Chapter 174

Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record was a massive hit—an absolute sensation!

Just how popular was it? Even Zhou Mingxing, who only made a brief cameo in the show and barely appeared on screen, was recognized by parents when he went to pick up his daughter from school. A line of them queued up just to take photos with him.

His daughter’s math teacher even messaged him privately, asking if he could get a dual autograph from the lead actor Shan Geng and the lead actress Jiang Hanyue. His wife was a die-hard fan of the couple and he wanted to surprise her with a signed photo of the two leads as a birthday gift.

This was his daughter’s teacher—the one teaching her worst subject! What else could Zhou Mingxing do?

He immediately had his assistant select several professionally edited stills of Wei Sheng and Yang Junyao together, got them both to sign the photos when they had time, and even arranged for a special birthday edition. The math teacher was deeply moved.

His wife was even more ecstatic. On her birthday night, she practically forgot her husband existed, flaunting the autographed photos across every platform—Weibo, Moments¹, short videos—you name it. Fans of the show were green with envy.

With Zhou Mingxing being this resourceful, it was safe to say that little Zhou Yinuo would be getting extra attention in math class for the foreseeable future.

Who would have thought that a quirky, offbeat drama about poverty alleviation would not only make the leads famous, but also catapult every single supporting character into the spotlight?

Zhou Mingxing no longer needed to attend endless dinners to hustle for resources for his artists.

Now his biggest headache was figuring out how to tactfully turn down low-quality or obviously problematic offers for his artists without offending anyone.

Shen Yi, who played the female lead’s mother, originally thought that taking on a “mom role” meant she’d be gradually phased out of leading lady territory. But her portrayal of a seemingly gentle but manipulative, gaslighting wife—a masterclass in emotional abuse—left such a deep impression that a female director, who had just acquired a script about middle-aged romance, immediately thought of her.

The director had been struggling to find an actress who could be sweet and coquettish on the surface, but wasn’t the submissive type deep down.

The moment she saw Shen Yi’s performance in Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record, she nearly jumped out of her seat with excitement.

It was like searching high and low only to find the perfect match right in front of her. Shen Yi was exactly the heroine she’d been dreaming of.

So, halfway through the airing of the drama, Shen Yi signed a new contract with the upcoming production and was instantly upgraded from golden supporting actress to leading lady once again.

Zhang Hanxing had been on the idol path, known for his singing and dancing. His fans—especially his devoted female followers—never imagined their beloved “gege²” would one day become the head of a donkey farm!

What shocked them even more was that the usually cool and aloof Zhang Hanxing was completely convincing as the village chief’s dim-witted son and donkey-breeding expert.

Wait… could it be that their idol had always been this goofy in real life?

It wasn’t just the fans. Plenty of directors in the industry were suddenly intrigued by this idol-turned-actor.

That kind of unexpected charm wasn’t something just anyone could pull off. Zhang Hanxing was clearly full of potential.

So, while he was still preparing his new album, Zhou Mingxing went ahead and placed him in a period drama by a major director, where he continued to “play himself”—this time as the eccentric young master of a nouveau riche family.

Even the screenwriter of the drama, Liang Yi, became a hot commodity in the industry.

The good news was that after the show exploded in popularity, Liang Yi’s value as a screenwriter skyrocketed. Since there were so few writers who could handle realistic themes with both humor and depth, his rates were now starting to rival those of top-tier screenwriters.

At this rate, if he stuck with screenwriting, he might end up making more money than he ever did at his law firm.

The bad news? The show was so wildly popular that netizens were digging into the background of every single person listed in the credits. Eventually, the ever-resourceful gossip crowd uncovered Liang Yi’s true identity.

As a result, Liang Yi hadn’t dared return to his parents’ residential complex for over a month.

The reason was simple: nearly every elderly person in the country who enjoyed watching TV was now hooked on the show. Once they found out Liang Yi was the screenwriter, they started asking if he could invite the cast over for a meal. “We’ll host!” they said enthusiastically.

Liang Yi considered himself fairly outgoing, but even he couldn’t withstand the overwhelming enthusiasm of the neighborhood aunties and uncles. In the end, he and his wife had to flee to the villa he owned elsewhere.

If even the screenwriter could become this famous, one could only imagine how popular Wei Sheng, the male lead, had become.

After the show’s explosive success, the production team was invited to appear on a national television program. During the interview, director Chen Shu revealed that back when they were filming the movie version of New Song of Sending Off the Lover, Wei Sheng had actually suggested rewriting the script into something like Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record.

