Chapter 199

Who would have thought that as a spin-off of a hit variety show, the season finale of The Rebirth of Housewives would effortlessly crush the ratings of its main series, Housewives Leaving Home? That night, it achieved a staggering 3.679% viewership rating, shattering the ceiling for all domestic variety shows in the past decade.

Just how popular is this show now?

On the night of the finale, nearly half of Weibo’s trending topics were related to it!

On short video platforms, the flood of discussions and reflections on the show had bloggers who focus on variety shows, women’s issues, and family and marriage scrambling to keep up. They were screen-recording the finale while frantically churning out posts to ride the wave.

One marriage-focused blogger with over a million followers shared a take that received overwhelming support from fans of the show.

This blogger is a well-known “binge-watcher” who only consumes completed content, whether it’s webnovels, variety shows, or dramas. But The Rebirth of Housewives broke that rule for her because—

“Why is it that a spin-off like The Rebirth of Housewives can outperform the main show Housewives Leaving Home in both ratings and online views? I think it’s because, in Housewives Leaving Home, viewers saw disappointment in love and marriage. But in The Rebirth of Housewives, what they found was the joy of rebirth.”

“People often say marriage is the grave of love. So maybe we can put it this way—watching Housewives Leaving Home feels like visiting a grave, while watching The Rebirth of Housewives is like attending a baby’s one-month celebration.”

“Watching these women break free from the shackles of marriage and run toward freedom, I worried for them just like everyone else. But seeing them rely on their own hands to build better lives day by day made me happier than getting a promotion myself. Who would’ve thought, at my age, I’d experience the joy of following a ‘growth-style girl group’?”

“My long-time followers know I never follow ongoing series. The Rebirth of Housewives is the first serialized show I’ve followed since starting this account, and I hope it won’t be the last. So, production team—do you get what I’m saying?”

Fans nodded in agreement and flooded the comments, tagging Y Province TV Station: “Can’t you see even the big-name bloggers are urging for updates? Hurry up!”

The executives at Y Province TV Station were grinning from ear to ear.

They no longer envied the top-tier national networks.

Because now, in the realm of variety shows, Y Province TV Station had firmly secured its place as a true heavyweight.

Who says shows about everyday family life have no market anymore?

That depends on who’s making them. Their very own Teacher Wei is no ordinary person—hmph!

Didn’t you see how a nearly-canceled, outdated mediation show turned into a miracle in Teacher Wei’s hands? With one stroke, it became a legend, surpassing the main series and becoming the undisputed number one in ratings among all domestic variety shows—not just a hit, but a mega, mega hit.

And it’s not just empty boasting. According to internal data tracking, the season finale of The Rebirth of Housewives topped both TV ratings and online views. Even the rerun the next day had impressively high numbers.

As for online buzz and trending discussions—don’t even mention it. For days after the finale, every major short video platform was flooded with breakdowns, analyses, and retrospectives of the show.

Just how good were the numbers?

So good that other networks were practically green with envy.

“We can’t let Teacher Wei get poached by another station! Quick, think of ways to deepen our collaboration with him!”

Late into the night, several Y Province TV Station executives stayed behind for a closed-door meeting. In the end, they decided that in order to cling tightly to this golden goose, Wei Sheng, they needed more than just these two shows. Ideally, they’d expand their cooperation with either him or his studio in other areas too.

At that point, the station’s only female Deputy Station Head chimed in.

“Have any of you been following the video account of Yuanxi Biotech, the pharmaceutical company Wei Sheng invested in?”

“What about it?”

“Well, you know that Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs educational show we have? The one that’s practically dead in the water? I noticed that even though they’re in the same field, Yuanxi Biotech’s official account already has over three million followers.”

“What?!” The other executives were stunned.

“So I was thinking, since we managed to successfully revamp our mediation show, why not do the same for the Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs program? I don’t even think we need to build a new planning team. Since we’re already looking to deepen our partnership with Teacher Wei, why not co-produce it with his studio?”

“Brilliant! That’s a great idea! If we can collaborate with the Yuanxi Biotech media account that Teacher Wei invested in, doesn’t that mean the new show would come with millions of followers right out of the gate?”

Hearing Station Head Yang Pingzhou go on and on about “traffic” and “buzz,” the other Deputy Station Heads couldn’t help but roll their eyes.

After all, Yang used to hate it when people talked to him about traffic and popularity—mainly because their station didn’t have either.

But now things were different. Whether it was traffic or buzz, Y Province TV Station had firmly outpaced all the other provincial stations.

As for the top-tier networks secretly mocking them for not having a prestigious production team? Please. With Teacher Wei on their side, who needs a gold-standard production team?

Teacher Wei was the eternal god of Y Province TV Station!

