Chapter 193

The first season of The Rebirth of Housewives was set in Shenwu Ridge Village, Yuan Stream Township—the very place where Huihui now worked.

Ever since she accidentally discovered the mosquito-repellent and anti-itch balm during filming, Huihui’s life had taken off like a bullet train, speeding ahead with unstoppable momentum.

These days, Huihui’s main job wasn’t selling medicine. Just as Liang Yi had once suggested, she used her social media account to continuously promote the culture of Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs. At the same time, she subtly slipped in promotions for various balms developed by their company, Yuanxi Biotech.

Now, Wei Sheng had more than just the mosquito balm in his hands. There were also herbal patches for menstrual pain, topical treatments for athlete’s foot, all-natural shampoos to prevent hair loss, and even several folk remedies aimed at children’s poor appetite, obesity, and rapidly declining eyesight. All of these needed ongoing promotion through the account.

The idea for the show had actually been inspired by Huihui. She had somehow turned the account meant for promoting Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs into something that resembled a grassroots reality show.

It all started during a trip up the mountain to gather herbs. Huihui and the cameraman simply couldn’t cross a raging stream on a narrow log bridge like the local villagers could. But the herb they were after grew on the other side, and taking a detour would mean spending the night in the mountains—far too dangerous.

With no other option, Huihui handed the filming phone and gimbal to the mother-daughter duo guiding them and asked them to shoot the rest of the footage.

Who would’ve thought that this unpolished, first-person video of herb gathering would go viral? The views and likes on that single clip nearly surpassed the total of all their previous videos combined.

The company’s performance evaluations for Huihui’s team were directly tied to metrics like follower growth, view counts, likes, and completion rates. That one video alone helped them meet their monthly targets ahead of schedule.

Anyone who’s worked in an office knows that sometimes, the success of a project hinges on a single lucky break. Once you hit that turning point, it’s like unlocking your meridians¹ in a martial arts novel—everything flows.

After stumbling upon this “traffic code²,” Huihui and her team quickly shifted gears. They stopped appearing on camera themselves and instead hired a few seasoned herb gatherers from the village. These locals filmed first-person videos with their phones, taking viewers along on their foraging trips.

What surprised Wei Sheng was just how much of a knack Huihui had for running a social media account. When choosing who to feature, she even categorized them by age. There were spry seventy-year-old herbalists who could still dart through dense forests, bold and meticulous women who weren’t afraid to catch snakes with their bare hands, and even teenage apprentices just starting out.

At first, Huihui figured that with such a variety of hosts—different ages, different genders—there would be at least one who could attract fans.

But to her surprise, the audience loved them all.

Can you imagine a bunch of college students eagerly following the daily videos of a seventy-something-year-old man? Or a group of burly guys becoming die-hard fans of the snake-catching girl?

The most unexpected hit was the youngest host on their team—a fifteen-year-old boy. Seeing someone so young already working to support himself, some kind-hearted viewers even messaged offering to sponsor his education.

The boy nearly shook his head off in refusal. What he feared most was sitting in a classroom taking tests. He just couldn’t focus on studying. His grandmother, worried he wouldn’t be able to support himself in the future, had arranged for him to apprentice under a master herbalist. At least this way, he’d have a skill to make a living.

After hearing that, fans and well-meaning viewers were speechless. But after a moment, they realized he had a point. Especially those who, like him, struggled with school—they couldn’t help but wish they’d been born in Yuan Stream Township too.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want good grades. The problem was, they just couldn’t understand how a single paragraph could have so many hidden meanings.

And those math formulas—why couldn’t the questions just follow the formula? Why did they have to twist and transform them? What were they, Transformers?

They clearly weren’t cut out for academics. Continuing down that path was just a waste of time. Especially for students from families already struggling financially, watching their parents scrimp and save to pay for tutors and cram schools made them want to scream, “Mom, Dad, if you just saved that money, maybe you could buy me a house instead.”

If all that money went into tutoring and they still didn’t get into college, not only would they feel guilty, but the family might go broke trying. Wouldn’t that be a lose-lose?

In the end, they’d probably just scrape by with a vocational school diploma and go straight into the workforce. Wouldn’t it be better to skip the tutoring and go straight to vocational school? That way, they could start working a few years earlier, and the savings might even be enough for a down payment on a house—giving them a leg up when it came time to find a partner.

Honestly, kids these days can be more clear-headed than adults.

Because of this, the young herbalist had a huge following of peers. Huihui even applied to the company to officially sign him and open a dedicated account for him.

Word was, the account already had over 600,000 followers. But when the company reported this to Wei Sheng, he thought it over and decided not to let the boy do any livestream sales just yet.

He worried it might send the wrong message to kids who still had a shot at getting into high school or college, making them think they could skip school and still have a bright future. That would be irresponsible.

From Wei Sheng’s own experience, if he hadn’t completed a full-time undergraduate degree, he wouldn’t have qualified to apply for a job at the TV station, let alone become the popular media figure he was today.

The truth is, society is built on circles, and every circle has its own gatekeeper. Education is the key that opens those gates. For kids from ordinary families, if they don’t have that key, they can’t even step into those circles—let alone access the resources within them.

How many kids across the country could be lucky enough to get signed by a talent agency like the boy from Yuan Stream Township? The vast majority, once they reach a certain age, either head to the city to work construction or stay in their hometowns farming, possibly never earning enough to get married.

