Chapter 142

The internet was in an uproar over the Wei Sheng family situation, but Wei Sheng himself, cut off from the world by a storm that knocked out power and internet, was happily sitting by the hearth, watching Jiang Xiaoman prepare Tea Mug Stewed Rice for them.

This dish was something of a local specialty in Langshan—a “lazy person’s meal,” as the locals called it.

Especially in a place like Nine-Bend Slope, where most of the young people had left for work in the cities and the children lived at school due to the long commute, the only ones left at home were usually one or two elderly folks.

Anyone who’s ever cooked knows that making a full meal just for one person is rarely worth the effort. Cook too little rice, and it sticks to the bottom of the pot. Cook too much, and you’re stuck with leftovers for days. Rural folks, who hate waste, came up with a clever solution.

Enter the Tea Mug Stewed Rice.

The method was simple. Take one of those old-fashioned enamel tea mugs everyone had at home. First, rinse the rice and boil it until soft. Scoop out the rice and save the starchy water to drink. Drain the rice, then pour it into a tea mug that’s been greased with soybean oil. On top, layer slices of cured meat, sausage, potato slices—whatever you like. If you’re into spicy food, toss in a couple of dried chilies. Cover the mug, set it on the hearth over the charcoal fire, and let it slowly cook through.

When you hear the satisfying sizzle of crispy rice forming at the bottom, lift the lid, pour in some soy sauce, stir it all up, and dig in.

Some families, for convenience, would prepare three mugs at once—enough to last the whole day without cooking again.

During the busy farming season, they’d prep the stewed rice the night before, bring it to the fields, light a bonfire, and set the mugs near the flames to cook slowly while they worked. By the time the labor was done, the rice would be ready—hot, delicious, and incredibly convenient.

Best of all, it was cheap. Aside from the rice, which had to be bought, everything else—cured meat, oil, vegetables—came from their own land.

The Tea Mug Stewed Rice was ready in no time.

Jiang Xiaoman used a cloth to lift the piping hot mug, removed the lid, and poured in the Li Ji Original Brew Soy Sauce that Wei Sheng had brought. The moment the sauce hit the crispy rice at the bottom, it let out a loud crackle, releasing a mouthwatering aroma.

Grinning, Jiang Xiaoman handed Wei Sheng a pair of chopsticks. “You have to mix it yourself. That’s part of the fun. There are lots of toppings here—take a look and add whatever you like.”

Wei Sheng had already noticed the small table nearby, loaded with side dishes. He’d assumed Jiang Xiaoman was planning to make noodles with them. He hadn’t expected them to be toppings for the stewed rice.

He glanced over the options, picked up the communal spoon, and added a scoop of fried peanuts, a spoonful of golden crispy fried dough bits, a scoop of stir-fried minced pork with pickled long beans, and a chopstickful of pickled bamboo shoots. Finally, he added half a spoon of chili oil. After mixing it all together, he scooped up a bite and popped it into his mouth.

The flavor was out of this world.

“This is amazing! Xiaoman, let’s open a shop in J City together! We don’t need to sell anything else—just this Tea Mug Stewed Rice! It’ll be a hit!”

In recent years, retro styles from past decades had made a big comeback. Those old enamel mugs and aluminum lunch boxes that had once been phased out were now trendy again. The mug used for this stewed rice was exactly the kind you’d see in vintage dramas, complete with old revolutionary slogans printed on the side. It had serious retro charm.

Jiang Xiaoman couldn’t possibly make dozens of servings by himself, but luckily, every household in Nine-Bend Slope knew how to make this dish. He invited a few aunties over to lend a hand, and before long, they had cooked up dozens of mugs of Tea Mug Stewed Rice. Outside, rain poured down in sheets. Inside, every crew member held a tea mug bigger than their heads, huddled around the fire, eating with gusto.

Once the rice was gone, no one let the crispy bits at the bottom go to waste. They scraped them out with chopsticks and popped them into their mouths—crunchy, soaked in soybean oil, rich with the fat from the cured meat, and infused with the savory aroma of soy sauce. The crispy rice was even better than the stewed rice itself.

Everyone was still licking their lips when they overheard Wei Sheng and Jiang Xiaoman talking about opening a shop in J Province. Their eyes lit up, and they looked ready to rush over and line up on the spot.

After all, when you’re a guest in someone’s home and they go through all the trouble to make you a meal like this, it’s a sign of their hospitality. As a guest, you can’t just shamelessly show up every day expecting another bowl.

But if Wei Sheng and Jiang Xiaoman opened a shop in the provincial capital, that would be a different story. You could go whenever you wanted. Too lazy to go out? Just order delivery.

A few hours later, the power came back. The director had someone upload the video of Jiang Xiaoman making Tea Mug Stewed Rice to the production team’s official social media account, and it immediately attracted a swarm of foodies.

