Chapter 209

“Tan Xiuzhen^[1]? Bi Yuanying?”

Good heavens! Who would have thought that Station Director Yang Pingzhou, with his honest and upright appearance, would actually learn how to play with such edge-pushing tactics? The higher-ups wouldn’t allow him to film a variety show with themes like cultivation, and he indeed hadn’t dared to do so.

But he had added the word “Xiuzhen,” meaning cultivation, to the protagonist’s name!

He even named a supporting character “Yuanying,” the Nascent Soul stage?

What on earth?

One could only say that for the sake of precious traffic and viewership ratings, Director Yang was truly a daring old man!

“Sigh! We had no choice! The first version of the program’s planning proposal was submitted to the Department of Education and sent back by the leaders!” Yang Pingzhou gave a bitter smile.

“Sent back? Does the higher-up not allow this type of knowledge competition?”

Yang Pingzhou shook his head. “It was our own oversight. The leaders had no objection to the idea of a Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs knowledge competition. It was an internal regulation issued just two years ago that forbids mentioning terms like Zhuangyuan, Bangyan, or Tanhua^[2] in any competition. They said we shouldn’t over-promote top-student culture or encourage unhealthy trends like academic rat racing in the education industry.”

There was actually such a thing?

Wei Sheng was truly broadening his horizons.

No wonder there wasn’t a trace of the imperial examination system in the revised script. Instead, they had followed the example of Guagua Video and adopted cultivation culture…

In that case, shouldn’t the master of the two disciples, Tan Xiuzhen and Bi Yuanying, the old doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the script, be named “Huashen” for the Spirit Severing^[3] stage?

Or perhaps something even more impressive, like “Dacheng” for Great Perfection or “Dujie” for Tribulation Transcendence^[4]?

As it turned out, the old doctor’s name was quite simple: Jiang Baicao.

Even more unexpected was that at this time, Y Province TV Station launched a popular science competition program titled The Story of a Hundred Herbs. Jiang Baicao, the master whom Tan Xiuzhen and Bi Yuanying were desperate to study under, was also one of the mentors on this show.

This meant that as long as they participated in the program, they could not only fight for a chance to become his disciples but, more importantly, those who made it into the top ten of the final round, the “Sect Grand Competition,” would receive a substantial cash prize. The grand prize for the champion was as high as eight hundred thousand yuan!

With that eight hundred thousand yuan, Bi Yuanying’s father could be saved.

In an instant, the entire class was in an uproar.

Children of this age were truly pure-hearted. Hearing that the champion could get eight hundred thousand yuan, the first thing they thought of was that they had to help Bi Yuanying seize the championship and get that top prize.

If that happened, Bi Yuanying’s father would have the money for medical treatment.

Even Tan Xiuzhen, who had initially wanted to join the competition to become a disciple, generously declared that if he won the top spot, he would take the apprenticeship slot, but the eight hundred thousand yuan prize would go to Bi Yuanying’s father for his treatment.

These “boastful” words were met with collective ridicule from the whole class.

They didn’t doubt that the always-loyal Tan Xiuzhen would donate the prize money.

What they doubted was whether someone with Tan Xiuzhen’s IQ could actually break into the top ten.

“How about this? Let’s all sign up for the competition. Whoever wins will give the prize money to Bi Yuanying’s father,” the class monitor said, slapping the table. Everyone else thought it was a fantastic idea!

Although the class had already organized a donation for Bi Yuanying before, how much money could children have? Besides, if they donated too much, their parents would have something to say about it.

But prize money from a competition was different; that was money they earned through their own abilities.

And so, Tan Xiuzhen, Bi Yuanying, and the rest of the class all signed up for the school’s internal preliminary rounds.

Because this program was co-hosted by the TV Station, the provincial education system, and the cultural system, schools at all levels treated participation as a golden opportunity to showcase their achievements in traditional cultural education. To put it simply, the internal preliminaries in schools had already reached a fever pitch.

Poor Tan Xiuzhen!

He originally thought his biggest competitor would be Bi Yuanying, but he never expected that if it weren’t for the help of the other top students in class, he almost wouldn’t have even made it past the preliminaries!

Everyone thought that given Tan Xiuzhen’s brain and memory, he would likely be eliminated on the first day of the semi-finals. But who would have guessed that during the semi-final draw, Tan Xiuzhen actually drew an opponent who stuttered and trembled whenever they got nervous!

The result was predictable.

For a doctor, if your memory isn’t great, you can make up for it with hard work. But if your hands and feet shake when you’re nervous? How could you ever step onto the operating table?

Just like that, the “chosen competitor” Tan Xiuzhen easily defeated his opponent and entered the Top 100 List…

Y Province TV Station had suddenly launched such a science program, and from its setting to its creativity, it was almost identical to Guagua Video’s The Way of Shennong. It was inevitable that some uninformed but enthusiastic members of the public would post online, accusing Y Province TV Station of plagiarizing another show.

Little did they know, this played right into the hands of The Way of Shennong production team!

Thus, on Saturday at noon, when The Story of a Hundred Herbs was broadcast simultaneously on TV and its app as scheduled, and while the internet was busy bashing them for plagiarizing The Way of Shennong, the official weibo for The Way of Shennong suddenly dropped a preview for their next episode.

“@The Story of a Hundred Herbs, we’re all brothers from the same mother, so what if we look alike? However, some brothers start to look less alike as they grow up. Don’t believe it? Tonight at 8 PM, Guagua Video’s The Way of Shennong, Season 1, Episode 3 – witness the moment of miracles!”

