After all, only a minority of people browse the internet and post comments while watching a show. It was not until the first episode finished airing that the true wave of commentary truly arrived.

The content broadcasted in the first episode covered the first day at the initial filming location, ending when the fathers and children returned to their lodgings to sleep at night. Throughout the entire day, the most eye-catching figure was undoubtedly Xiao Yao.

First of all, the primary highlight was undoubtedly the role reversal with Xiao Siqi. Whenever a task arose, it was basically Xiao Yao who called the shots. Especially during the house-repairing segment, Xiao Yao's performance practically left Xiao Siqi looking utterly incompetent by comparison.

The second highlight was his interaction with Sun Tingting. First, he proactively offered to swap houses with her, displaying a mature gentlemanly demeanor despite his tender age. When father and daughter Sun Zhihao and Sun Tingting refused, Xiao Yao's casual remark about mice and toads frightened them into compliance, a move that blended humor with deep craftiness. Next, his mischievous little impulse to make Sun Tingting call him "older brother" seemed to reveal a glimpse of his actual age, while his stunned expression after being abruptly kissed by Sun Tingting showcased a rare, adorable cluelessness that brought loud laughter from the audience. Furthermore, the "hero saves the beauty" moment in the mud pit—featuring a brilliant sideways flying block—demonstrated that apart from an extraordinary intellect, he possessed remarkably good reflexes and physical agility. Afterwards, using Sun Tingting's concern as an opportunity to playfully pull her down into the muddy ground once again displayed his impish sense of humor.

In this regard, the vast young audience was deeply captivated by Xiao Yao's flirting skills. Quite a few viewers remarked that if the two of them were a decade older, Sun Tingting would probably never be able to escape the palm of Xiao Yao's hand. Meanwhile, another group of fans, choosing to ignore the age gap, began preparing to ship Xiao Yao and Sun Tingting as the youngest couple in the history of reality television, righteously using the moment before dinner when the two held hands while escaping cooking smoke as their evidence.

In contrast to his mostly gentle, attentive, and occasionally mischievous attitude toward the little girl, Xiao Yao was far more straightforward and rough with the boy. The scene where he hugged Lin Qisan—who was reluctant to enter the mud pit—and directly threw him in genuinely startled quite a few viewers in front of their televisions. Regarding this, people could only sigh that the ways boys interacted with each other were indeed vastly different from how boys and girls interacted, regardless of how young these children might be.

Taking the vegetables for his own dinner—or more precisely, vegetables from someone else's prepared dinner—to supplement the meal for the production crew was a first in the three seasons of the show. Yet this first occurred precisely with the five-year-old Xiao Yao. Viewers were at a loss for words to describe him; such thoughtfulness and consideration were things even ordinary adults might not think of or be able to execute.

Combining all these factors, Xiao Yao had undoubtedly gone viral. Xiao Siqi, Xiao Yao's father, naturally went viral as well. For a time, posts bearing titles like "An Enchanting Demon of a Son Takes His Dad on a Reality Show" emerged endlessly, and numerous entertainment media outlets even published news directly using those headlines and angles.

That Xiao Yao and Xiao Siqi would become famous was a consensus shared by all participating guests and staff members; it was something they had anticipated. The other four fathers had long mental preparations for this. What worried them, however, was whether all the spotlight and attention of the show would be completely monopolized by this father-son duo.

What brought comfort to the other four fathers, though, was that while Xiao Siqi and Xiao Yao were exceptionally popular, the attention commanded by the other four families was by no means low. Zhao Rui, with his cold and effortlessly cool demeanor; Sun Tingting, who was well-behaved and clever; Zhou Zhihao, adorable and naive; and Lin Qisan, possessing the melancholic air of a little literary youth—all of them garnered significant attention and praise. Xiao Yao was undoubtedly the most popular, but compared to him, the other four did not lag too far behind in viewership interest. In fact, compared to Xiao Yao's almost unacceptably monstrous performance, the antics of the other four children seemed to be even more endearing to the public.

Xiao Yao had internet access himself, and naturally, he read some of the online evaluations. Having lived for thirty years in his past life, by the time he was reborn, the world of 2015 already possessed professional trolls, haters, and keyboard warriors far more formidable than the ones in his current world. No matter what, he was merely a child of over five years old; no matter how harsh the skepticism directed at him might be, it could hardly reach an extreme. Instead, many people questioned the production team of Xiangnan Television, believing they had instigated the children to fake things for the sake of ratings and manufactured drama. Seeing such posts, Xiao Yao could only smile bitterly and mentally apologize to the production crew for catching stray bullets.

Naturally, discordant voices were never the mainstream. Online discussions remained predominantly positive, as such dark-minded individuals preaching conspiracy theories and rigged operations were always a minority.

After the passing of a week, when the second episode aired, these discordant accusations claiming the show was staged and pre-arranged diminished significantly.

The first task of the second episode, racing for breakfast, served as a test of the fathers' physical stamina. Aside from a minor comedic episode where Lin Shaohua mistakenly thought Sun Zhihao was running in the wrong direction—which sparked some banter—it lacked any major highlights.

