Qiaoqiao also excitedly joined in: "Let me do it! I’m good at coming up with names!"
Zhang Yanping laughed at him: "What are you good at? You can’t even release a teaser properly—holy shit! We’re still live streaming."
Secretary Xiaozu waved her hand: "There’s nothing that can’t be spoken openly. I’m just straightforwardly preparing for the village’s future sales. There’s nothing to hide."
After she spoke, her makeup-free face came directly into Qiaoqiao’s live streaming room: "Hello everyone, I’m the party secretary of our village, just call me Secretary Xiaozu."
Secretary Xiaozu is quite attractive, with delicate features. Now, with a confident and generous smile, and a calm voice, her direct approach as a village leader easily wins people’s affection.
"Teacher Qiaoqiao is now our village’s internet celebrity. In a moment, I will register a new live stream room and I hope Teacher Qiaoqiao can help redirect some viewers there."
"Rest assured, the new live stream room is not mine personally, but for live streaming our village’s agricultural products. As you all can see, we don’t have a team for our live streaming; we just wing it... and actually, we don’t have much to sell right now. But please give us a follow and when you have the chance."
These days, it’s not unheard of for government to live stream, but it’s still not common. Secretary Xiaozu’s candidness, coupled with Qiaoqiao’s fans always being exceptionally calm and patient, meant that even though it was early morning with less than a hundred thousand people, the barrage of comments was overwhelming!
[Support, support, definitely support!]
[Which secretary? Shall we talk about where the village is first? I’d like to drop by and congratulate you!]
[Secretary Xiaozu! So young and charismatic, great job!]
[Working for the farmers, that’s respect! Followed. Whenever you start your live stream room, I’ll be there to follow.]
[What team? If the streamer himself is so stingy about selling stuff, it’d be a wonder if he’d spend money on a team.]
[Where’s the live stream room? I’m going to follow it right now!]
Meanwhile, Zhang Yanping quickly squeezed through: "Don’t rush, don’t rush, everyone please be patient, it’s our first time streaming, right! We don’t have a big audience yet, and since we don’t have anything to sell at the moment, let’s wait until there are more people before we share the link to that stream room..."
[Is it not registered yet? Hahahaha]
[I smell the truth coming out in front.]
[No rush, no rush. I’m always patient when watching Teacher Qiaoqiao’s streams.]
[Live streaming has smoothed out my rough edges bit by bit.]
[Since the stream room isn’t ready, I’ll go get a little more sleep.]
[Working people, sending my reports then I’ll be back.]
On the other side, Qiaoqiao seriously came up with a name—
"Secretary Xiaozu Brings Goods to the Village"
Which made Secretary Xiaozu pause: "Huh? That direct?"
Shouldn’t it be called something like [Yunqiao Village Aid-Farming Live Stream] or similar?
Who knew Zhang Yanping would also roll her eyes: "What do you know? Nowadays, if I search for aid-farming, a slew of live stream rooms turn up with mixed reputations, none stick in memory."
"Look at you! A village secretary doing a live stream - that’s so rare! Right now, there’s no chance of having the same name on the platform."
"Whether it’s allowed by policy or not, we’re doing this for the common people. If it’s really not permitted, we’ll just change it later."
"You wait and get your work ID ready. I’ll talk to someone at the platform to see if we can go through a fast track to earn us some traffic pool or something."
"Besides," said Zhang Yanping, leaning in and whispering, "you orchestrated this farming assistance initiative. The more your name gets out there, the more likely you’ll trend on a hot search someday..."
He didn’t finish his sentence, but Secretary Xiaozu already got the gist.
She even took it a step further: "That said, if I leave and no one does quality control, or if there are other interferences... It’d be the perfect time to rename the livestream, and if someone leaves, it won’t tarnish the reputation..."
However, these thoughts weren’t appropriate to voice out loud. The two of them, though, whispering together in hushed tones, sounded just like they were discussing things during a livestream, so no one paid them any attention.
Secretary Xiaozu was ready to go back and prepare some documents. Just as he got onto his motorcycle, he scrutinized Zhang Yanping from top to bottom:
"You know, why don’t you consider becoming a civil servant? Without saying anything else, pull a few strings with friends and relatives, and getting a position here wouldn’t be so bad, right?"
The underlying message was quite clear.
But Zhang Yanping waved his hand: "To each their own, I just want to be a lazy bum in this lifetime, not worrying about work or stress. It’s quite nice."
Secretary Xiaozu raised an eyebrow: "Don’t you want to make your parents feel satisfied and proud?"
Zhang Yanping laughed, revealing his sparkling white teeth against his dark face:
"Secretary Xiaozu, you don’t understand parents. They are good to me, and they’re good people. But desires are something humans can’t control."
"If I comply and become a civil servant, next they’d want me to obediently find a wife to their liking. With a wife, they’d then hope for grandsons and granddaughters. And once there are kids, they would hope even more for me to rise high or have a leisurely job with a high salary."
"Once all is satisfied, ideally, my wife should be obedient too, also succeeding and earning a high salary... but of course, not more than me."
Secretary Xiaozu chuckled: "Isn’t that just human nature? You can’t just refuse to eat because you choked once."
Zhang Yanping sighed: "Some aspects of human nature are meant to be kept to oneself, mentioned only in passing. My parents... they’re willing to take action..."
His parents really did everything for him. But which family that does everything for their child would pressure them to study for civil service exams, confining them to a room for one or two months?
"That’s the thing!" Zhang Yanping said with a nonchalant wave of his hand: "Let’s just leave it at that, I’m happy with things as they are."
As the two were talking, Qiaoqiao suddenly waved her hand and called out:
"Sister Xiaozu, wait a minute, bring me a hoe up as well, I’m going to dig up some kudzu root."
"And make it quick, Teacher Xin said today I will be your teacher, teaching you how to livestream."
Secretary Xiaozu instantly broke into a smile: "Okay, okay! You just wait a bit, I’ll go back and get the materials ready first."
"Mhm," Qiaoqiao nodded, as if taking her role seriously: "No rush, Brother Xiaosun is going to operate the excavator first, and I’ll follow behind him."
As they spoke, the excavator had already started up.
The mechanical power far surpassed manual labor, with its huge scoop leveraging downward with force, easily snapping the kudzu roots and vines that are usually so tough to cut.
The teeth on the scoop dug deep into the earth, then with a powerful pry upwards, the thick and robust kudzu roots were severed, exposing a clean, white, sticky cross-section smeared with yellow soil, which was quickly tossed onto the ground.
"The kudzu roots are out!"
Qiaoqiao excitedly brought her phone closer: "Kids, have a look, this thick and plump thing is kudzu powder root!"
"The leaves of the kudzu root are also quite unique. Look at this one, it’s a palmate leaf split into three sections, this is kudzu powder root!"
"Now, look at this one," she picked up another leaf: "The edges are very distinct; this is what we call wood kudzu. Everyone, make sure to distinguish them clearly when you’re digging in the mountains."