After fermenting overnight, when I woke up this morning, the "A Day in the Life of the Principal" video from yesterday had over three million views on Guagua Video alone. According to their revenue sharing algorithm, Jiang Xiaoman earned over seven thousand yuan in advertising revenue just from that one night. Adding in the tips, after deducting half from the platform, they earned a total of over thirteen thousand yuan yesterday!
Let alone killing five chickens, I could even buy a pig right now and slaughter it for food without any problem.
"Uncle Baichuan, I'll settle this money with the platform later, deduct income tax, and transfer the rest to you. Look at the comments, everyone's saying these tips are for the students to buy meat and vegetables to improve their meals, so you can finally spend it with peace of mind, right?"
Jiang Xiaoman was speechless at her uncle's stubbornness. Didn't he use his own salary to subsidize the students' food expenses? He could subsidize the school, but he wouldn't allow Jiang Xiaoman to do the same. What kind of logic was that?
Worried that Jiang Baichuan would refuse the netizens' kindness again, he quickly added that it was very difficult to get the money back, and the procedures were very complicated. In any case, he couldn't handle it. If Jiang Baichuan wanted a refund, he could contact the platform himself...
"Alright, I got it. But if you want to eat chicken, there's no need to kill the ones we raise ourselves. Our free-range chickens are expensive and don't have much meat. Go to the chicken farm in the next village and buy a few farmed chickens. They have more meat and are cheaper..." Jiang Baichuan was practically etched with the word "stingy" in his genes.
Jiang Xiaoman: "..."
One day I'll kill all your chickens!!!
However, to Jiang Xiaoman's surprise, he was probably having a stroke of good luck recently, because he went to the chicken farm and actually got a bargain.
Recently, the price of farmed chicken has dropped again, and eggs are also not selling for a good price. Chicken farm owners really can't hold on any longer and can't afford to raise so many chickens, so they want to clear out a batch of old hens that are no longer laying eggs at a low price.
"Four yuan a pound? Give me fifty! No, a hundred! Can you deliver?" Jiang Xiaoman was overjoyed.
In fact, in their rural area, these farmed chickens with more meat and lower prices are more popular than free-range chickens. They usually buy these chickens when they hire people to do housework. But when they think about hiring people to dig the foundation for their house, where can they buy live chickens that cost four yuan a pound? If the school's chicken coop wasn't so small, Jiang Xiaoman would have loved to buy dozens more!
A hundred chickens sounds like a lot. Half of them will be given to the school. Five chickens will be slaughtered per meal, which will only be enough for the whole school for ten meals at most. He will buy the remaining fifty chickens with his own money and plan to raise them at the school first. When he starts building a house at home, he will take them to the mountains. In the countryside, if you hire someone to help build a house, you will be laughed at if you don't have meat and vegetables for lunch.
Jiang Xiaoman spent over three thousand yuan to buy a hundred farmed broiler chickens. Hearing from the shop owner that he also had imported eggs, the wholesale price was only two yuan and eighty cents per pound, Jiang Xiaoman thought about it and bought six more boxes of eggs, half for the school and half for his family to use for entertaining guests.
The boss recognized Jiang Xiaoman and, upon hearing that he was buying the chickens and eggs for the school, immediately assured him that he would go back and wait, and that he would deliver the chickens and eggs to him in his tractor later.
"Sister-in-law, let's add each other as friends? Remember to let me know if you have any discounts or promotions next time." Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but take out her phone.
He just couldn't understand why Jiang Baichuan, who clearly knew about the high-quality, discounted clearance resources at the chicken farm, didn't know how to make good use of them.
However, when the chicken farm owner delivered the chickens and eggs he had purchased to the school in his tractor, Jiang Xiaoman saw Jiang Baichuan's eyes almost popping out of their sockets and immediately understood!
Given Uncle Baichuan's stingy nature, he probably only buys one or two chickens at most for the students to have a treat. The chicken farm is a wholesaler, so how could they possibly sell to him?
However, Jiang Baichuan never expected that Jiang Xiaoman would be so bold!
He only asked him to "buy a few chickens," and this guy bought a whole truckload! No family could afford such extravagance!
