Chapter 15 Attracting Attention

Xu Zhiyi ran quickly in her high heels over the towering skyscraper. "Please help me press the elevator button!"

The elevator was packed with people, all expressionless, their weariness for work evident. Someone reached out and pressed a button, allowing Xu Zhiyi to enter as she wished. She checked her phone and saw she wouldn't be late, so she breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

No one replied to her.

There were obviously many people, but no one was talking to each other. There was only the quiet sound of breathing. Xu Zhiyi was used to it. The elevator opened and closed, and some people went up and down. When it reached the 18th floor, she walked out sideways and arrived at the company.

Standing outside and patting his cheeks, Xu Zhiyi took a deep breath before walking in with his chest straightened.

"Sister Xu, good morning."

"Good morning, Xiao Wang."

"Sister Xu, would you like some coffee? I'm just about to go to the tea room."

"No, I drank on the way."

Xu Zhiyi has been working at Kuaishou for five years. From a young graduate from a prestigious university, he has climbed up step by step and was finally promoted this year to become a small supervisor.

Although she is a supervisor, she has only five or six people under her, three of whom are interns, who are mainly responsible for the incubation of Kuaishou and Douyin short videos.

Sometimes they will select potential bloggers to sign contracts and help them with content planning, promotion and marketing. Now is the era of short videos, with endless platforms, hundreds of millions of users, and traffic far exceeding the past.

No one can predict what the next trend in the Internet era will be, or which lucky person will become an overnight sensation.

Xu Zhiyi and her subordinates are here to act as mentors and select the lucky ones in advance.

"Sister Xu," a voice sounded, interrupting Xu Zhiyi's thoughts on writing the plan. She pressed the shortcut key to lock the computer screen, and when she looked up, it was Li Yun, an intern in the group.

Among the three interns under her, Li Yun has the lowest academic qualifications, an ordinary first-class university. Half a month has passed, and apart from being diligent and obedient at work, Xu Zhiyi has not seen any other shining points in her.

The team doesn't need so many people, and when the review period comes, Xu Zhiyi will most likely kick Li Yun out.

This thought flashed through his mind, but Xu Zhiyi didn't show it on his face: "What's wrong?"

"Look, Sister Xu, this is a video I watched yesterday. I feel like this blogger has great potential."

Li Yun handed the computer to Xu Zhiyi and clicked play. "Another rural track?"

The next second, Xu Zhiyi stopped him. "You've recommended me a lot of videos about rural races this week. Li Yun, I know you're a college student from a mountain village and have a natural sense of belonging to the countryside, but I want to make higher-end videos, targeting a more upscale user base. Do you understand?"

Li Yun was a little at a loss, her face flushed, not knowing whether it was because of the rejection or because of what Xu Zhiyi said about her background.

"Okay, if you have nothing to do, learn more from Lao Wang and the others. I have something else to do."

Xu Zhiyi asked Li Yun to leave and continued to work.

Li Yun pursed his lips, carried his computer back to his workstation, and kept repeating his boss's words in his mind.

"I know you came from a mountain village."

“You have a natural sense of belonging to the countryside.”

These two sentences were like thorns, piercing her clothes, not hurting, but itching.

She unconsciously slid the mouse, and the video started playing again. The sonata of nature sounded. For countless nights, she listened to these sounds while walking on the path home, until she left the village, entered university, and tried to take root in the big city, getting further and further away from them.

Maybe it's really because of nostalgia that I want to promote the video so that more people can see it?

Li Yun sighed helplessly. She was just an intern and couldn't make any decision at all. So let it be.

She was about to end the video when she suddenly noticed the next episode was playing on the screen.

"A new video is out so soon?" Li Yun muttered to himself, and clicked on the next episode to play.

The second video of Xia Xia in the Mountains is titled "Hope in the Autumn Fields". The first scene is the setting sun in autumn, the geese returning home, and the harvested sesame stalks scattered on the fields. The farmers are silent, bundling them, loading them onto the truck, and taking them home.

A period of more than 30 seconds of empty space, still with natural sounds as background music, is very leisurely and unique.

The scene shifted, revealing an old man drying something in the farmyard. The camera zoomed in, and blogger Xia Xia asked the question on everyone's mind: "Grandpa, what are these?"

"These are all common herbs in our mountains. This is Prunella Vulgaris, this is Gallnut, and this is the wild loquat leaf in the mountains. Although they are not rare, they are very useful in critical moments!"

The old man was about sixty or seventy years old, with a strong and upright figure and long beard, which showed the signs of longevity. Especially his words and deeds gave people a sense of immortality.

Through the conversation between Xia Xia and Grandpa, Li Yun learned that the old man was a barefoot doctor who was still practicing medicine in the village. All the young people in the village had left, leaving the elderly and children at home. It was inconvenient for them to go to the health center for medical treatment. He obtained a medical certificate in his early years and has been treating people in the village.

