Little Dummy

"...The weather was nice today. Yesterday's barbecue was a little too greasy, so I planned to go into the mountains to dig up some wild vegetables and cleanse my palate. The wild roses happened to be blooming right now, and they were beautiful."

An AI-generated mechanical voice came from the video, accompanied by subtitles.

The footage was beautiful and soothing to watch, making people feel as if they had entered the scene themselves.

The video was not very long, but it was pleasant to watch.

In this age where short videos reigned supreme, too many people preferred fast-paced content. They watched shows at double speed, let alone when scrolling through short videos.

Shen Rui'an was exactly that sort of impatient person. Whenever he came across a longer video, he would play it at double speed.

Yet this video made him unconsciously slow down. Though it was only a few minutes long, Shen Rui'an still watched it through at normal speed.

The reason he recognized it as Su Tingbai's alt account was entirely because he heard his own voice in it. Every now and then, his hand would appear and mess around, while a cute caption with a crooked arrow pointed in his direction: "Mischievous little dummy."

When Shen Rui'an saw "little dummy," he could not help squeezing Baisui's paw. "What dummy? It definitely isn't me!"

He was clearly so capable. He had helped Su Tingbai find so many wild vegetables!

Shen Rui'an angrily swiped the video away. After scrolling through several more, he secretly searched for Su Tingbai's alt account again and watched that video over and over. Hmph, I'll keep tabs on you forever!

Su Tingbai had called him dumb behind his back!

Shen Rui'an remembered this grudge.

When Su Tingbai came over, he found Shen Rui'an glaring indignantly at his phone. He could not help wondering what was wrong. Shen Rui'an had been perfectly fine at lunch—who had upset him now?

"Shen Rui'an."

The man's voice rang out faintly. Shen Rui'an, who had just been badmouthing someone behind his back, startled like a cat with its fur standing on end. When he turned around, Su Tingbai was right behind him.

Sure enough, his mother had been right: he should not speak ill of people behind their backs.

Shen Rui'an felt a little guilty, but he forced himself to stay calm. "Why are you here? Weren't you supposed to be working?"

"I'm done. I thought you might be bored here alone, so I came to check on you. What were you doing just now?" Su Tingbai found a seat near Shen Rui'an and sat down. Seeing Baisui yawning in Shen Rui'an's arms, he smiled. "He's so sleepy. Why not put him in his bed and let him sleep?"

Shen Rui'an lowered his head and met Baisui's listless eyes. He picked him up, turned around, and ran. "You're right. I'll take Baisui to bed right now."

This was too embarrassing! He had to run!

"..." Su Tingbai touched his face. "Am I really that scary?"

He did not dare chase after him, afraid of scaring Shen Xiaoyao into falling.

Xing Ying sent him a WeChat message, and he glanced at it.

Xing Ying: [Old Su, how about we do a camping barbecue this weekend? I'm craving it.]

Su Tingbai: [Get lost.]

Xing Ying: [Huo Dog lost a bet to me a few days ago. He's treating us to offshore fishing on the yacht at his place. In a couple days, Huo Dog and I are going fishing. I'll bring you back a big catch!]

Su Tingbai: [Sure.]

Xing Ying: [Then it's settled! You'll have more video material too! Gotta go, I'm busy. The old man is nagging me again?]

Su Tingbai: [.]

After chatting for a few lines, Su Tingbai exited WeChat. He noticed a bunch of red notification dots on Douyin, and when he checked, the video on his alt account had already received thirty-five thousand likes.

Although Su Tingbai felt that his alt account did not have many followers, it actually had two hundred thousand.

Some of those followers had come over from his main account, while others simply liked his daily vlogs.

He had not actually used his main account to direct traffic to his alt account. Modern netizens simply had sharp eyes; after comparing and digging into the details, they realized it was his alt.

Su Tingbai neither admitted nor denied it, letting them guess. By now, the fact that this account was his alt was an open secret.

Su Tingbai glanced at the comments section.

[Oh~ little dummy~ pink rat jpg.]

[You're not updating your main account, so you're updating your alt instead? Su Tingbai, did you forget your main account password?]

[Wow, the roses are so beautiful! Where is this place? I want to take pictures there.]

[The perfect photo spot! Hurry up and tell us the location!]

[The other person in the video is the guest, right? He's so cute. How did he even pull up weeds too?]

[I'm dying, why does this little brother only pick poisonous mushrooms? Tingbai-ge, you two didn't end up dead, did you?]

Su Tingbai replied: [No. We picked them out. There was even one edible mushroom at the end.]

As soon as he replied, netizens flooded beneath his comment with laughter.

At the same time, it confirmed that Shen Rui'an really was the mischievous little dummy described in the subtitles.

As the video's popularity continued to grow, some fans from Su Tingbai's main account came across it as well.

They left comments beneath the video one after another.

[Why is this new guest so dumb? Tingbai-ge, you might as well invite me. At least I know wild vegetables.]

[→_→ I don't understand why Tingbai invited such a pretentious young master. Are there really people this stupid nowadays?]

[I think this new guest is more affected than every guest before him. It's not like Su Tingbai has never invited others before, so why is he the only one who needs to be waited on? He doesn't even recognize mushrooms. He's pretending, right?]

[Could this be some young master's method of flirting? The dumb, innocent little flower act is outdated already, okay?]

Passersby who came across these comments frowned.

[What nonsense are you babbling about? Does any of that have anything to do with the video?]

[Isn't it normal not to recognize poisonous mushrooms? Do you have to insult him like that?]

Those accounts had overly recognizable profile pictures and IDs, and some people who knew the situation could not stand it anymore.

[Ignore them. These idiots really think they're Su Tingbai's partners. As long as there's someone who likes Su Tingbai or has any ambiguous relationship with him, they'll attack them.]

Someone shared some gossip: [There was a platform event before where several influencers were invited to make food videos together. A few influencers were assigned to Su Tingbai's group. One of them was a fair, delicate beauty blogger named Young Master Locke. He merely said he was Su Tingbai's fan, and Su Tingbai's fans attacked him.]

Some of Su Tingbai's real fans frowned and replied to that comment: [Are you kidding? You can whitewash that too? Young Master Locke was obviously clout-chasing, okay? Su Tingbai treated everyone equally in the video, but Young Master Locke's fans insisted on shamelessly making things up and saying Su Tingbai had a crush on Young Master Locke? Based on what, exactly? Your own fantasies? Young Master Locke made vague one-sided posts and portrayed himself as someone secretly in love, playing up the angst for who knew how many fans. After one show, he went from unknown to gaining three hundred thousand followers. Does anyone not know that?]

The comments began gossiping again. There were too many of them, but Su Tingbai had already exited the app by then and had no idea that this video had dragged up both old grudges and new ones.

Meanwhile, Little Zhu and the others sent the edited video to Su Tingbai for review. Once he approved it, they uploaded it to the account.

When Su Tingbai returned to the house, he saw Baisui sleeping soundly on the first floor. He quietly went upstairs and glanced into Shen Rui'an's room. Sure enough, that little piggy-cat was asleep again.