Chapter 159

After resigning from the TV station, Wei Sheng could finally reorganize his resources openly and without restraint!

He was especially focused on the online company. He hoped to turn it into a major platform for his team’s future livestreams supporting rural development. But his idea of “supporting agriculture” wasn’t just about helping villagers sell their products. He also wanted to use the advantage of the distribution network to help low-income families find more affordable and reliable goods.

This concept was inspired by Grandpa Hu.

When Wei Sheng was a child, he often helped his grandfather run the family shop. He remembered how Grandpa would pack up near-expired food and bruised fruit to sell at discounted prices. Every evening after 8 p.m., neighbors struggling to make ends meet would come by to buy these bargain goods.

Back then, Grandpa told him, for families living on government assistance, saving one yuan was as good as earning one. Making money was hard for them, so helping them save money was, in a way, helping them make money.

Wei Sheng knew he couldn’t help every low-income family escape poverty. But within his ability, he wanted to ease their burden, even just a little, by helping them save. For example, by supporting more affordable daily-use brands like Xinyue Jiaren.

Tonight’s “Weekend Story Time” was essentially a talk-show version of the “Retracing the Path of Poverty Alleviation” program. There were no product pitches throughout the entire livestream. All the goods quietly sat in the yellow shopping cart feature, while the stream featured only Wei Sheng, Jiang Xinyue, and two employees from Xinyue Jiaren.

Jiang Xinyue had invited the two employees to share their stories because both of them came from Langshan.

Only then did the viewers in the livestream finally realize what was going on: What scandal? What nonsense? They’d been tricked by Wei Sheng again!

But now? Asking them to leave the stream? No way. They hadn’t even heard the full story yet…

It all started with the story of Jiang Xinyue’s mother returning home every year with a trunk full of sanitary pads. Her relatives back in the village, especially the women, always looked forward to her visits because she brought them free, affordable sanitary pads.

Two mao. In the city, people wouldn’t even bother to pick up that much money off the ground. But in many parts of Langshan, women still used cloth strips cut from old clothes as makeshift pads, just to save those two mao.

Hua Niu, one of the women Jiang Xinyue invited to the stream, was nearly beaten to death by her mother-in-law and ex-husband over two packs of sanitary pads.

She had worked in the city before and knew that using sanitary pads was healthier for women. Even if she bought the cheapest ones, she had gotten used to using them during her period while working outside.

But after she got married, her in-laws accused her of being wasteful. Her mother-in-law insisted she use cloth pads, scolding her for being “too picky.” “Our ancestors all used cloth. Who do you think you are, some rich lady?”

Newly married, Hua Niu didn’t want to start a fight. But after two months of using cloth pads, she developed painful infections and ulcers. When she wanted to go to the hospital, her mother-in-law shoved a handful of ash between her legs, claiming it would heal her.

What a load of crap.

Enduring the pain, Hua Niu secretly used her own stash of money to go down the mountain for treatment. She also bought two packs of cheap sanitary pads, thinking that since she’d paid for them herself—only 3.5 yuan per pack—her mother-in-law wouldn’t complain.

But what awaited her was a brutal beating from her husband. Her mother-in-law egged him on, shouting that he should “teach his wife a lesson once and for all.”

By the time Hua Niu was beaten within an inch of her life, blood had soaked through both legs of her pants. Her husband and mother-in-law didn’t care whether she lived or died. Instead, while she lay unconscious from her injuries, they ransacked her belongings and confiscated all the money she had saved before marriage.

They even took her bank cards, despite not knowing the PINs. It was clear—they didn’t intend to leave her a single cent.

Hua Niu was bedridden for a month.

Fortunately, she had once seen the world beyond the mountains. She knew what a normal marriage looked like. After recovering, she used the Chinese New Year visit to her parents’ home as a chance to escape. With the help of her cousin, she fled to a small town in the south and started working at Jiang Xinyue’s factory.

The town was filled with family-run workshops and tens of thousands of migrant workers. Hua Niu changed her phone number and cut all ties with her past. She hid for two years, saved up enough for a bride price, hired a lawyer, and finally ended that nightmare of a marriage.

“I see a lot of people online criticizing us, saying our sanitary pads are low quality, that cheap stuff is never good. But what they don’t know is, back in our hometown, many girls can’t even afford these cheap ones.”

