After saying goodbye, Wen Run’s plane left B city on the same day. [Planting] still had the same topic as the previous season. After spending a lot of time together, the five guests had good feelings towards each other. So during the reunion, they also brought each other small gifts.
Xie Yupan and Cai Wenyan gave out custom key-chains and bracelets, and for the male guests, Zhang Lu brought home specialties, Qu Haowen brought a rare fruit, the more stunning was Wen Run, he brought six bottles of insect repellent.
Xie Yupan had the best relationship with Wen Run, so she was the first to speak: “Wen Xiaorun, you’re being a little perfunctory ah.”
[TN: Wen Xiaorun — Wen little Run]
Cai Wenyan also spoke up, “You didn’t prepare our gifts carefully.”
Wen Run smiled, “You’ll thank me at night.”
As the five people joked with each other, they still quickly cleaned up the small courtyard that had been uninhabited for months, and then they got used to being recorded again. It was now late April, the weather had warmed up, the team picked a good day, so it was windy and sunny and there was no sign of rainfall.
The guests, who had been away from the show for a long time, had also gotten used to their environment, and after packing up, they confidently waited for the directing team to give them their tasks.
However, the director always aimed for the guests’ unhappiness. The director smilingly took the guests to the ridge and pointed to the large paddy field with green seedlings in front of them, “There is no restriction on the staple food of the guests in this episode.”
Before the guests became happy, he stretched the words and said slowly: “But ……”
Several guests’ right eyelids jumped in unison, they intuitively knew he was up to no good.
The director’s short fingers moved slowly, pointing to another bare rice field that hadn’t been planted on, “The task of the guests is to finish planting the seedlings of the five-mu of rice fields.”
[TN: I had to research this, so five mu is the equivalent of 0.82368388083601 acres.]
Qu Haowen was the first to speak, his personality had always been aloof, but now his voice almost broke due to his shock, “Planting rice seedlings?”
“How big is the five-mu field?” Xie Yupan was considering the size of the problem.
Zhang Lu had a sullen expression, “I think I’ve been cheated, is it too late to run?”
Cai Wenyan had never seen this kind of scene. Standing next to the field without saying a word, he looked like he had frozen.
The director placed his expectant eyes on Wen Run, believing that Wen Run wouldn’t let him down. The result was that Wen Run wrinkled his brow and muttered, “What a big loss!”, now they needed to plant rice seedlings. It was all about farming to the end. He could almost guess what the director would make them do. He knew Zheng Xuan should have raised the price!
Seeing that the guests were all like frosted eggplants, the director felt that he had to give them a boost, “After the guests have completed their tasks, the program team will donate three thousand public service lunches to mountain children in the name of the five guests.”
This was a new idea after the road repair to the countryside, one was for the effect of the program and word of mouth, the second was that the variety show now required positive energy, so the theme had to be positive, it’d give appropriate publicity to public welfare, and it’d also give the program an additional edge.
The guests also calmed down, although they still looked tired, at least it wasn’t as bad as before. If it was just for stars to plant rice seedlings in the field, the netizens would have fun and watch it, but if they added a public service link, it would have a different meaning, and it would be beneficial for the guests.
Everyone packed up their emotions and finally went around the ridge of the field under the director’s guidance, so that they could get familiar with the familiar environment to facilitate the completion of their tasks starting tomorrow.
After returning from the field, they looked fed up with life.
“What are we going to do tomorrow?” Xie Yupan said.
The rest of the few people subconsciously looked at Wen Run, who thought about it and seriously calculated, “There are five of us, in fact, the workload of a three-mu field is not particularly large, we should be able to do it.”
The program team still took into account the guests’ fighting ability, so they didn’t dare to make the workload too big.
If they were ordinary farmers, those who were particularly capable could probably plant the seedlings in a one-mu field in one day. There were five of them. If they planted rice seedlings for half a day in the morning, rested in the afternoon and did odd jobs, it would be enough for five people to do it.
Wen Run explained to them, “In addition to being dirty, if the five of us take turns to share the work, the workload won’t be very big.”
In addition to Wen Run, the remaining guests naturally had little concept of a five-mu field and a seven-mu field and an acre field, but hearing Wen Run say that a farmer could finish planting seedlings in a one-mu field in a day, and then thinking that they only needed to plant seedlings in a five-mu field, there were five of them, so it sounded a lot easier.
The sad-faced few came back to life and got busy again helping out at various neighbors’ houses and figuring out what to get to eat.
