Chapter 130

Since they’d decided to invite Wu Meiqiong to join their company, Wei Sheng, as the boss, couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.

It just so happened that he hadn’t done a livestream or interacted with his fans in a while. After checking in with Zhou Mingxing, he borrowed Wu Meiqiong’s blueberry orchard and went live for a session with his fans.

The fans all knew he was back on set filming again and had assumed he was suffering in some remote wilderness. But when they clicked into the livestream, what they saw was this guy squatting in someone’s blueberry field, feasting away with pure joy on his face.

Fans who had already drafted heartfelt posts praising their idol’s dedication and hard work: “…”

“Family, are you seeing this? Behold—the blueberry orchard I’ve conquered for you!”

“I’ll be streaming for an hour today, and we’ll do a giveaway every 20 minutes. A hundred boxes of fresh blueberries up for grabs—may the luckiest win!”

The moment they heard the words “luck-based,” the unlucky fans immediately slumped.

“I don’t even want to enter. I never win anything. Just drop a purchase link already—maybe I can snag a box if I’m fast enough.”

“Speaking of fast fingers, now I’m interested. But I don’t really like blueberries. Hey streamer, can you pick some of those oranges from the tree over there and put them up instead?”

“Seconding the request for summer oranges! I bought three yesterday at the fruit shop near my complex and it cost me 18 yuan. My heart still hurts! Oranges are ridiculously expensive this season!”

Seeing the barrage of comments asking for oranges, Wei Sheng handed his phone to Xiao Bai to film the orchard while he ran off to ask Wu Meiqiong how many other households in the village were growing summer oranges.

“None, actually! These dozen or so orange trees of mine were ones other people didn’t want. The rest of the village mostly grows mandarins—those are planted in large quantities, so fruit vendors will come to buy them,” Wu Meiqiong replied, a bit regretful that she hadn’t planted more early-ripening summer oranges. She made a mental note to buy more saplings this year and plant them in every bit of open space around her house.

Well, nothing to be done about that.

But Wu Meiqiong’s blueberry orchard alone covered several acres, so Wei Sheng took the opportunity to promote her fresh blueberries during the stream.

Talk about perfect timing! Since the livestream was impromptu, he couldn’t set up the usual product links. So Wei Sheng just pulled Wu Meiqiong into the frame. No middleman markup—he was giving his fans direct access to the source!

Didn’t Wei Sheng say he was filming on set? Watching him expertly hawk farm produce like a seasoned vendor, fans were momentarily disoriented. It felt like they were back watching Retracing the Path of Poverty Alleviation…

Still, the blueberries from this Huazhi Village really did look pretty good on camera.

And this woman, Wu Meiqiong, clearly wasn’t some influencer in a fancy dress posing in an orchard. She was a real farmer. According to her, the reason Huazhi Village started growing blueberries in bulk was thanks to the Poverty Alleviation Campaign a few years back. The county had brought in agricultural experts who tested the soil, measured sunlight hours, temperature differences between day and night, and finally came to a scientific conclusion—

The local climate was especially suited for growing blueberries and citrus trees!

Years later, the results proved the experts right. The mandarin and blueberry saplings provided by the poverty alleviation office turned out to be high-yield and high-quality. Though the farm-gate prices were still far below retail due to transport challenges, the profits were several times higher than what they used to earn from growing potatoes and sweet potatoes.

What’s more, hardworking folks like Wu Meiqiong, in order to save on fertilizer and boost orchard income, fenced off a plot near the orchard every year to raise chickens. The chicken manure was used as compost, fallen fruit was cleaned up, and leftover homegrown vegetables were fed to the chickens.

After the blueberry harvest, they’d let the chickens roam free in the orchard to forage—helping to loosen the soil in the process. Maybe that’s why the blueberries here tasted especially good?

Looking at those plump, frost-dusted blueberries, fans couldn’t help but swallow hard.

That one livestream gave Huazhi Village—a tiny, unheard-of fishing village—a sudden burst of fame in foodie circles.

Huazhi Village didn’t have romantic coastlines or sandy beaches. Locals had always relied on mudflat aquaculture and fruit farming to make a living. It was so low-profile that even many locals didn’t know such a charming place existed!

The village had long wanted to develop tourism—why else would they encourage residents to plant fruit trees? But with so many fishing villages in Province F, tourists all flocked to the trendy, Instagram-famous ones. Who would bother visiting a no-scenery village like theirs?

No scenery? Then create your own!

Wei Sheng, the poverty alleviation pro, sprang into action, brainstorming ideas with the villagers—

“Beautiful views are everywhere, but beauties are rare!”

“Village chief, what do you think of my junior here?”

Xiang Lei: “…”

“No no no! I’m not cut out for this. My acting is terrible—I literally got yelled at by the director until I cried!” Xiang Lei waved his hands frantically, rejecting the idea with everything he had.

Getting scolded on set was one thing. As Zhou always said, actors like him without formal training had to grow through constant criticism—it was like paying tuition in a different form. When he thought about how film school could cost hundreds of thousands in training fees, getting yelled at suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

But filming short videos to promote Huazhi Village?

“You’ve got this! Okay, Lei Lei, just follow my lead…” Wei Sheng coaxed and tricked him all the way up the mountain.

Most of Huazhi Village was mountainous and unsuitable for grain crops. The hills were mostly planted with mandarins and blueberries, with a few papaya trees scattered around. Wei Sheng wrote a vlog script for Xiang Lei with the theme: “How much fruit can you get for 100 yuan in Huazhi Village?”