“I still remember the first time I got my period. I was at school, and our Chinese teacher gave me a sanitary pad and told me to ask my parents for money to buy more. But my mom didn’t have any money. In the end, she tore up one of my old shirts and made me a cloth pad. I remember thinking, ‘It must be nice to have money. Store-bought pads must feel so much better.’”

“I’m not saying this to gain sympathy. I just want to ask everyone to go easy on us. It’s okay if you don’t buy our sanitary pads. But please don’t criticize us so harshly that we’re forced to shut down. Because if even we stop making these pads, then the rural women who can’t afford big-name brands will have nothing left to use.”

Everyone understood Hua Niu’s words. For a moment, the comment section went silent. No one knew what to say.

In this world, there are women who complain that ten-yuan-per-piece sanitary pads aren’t soft or comfortable enough. And there are women who can’t afford even the two-mao-per-piece ones. All women, yet some are born in Rome, while others are born to pull the cart… The internet’s sarcasm was cruel, but painfully true.

After Hua Niu left, the second guest to enter the livestream was a middle-aged woman named Jiang Guifen.

Viewers braced themselves for another tragic tale of rural women’s suffering. But to their surprise, this time it wasn’t a downtrodden daughter-in-law—it was a queen from the mountains!

Jiang Guifen had once been an ordinary left-behind wife. Her husband died in an accident while working in the city, and to support her three children, she followed the villagers to find work in town. By chance, she became a nanny for a retired female judge.

It was in that household that Jiang Guifen heard all kinds of stories about women’s rights. She learned that many things she had taken for granted—like husbands beating their wives, refusing to give money for household expenses, or marrying off underage daughters for cash—were actually illegal.

However, Jiang Guifen hadn’t received much formal education. Even though she knew something was wrong, she had no idea how to change it. So, she shared her confusion with a retired female judge.

From that moment on, this aunt from the countryside and the retired judge formed a duo known as the “Rural Rights Defenders.” Together, they helped and rescued over thirty rural women who had been pushed to the brink by marriage and life itself, including several underage girls.

“Judge Wang is a good person. She sponsored those girls to attend vocational schools. Now, several of them have graduated and found jobs in the city. They don’t have to live like us anymore, blind to the world, getting beaten just for buying a pack of sanitary pads that costs a few yuan. It’s really wonderful!” As Jiang Guifen spoke about her years of rights advocacy in the countryside, her weathered face seemed to glow.

It was only then that netizens realized Jiang Guifen wasn’t actually an employee of Xinyue Jiaren. Still, many people at the company knew her, because many of the rural women she had “rescued” from the mountains were eventually settled into jobs at Jiang Xinyue’s factory.

Making sanitary pads doesn’t require particularly advanced skills, especially now that machines handle most of the work. The factory workers mainly sort out defective products on the assembly line and do some basic packaging. The pay isn’t high, but meals and lodging are provided, and they can still earn two to three thousand yuan a month. For many rural women who previously didn’t even have a few hundred yuan to their name, this was already a great improvement. With some frugality, they could save up to twenty thousand yuan a year.

“So please, everyone, support our Boss Jiang. And if you can say a few kind words about our Xinyue Jiaren brand, that would be even better.” Jiang Guifen pressed her hands together and gave a deep, respectful bow to the viewers in the livestream. “Please help us. Without Xinyue Jiaren, we women from the mountains—who barely know a few characters—wouldn’t even know where to go just to get a bite to eat.”

No one expected that a simple one-hour Weekend Story Time livestream would spark such a massive public reaction—even Wei Sheng himself hadn’t anticipated it.

The topic “Do two-yuan-per-pad sanitary products have value?” ignited a nationwide discussion. Nearly every woman who had ever experienced a menstrual cycle joined the conversation online.

Some argued that you shouldn’t sacrifice health just for affordability. Sanitary pads are a product where quality matters, and it’s worth paying more for peace of mind. As for rural women who couldn’t afford expensive pads, perhaps the government could offer subsidies to help them access better products?

Others dismissed subsidies as a pipe dream. With so many low-income women across China unable to afford name-brand sanitary pads, what government department could shoulder such a massive, ongoing expense? After all, this isn’t a one-time subsidy—women of reproductive age menstruate every month. Would subsidies be issued every year? How much? And how would eligibility be determined?

Some suggested that instead of direct subsidies to individuals, the government could provide targeted funding to niche brands like Xinyue Jiaren, encouraging them to produce healthier, safer sanitary pads and sell them at affordable prices in rural markets. That way, there’d be no need to hand out subsidies door to door—people could afford to buy them on their own.