The program team no longer restricted the supply of staple foods, but other vegetables and meat had to be found by the guests. As the recognized team leader, Wen Run was responsible for everyone’s meals and for coordinating tomorrow’s rice planting, and the others worked to get meat and vegetables and hand them over to him.
In order to appease his devastated companions, Wen Run used his cooking skills and made a large table full of dishes. By the time dinner was served, it was already evening, the five people sat at the table, they had forgotten the morning’s blow, now they were happy and ready to eat.
While eating, Wen Run talked about tomorrow’s plan. The guests had already been in the field once when recording the program last year, but that time all they had to do was cut rice, the difference between the two was very big, so Wen Run first briefly explained the general steps of planting rice seedlings.
“The rice planting field is not far, we have to get up at six o’clock tomorrow, first go to the rice planting field to pull the seedlings, then throw the seedlings into the water field, and finally we can start planting the rice.” Wen Run said, “Our speed on the first day may be a little slower, but in one morning, we can almost finish planting the rice. When we get proficient and the speed comes up, we won’t need to work together, we can take turns to rest.”
Xie Yupan actively asked, “Aren’t we going to plant the seedlings? How come we have to pull up seedlings again?”
She had never even been to the countryside before recording the show, and was twenty-four times more clueless about farming.
Wen Run explained, “Before the seedlings go into the field, they are first raised in the seedling field, and only after the seedlings grow well will they be moved out of the seedling field and then planted in the paddy field.”
“It means that we have to make two trips.” Xie Yupan understood and her expression turned bitter, she put a chicken wing into the bowl and immediately justified herself: “Then I have to eat more, so I’ll have strength to work tomorrow.”
The others had the same idea, tomorrow’s work was mostly physical, if they didn’t eat well, it would probably affect them. The table of food was swept away until nothing was left. After cleaning up the dishes, the sky had darkened, so several people went to move the bamboo stools to sit in the courtyard to watch the sunset.
Xie Yupan and Cai Wenyan took the vegetable leaves to tease the yellow and fluffy chickens in the box.
As she teased them, Xie Yupan felt a fierce sting on her calf: “What bit me?”
Just after she finished, she heard several slapping sounds behind her, Zhang Lu replied in pain: “Why are there so many mosquitoes!”
Before they sat down, they didn’t see a single mosquito, after sitting down, the mosquitoes started flying around, when they weren’t paying attention, they quickly struck, and the rural mosquitoes were large and also poisonous, after it bit them, the spot became swollen.
After Qu Haowen was bitten three times, he silently went back to the room and brought out the spray Wen Run gave them.
After a wild spray, the air was filled with a strong fragrance, the mosquitoes were temporarily defeated, Xie Yupan ran towards Wen Run with a smile, as if forgetting what she said before: “Our Wen Run is the most thoughtful.” After saying that, she went back to her room to get her spray.
The next day at six o’clock, the sound of the alarm clock woke up the sleeping guests, and everyone changed into clothes that were convenient for work, and under the leadership of the three villagers, they went to the seedling field.
The program team didn’t expect Wen Run to teach all of them alone, they arranged three experienced villagers to guide the guests, and brought all the tools needed.
The seedlings in the rice planting field were crowded one by one, and the green color was very pleasing. The field had been watered in advance, and the rice planting field was softened.
The guests looked a little hesitant, seeing their hesitant expressions, Wen Run took off his shoes first, rolled up his trouser legs, grabbed the straw on the shore and went down to the field.
The mud in the rice field was soaked, so it felt wet and slippery, Wen Run turned around and reminded them, “Be careful when coming down, don’t fall.”
When the others saw him go down, they didn’t want to be pretentious, so they followed his example, rolled up their trousers and grabbed the straws and went down to the field.
The three villagers came forward to teach them how to pull the seedlings, which were still fragile and could easily be torn off if the method and strength weren’t right. After they finished explaining, Xie Yupan was the first to get down, she spoke confidently, “Isn’t it just pulling it out and inserting it in? I get it!” After saying this, he grabbed a tree and plucked it, but she used too much force and directly pulled it off.
Zhang Lu snorted out a laugh and said, mocking her tone, “Is it not just pulling out and inserting in? I get it~”
Xie Yupan glared at him, then she stared sadly at the broken seedlings, “I didn’t exert much force.”
The three villagers were honest farmers, they didn’t dare to say anything or ask anything, so they awkwardly stood aside. Wen Run smiled and gave her a new demonstration, “It doesn’t take much effort to grab it like this. After pulling it out, put it in the water and wash it. After pulling it out again, tie it up with straw and throw it down into the water.” While speaking, he skillfully tied a knot with his fingers to tie up the seedlings and put them vertically into the water.