In the second task, the children shopping for clothes and groceries offered countless highlights. Watching the adorable way the kids bought things was immensely entertaining—though, of course, this did not include Xiao Yao. The entirety of Xiao Yao's shopping process was edited and broadcasted together at the end. It began with him circling the market and searching for a labor protection supply store, and concluded with him buying ice cream for his little companions at the market entrance after finishing his errands. This sequence even included the accompanying director's instruction that Xiao Yao was forbidden from using the show's name or backing.

During the first step of buying clothes, shoes, and gloves, he invoked the production team's name to persuade the shop owner into a half-sell, half-gift deal, acquiring items worth over a hundred yuan for just twenty yuan. Warned by the production crew afterwards, he slashed the price of a hat in half, bargained for vegetables down to the fraction of a yuan, and even used prices from competing stalls as leverage to negotiate. This entire procedure shattered an untold number of glasses for viewers watching in front of their televisions.

"Oh my god, the way he bought those things and slashed those prices—I estimate my mom's shopping and bargaining skills are right around this level. But this little fellow is only a little over five years old!" Online commentary flared up once again.

"To the person above me, what do you mean your mom's shopping skills are at this level? I believe your mom can buy hats and vegetables at this level, but are you certain your mom knows how to leverage the condition of filming a show to get over a hundred yuan worth of goods from a labor store for twenty bucks?"

"This kid is going straight to heaven. Which celestial being accidentally dropped a divine artifact into the mortal world? Bayi, you might as well return to the heavens."

"Last week he swapped houses with Duo'er, protected Duo'er from being hit by a ball, and added dishes for the staff; this week, while shopping, he even bought work gloves for the other fathers. This is truly an attentive, warm-hearted guy. Uh... while everyone else is calling Bayi a monster, is my focus a bit strange?"

"The person above didn't watch carefully. Bayi said Xiao Siqi told him to buy the gloves. Even so, I still agree with the warm-hearted little guy description. The ice cream he bought for his little companions later wasn't ordered by his dad, was it?"

"Speaking of last week, why didn't Uncle Sun let Duo'er and Bayi go shopping together? This week Bayi and Duo'er didn't have any intimate interactions; the shipping faction is unhappy."

Similarly, after the broadcast of the second episode, Xiao Yao was the most discussed subject, but he was certainly not the only one. The others also provided plenty of conversational fodder for the broad audience.

"Although Xiao Siqi's life skills are a bit lacking, he's very attentive. Having Bayi buy gloves for the other fathers was so heartwarming. Plus, he's handsome, great at writing and singing songs, and talented. It's such a pity his wife passed away. I want to go and be Bayi's stepmother; I wonder if there's any hope?"

"Wake up, upstairs, stop daydreaming. Your mother is calling you home for dinner."

"Does anyone else think President Shi (Shitou) looks so cool when herding pigs? The way he commanded his little companions to herd the pigs also had such a CEO vibe."

"I love San'er's expression when he sees chili peppers; the melancholy in his eyes could practically melt a person."

"Watching Zhou Zhihao eat makes people have a huge appetite. No wonder he has that kind of figure; Bayi wasn't wrong at all to call him little fatty."

"Teacher Sun really seems to have a knack for cooking. Bayi called him Chef Sun, and I looked it up online—Teacher Sun's blog is actually named Chef Sun, and it has tons of cooking content. This is the new generation of a great home-body man! Duo'er is so truly blessed; her culinary fortune must be immense. She's much luckier than Bayi in this regard."

"As the only sports star, his physical strength and reaction speed should naturally be his strengths, right? Yet he's the only father who got stung by bees. May I ask for the psychological shadow area of Zhou Lihang?"

Xiao Yao naturally paid attention to the online comments following the broadcast of the second episode as well. Facing his moniker of "monster" growing louder and louder, Xiao Yao could only offer a helpless, bitter smile. A monster it was, then; he didn't really care anyway. Judging by the attention Xiao Siqi garnered, his original intention and purpose for participating in the show seemed to have already been achieved. As long as the filming and broadcasting of the subsequent episodes were completed normally without accidents, Xiao Siqi's popularity should rise from a second-tier singer to the first tier. Afterwards, as long as Xiao Siqi produced a few more excellent works to consolidate his status, he should smoothly enter the upper echelon of top-tier singers. In future episodes, he wouldn't need to help his dad fight for screen time anymore. Judging from the distribution of the comments, the proportion of attention and discussion he received seemed a bit too high compared to others. In the subsequent episodes, he would have to restrain his performance appropriately; he couldn't hog all the spotlight by himself.

Of course, these were merely Xiao Yao's personal thoughts after reading the comments. As for the production crew of *Where Are We Going, Dad?*, they were currently celebrating over the feedback regarding the television ratings.

Historically, for seasonally broadcasted television programs, the ratings of the first season should be the highest, with the second season experiencing a noticeable decline. The third season, after summarizing the shortcomings of the second, would see a rebound and improvement, but the ratings generally still wouldn't surpass the first season. Yet their show, now in its third season, achieved ratings for the first two episodes that not only surpassed the second season but even exceeded those of the first season during the exact same period when everything was fresh. The single greatest contributor to this success was undoubtedly the monstrous child Xiao Yao, who sparked massive topic discussions. Thinking back, when the production team had hesitated to place Xiao Siqi on the guest list—after all, he was merely a second-tier singer, and if not for his new album becoming a hit earlier in the year, the crew might not have actually added the father-son duo to the roster—they had now genuinely struck gold.