The haters who were busy hurling insults and the fans who were busy defending the show were all stunned.

The fans, in particular, didn’t know whether to praise Guagua Video for being loyal or scold them for taking the opportunity to boost their own popularity.

Damn it! Even though they knew this was a scheme by Guagua Video, they just couldn’t help but want to jump into the trap!

Saturday at 8 PM, on Guagua Video, the third episode of The Way of Shennong went live on time. That night, with its extremely high popularity and search volume, it swept the rankings across all major social media sites.

According to the original script, in the third episode, the disciples selected for the “Top 100 List” would collectively begin their first “trial” after stepping into the cultivation world.

The “Strongest Brain” Li Erni, the “Topic Queen” Fan Lingling, along with the clever Wen Zhuangcai and Yan Xingxing – who had no special talents but somehow managed to bring everyone together – officially formed a team and entered Qidaowan Township under the jurisdiction of Nine Streams County.

They were here to find the local wild Dendrobium and Sanqi, while completing the survey and collection of at least ten types of native traditional Chinese medicinal herbs.

Since they were all just teenagers, it was impossible for the production crew to actually let them venture into the deep mountains and old forests alone. Therefore, while the footage showed only the four of them trekking across mountains and rivers, a large group of staff members was actually following closely behind.

Wei Sheng had come along as well.

Qidaowan Township was not only a famous production area for Sanqi and wild Dendrobium in Nine Streams County, but according to county records, the area was home to at least fifty different types of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs. Wei Sheng hadn’t come alone this time; he brought along two consultants from Yuanxi Biotech. His primary goal was to have them assess whether Qidaowan Township had medicinal herbs suitable for large-scale cultivation.

The Traditional Chinese Medicine Planting Cooperative in Yuan Stream Township had already developed to a certain scale and had clearly boosted the local economy. Since they started planting medicinal herbs, the annual household income of the local villagers had increased several times over, yielding remarkable results.

Nine Streams County had long wanted to seize the opportunity to “expand the spoils of war” and promote the cooperative model for planting traditional Chinese medicine throughout the entire county. Wei Sheng also felt the timing was ripe and that it was time to consider expanding the cultivation bases to other townships.

Thus, this trip to Qidaowan Township came to be.

As the program began, the audience was first stunned by the natural beauty of Qidaowan Township, with its green mountains, white clouds, and emerald waters as clear as a mirror. However, before they could type out more than a few lines of praise in the bullet comments, they were infuriated by two absolute pieces of work.

Li Erni and the others certainly couldn’t live in the mountains while they were out gathering herbs, so they first had to go to the village to find a place to stay. The village officials led the four of them to the home of a villager named Wang Huaizhi.

They heard that Wang Huaizhi and his wife worked out of town all year round, leaving two elderly people at home to look after three children. There happened to be two empty rooms, so the four of them could squeeze in.

Unexpectedly, just as they reached the door of Wang Huaizhi’s house, they witnessed a “mother-son battle.”

An elderly grandmother with graying hair and a dark blue floral cloth headscarf was waving a bamboo broom, chasing a man while shouting curses.

Although she was cursing in the local dialect and the four contestants couldn’t quite understand her, they didn’t need to understand the dialect to read her expression. The old woman’s eyes were wide with fury and her face was contorted; one look was enough to know she was absolutely livid.

Sure enough, after they stood there listening awkwardly for a while, a village official explained with a bitter smile:

“Wang Huaizhi and his wife sent back another pair of twins. Sigh!”

When speaking of Grandma Wang and her son, who was a disaster to his father, his mother, and the whole family, the village official’s tone was filled with sympathy.

Grandma Wang had two daughters and one son in her lifetime. In the countryside, it was inevitable for people to favor boys over girls. Back then, after having two daughters in a row, she even risked fines to try for a third child. Wasn’t it all just to have a son to carry on the Wang family line and to provide for the couple in their old age?

But who could have known that this precious son, instead of allowing the two elders to “enjoy their golden years,” would make their later life miserable beyond words!

Grandma Wang and her husband were just like all parents in the countryside: they had a son, raised him, got him a wife, and urged him to give them grandsons… For most young people nowadays, they didn’t really want to have that many children. Boys or girls, it was all the same; having one or two to carry on the bloodline was enough.

Those who truly loved sons usually stopped after the wife gave birth to a boy. After all, the more children there were, the greater the pressure. Among today’s youth, who would be willing to work like a beast of burden just to have more children?

But if the one working like a beast of burden wasn’t yourself, then it was a different story entirely.

No one knew what kind of logic Wang Huaizhi and his wife were following, but they both felt that the more children they had, the better.

Their thought was that if they had so many, as long as one of them managed to make it big, the couple could follow that successful child and live the high life, never worrying about food or drink for the rest of their lives.

As for the remaining unsuccessful children? They would just let them fend for themselves. It would be good enough if the couple didn’t ask them for money for retirement; surely they weren’t expected to look after them for a lifetime?

Thus, the couple proceeded at a rate of one birth every one to two years. Almost every year they went to work in the city, they would bring a child back to the parents in their hometown when they returned.

At first, Grandma Wang and her husband were quite happy. After all, their daughter-in-law was willing to have children, and having a flourishing family was generally a good thing. Who wouldn’t want to hold a few more grandsons?

But who could have known that one would follow another? The daughter-in-law was like a breeding sow; once she started, she couldn’t stop. Within five years, she had given the two elders three grandsons! This year, they brought back a pair of twins, and they were grandsons again!

This time, even Grandma Wang and her husband, who loved holding their grandsons, couldn’t help but have a breakdown.

(End of Chapter)