However, the money for filming the video was ultimately earned by Jiang Xiaoman. Her nephew meant well, wanting to earn some money to improve the students' meals. Jiang Baichuan hesitated for a long time, then watched as Jiang Xiaoman led the students to drive all the chickens they had bought into the chicken coop.
"I'll kill a few tomorrow so you can have a good meal!" Jiang Xiaoman pointed proudly to the fat chickens that were almost too big to stand on, and the students immediately cheered.
"But don't just sit around doing nothing. During labor class later, I'll assign a few people to help me peel garlic and dig potatoes!"
Chicken and potatoes are the best stewed dishes, especially those potatoes that are only the size of a ping-pong ball. After boiling them, rinse them in cold water, peel them, fry them in oil, and stew them with chicken. It's absolutely delicious when served with rice!
It's a pity that the taro hasn't grown yet this season. Otherwise, it would be delicious to stew chicken with dried taro stalks. Thinking of this, Jiang Xiaoman looked at the plump chickens affectionately and decided that this year she must go to the village to ask the taro growers for some taro stalks, dry them, and stew them with chicken in the winter... Hehe!
The broiler chickens trembled, whether from being unaccustomed to the new environment or from being frightened by Jiang Xiaoman's blatant gaze, it was hard to tell.
Jiang Baichuan's appearance on camera this time had such a great effect that Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but send a screenshot of his backend data to Tang Xinlan. He didn't know what to do next, but Tang Xinlan or her team definitely did!
Sure enough, after watching Jiang Xiaoman's "A Day in the Life of the Principal," Tang Xinlan promptly gave him a suggestion: "You should open another account and specifically film the daily life of Langshan Elementary School in your village, especially Principal Jiang. I feel he has the potential to be an internet celebrity, haha!"
Jiang Xiaoman imagined her Uncle Baichuan dancing in front of the camera and couldn't help but shudder.
However, this internet celebrity is not the same as that internet celebrity. Tang Xinlan thought for a moment and asked her planning team to find some short video blogger accounts similar to Principal Jiang for Jiang Xiaoman, so that he could observe how others operate these kinds of short video accounts.
Jiang Xiaoman spent an entire night watching videos of several rural teachers, and he felt that he had grasped some of the tricks of the trade.
And, the very next day, they recklessly forced Principal Jiang to "debut"—
"Uncle Baichuan, you see, I'm not a school teacher, and I can't stay at the school all the time to film you. How about I help you register an account?"
"Look, so many people are asking you in the comments if you have a personal account. If you open a personal video account now, you'll definitely get a lot of followers!"
“As long as you have tens of thousands of followers, you can earn creator income by posting on video platforms like Guagua Video and Shitou Video. If the video is well-made, people can even tip you. Like us this time, we only made two videos and earned more than 10,000 yuan! How many potatoes do you have to grow with your kids to make that much money?”
Jiang Xiaoman desperately tried to seduce him.
"I can't! I can't film videos! I have to go to class." Jiang Baichuan refused three times in a row.
Making money is certainly a good thing, but Jiang Baichuan really doesn't know how to make videos. Not to mention videos, even the occasional photos of teaching scenes he takes for his superiors are criticized by the students, who say he makes them look ugly or that he didn't use beauty filters.
but--
“Qu Jingjiang is good at filming. He used to do it for a while, taking the kids to film short videos, but not many people watched them, and it interfered with their labor classes, so I stopped him from filming.” Jiang Baichuan’s expression was somewhat gloomy.
He had always had mixed feelings about Qu Jingjiang. Deep down, he felt that Qu Jingjiang should leave this place. After all, he still had parents to support, and he was so young. He should have a bright future ahead of him and shouldn't be trapped in these mountains for the rest of his life like Qu Jingjiang.
However, intuitively, he felt that ever since he readily agreed to Qu Jingjiang's resignation, Qu Jingjiang had become gloomy, like a volcano about to erupt at any moment.
He knew that Qu Jingjiang had feelings for the school and the children, but people always have various unavoidable circumstances in life. Just like Qu Jingjiang, he knew he still wanted to stay here, but the income of a substitute teacher was too low. He couldn't even support himself, let alone his parents.