Unfortunately, the film’s lead actress at the time had a packed schedule and couldn’t wait for a new script, so they had no choice but to proceed with the original version.

As soon as Chen Shu said this, even the national TV reporter couldn’t help but sigh in regret for the film’s lead actress, Chen Qingyao.

Talk about bad luck.

Sometimes, no matter how hard someone tries, they just can’t catch a break. If she had waited just two more months, she could’ve landed a script that would’ve launched her to stardom. But because of “scheduling conflicts,” she missed out on the golden opportunity that was Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record. Chen Qingyao and her team were probably kicking themselves right now.

What the reporter didn’t know was that Chen Shu had actually gone easy on her. He didn’t mention that the real reason they didn’t switch to the new script wasn’t due to scheduling at all—it was because Chen Qingyao simply didn’t want to.

If he had said that on air, Chen Qingyao’s career in the film industry would’ve been over.

Fame is a mysterious thing. Once an actor gets labeled as someone who “just can’t make it no matter what,” no director in the industry will want to cast them again.

After all, people make films for fame and profit. Who would risk bringing a jinx into their production and potentially dragging the whole team down?

This interview only further reinforced the belief in Wei Sheng’s uncanny “lucky aura.”

Some gossip reporters who specialized in metaphysics even did a fortune-reading analysis and confidently concluded that the reason the movie version of New Song of Sending Off the Lover flopped wasn’t because Wei Sheng’s lucky aura had failed, but because the female lead was a walking curse. Her “toxicity” was too strong and dragged the whole production down.

The reporter who posted this had a decent following on Weibo, and the post was widely shared. Wei Sheng saw it too.

“These entertainment reporters are vicious,” Wei Sheng muttered with a frown. “If this keeps up, Chen Qingyao might never get another decent script again…”

Even though she had leaked a recording of her private conversation with Chen Shu in an attempt to shift the blame, which Wei Sheng found pretty low, he still felt that things were going too far. It was hard enough for actresses in this industry. She might’ve been unprofessional, but she didn’t deserve to be completely destroyed.

Using the label of a “jinx” to mock her was basically cutting off her future. That was just cruel.

“Every blister on your feet comes from the road you chose to walk. Don’t tell me you’re thinking of saving her?” Zhou Mingxing shot him a look.

Wei Sheng shook his head. He wasn’t God. Besides, he had his own share of haters online. Who was he to rescue Chen Qingyao?

Despite her tanking reputation, Chen Qingyao’s acting skills, experience, and industry standing were still solid. She didn’t have many haters, and she’d always been professional on set.

But the truth was, in this industry, talent and hard work weren’t always enough. Sometimes, it all came down to choices—and luck.

After skyrocketing back into fame, Wei Sheng once again found himself flooded with film and commercial offers. However, aside from a New Year tribute film from the national broadcaster, he turned down all other acting projects. Instead, he chose to collaborate with a new partner—Y Province TV Station—on a brand-new rural-themed variety show. As expected, the filming location was set in Jiashangou Village, Qingshan Town!

Y Province TV Station was over the moon when they received the news.

This year, they wouldn’t even need to purchase other dramas. Just one show, Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record, had already earned the station a fortune. Granted, due to a rather unfortunate profit-sharing agreement from the beginning, half the earnings had to go to the show’s investors. But even so, the station still made a killing.

And that’s not even mentioning the show’s second round of prime-time reruns. Who would’ve thought that the ad revenue from the rerun would be several times higher than the original broadcast? Even more jaw-dropping, while other provincial stations were fuming with envy, Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record still dominated the 8 PM slot with an unmatched lead in ratings during its rerun!

With such a phenomenal track record, Y Province TV Station took this new variety show collaboration very seriously. Especially after recalling the two smash-hit shows Wei Sheng had previously done with J Province TV Station, they figured—why pretend to be experts when they weren’t? They might as well invite this ratings lucky charm to be involved from the very beginning.

After all, the last project that flopped miserably due to Wei Sheng not being involved in the early stages was still being ridiculed online. That would be the film adaptation of New Song of Sending Off the Lover, which started strong but crashed hard.

The director of that film had truly been unlucky. Wei Sheng had warned him that the script lacked punch and even offered a brilliant idea to improve it. But in the end, because the lead actress refused to change the script, the film bombed at the box office and with critics alike. Forget about winning awards—it ended up being used as a cautionary tale in artistic failure, publicly mocked online.

With that painful lesson in mind, Y Province TV Station didn’t dare make the same mistake. They already lagged behind in variety show planning. Compared to top-tier provincial stations with hit shows, or even some popular online variety programs, they were clearly outmatched.

