The Best Male God

This chapter was translated by Daed, proofread by ZiarayZ, and hosted on Foxaholic.com.

The television crew were a little unused to Zhou Zekai’s sudden change, yet they were even more curious about this handsome boy and prompted him,

“Then how do you plan to change Ming’an Village?”

Changing an impoverished mountain village was not a feat that could be done just by saying you would do it. The television crew felt like his outlandish idea could only be considered a pipe dream.

Just like their show, when rural teenagers and urban teenagers swap, the urban teenagers experience the hardships of the countryside; when they’re back in the city, they are still those rich young masters, but what about the children of the countryside? They say it was to incite their aspiration for the city, to serve as encouragement for them to work harder at studying. Yet who would know what kind of shock that large city with various types of sights would give to those young hearts of the rural kids? When you have seen the prosperity of the big cities, how could you be willing to stay in the countryside without a way out?

“This I’ll have to continue to see about, since I just came here. Anyhow, I’m sure I’ll find a way.”

Zhou Zekai didn't want his reality show life to be boring. Anyway, didn’t Tang Bingyu want to be a star? Since she wanted to be a star, then we must first get everyone's love! Most people would like sensible children, right?

After the television crew heard Zhou Zekai say these words, they didn’t ask any more. After all, perhaps this was only a little child's idea for a moment. Thus, they asked some other questions and ended the interview.

When the interview ended, it was almost 9 o'clock. Originally the television crew had arranged for them to help with the work, however Zhou Zekai requested to explore the entire village. In the end, Tang Bingyu followed, so the two went off together being filmed by the camera crew as they wandered around Ming'an Village.

It has to be said that this Ming’an Village was very impoverished. There were extremely few brick houses, most of them were earthen shelters1. Maybe it was the habit of relying on the mountain for food and resources, everything here was distinctly different from the advancement of the cities. It was basically isolated from the world.

As they looked at such an impoverished mountain village, Tang Bingyu’s face was full of curiosity, while Zhou Zekai knit his brows pondering over things. When he saw the old grandpa sitting by the village entrance, he went up to talk to him.

“Hello Grandpa.”

That old grandpa also noticed that these urban kids were fair-skinned and clean. He immediately smiled benevolently at them and replied, “Hello, little one~”

He had a heavy accent, but it was already the kind that you could relatively understand. Several of the villagers that they encountered didn’t even know how to speak the standard dialect.

“Grandpa, can you tell me the story of this village?”

If you want to change the living conditions of this place, you must first understand its circumstances. No matter if it was in the past or in the present, there was a reason why this place was so impoverished.

Of course, the old man was willing to tell these children from outside about the history of their village and their condition now. After all, the cities outside were becoming more and more prosperous, yet their village was still so poor. If you were to say that an old man like him didn’t have any thoughts about the matter, then that was definitely a lie. He had fought for this village before for a lifetime now, but not much has changed. Now he hoped that these outsiders’ arrival would allow more people to know about their Ming’an Village, and bring more change.

“…But now that’s all in the past. Now, to let their kids go to school, many people in the village go outside to work and earn money to send their children to school. Otherwise, if the child isn’t that educated, they will experience a lot of struggles in life. As a result, the number of people left in the village has decreased a lot. Those at home are also going into the woods to collect materials to sell. See, those woods up ahead, that’s the forest that our ancestors have relied on for survival ….”

Their eyes followed the direction that the old man pointed to. That was a dense forest. He didn't know if there were more mysterious things in there, but Zhou Zekai knew that the reasons why Ming'an Village was so impoverished was because 1) there were no paved roads, and 2) because of this rugged mountain.

In the past, the government had wanted to flatten this mountain but the villagers objected. And so, this place became poorer and poorer. Although this mountain and forest hadn't been flattened, it hadn't been developed either. Everyone went out of the village to work, so it went without saying that the village became poorer and poorer.

After he had heard the story about Ming’an Village, Zhou Zekai said goodbye to the grandpa and Tang Bingyu followed after him. She was extremely curious to know what Zhou Zekai was planning to do.

When they reached a place without any villagers around, she asked, “Why are you asking them these things?”

Actually the television crew also wanted to know, but they felt embarrassed to ask.

Zhou Zekai turned his head and looked at Tang Bingyu solemnly.

“What do you think is the biggest goal of our participation in this reality show?” He asked.

"To become a star….." Tang Bingyu internally answered. All this girl wanted was to become a star, but she was aware that she definitely could not say so in front of the cameras.

So she answered, “To experience the lives of rural children and realize how fortunate we are. Before I came here, my parents always said that I was too fussy. They wanted me to change my temper.”

Tang Bingyu gave the best answer. She knew that Zhou Zekai was also sent over because of that little tyrant personality at home.

“It’s not like that.” Zhou Zekai shook his head, then pointed at the camera and said,

“We’re sent here to change, but the biggest goal of this program is not for us to change. Rather, it’s to change the lives of even more people. We grew up in the urban city and can enjoy more things, but what about this village? Poor, backwards, even isolated from the world. The reason why I was sent here was actually because I was bored at home. Everyday I would be managed by home. When I go out it’s all ‘let’s go for KTV’, or ‘let’s go watch a movie’, or ‘do you want to play at the arcade?’, etc. I’ve already gotten bored of these things. Now, I have a new game. Do you want to play?”

He seemed completely different now as he purposefully acted mysterious rather than when he was being philosophical earlier. This piqued Tang Bingyu’s interest, and drew the attention of the television crew.

“What game?”

The little girl was really curious. In this impoverished and old mountain village, what was there to play?

Zhou Zekai saw that the fish had taken the bait, so he continued.

“If we’re gonna play, then we’ll play big! We’re not going to just change ourselves! We’ll also change this whole village! Isn’t this place poor? We’ll change this kind of poverty! Aren’t the children here unable to go to school? We want every child to be able to get an education! Not by relying on our parents’ money to help, but truly using our own power to change the whole village of Ming’an! What do you say?”

At this moment, Tang Bingyu only felt like the Zhou Zekai standing before her had some kind of glowing aura. She was unable to refuse this kind of game. She only thought that if they were able to accomplish this, then that would be so amazing!

The little girl immediately flashed a beautiful smile and nodded.

“Okay! I’ll play too!”

It was a game that the two started on a whim under the camera lens, but it changed the fate of the entire village of Ming’an. This was something that the television crew and the media outside never expected……

1. earthen shelter- "A yaodong (窑洞) or "house cave" is a particular form of earth shelter dwelling common in the Loess Plateau in China's north. They are generally carved out of a hillside or excavated horizontally from a central ‘sunken courtyard'. "- Wikipedia)