Does he mean he should never get married, like her?
He had his reasons for not getting married. But Qu Jingjiang was different; his family and relatives were waiting for him to return. So—
"Fine! You teach me, I'll give it a try. But let's make it clear first, if it's not good, you can't post it online!"
Jiang Baichuan sighed, feeling that being a school principal was really too difficult.
Jiang Xiaoman felt that her situation was even more difficult.
Jiang Xiaoman stared at the secondhand first-generation smartphone that Jiang Baichuan had bought for three hundred yuan, and at the ghostly images captured by the camera, and fell silent.
This isn't just lacking in beauty filters, the image quality is downright ancient!
"Uncle Baichuan, you see, starting a business always requires some investment, right? Your phone is definitely not good enough for shooting videos. How about we get a phone with a better lens first?"
"How much is 'better'? Just tell me how much it will cost." Jiang Baichuan looked at his nephew with trepidation.
There's nothing he can do; now, in his eyes, his nephew has become a spendthrift who squanders money and is completely untrustworthy.
"Let me see," Jiang Xiaoman opened a shopping website, compared the phone's camera pixels and other parameters, and finally carefully selected the cheapest one to show him, "Uncle Baichuan, look, this one has good pixels and memory, and there's a promotion right now, it's only 2780 yuan..."
"What? A phone costs three thousand yuan? Then I don't want it!" Jiang Baichuan refused as soon as he heard the price.
Putting aside whether he can earn three thousand yuan from shooting videos, with that three thousand yuan, he could replace all the windows and broken lights in all the classrooms in the school.
Jiang Xiaoman: "..."
He knew it would turn out like this!
Fortunately, he had a Plan B—
"How about this, I'll go with you to Shuangwan Town on Sunday. I know the owner of a mobile phone store there. If you sign up for a data plan, you can get a free new phone..."
That works!
Jiang Baichuan finally nodded reservedly: "Before, I kept getting calls from people insisting that I upgrade to 4G, saying that as long as I upgraded, I would get a new phone for free. I thought it was a scam, but I didn't expect it to be true."
Jiang Xiaoman: "..."
Wait a minute, Uncle, so you're not still using a 2G network, are you?
Chapter 35
Due to issues with her phone (and internet), Jiang Xiaoman, who had originally planned to help Jiang Baichuan activate his personal video account that day, had to postpone her plans until the weekend.
Seeing the fans' strong urging for more videos, Jiang Xiaoman continued filming videos the next morning.
In the morning, while the students were in class, the campus had to remain quiet. Jiang Xiaoman followed Jiang Youliang to cut down the old and withered Swiss chard in the backyard, loosened the soil, and planted water spinach and amaranth. These two vegetables can be harvested repeatedly after being planted once, and they have a high yield, making them easy-to-grow vegetables, which are very suitable for school planting.
After scattering the vegetable seeds, Jiang Youliang took a basket and went out. He got some seedlings of loofah and gourd from someone's house and planted them casually in a corner of the vegetable garden. The base fertilizer he used was the pig manure that Jiang Baichuan usually composted when cleaning the pigsty, which was better than the compound fertilizer he bought.
"Dad, you go ahead with your work, I'll go back and cook." Jiang Xiaoman picked some tender Swiss chard leaves, filled a whole basket, and went back home. First, she chopped the chicken she had killed that morning into pieces, washed it clean, and put it in a large basket to drain.
Today he plans to cook three dishes and a soup to give the children a good meal.
I cut the chopped chicken in half. I used one half to make braised chicken with potatoes, and chopped the other half into smaller pieces. I added homemade tofu and stir-fried it into spicy chicken cubes.
There was quite a bit of chicken giblets and blood from the five chickens, and Jiang Xiaoman didn't want to waste it. She took out some pickled cabbage and made a pot of stir-fried chicken giblets with pickled cabbage, which was especially good with rice.
Since all three dishes were meat dishes, the last soup was a light and refreshing beef and egg drop soup. Instead of lard, two spoonfuls of sesame oil were added in a particularly luxurious way, and you could smell the aroma from afar!