So, after a closed-door meeting, the station’s leadership sent a direct invitation to Wei Sheng’s team:

“Boss Wei, would you be interested in investing in our new variety show?”

What kind of show? Oh, well, we’ve only decided that it’ll be a variety show. As for the theme, format, and execution—we were hoping you could guide us!

Wei Sheng was speechless when he received this unusual proposal.

It was the first time he’d ever seen a TV station send an invitation to a celebrity without even having a show title or script ready—asking the guest to write it themselves…

“We’re not just asking you to be a guest!” Y Province TV Station added bashfully. “We’d actually like to invite you to join as both a guest and an investor.”

Well, well! So they didn’t just want him—they wanted his money too?

That said, Wei Sheng was actually quite intrigued by this unusual offer.

What Y Province TV Station didn’t know was that his team had already had a brief collaboration with their province before Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record even aired.

Last year, for Wei Sheng’s birthday, his fans initially planned to rent ad space on big screens and subway stations in major cities to send him birthday wishes. But after the whole “Xinyue Jiaren” sanitary pad incident, they were inspired. Since their idol was passionate about poverty alleviation and charity, why not turn the birthday support into a charitable event?

A few fan representatives contacted Wei Sheng’s studio to ask if he had any regular charitable donation recipients.

When they shared their idea of donating sanitary pads to impoverished mountain areas, Wei Sheng had his team analyze customer data on the backend and identified regions with the highest purchases of Xinyue Jiaren pads. One of them happened to be a poverty-stricken county in Y Province.

Originally, the fans planned to donate 100,000 pads. But as luck would have it, the founder of Xinyue Jiaren was a die-hard Wei Sheng fan.

Supporting her idol? Forget about profit! Jiang Xinyue waved her hand and sold the pads to the fan club at factory price.

In the end, the charity fund raised by fans managed to purchase over a million Xinyue Jiaren sanitary pads, distributed across ten impoverished regions—each receiving 100,000 pads.

The creative and meaningful birthday support even trended briefly on social media.

However, since fan-led birthday charity events usually don’t get covered by local media, Y Province TV Station never realized that they could’ve connected with Wei Sheng’s studio months earlier. Who knows—maybe they could’ve landed not just a hit drama, but a blockbuster variety show too?

But what’s the point of saying that now? It just makes them want to cry.

Luckily, they had the foresight to buy Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record! Now, Y Province TV Station had their very own ratings lucky charm—and they were determined to hold on tight.

They weren’t going to be like J Province TV Station, who wanted Wei Sheng to help them make money but couldn’t stand him earning too much, always trying to control him. The new station chief at Y Province TV was a young man born in the 1980s, who had risen through the ranks from the front lines of poverty alleviation. He understood better than anyone what Wei Sheng’s true value was.

Being a celebrity or entertainer was just one of Wei Sheng’s many identities in the industry. His real trump card was his massive influence in poverty relief and agricultural support, along with the incredible cohesion of his fanbase.

So during a high-level closed-door meeting, this new station chief firmly supported the business and production teams, making a bold decision: if they wanted to win over this golden goose, they couldn’t play games. Be generous! They would offer a share of the profits to Wei Sheng’s studio and invite him to participate in the planning and production of the show from start to finish.

Only by making Wei Sheng an investor and giving him decision-making power could they avoid another disaster like New Song of Sending Off the Lover, where he couldn’t even revise the script without being shot down by the lead actress.

With their own show, if a female guest refused to cooperate with the program’s direction? No problem—part ways amicably. Goodbye! A ratings lucky charm like Wei Sheng was hard to find, but a female guest? Those were a dime a dozen. If the station chief at his level couldn’t see which was more important, he’d have no business keeping his job.

Y Province TV Station didn’t have the marketing power of a top-tier station, nor did they have deep pockets. So, aside from showing genuine sincerity, what else could they do to compete for someone like Wei Sheng, who had become one of the hottest names in the entertainment industry?

As it turned out, the new station chief’s boldness paid off. By upgrading their invitation from guest to investor, they managed to beat out the top-tier stations.

Right after the second round of Jiashangou Poverty Alleviation Record finished airing, Wei Sheng officially brought his studio into Y Province TV Station and launched the planning of the new variety show!

This time, he no longer had to worry about being kicked aside once the show became a hit. He didn’t have to worry about good ideas being rejected. Because now, he was no longer just a replaceable guest—he was an investor in the show.

The tables had turned. The former underdog now had a seat at the table. For the first time, he could call the shots himself.

(End of this chapter)

Translator’s Notes