Chapter 68

When Zhou Mingxing heard that Wei Sheng had taken on another gig, he was so furious he wanted to fight Wang Yang!

“Damn it! Don’t they know how much our Wei is worth now? How much do you think a self-produced variety show can even pay him per episode? That’s just screwing him over!”

To his surprise, it was Wei Sheng who ended up holding back his boss.

“Old Zhou! Calm down!”

“My wallet says it can’t calm down!” Zhou Mingxing glared at him. “Do you have any idea what your appearance fee for a variety show is now? Huh?!”

He was so agitated that he was practically spitting in Wei Sheng’s face.

Wei Sheng waited patiently for him to finish venting his rage, then calmly laid out his reasoning—

“Old Zhou, I actually planned to make some quick cash with you, then bail and take the civil service exam.”

Zhou Mingxing: (⊙﹏⊙)!!

“But then I realized… maybe I don’t have to get into the system to serve my country and the people.”

“Sometimes, a popular celebrity’s influence on society can far surpass that of a government clerk.”

“So I thought, if I can do good as a celebrity, why must I become a civil servant?”

“Old Zhou, look—I’ve sacrificed the iron rice bowl of the system to dedicate myself wholeheartedly to you and the entertainment industry. I’ll earn the company a lot of money in the future. So let’s make a deal—starting now, can you give me a few exemptions every year? Let me pick some projects that are actually meaningful to society?”

“Like what?”

“Like this ‘Save the Stalled Project’ initiative. I did some digging—Mingzhu Garden, from Phase I to II, involves nearly 1,500 families. They’ve paid down payments of hundreds of thousands, and are still paying thousands in mortgage every month, yet they haven’t even seen the shadow of a new house. What did they do wrong?”

“Old Zhou, we can always earn money slowly. But these people—we have to help them. As much as we can. I just looked up some news about Mingzhu Garden. Last year, one of the owners lost his job and couldn’t pay his mortgage. He left the last bit of his money to his wife and kids… and jumped off a building.”

Wei Sheng’s tone grew heavier. In that moment, he wasn’t a big star—just a regular person who could truly empathize.

He knew how terrifying mortgage debt could be. He’d also experienced the anxiety and despair of being unemployed.

Back when he was filming in the countryside, he heard many elders express envy of city life. Everyone was working themselves to the bone to send their kids to school, just so the next generation could escape the fate of working the land and settle down in the city, changing their family’s future.

But they never expected that for a kid from the countryside, putting down roots in a city takes a thousand times more effort than it does for others.

They can’t count on any help from home. They have to save up for a down payment of hundreds of thousands or even over a million on their own.

And monthly mortgage payments of thousands or even tens of thousands suffocate them.

Some get married and have kids. If their parents back home can’t help with childcare, the wife has to quit her job to be a stay-at-home mom. One person earning to support an entire family, paying the mortgage, sometimes even sending money back home…

If they’re unlucky enough to get stuck with a stalled project like Mingzhu Garden and then face mass layoffs—Wei Sheng truly couldn’t imagine how people like that were supposed to survive in such a brutal and unforgiving city.

He considered himself relatively lucky. Even though he graduated into the toughest job market in history and was unemployed right out of college, at least his family had a home. No mortgage. His mom worked in his grandpa’s shop, earning a bit each month. He didn’t need to support them.

Even so, life was a mess at the beginning.

He thought he had prepared well for the civil service exams, but jobs were scarce. Grads from top schools like Tsinghua and Peking University were competing with his batch of ordinary college grads for grassroots jobs in the system. Even if he wrote stellar essays, employers still preferred name-brand graduates—for the prestige!

To be honest, landing a contract job at a television station—not just temp labor—already made Wei Sheng one of the more successful grads from his class.

Half of his classmates were still floating around, calling themselves “freelancers.”

“…So, what you’re saying is, you’re definitely taking this show, no matter what?” Zhou Mingxing glared at him.

