Chapter 16 The Little Trouble-Maker
“Shen Weian! Don’t run! You little brat!”
At three years old, he could run faster than me.
Grandma Li caught him in one hug. “An’an, your mom is out of breath already.”
He scrunched his small face and waved my paintbrush like a sword. “Hmph! Who told her to draw me like a clown monster!”
I laughed and cried at the same time. “Excuse me? You drew me even uglier, okay?”
He refused to admit defeat. “I secretly looked at your phone! There’s a man in there you drew tons of pictures of.”
“Why him?”
I froze.
I had pulled the SIM card out of my old phone long ago and barely used it.
The drawings he was talking about were the ones I used to make of Xie Siyuan.
“You mother and son really fight every single day.”
Grandma Li set Shen Weian down and pinched his cheek. “Your mom’s paintings are so good they got posted online and went viral.
The village chief is looking for you!”
“What?”
I was shocked.
When I opened my phone, I saw it.
Last month a backpacker had come to our little Fishing Village, then posted a vlog saying he found an untouched hidden gem.
The blogger only had a few hundred thousand followers.
It didn’t make much of a splash at first.
But somehow these past few days marketing accounts had screenshotted it and made it blow up.
The screenshots were of me leading a group of kids painting by the seaside.
Tons of comments called me a fairy.
Some said if I had an account I would definitely go viral.
Others flooded the original blogger asking which fishing village it was—they wanted to come.
They even tagged the provincial cultural tourism account, telling them to seize the incoming flood of fortune.
Those cultural tourism accounts were all run by Gen Z now, and they immediately jumped on the trend.
When I rushed to the village chief, he spoke earnestly. “Tingwan, you really are a blessing to our village!”
How could I bear such words?
“The county sent people urgently. They’ve already brought container houses to the beach!
Please show your face and help us—maybe do a live stream to sell fish?
Or just paint with your son there. Treat it like an attraction.”
I didn’t want to refuse to help.
I was just afraid of being recognized.
But a crowd of villagers stood outside, their honest smiles on their faces.
And after all these years, the way everyone had helped me—I couldn’t bring myself to say no.
Besides, the real daughter had already been found. Who would come looking for me?
So under everyone’s hopeful eyes, I agreed.