This Tea Mug Stewed Rice looked a lot like the claypot rice they were used to, just in a different container. So why did it look so much more delicious?

“Help! I just searched and there’s nowhere around here that sells this Tea Mug Stewed Rice!”

“Exactly! Come open a shop in J City already! My kid’s practically drooling!”

“I can’t wait for them to open a shop. Are there any locals from Langshan in the comments? If I travel there, will the farm stays make this Tea Mug Stewed Rice?”

“A local here—nope! Seems like only folks in Nine-Bend Slope eat this. But it doesn’t look too hard. When I go back to my hometown, I’ll grab a couple of those big enamel mugs from the corner store and ask my mom to make it.”

Huh? That’s right!

This Tea Mug Stewed Rice really wasn’t all that different from claypot rice. The only real change was swapping the claypot for an enamel mug. How hard could it be?

Seeing the comment section blow up with people clamoring to buy enamel mugs to DIY their own Tea Mug Stewed Rice, Jiang Xiaoman and Wei Sheng exchanged a glance. Without hesitation, they snatched the promotional assistant’s phone from the director’s hand. Wei Sheng took on the task of persuading the director, while Jiang Xiaoman quickly pinned a reply in the comments:

“The Fierce Wife Arrives: Hey fam, want to make your own Tea Mug Stewed Rice? We’ve got vintage enamel mugs, farmhouse-style cured meats and sausages, locally grown dried chilies, pickled bamboo shoots, pickled long beans, red-flesh potatoes, and Nine-Bend Slope’s specialty Navel Oranges… See you in the livestream at 8 PM tonight!”

The director was dumbfounded.

Wait, are they seriously selling products now?

Hold on, since when did Nine-Bend Slope start producing enamel mugs? When did you two sneak off and stock up behind my back?

“Oh come on, Old Li, you’re so out of the loop! These days, livestream selling doesn’t need you to stock up yourself. As long as you’ve got enough followers, just go to the product selection platform, pick what you want, and add the link. Easy,” Wei Sheng said, satisfied as he handed the phone back to the promo assistant. He didn’t forget to remind her to fully charge the phone and bring it to them at 8 PM for the livestream.

The new short drama director, Li Ran, was still green. Poor guy had thought that being a director meant wielding authority just below the heavens, that his word on set was law. He never imagined that when they came to Nine-Bend Slope to shoot, the investor himself—Wei Sheng—would tag along. With the “Emperor Emeritus” present, what could Li Ran do?

{T/n : Emperor Emeritus is the title for a retired Japanese emperor.

Right now, it refers to Akihito, who ruled during the Heisei era (1989–2019). He abdicated in 2019 due to age and health, passing the throne to his son, Emperor Naruhito (Reiwa era).}

Of course, he smiled and agreed to everything.

But even after being so agreeable, Wei Sheng still wouldn’t let him off the hook.

“By the way, Old Li, since it’s raining these few days, why don’t we shoot some indoor material?”

“What? There’s indoor content for Season Two? I thought we finished all that before coming to Langshan!” Li Ran looked at Wei Sheng in horror.

Did he miss something in the script?

“Old Li, you’ve got to think outside the box! Just think about how hard it was to get to Langshan! Hauling all this equipment up here nearly broke our poor cameraman’s back, didn’t it?”

“Since we’re already here, why not make the most of it and shoot more footage while we can?”

“For example, tonight Xiaoman and I will be livestreaming to help the folks in Nine-Bend Slope sell their goods. Enamel mugs are easy—we can source those online. But for the local cured meats, red-flesh potatoes, pickled bamboo shoots, pickled long beans and such, don’t we need someone to help pack and ship them?”

“Wait a second! President Wei, when you say ‘someone,’ you mean… our crew?”

“Who else? You want us to carry baskets up the mountain to pick Navel Oranges ourselves? Old Li, you think you’ve got what it takes to hike mountain trails with a basket full of oranges?” Wei Sheng looked at Li Ran with mock admiration.

Li Ran: “…Thanks, but no. Don’t make stuff up!”

Faced with the choice between packing goods or picking oranges, Li Ran decisively chose the former.

No joke—given the terrain in Nine-Bend Slope, forget carrying a basket half his height to pick oranges. Even empty-handed, with his aging limbs, he’d probably tumble down the mountain if he wasn’t careful.

Wei Sheng and Jiang Xiaoman were both hyper-efficient go-getters. With the two of them teaming up, it didn’t even take an afternoon to mobilize the entire village of Nine-Bend Slope.

Because of the rain, many families hadn’t been able to transport the Navel Oranges they picked yesterday down the mountain. They’d been worried the fruit would spoil in their hands. But then Wei Sheng had the village officials broadcast an announcement: anyone willing to sell their oranges could bring them over, and he’d buy them at the same market price as down the mountain.