“Well, you can’t put it that way. Don’t you still need to sign and stamp the contract, Director Zhou?” Wei Sheng looked at him with a grin.

“Get lost! Tell Wang Yang to come talk prices with me! Just because it’s an in-house production doesn’t mean they get to pay you half price! I’m warning you—I won’t let you sell yourself cheap! That’s not how we do things in this industry!” Zhou Mingxing’s tone had clearly softened.

Though his mouth was still sharp as ever.

Wei Sheng took that as a yes.

That evening, he stopped by his grandpa’s shop to grab some items and then happily asked his grandma to take him to her old friend’s house for advice.

Grandma Hu had an old friend she’d known for over sixty years. They’d been neighbors since they were toddlers in open-crotch pants. Later, they married and ended up buying homes in the same community. This friend’s husband, Grandpa Zeng, had retired from the Provincial Housing and Urban-Rural Development Department. He wasn’t a high-ranking official, but he’d worked in the field his whole life, and knew far more than the big bosses about the ins and outs of actual project handling.

It just so happened that Grandpa Zeng loved the local rustic grain liquor made by small distilleries. You couldn’t find this stuff in regular supermarkets. Grandpa Hu, a sentimental man, kept it stocked in his shop for the neighborhood elders even though it didn’t make as much profit as brand-name liquor.

There were only two prices for the unbranded grain liquor: the cheaper one was 8 yuan per jin, the more expensive 15 yuan. Wei Sheng took two jins of the 15-yuan kind, two packs of five-spice peanuts, two packs of crispy fried noodles, and two packs of candied dates.

Remembering the twin granddaughters at Grandma Zeng’s house, he also picked up two DIY paint-your-own kites from the shelves.

Grandma Hu even praised her grandson for being thoughtful with kids. When they got to her friend’s house, the twins who had been pestering Grandpa Zeng to play horsey were immediately distracted by the kites, leaving Grandma Hu stunned.

No wonder her grandson hadn’t picked the ready-made kites—he’d deliberately chosen the DIY ones to win over those little rascals.

“Our little Sheng is sharp, not like my son—totally useless with kids!” Grandpa Zeng chuckled as he accepted the bottles of grain liquor and, while Grandma Zeng wasn’t looking, quickly hid them in his fishing bag.

“Grandpa Zeng, here! These are for snacks while fishing—can keep you full, too.” Wei Sheng quietly tucked the peanuts and crispy noodles into the bag as well.

Anyone who enjoys fishing knows that when heading out, aside from fishing gear, there are two absolute essentials: cigarettes and dry food. At a good fishing spot, you’d want to sit by the river for a whole day and night just to get your fill. Some places are so remote that takeout isn’t even an option. In times like that, having a bit of dry food on hand can literally be a lifesaver!

Old Grandpa Zeng’s eyes lit up. He gave Wei Sheng a firm pat on the shoulder.

He had seen it long ago—this kid was clever and knew how to conduct himself. He was bound to make something of himself sooner or later. But his biological father must’ve been blind, failing to nurture such a promising son and instead choosing to support some distant nephew from another family branch!

No matter how good the nephew is, he still has his own parents. What’s an uncle like you supposed to mean to him?

Absolutely clueless!

Wei Sheng took the opportunity to bring up his problem.

“Grandpa Zeng, that’s the situation. The production team sent me the first draft of the script. I read it and couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Since you used to work at the Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, I thought I’d come learn from an expert.”

He was referring to the first draft Wang Yang had given him. The production team had just rushed it out—fresh off the press—but it hadn’t been finalized. Otherwise, Wei Sheng wouldn’t be so eager to come find Grandpa Zeng for advice.

Jin Yannian’s team was undoubtedly skilled at crafting emotional tearjerkers. The script was full of warmth and touching moments, enough to move viewers to tears. The problem was, Wei Sheng had dealt with plenty of businesspeople and, to be blunt, real investors don’t just throw money into a stalled project because they’re momentarily moved by a story.