This last suggestion received a particularly high number of likes. Many netizens thought it was a great idea. However, some voiced concerns, warning that targeted subsidies could easily lead to corruption. They cited past initiatives like the “healthy milk” program for students, which started with good intentions but ended up with funds embezzled by corrupt officials. Parents paid for real milk, but their children ended up with watered-down “milk beverages.” Netizens worried that government subsidies might actually result in more substandard, unhealthy sanitary pads flooding the market.

“I say let the market handle it! If Xinyue Jiaren’s sanitary pads are really that good, then let’s all support them. As long as they stick to affordable pricing, the better their factory does, the more healthy, affordable sanitary pads they can produce for regular people.” One netizen offered this solution.

The idea quickly gained traction and received even more likes.

Exactly! After all this arguing, everyone realized that government policy isn’t something ordinary people can control. And besides, distant water can’t put out a nearby fire. If we want low-income women to have access to affordable, healthy sanitary pads, isn’t there already a ready-made solution right in front of us?

Jiang Xinyue never imagined that the investment she had begged for, knocking on doors and pleading with everyone she could find, would finally come through thanks to a single livestream by Wei Sheng.

In this era, successful women across various industries aren’t just changing their own fates through hard work. When they can, they also reach out to help other women climb out of the depths of hardship.

The very night it was revealed that Jiang Xinyue wanted to produce affordable, healthy sanitary pads for low-income women, several female entrepreneurs from the same province reached out to her through the contact info on the Xinyue Jiaren website. They expressed their willingness to help her build a larger, standardized factory and expand Xinyue Jiaren’s production capacity, so more affordable sanitary pads could hit the market as soon as possible.

Women’s rights organizations also expressed interest in visiting the Xinyue Jiaren factory. If the sanitary pads truly met national hygiene standards, they hoped to purchase a batch to use as gifts in menstrual health awareness campaigns, distributing them to women of childbearing age in rural towns.

Who would’ve thought that a seemingly ordinary commercial livestream would evolve into a nationwide movement focused on protecting women’s health and rights?

No one dared to use “sanitary pad” as an insult against Wei Sheng anymore.

Think about it—everyone now knew that Wei Sheng, by endorsing Xinyue Jiaren’s affordable sanitary pad brand, had won over the hearts of countless female netizens. At this point, calling him “sanitary pad” wasn’t an insult—it was practically a badge of honor.

Wei Sheng hadn’t paid off any influencers or PR accounts, so they had no reason to say anything nice about him.

But just because they didn’t speak up didn’t mean netizens would forget what he did.

If Xinyue Jiaren was the biggest beneficiary of the livestream, then the second was undoubtedly Wei Sheng’s livestreaming company.

The main account gained over a million followers in just one week. The “Weekend Life Channel,” which focused on “Weekend Flash Sales” and “Weekend Story Time,” gained over 600,000 followers that same week. Monthly sales revenue exceeded 100 million yuan, with Xinyue Jiaren alone accounting for more than half of that.

The women were right. Maybe they couldn’t change national policy, but they could decide who deserved their money.

They couldn’t improve the income of low-income women, but at the very least, they could help them afford better menstrual products.

Jiang Xinyue took the opportunity to launch a charity initiative through her online store: for every order placed, Xinyue Jiaren would donate 0.5 yuan to a public welfare fund dedicated to providing free menstrual hygiene products to women of childbearing age in impoverished and remote mountain regions.

The campaign quickly drew in more customers, and some enthusiastic netizens even began “bothering” customer service, saying they didn’t need the sanitary pads themselves. Instead, they asked if they could place an order without receiving the product, so the pads could be donated directly to the women in need.

Jiang Xinyue collected all the screenshots of these messages and sent them not only to Wei Sheng but also shared them in Wei Sheng’s fan group.

Unexpectedly, this sparked a whole new wave of charitable action. After some discussion, the Wei Sheng fan club decided that for this year’s birthday gift to Teacher Wei, they wouldn’t bother with anything else. Instead, they would pool their money to organize a charity event.

Weren’t the haters always mocking their Teacher Wei with the nickname “sanitary pad”? Then why not turn it around? On Teacher Wei’s birthday, they would donate 100,000 Xinyue Jiaren sanitary pads to low-income families!

What’s this called?

This is called beating the haters at their own game—leaving them with nowhere to run, ha!

Wei Sheng: “…”

(End of chapter)