Chapter 197

Who would’ve thought that a washed-up mediation show, once on the brink of cancellation, could explode in popularity after a revamp?

Wei Sheng had guessed right. The online firestorm that had Y Province TV Station on edge finally erupted.

But this time, the internet wasn’t unanimously against them.

Of course, the moral crusaders and the brainwashed crowd tore the show to shreds.

In their eyes, harmony in the family is everything. No matter how wrong parents are, they’re still parents. For children to go against them is inherently unfilial—how dare they treat their parents poorly?

Take the episode with Wei Juncai, for instance. Both sets of parents were supposed to receive equal support each month, yet his mother-in-law got 3,000 yuan while his own mother only received 500? What kind of son does that? Might as well have drowned him in the toilet at birth!

And if the son is unfilial, the daughter-in-law is even worse. She buys herself gold bracelets and necklaces without blinking, but when it comes to buying something for her in-laws, she has to ask around first to make sure it costs about the same as what her brother-in-law’s family spent? If the couple can afford it, why can’t they buy something nice for the parents?

But not everyone online agreed.

Why should people who earn more always be the ones to sacrifice?

No one’s chaining your hands and feet. Wei Juncai’s parents and younger brother are lazy and refuse to work, yet they’re jealous of the couple’s success and try to guilt-trip them into support? What a joke.

What’s that? You say Wei’s parents are getting old?

Please! Go check out Yuanxi Biotech’s official videos. There are plenty of elderly folks in the village, well into their seventies and eighties, still working in the mountain herb fields. Wei’s parents are barely in their early fifties—how is that old?

And those criticizing Bai Xiuting for funneling money to her own parents—can you at least watch the whole episode before you start ranting? It’s laughable! Bai Xiuting’s parents are the very definition of selfless.

When Bai Xiuting first gave them money for their retirement, her parents told her they were still capable of working and earning. They said to treat the money as savings—if she and her husband ever hit hard times, they could come back and take it.

That’s what real parents do. Meanwhile, Wei’s parents live in the same village as their eldest son and his wife, yet pretend not to see how hard they work.

But her in-laws, who live more than ten miles away, only needed to ask around to understand how tough life is for their daughter and son-in-law.

Clearly, whether someone truly cares about you has nothing to do with distance.

If they care, they’ll find out no matter how far away they are. Even if they can’t visit often, with how convenient delivery services are these days, they could at least send a care package, right?

But if they don’t care, even if you faint right in front of them, they’ll just think you’re faking it for sympathy.

So while the moral crusaders were busy throwing insults at the show, fans and righteous bystanders were just as fiercely defending it.

After every episode aired, major online platforms were flooded with discussions about The Rebirth of Housewives.

Fans felt this “anti-cliché mediation” format was like a real-life feel-good drama. Forget weekly episodes—they’d happily watch it daily without missing a single one!

At first, casual viewers just chimed in to speak some sense. But as the debates heated up, so did their tempers. They stormed off to watch the show out of curiosity, and before they knew it, they were hooked.

Who knew mediation shows could be this entertaining? Way better than those contrived family dramas with their unrealistic plots and forced happy endings. Instant fan conversion!

The funniest part? Even the so-called moralists and haters who bashed the show were secretly watching every single episode…

How did people find out?

Well, during online arguments, both sides kept posting screenshots and screen recordings from the latest episodes. Busted!

Even more hilarious, some older folks with more traditional views, who didn’t know how to join the online debates, started recording the show on their phones and forwarding the clips like crazy to their WeChat Moments, family groups, dance groups, and mahjong groups.

When the director heard about this, he was over the moon.

“Spread it! Spread it everywhere!”

Free advertising with sky-high reach? They were saving hundreds of millions in marketing costs!

Sure enough, as the show’s popularity (and criticism) grew, the leadership at Y Province TV Station watched the ratings shoot up like a rocket. One episode even broke 3.5% in viewership, smashing the record for highest single-episode ratings in domestic variety shows over the past five years. It even edged out J Province TV Station’s flagship program Retracing the Path of Poverty Alleviation. Heh.

The average ratings were even more impressive—consistently above 2% per episode. Meanwhile, the second-place show? A measly 0.4%. Oof. So sad.

But sorry, no pity points here. That precious viewership isn’t getting shared.

Y Province TV Station, having finally redeemed itself, was determined to defend its hard-won “quasi-tier-one” status.

As the show reached its halfway mark, the growth of the four female guests began drawing widespread attention.

Huihui, or Chai Xinhui, first appeared on the show Housewives Leaving Home.

After that appearance, she decisively divorced her husband and left home with her child. At the time, many conservative viewers quietly criticized the production team for not trying to reconcile the couple. They actually let Huihui go through with the divorce?

In their eyes, Huihui’s husband was just a bit selfish, a bit stingy, not very attentive to his wife and daughter, and maybe a little sexist—he didn’t want to spend money on them but wanted a second child just so he could have a son…

Okay, maybe those flaws were more than “a bit.”

Still, Huihui had no job, no savings. A woman divorcing with a child—how was she supposed to survive?

But what no one expected was that this show, which seemed to be encouraging divorce, actually had a follow-up.

The TV station launched a new spin-off variety show, The Rebirth of Housewives, tracking the women’s lives after divorce.

And it worked. The spin-off captured viewers’ attention completely. Even more unexpectedly, many new fans who started with The Rebirth of Housewives went back to binge-watch Housewives Leaving Home, pushing the already-finished show back onto the trending charts.

As for the viewers who had worried that Chai Xinhui would struggle post-divorce, by the halfway point of the new show, she had already bought a home in full in the county.

Nine Streams County had incredibly affordable housing—under 300,000 yuan for an 80-square-meter two-bedroom apartment.