Especially not a project this big. To revive the Mingzhu Garden project—even if only the residential section and not the entire land parcel—it would still take at least another billion-plus yuan in investment.

Capitalists, no matter how wealthy, didn’t get their money from the wind. There’s no way they’d shell out that kind of cash just because the show tugged at their heartstrings.

Grandpa Zeng picked up his reading glasses from the coffee table and flipped through the script. Halfway in, this old cadre who had spent his whole life in the housing and construction system sighed repeatedly and put it down.

“Xiao Sheng, your instincts are right. The story’s told well, but I’m afraid it won’t move those investors.”

In short, the script written by Jin Yannian’s team for the show was firmly from the perspective of the owners of the stalled development. It told their tragic, tear-jerking stories, hoping to appeal to investors’ emotions and urge capable developers to take notice of the Mingzhu Garden project. If someone was willing to take over and restart the project’s development, that would be ideal.

But unfortunately, capitalists don’t act without seeing a clear profit. Tears won’t melt their hearts of stone.

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about! Grandpa Zeng, you’re an expert in this field. What do you think our show should focus on, to actually attract a developer willing to take over the project?”

“You’re asking the right question! If you want to convince a developer to take it on, there’s only one reason that works—they have to be able to make money!”

“And not just a little—big money! Taking over a stalled project is much more complicated than buying land and building from scratch. You have to raise funds, calm hundreds of emotionally fragile owners. Think about it, Xiao Sheng—if there isn’t a huge profit to be made, who would willingly invite such a headache?”

“Let me put it plainly: in today’s economic climate, anyone sitting on a few billion in spare cash isn’t going to bother with a stalled project. They’d rather just buy land directly from the government—faster returns, fewer complications, much easier!”

Wei Sheng’s heart sank.

“So… there’s really no way?”

“Have you ever been to Mingzhu Garden, Grandpa Zeng? Over a hundred families are already living there. No water, no electricity, no internet. Some have to climb over ten floors on foot every day. Some couples have both lost their jobs, but they still have to scrape together several thousand a month for mortgage payments. Last year, one resident couldn’t take it anymore and jumped…”

“Our team really wants to help them. But we’re just not professional in this area. You can see from the script—we don’t have anyone who understands stalled project redevelopment at all.”

“Well, it’s not that there’s no way…” Grandpa Zeng pulled out his phone and searched online for public information about the Mingzhu Garden project. He found an aerial layout of the development and pointed it out to Wei Sheng—

“Look here, Xiao Sheng. According to the original plan, the Mingzhu Garden project covers over 400 mu. Half was allocated for housing, and the other half was designated for a commercial street, food court, film and cultural section, business hotel, and more.”

“You know the country is working hard right now to revive the real economy. There will soon be a variety of supportive policies in this area. Unless your production team has the guts and capability to convince the city to temporarily split the project—start with the commercial section and attract a strong developer to build a commercial complex.”

“I checked. The commercial part of Mingzhu Garden never even broke ground due to the funding shortfall. It’s still an empty plot. No shops were sold yet, so there aren’t any disputes with owners. If this part is carved out, and the local government can offer attractive enough conditions, there will definitely be investors interested.”

“You mean…” Wei Sheng’s eyes lit up and his heart began to pound.

He had a hunch!

“What I mean is, if the residential portion of Mingzhu Garden is currently a tasteless chicken rib, then just shelve it for now!”

“But it won’t be a chicken rib forever. Once the commercial complex next door starts development, it will inevitably drive up land prices around it. At that point, this land will be worth much more.”

“As long as there’s enough profit to tempt them, there will definitely be developers with an eye for value who’ll seize the opportunity to buy this land while prices are still low and the commercial complex hasn’t opened yet!”

“By then, your production team won’t even need to urge them—developers will take the initiative to negotiate with current homeowners and restart the residential part of Mingzhu Garden themselves!”