Word spread that Wei Sheng wasn’t just buying Navel Oranges—he also wanted to purchase homemade cured meats, sausages, pickled bamboo shoots, and spicy pickles. The whole village was abuzz.

For the villagers of Nine-Bend Slope, selling oranges was the biggest deal of the season. Their early-ripening Navel Oranges could fetch as much as four yuan per jin for the first batch of large, high-quality fruit! Even though the peak season had passed, good-looking oranges were still going for 2.8 yuan per jin. A hundred jin meant 280 yuan!

Yesterday, seeing that rain was on the way, everyone had rushed up the mountain to harvest the ripe fruit before it got waterlogged. Now, every household had hundreds of jin of oranges piled up.

They’d planned to wait for the rain to stop before hauling the fruit down the mountain to sell. But now? No need to carry anything—buyers were right here in the village, paying the same price as the market below. Why wait? Let them rot?

“President Wei, I just did a rough count. If we collect all the Navel Oranges from the village, we’re looking at at least seventy thousand jin. That’s a huge amount. Can we really sell them all?”

Xiao Bai, Wei Sheng’s assistant, had come along to help tally up the oranges household by household. The more he counted, the more anxious he became. If they didn’t sell in time, the fruit would spoil. Even at just over two yuan per jin, seventy thousand jin meant well over a hundred thousand yuan!

“If we can’t sell them, we’ll donate them! Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up anyway. We’ll treat it as an early gift for the elderly.”

Xiao Bai checked the calendar on his phone. Sure enough, the Mid-Autumn Festival wasn’t far off. No wonder the boss was so calm.

Even Wei Sheng himself had mentally prepared for the possibility that the Navel Oranges might not sell out. If that happened, he planned to donate the leftovers to the Fund for Impoverished and Solitary Elderly. After all, it was good for the elderly to eat more fruit—eating oranges was definitely safer than taking medicine.

But he still underestimated the purchasing power of his fans.

Or maybe it was because of the recent smear campaign against him online. His fans had been deeply hurt. For the sake of their idol, they didn’t dare argue with the haters pretending to be neutral bystanders. They’d been bottling up their frustration for a while. Then last night, they saw the video Hu Qianqian had recorded. Just thinking about how young Wei Sheng was, yet unloved by his biological father, who clearly favored his nephew instead, and how even his grandmother preferred the cousin from their hometown—every visit back home ended with him being bullied. Wasn’t that just heartbreaking?

And yet, despite all that, the internet was flooded with people calling him “ungrateful” and “disrespectful to his elders.” Meanwhile, he quietly made his way into the mountains to help the locals sell their oranges through livestreams…

Damn it! With someone as good as Wei Sheng, anyone who dares to slander him again is asking for a fight!

Wiping away their tears, the fans couldn’t be bothered to argue with those brainless haters anymore. They charged straight into the livestream room of *The Fierce Wife Arrives* production team and, in one go, bought up over seventy thousand jin of Navel Oranges!

And that wasn’t all. The retro-style enamel tea mugs, which were priced even lower, sold over 300,000 units in just one night!

The cured meats, sausages, pickled chili, and sour bamboo shoots that Wei Sheng had sourced from local villagers—because of their limited quantities—sold out the moment they hit the shelves.

Jiang Xiaoman: “…”

I’m in awe! Brother Wei, and you still say you’re not a top-tier celebrity? With this kind of selling power, you’re the very definition of top-tier!

Wei Sheng was at a bit of a loss too. He hadn’t expected that after being dragged through the mud online, even his old employer, the TV station, would take the opportunity to stir the pot—subtly implying he was ungrateful and trying to break his contract now that he was finally popular. He’d thought that after this wave of online hate, at least half his fans would abandon him.

But to his surprise, not only did his follower count on social media not drop, it actually increased by over a hundred thousand. And his livestream sales shattered all his previous personal records since entering the industry.

Even President Li, who was thousands of miles away, couldn’t resist calling to congratulate him—and casually asked if, once the contract dispute with the TV station was resolved, Wei Sheng would be willing to make an appearance in their livestream room.

Wei Sheng: “…”

Do people really have this much blind faith in my character?

“Haha! Remember a few years ago when we launched that premium, additive-free soy sauce? It was priced at 29.9 yuan a bottle in supermarkets, and we almost got flamed into shutting down production!” President Li laughed heartily on the other end of the line. “And guess what happened in the end?”

Wei Sheng couldn’t help but laugh too. Of course he knew what happened. When the seasoning industry got hit with scandals, that same soy sauce—once criticized for being overpriced—suddenly flew off the shelves overnight. During that time, many livestreams selling premium soy sauce had to switch to pre-orders because they’d completely sold out. It was insane!

So President Li empathized with him so deeply because he’d been through the same kind of public backlash himself?

(End of chapter)