Wei Sheng could swear to the heavens—he had no talent for planning variety shows! So why did everyone he met seem convinced he could revive any dying program?

When he got a call from Station Head Yang Pingzhou, Wei Sheng was completely speechless.

“Director Yang, aren’t we already working on two shows together? If you start a third one, do you even have the manpower to handle it?”

“If we don’t, we’ll hire more! Teacher Wei, I’ve seen your Yuanxi Biotech media account. The way you present Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs content is just incredible. We’re honestly ashamed by comparison!”

Wei Sheng: “…”

Here it comes again—that oh-so-familiar flattery!

Back when the leadership of Nine Streams County was trying to lure him into their industrial park, they started the conversation by piling on the praise.

Seriously, are high compliments the local specialty of Y Province? Right up there with flowers and mushrooms?

“Why don’t you send me the program materials first? I’ll need to check our company’s project schedule for next year before I can give you an answer…” Wei Sheng didn’t want to reject them outright. After all, educational content works well on short video platforms due to the flexibility of format, but once you start filming a full show, the tone and style get locked in. It becomes hard to change direction later.

“Of course, of course! I’ll have someone send the materials over right away.”

Yang Pingzhou hung up the phone, thoroughly satisfied.

In truth, he hadn’t misled Wei Sheng. A twenty-minute science education program, no matter how innovative, could only do so much. At the end of the day, this was just a favor to Wei Sheng—offering Yuanxi Biotech a free, long-term promotional platform on the provincial TV station.

He wasn’t like that idiot station director over at J Province TV, who wanted the ox to plow the field but wouldn’t even let it eat grass. Trying to have it all? The world doesn’t work that way.

On the surface, it looked like their TV station was the one begging Wei Sheng, hoping to ride the popularity of Yuanxi Biotech’s social media presence to revive a dying science program. But in reality, Yang Pingzhou was confident that with Wei Sheng’s sharp mind, he’d eventually realize this was a generous gesture.

After all, pharmaceutical ads on official media had always been tightly regulated, and the rates were even higher than those for real estate. Yuanxi Biotech had focused its marketing efforts on new media from the start—likely because traditional media advertising was simply too expensive for a young company like theirs to afford. So they had probably given up on it altogether.

But now, Yang Pingzhou and the other senior executives at Y Province TV Station had decided to present Boss Wei with a grand gift. On the surface, it would be a co-produced educational program between the station and Yuanxi Biotech, promoting the cultural heritage of Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs. But in practice, since the show was about Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs, it was only natural to mention their medicinal properties. And what better way to illustrate those than by using the products of a “well-known local enterprise”?

Slip in a few product mentions here and there—it wouldn’t violate any rules. As long as the station didn’t ask Wei Sheng for ad fees, who could accuse them of wrongdoing? And most importantly, Yuanxi Biotech was Wei Sheng’s own investment.

As long as the program continued airing on their station, just imagine—only twenty minutes of airtime per week, and they’d be doing Wei Sheng a massive favor. When the time came, it wouldn’t just be variety shows. If Teacher Wei had any new dramas next year, wouldn’t he naturally prioritize their station?

Wei Sheng never imagined that what Director Yang had in mind was all this. When he received the program materials and flipped through them, he actually felt it would be a real shame to let the show get axed.

To be honest, the production team behind the program was truly top-tier. The guest experts weren’t just anyone—they were professors from Y Province Agricultural University and heavyweight figures from the Y Province Traditional Chinese Medicine Association. To put it bluntly, for regular folks to get an appointment with any of these experts, they’d have to line up at the hospital at three in the morning—and even then, they might not beat the scalpers.

And yet, here was a group of such renowned scholars, carefully crafting an educational program, only for it to suffer such low ratings that the station was ready to cancel it…

For some reason, at that moment, Wei Sheng suddenly thought of the children’s shows he used to watch as a kid.

Back then, children’s programming was truly made for Chinese kids. They featured all kinds of fun folk knowledge, and the animated characters all looked like Chinese people.

But somewhere along the line, those shows disappeared, replaced by a flood of imported cartoons and anime. Kids today could rattle off all the customs of Christmas, but didn’t even know when the Shangsi Festival¹ was, or what traditions it held.

It was just like Nine Streams County. Once a famous origin site for Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs in China, yet many children living in the county today couldn’t even recognize the herbs growing around them.

That wasn’t right.

He wouldn’t dare claim he could shoulder the responsibility of preserving traditional Chinese culture. But within his own capabilities, if he could save this soon-to-be-canceled educational program and give the children of Y Province a way to learn about their local Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs heritage—well, that actually sounded pretty meaningful, didn’t it?

(End of chapter)

Translator’s Notes