Wei Sheng had founded this company to turn rural support into a sustainable industry, to help break the cycle of poverty in rural families—not to encourage kids with academic potential to drop out. That would be downright unethical.

Still, even without livestreaming, just by attaching a shopping link to each video—selling books like An Illustrated Guide to the Civil Code[^3] or Beginner’s Guide to Electrical Work—they were already seeing impressive sales.

Now, the young herbalist earned a base salary of 3,500 yuan a month from the company. With commissions, he made anywhere from 5,000 to over 10,000 yuan monthly. His grandmother was over the moon.

The boy had been born after his father passed away in an accident. His mother, too young at the time, had remarried after weaning him. He was raised by his widowed grandmother, who had always worried she wouldn’t live long enough to see him grow up.

But now, he had a job that paid better than most adults working outside. His grandmother was endlessly grateful to Huihui. Seeing that Huihui sometimes brought her own child along while working, she even offered to babysit so Huihui could focus on filming in the mountains and pick up her child afterward.

In just one year, Huihui had become like family to the locals in Yuan Stream Township. She might not have a mother-in-law to help with childcare, but the village’s grandmas and aunties had become her “unofficial in-laws”—and they were far more loving to her child than her actual ex-mother-in-law ever was.

With help watching her child and a solid grasp of the “traffic code,” Huihui had turned the account into a thriving success in under a year.

What really impressed Wei Sheng was that Huihui’s team didn’t end up making typical educational videos. Instead, through the daily lives of their rotating hosts, they showcased the natural environments where Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs grew, as well as the foraging and preparation processes.

Even though the folk remedies developed by Yuanxi Biotech mostly used herbs cultivated in semi-wild conditions by local villagers, the videos gave viewers the impression that all the ingredients were freshly foraged from deep mountain forests—making the products feel especially trustworthy.

It might have been a beautiful misunderstanding, but in the end, the audience wasn’t wrong.

Half of it. That’s because most of the traditional Chinese medicinal herbs in Yuan Stream Township are grown in pristine mountain forests with excellent ecological conditions. Other than occasional weeding and watering, they’re practically the same as wild herbs.

And it was Huihui’s unintentional action that inspired Wei Sheng, leading to the creation of the show The Rebirth of Housewives.

Wei Sheng’s pitch for the show was simple: ditch the messy drama and fake guest interactions. Instead, focus on a few housewives who divorced after joining the program, and document their journey—from separation to reemployment, and finally to finding their purpose and self-worth through the Rural Revitalization initiative. Capture the changes in their lives, bit by bit.

Now that is a true comeback story.

Since the inspiration for the show came from Huihui, there was no doubt she had to be the main guest for the first episode.

Huihui never imagined she’d be the lead of the show. She nearly choked on a bite of rice tofu when she heard.

“M-me? Boss Wei, I don’t think I can do it,” Chai Xinhui stammered, waving her hands in protest.

“A woman should never say she can’t! Huihui-jie, believe in yourself!” Wei Sheng poured her a glass of orange juice and encouraged her. “Think about it. A year ago today, did you ever imagine that one year later, you’d be the head of marketing for a major company?”

Chai Xinhui froze for a moment, her eyes slowly turning red.

That’s right. A year ago, she was afraid to buy two packs of sanitary pads in case her husband complained about the price. Back then, her biggest dream was to land a job as a nursery assistant at a private kindergarten, earning just over two thousand yuan a month.

But now, she could lead a team on her own, running the marketing department of a company that had already expanded overseas. Though the year-end bonus hadn’t been issued yet, based on the company’s performance review system, Chai Xinhui was expected to receive at least 200,000 yuan.

Add that to her regular salary, monthly performance bonuses, and extra income from product endorsements through her social media account, and her total annual income this year could easily reach half a million—or even more.

After all, her boss, the money-making genius God of Wealth, Boss Wei, had just found her another “side gig.”

When the show’s production team came to Yuan Stream Township for a scouting trip, Chai Xinhui was the one who hosted them. At the time, she never imagined she’d end up as a guest on the show. The planning staff had even privately sighed to her, saying they hoped those stay-at-home moms who divorced after the last show would sign up for this one, because the benefits were just too good.

Not only would the guests get exposure, but the production team would also help them find jobs. Most importantly, the show had a set budget for appearance fees.

Word was that each guest would earn 10,000 yuan per episode. With ten episodes in the first season, that meant a total payout of 100,000 yuan.

A hundred thousand yuan might not seem like much to the current Chai Xinhui, but a year ago, when she left her marriage with nothing but her child, that kind of money could have been life-saving.

And really, who ever complains about making too much money?

Chai Xinhui made up her mind on the spot—she was going to join the show.

With that 100,000 yuan, she could make a down payment on an apartment in Nine Streams County and finally settle down. That would also take care of her child’s school registration.

Many women spend their whole lives torn between their husband’s family and their birth family, wondering which one is truly home.

Chai Xinhui used to feel the same confusion and disappointment. In her darkest moments, she even believed she didn’t belong anywhere in this world.

But after the divorce, she realized something: in-laws and birth family aside, the place where she and her child could live happily—that was home.

She decided she would work hard to earn money. If no one else could give her happiness, she’d fight for it herself. If no one was willing to give her a home, she’d buy one and create a home for her and her child.

A few days later, the other three guests arrived in Yuan Stream Township, and The Rebirth of Housewives officially began filming!

(End of Chapter)

Translator’s Notes