A fishing village, a fruit orchard, and under the warm tones of a setting sun, a stunning young man in a white T-shirt and jeans bent over a blueberry bush, carefully selecting ripe berries from the branches.

Clear beads of sweat slid down his handsome brow, soaking through the plain white T-shirt. As he raised his hand to wipe his face, the camera caught a glimpse of his swan-like neck and delicate collarbones…

After filling his little basket, the boy stood up, satisfied, and caught a rolling blueberry mid-air, popping it into his mouth like a sneaky little hamster.

The naturally ripened berry was sweet with just a hint of tartness. The boy squinted his beautiful eyes in delight, the orange sunset casting a glow over his porcelain skin. The whole scene was breathtaking.

When the director saw the vlog clip Wei Sheng was editing, he lost it on the spot.

“No way! You can’t post that! We need that footage for ourselves!”

“Then go shoot your own. This one’s for the fruit orchard promo I promised Huazhi Village.”

Wei Sheng turned him down flat. Once the edit was done, he uploaded it straight to his social media and video platforms.

#Stumbled into a blueberry orchard while filming—another day of envying my junior’s god-tier looks (orchard vlog attached)

Since joining the crew, Wei Sheng hadn’t posted in nearly two weeks. His sudden reappearance sent fans into a frenzy, and they rushed to click the video.

Holy crap! What kind of celestial junior is this?

“Visual attack! This boy is gorgeous!”

“Clavicle stans are rolling around in bed right now—tonight’s dream fuel, secured!”

“Oh my god! That glance just now? I’m dead. I’m literally dead.”

“Help! The way he ate that blueberry—so innocent yet seductive! Forget the blueberries, little brother, eat me! I’m begging you!”

“Everyone’s jealous of Wei Sheng for having such a handsome junior, but me? I’m jealous of the sweat on his forehead. If I get a second life, I want to be that droplet—slide down his nose like a playground and melt into the warmth of his neck…”

“Girl at top, wipe your drool—it’s dripping on my head.”

While fans were losing their minds over his looks, Wei Sheng’s large army of haters finally arrived, fashionably late.

“LMAO! So Crown Prince Wei finally realized he’s not that good-looking and decided to use his junior’s god-tier face to keep his fanbase alive?”

Uh-huh? And what’s wrong with that? My junior is hot. Don’t like it? Bite me.

Wei Sheng no longer wanted to argue with the haters. Zhou Mingxing was right—some people just don’t like you, and no matter what you do, they’ll twist it into something malicious. Besides, some of the trolls online were clearly paid, or deliberately stirring the pot to ride Wei Sheng’s popularity and gain followers themselves. Falling for that kind of bait would be a rookie mistake.

After posting the video, worried that his own influence might not be enough, Wei Sheng opened his contacts and asked Shen Yi and Zhang Hanxing to help him out by sharing it as a favor.

Xiang Lei was already a strikingly handsome young man, and with a few senior brothers and sisters with their own fanbases giving the post a boost, that set of blueberry-picking GIFs exploded. By that very night, it had rocketed up the trending charts like lightning and fire!

In a world where looks matter so much, who could possibly resist a pure and stunning boy in white?

Zhou Mingxing never saw it coming. He had poured so much effort into promoting Xiang Lei, but the response had always been lukewarm. Who would’ve thought a vlog from Wei Sheng—less than three minutes long—would suddenly catapult the newcomer to overnight fame?

F Province was already a major tourism hub, and they’d never been shy about spending big on promotion. When Wei Sheng posted the vlog, he’d tagged the location to help promote Huazhi Village. That was all the F Province tourism department needed—they instantly recognized the golden opportunity. With Wei Sheng and Xiang Lei’s permission, they re-edited the video, starting with that breathtaking glimpse of Xiang Lei in the blueberry fields, and quickly invested in turning it into a full tourism promo for Huazhi Village.

It was a beautiful misunderstanding.

Netizens who saw the video flooded the internet, searching for how to get to Huazhi Village, hoping to bump into the gorgeous boy in the blueberry fields.

Meanwhile, the beautiful boy himself had just finished doing a good deed with his senior brother and was back on set filming—getting scolded by the director every day until his head drooped in defeat.

But Wei Sheng didn’t plead with the director on his behalf.

He himself had no formal acting training and had gone through the same brutal rookie phase, getting yelled at by directors until his ears rang. But honestly? A director willing to yell at you is a good thing—it means they haven’t given up on you. It means they still believe you can become a real actor.

The truly terrifying ones are the lazy directors of trashy productions—no matter how you act, they just wave it through in one take. That’s when you’re really in trouble.

Xiang Lei, once again brought to tears by the director’s scolding, had no idea that at that very moment, a flood of media outlets were trying every possible channel to get in touch with Zhou Mingxing, all hoping to score an interview with the white-clad boy who’d gone viral picking blueberries.

And over at the F Province Department of Culture and Tourism, the higher-ups were officially reaching out to J Province TV Station, hoping to invite Xiang Lei to become the face of Huazhi Village, helping them promote the village’s cultural tourism brand…

When Wei Sheng heard the news, he couldn’t help but let two thick, noodle-like tears stream down his face.

He knew it! He knew this would happen! This damn world that only cares about looks!

He was the one who first helped promote Huazhi Village, but just because his junior brother was better looking, the F Province tourism bureau completely skipped over him and went straight for the pretty boy?

(End of Chapter)