Not many people grow sesame here, and the locally made sesame oil is very expensive. But Jiang Xiaoman is good at saving money, isn't he? He bought near-expiry sesame oil online. Anyway, there are many of them, so as long as they eat it quickly enough, they don't have to worry about the sesame oil expiring.
That noon, all the teachers and students of Langshan Township Elementary School ate until their bellies were round. Even the little bit of chicken soup left at the bottom of the pot was poured out and used to soak the rice crusts.
Seeing the children enjoying their meal, Jiang Baichuan was also quite pleased. At this point, his mind began to waver. If making videos could really allow students to eat meat and vegetables more often, then what was there to hesitate about?
Jiang Xiaoman left himself a bowl of rice and some vegetables. It wasn't that he wanted to be special; while everyone else was eating voraciously, he was busy filming videos.
After all, the fans spent money to tip him, so he has to let people know where the tipping money went, right?
Not only that, Jiang Xiaoman also made a decision. After discussing it with Jiang Baichuan, he made a simple table listing today's food expenses and registered a Weibo account. In order to prevent anyone from questioning Jiang Baichuan for embezzling students' food expenses, he felt it was best to make the accounts public, publish the daily food expenses, and settle the monthly expenses and balance at the end of the month.
Although this small canteen is not within the scope of government subsidies, if the school canteen's funding comes from online donations in the future, Jiang Xiaoman feels that the accounts should have a public and transparent disclosure channel. After all, there are too many fake public welfare and charity scams online now, and we can't let Uncle Baichuan be put in a passive position because of his negligence.
This video, like any other, is a simple, unedited shot. Jiang Xiaoman acts like a waitress announcing the menu, preparing the dishes and then moving the camera around to report the day's menu to viewers.
"This is braised chicken with potatoes. Don't be fooled by its dark appearance. It's mainly because the principal couldn't afford to buy soy sauce. The school cafeteria uses his own homemade soybean paste. As for the color, well, cough cough~ it looks like what you see now. It may not look good, but it actually tastes quite good."
"This is stir-fried chicken giblets with pickled cabbage, and it's the best-looking dish today, hehe~ Personally, I think pickled cabbage is Principal Jiang's specialty. Look at it, isn't this pickled cabbage a beautiful golden-orange color? Add to that the red chicken blood, chicken gizzards, pale yellow chicken liver, and green peppers, and it's definitely a great dish to eat with rice!"
"And this spicy diced chicken, the authentic way to make it shouldn't include dried tofu, but that's all the food we have in our cafeteria, so we eat whatever's available. Besides, I made this dried tofu myself, it's pretty good."
At first, netizens were quite moved by the video, but as they watched, they suddenly started drooling.
"Damn it! If only our school cafeteria had this kind of cooking back then..."
"The key is that the cafeteria lady, no, the principal who serves the food, doesn't shake his spoon at all."
"Could you please provide a link for the guy cooking? I need to film him right now."
"Help! I've searched all the nearby takeout options, and they don't have pickled cabbage and chicken giblets?!"
"Same question, which restaurant in this city serves stir-fried chicken giblets with pickled cabbage? I'd like to try it."
On this day, countless netizens frantically searched for the dish of stir-fried chicken giblets with pickled cabbage on major food delivery platforms. Some couldn't find it and simply went to the market after get off work to buy chicken giblets and side dishes themselves. Of course, whether the dish tasted the same as the one in the video is another matter.
In short, after the new video was released that day, many netizens who usually like to search for short food videos to watch while eating also quietly added this canteen worker from the mountain village to their following list.
Friday arrived in the blink of an eye. After sending the children home, the busy week came to an end. Taking advantage of the absence of the school, Jiang Xiaoman boiled two large pots of water and took a hot bath with her father. While they were washing clothes, Qu Jingjiang appeared behind him like a ghost.
Jiang Xiaoman was startled.
Qu Jingjiang looked unwell, still clutching his phone, his eyes slightly red, as if he had just been crying. Jiang Xiaoman was taken aback; he really had no talent for comforting people, and besides, Qu Jingjiang was an older man than him. He couldn't just lend him a shoulder to cry on like in idol dramas, could he?
“You can come back to be a teacher now. My dad is in the hospital, and my mom called to tell me to go back as soon as possible.”