Wei Sheng felt like this visit had truly paid off.

He carefully jotted down all the key points Grandpa Zeng had mentioned. Early the next morning, he ran straight to the office to corner Jin Yannian.

After reading what Wei Sheng had written down, Jin Yannian was stunned.

“You little rascal! You’ve got connections all the way to the provincial housing department? That’s some network you’ve got!”

“What connections? Just an old neighbor from the community. He used to work there—not a leader or anything, just a regular civil servant. But Grandpa Zeng spent his whole life in this field. I just gave it a shot, never expected he’d really help us figure out a path. Jin-jie, do you think the idea Grandpa Zeng gave us is something the show can use?”

“It’s a solid plan—something we never thought of. But we’ll need to consider how to shoot it. And if we go this route, we can’t use the old tearjerker approach anymore…”

“Why does it always have to be tear-jerking? A life of striving and hard work is the most beautiful kind!” Wei Sheng didn’t quite agree with Jin Yannan’s perspective.

Or rather, the way TV stations used to make programs about ordinary people was, to put it bluntly, all about selling misery—showing the hardships and struggles of those at the bottom to evoke sympathy from viewers, and then hoping some kind soul would step forward to help.

But the problem is, this project isn’t about a few thousand yuan in scholarship aid, or tens of thousands in medical expenses—it’s a real estate project that needs an investment of over a billion!

Will selling misery work?

Even if regular viewers cry their eyes out, could any of them actually come up with billions to revive a stalled housing project?

If a wealthy person sees it, maybe they’ll feel moved for a moment—so what? No matter how skilled the director is at tugging at heartstrings, it’s not like they can command someone to take out billions just to fulfill a dream, right?

Since selling misery won’t help, then why not just try a different approach?

“What do you mean?” Jin Yannan asked.

“Sis Jin, I mean if selling misery won’t work, then let’s stand tall! Let’s film the passionate side of these unfinished apartment owners fighting for a better life while living in bare-bones housing!”

“Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work! We can find a few positive examples and capture the determination and spirit of these homeowners!”

“To be honest, with the social climate these past few years, people are already emotionally exhausted. Frankly, people have seen too many tragedies and are becoming numb. So instead, why don’t we take a bold route and make this show like an urban survival drama full of grit and determination?”

“This way, our program can stand out from other similar shows. We’ll be one-of-a-kind in the market—nobody will be able to compete with us!”

“Most importantly, if we show how hard these homeowners are working to earn money and live their lives seriously, I think that’ll actually give potential developers the confidence they need to step in.”

“Think about it, Sis Jin—what’s the thing developers fear most when selling houses? They fear that the customers don’t have any money!”

“That makes sense! Keep going, Xiao Wei!” Jin Yannan suddenly perked up, personally brewed a cup of tea for Wei Sheng, and invited him to sit down and talk in more detail.

Wei Sheng had spent all of last night thinking about the show and had some genuine ideas. He truly wanted to make this program well.

It wasn’t for ratings, but to use the social influence of a popular reality show to help the desperate homeowners of a stalled project find a truly capable investor.

While Wei Sheng and Jin Yannan were deep in conversation about the show, in Mingzhu Garden—one of the unfinished housing complexes—apartment 202 in Unit 3, a short-haired girl with a sweet smile and dimples had already put on her food delivery uniform and was shifting her child from her arms to her back using a carrier.

Her daughter, not yet two years old, was sleeping soundly and peacefully in her mother’s arms.

Xiang Hong was only 21, yet already a mother of a two-year-old.

Anyone who knew her would say she had a tough life. She lost her mother at a young age, and her father was an alcoholic. Before she turned ten, her father passed out drunk by the roadside and was run over by a passing truck, his body crushed into a mangled mess… After that, eight-year-old Xiang Hong and her five-year-old brother Xiang Lei could only live with their aging grandparents.

In the countryside, elderly folks could barely support themselves, let alone afford to send kids to school.