Wei Sheng, her boss, was also incredibly generous. At the end of last year, in addition to regular salary, performance bonuses, and year-end bonuses, he introduced a Special Contribution Award.

Chai Xinhui, leading the marketing and promotion team, had not only grown the company’s main account to over ten million followers, but also successfully signed and developed several villager influencer accounts, making major contributions to Yuanxi Biotech’s brand. She won the Special Contribution Award—300,000 yuan!

The first thing she did with the bonus was buy the apartment she’d been eyeing. The location was great, with a kindergarten inside the complex and nearby elementary and middle schools—perfect for her child’s education.

To make school runs easier, she also bought a car. Since her job kept her busy, she hired a housekeeper to handle drop-offs, cleaning, and cooking. With Nine Streams County’s low cost of living, the housekeeper’s monthly salary was only 2,500 yuan. With Chai Xinhui’s current income, she could afford two if she wanted.

Seeing Huihui thriving post-divorce—with a high-paying job, a new home, a car, and even a housekeeper—viewers felt like they’d just gulped down a giant glass of ice-cold cola on a sweltering summer day. So satisfying.

That’s how it should be! Her stingy ex-husband used to act like a big shot just for giving her 3,000 yuan a month. Bet he didn’t see this coming—after leaving that loser, Huihui is now making over a million a year, owns a home and a car, and can afford help. Ha!

Watching Chai Xinhui rise from the ashes, return to the workforce, dressed in a windbreaker, lugging equipment, trekking through the mountains with a team of young people to support Yuan Stream Township’s poverty alleviation efforts—fans were genuinely moved to tears.

So good. This is so, so good.

Everyone is born into this world as a human being. So why is it that when a man leaves his wife and children to chase his career, he’s praised for being ambitious, but when a woman does the same, she’s scolded for being neglectful and told she’s unfit to be a mother?

If it weren’t for the pressures of life, who would willingly juggle a child in one arm while working overtime on a laptop with the other?

Thankfully, Chai Xinhui saw through her ex-husband early on and escaped that pit of fire. Otherwise, she might have spent her whole life as a worn-out housewife pinching every penny of a 3,000 yuan salary. Who would have known the powerful “Director Chai” who now commands the corporate world?

But when it comes to being unlucky in love, among the four female guests of the first season, the one who suffered the most was probably Jiang Manman.

Jiang Manman came from a wealthy family and had always been a top student. After earning a master’s degree in law from a prestigious overseas university, she landed a job at a well-known publicly listed company in China. Her future seemed bright and full of promise.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t deal everyone a perfect hand. There’s always one or two bad cards in the mix. After watching Jiang Manman’s episode, most viewers agreed that the biggest misfortune of her life was her marriage.

After joining the company, her youth, beauty, and outstanding abilities quickly caught the attention of the higher-ups. She was soon transferred to work directly under the CEO as a special assistant. The CEO and his wife were very fond of her and went out of their way to set her up with their son.

As it happened, the CEO’s son had also studied abroad in Country Y. Though they hadn’t attended the same university, both had lived there for years. The young man wasn’t particularly handsome, but among the rich second-generation crowd, he was considered decent-looking—clean-cut and gentle in demeanor.

Jiang Manman thought she had found love. Not only was she marrying into a wealthy family, her future husband also seemed kind and considerate. But just after she found out she was pregnant, her husband suddenly stopped coming home at night.

Then, the real love of his life appeared—a young heir from another major corporation.

The most absurd part? Jiang Manman’s in-laws not only turned a blind eye to their son’s affair, they even tried to comfort her, saying, “A woman’s life is all about her children. As long as you have the child, it doesn’t matter if the man is around or not. As long as you two don’t divorce, everything in this family will still belong to you and the child. Besides, he’s with another man. It’s not like they can have a child together. If you work hard and have a few more kids, both families’ fortunes will be yours and your children’s!”

Jiang Manman was stunned. She had always seen her mother-in-law as a dignified and reasonable woman. She never imagined someone like that could say something so morally twisted. Raised with strong values by her own parents, Jiang Manman simply couldn’t accept it.

She couldn’t accept sharing a husband with another man.

Even more so, she couldn’t accept her child growing up in such a warped family environment.

The moment she decided to join the show, Jiang Manman had already made up her mind to leave that gilded cage.

Because once she appeared on the show, everything—her husband’s affair and the man he was involved with—would be impossible to hide.

Maybe it was out of revenge, or maybe she truly wanted to escape that suffocating household. Either way, Jiang Manman divorced her husband.

She didn’t get custody of the child. Her ex-husband had hired an incredibly skilled lawyer and was determined to keep the child at any cost. Jiang Manman nearly gave in—she couldn’t bear to part with her son.

But then her mother held her and sobbed, asking, “You can’t bear to leave your child—but do you know? I can’t bear to lose mine either.”

In the end, Jiang Manman gave in. The only small consolation was that, although her son couldn’t grow up by her side, given her ex-husband’s situation, unless he found someone else to bear him another child, this would likely be his only one. At least her son, raised in that household, would start life far ahead of most of his peers.

Jiang Manman’s episode stirred up a lot of controversy. Beyond the issue of being deceived in marriage, many people—including some mothers—criticized her for being cold-hearted, saying she had abandoned her child for the sake of freedom. But others argued: why should Jiang Manman be expected to sacrifice her entire life’s happiness for the child?

Jiang Manman wasn’t asexual, nor was she against marriage. She wasn’t even thirty yet. Didn’t she deserve a normal, loving relationship?

In the end, opinions were divided.

But as the show went on, Jiang Manman’s behavior and resilience gradually changed the minds of those who had initially condemned her as heartless and unfeeling. They began to see her for what she truly was—a woman wronged, but strong. A woman who refused to be broken.

(End of Chapter)