Never mind the whole “nine-year compulsory education is free” idea—any parent with school-aged kids knows that nowadays, it costs more than when we paid tuition as kids. Uniforms, lunch fees, insurance, health checks, textbooks—add it all up, and it’s several thousand yuan per child per year.

And forget about applying for social aid just because both kids are orphans.

In some remote villages where corrupt village leaders hold all the power, welfare often doesn’t go to the poor at all.

Unfortunately, Xiang Hong’s family encountered exactly this kind of heartless and ruthless village official.

Welfare quotas? Those were treated as internal benefits for the village officials! There was no way ordinary people like them would get a share.

So Xiang Hong and Xiang Lei grew up barely scraping by. When Xiang Hong was in her first year of middle school, her beloved grandmother passed away. Not long after, her grandfather slipped and fell into a ditch while working in the fields. By the time neighbors found him, he had already stopped breathing.

People in the village gossiped behind their backs, saying the Xiang siblings were cursed—first their parents died, and now even their grandparents, who had kindly taken them in, had also perished because of them.

No one in the village wanted anything to do with them. Even the little kids, parroting the gossip they heard at home, threw mud and rotten vegetable leaves at them behind their backs.

The villagers’ prejudice and discrimination could be ignored, but with their grandparents gone, life became impossible. Xiang Hong had no choice but to drop out of school and go back to farm work so her brother could continue studying.

At eighteen, she went to the city to work. At nineteen, she got married and had a child. A girl without parents has no one to look out for her or help her plan her life.

Fortunately, her husband treated her well. Although there was no bride price at the wedding, his parents offered over 100,000 yuan in savings, and with his own savings over the years, they scraped together a down payment for a home in Mingzhu Garden.

But who would’ve thought that the year after their daughter was born, her husband would die in a construction accident?

After her husband’s death, her in-laws directed all their anger and blame at Xiang Hong. They believed she was cursed—she had brought death to her own family, and now she had caused the death of their eldest son too.

They took all the compensation and funeral money—more than 500,000 yuan—and didn’t give Xiang Hong a single cent. They even wanted to take the Mingzhu Garden apartment from her, but it turned out the developer had gone bankrupt and run off, and the apartment became a stalled project. On top of that, it still required monthly mortgage payments of over 5,000 yuan.

Unwilling to take on the debt, the in-laws simply dumped the apartment—along with over a million yuan in mortgage debt—onto Xiang Hong. After all, the house had been registered under their son’s name. Now that he was gone, as his wife, wasn’t it her duty to pay off his debt?

At that time, Xiang Hong was filled with guilt toward her in-laws. She even started to believe that she really might be a cursed person who brought death to those around her. Otherwise, why would her parents be gone, her grandparents too, and now even her husband?

After all, her husband had been working construction for years with no problems. The site had always been well-managed, with no safety issues. Why did the accident happen only after she married him?

Crushed by overwhelming guilt, Xiang Hong became like a puppet on strings, silently accepting all the accusations and arrangements from her in-laws.

They took every cent of the death and funeral compensation without giving her anything—and she didn’t dare protest.

They refused to help with the mortgage, forcing her to bear all the debt herself—and she agreed.

Truth be told, even if her in-laws hadn’t said anything, Xiang Hong couldn’t bear to let the bank repossess the house. This was the home her husband had left for her and their daughter.

Although this housing complex was already abandoned, back when they bought the apartment, she and her husband had spent countless nights poring over the floor plan, excitedly imagining how each room would be decorated—whether they should go for a basic setup first or wait until they had enough money to do it up nicely… To Xiang Hong, this wasn’t just a house anymore. It was the most important proof that her husband had once existed in her life.

And so, like the other financially strapped owners of Mingzhu Garden, Xiang Hong moved into the unfinished building with no water or electricity. She took care of her child while delivering food to earn money and repay the mortgage.

She was determined to hold on to the last thing her husband had left her.

(End of this chapter)