Some elderly people are reluctant to spend money on medical treatment, so he goes up the mountain to collect herbs and prepares medicine himself, which saves a lot of money.

"Master, can I go up the mountain with you to pick herbs?"

"Okay, I'll take you up the mountain tomorrow."

After this scene ended, Li Yun thought that the next shot would show the process of going up the mountain to pick herbs. She watched it with great interest and recalled her childhood.

When she was a child, there were such old doctors in her village. However, with the development of the times, the barefoot doctors' medical qualifications were abolished, and clinics replaced the old doctors.

Li Yun's hometown is in the plains, and he has never seen people picking herbs in the mountains, so everything in the video is full of novelty.

But then the video changed, Xia Xia climbed onto a tricycle, and a couple appeared, and they were going to the field to cut sesame seeds.

Xia Xia's mother handed the straw hat to her daughter. The two pushed it around. Xia Xia's father said, "Make another one. We have everything!"

Several empty scenes show the harvested sesame fields and the sesame stalks drying in front of the house. Then, Xia Xia's father goes to cut bamboo, and Xia Xia follows him.

The leisurely wind, the girl sitting on the back of the tricycle holding the bamboo, Xia Xia is very beautiful, like an elf who grew up in the mountains, so harmonious in the camera.

The bamboo was cut into strips, and Yang Guojun sat under the grape trellis in the yard, weaving a bamboo hat at an extremely fast speed.

There is no abrupt BGM, only the noises made by people and the rustling sound of grape leaves in the wind. The camera moves from Yang Guojun's profile to the grape rack. There are no grapes on the rack, but the vines hanging on it indicate the hope of harvest next year.

The sun moves westward and the video is nearing its end. The camera follows Xia Xia and her daughter to the vegetable garden. They pick the beans, peppers and loofahs that are no longer growing, deal with the racks, and discuss what to plant while working.

Liu Guizhen said: "Let's plant some vegetables that can be eaten in winter. Green radish, white radish, cabbage, anything can be planted."

Xia Xia said, "How about planting some more strawberries?"

"How are we going to eat all the strawberries we grow?"

"Have you finished eating~"

The mother retreated step by step under her daughter's coquettish voice, "Okay, okay, I'll do as you say. Let's plant strawberries."

It was dark, and the family sat in the yard to eat. The camera moved up again, showing the distant deep blue night sky dotted with twinkling stars.

"Autumn, tomorrow, what will happen?"

Xia Xia's day ended, and Li Yun seemed to have spent such a wonderful day with her.

Even after the video ended, she was still immersed in the atmosphere created by the video and couldn't get out of it.

When she came to her senses, the mechanical clacking sounds of her colleagues typing on their keyboards and the voices of them talking in hushed voices flooded into her mind, making her anxious and uncomfortable.

That would be great, if only I could live Xia Xia’s life.

And this is definitely not just Li Yun's idea.

Sighing, Li Yun patted his cheeks to sober himself up and began to pay attention to the video itself.

The video is twenty minutes long, which should not happen on Kuaishou, a platform that mainly produces short videos. Otherwise, many people will not have the patience to continue watching the video once they see the length of the video. The video retention rate and conversion rate are not high. Even if you promote it to more users, it will be useless if you cannot retain them.

Li Yun has been working at Kuaishou for half a month and is very aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the Kuaishou video platform. Although Xia Xia's first video data is good among newcomers, can she really maintain this data?

Clicking on Xia Xia's account homepage, Li Yun was surprised to find that the video Xia Xia posted 25 minutes ago already had more than 300 likes and nearly 100 comments!

Hiring some online trolls? Li Yun subconsciously guessed, but after clicking into the comments section and taking a closer look, he didn't think it was possible.

The comments section is almost entirely devoted to discussing the video content. Some are reminiscing about their childhood, some are asking questions out of curiosity, and some are simply praising the video. If you haven't watched the video, you would never make such genuine comments!

So this Xia Xia really has the potential to become popular!

After much thought, Li Yun decided to recommend Xia Xia to her boss again. If Xia Xia really becomes popular, she should be able to become a regular employee, right?

"Where's Sister Xu?"

"She was just called away by the big boss. Do you have something to do with her?"

The watermelon was soaked in well water, then brought to the table, the stem was cut off, and the kitchen knife was wiped with the stem. Then the knife was raised and chopped, and the watermelon split into two halves.

Cut in half and then cut again, the thin-skinned and red-fleshed watermelon exudes a unique aroma.

Xia Wu picked up a piece of melon and handed it to his grandfather, "Grandpa, stop looking and eat the melon!"

"Mom, you eat too!"

"This is Dad's, this one is for my brother, I'll eat this one!"

All five members of the Yang family gathered around the table. Except for Xia Wu who was cutting melon, everyone else was holding a phone and looking at it.

Liu Guizhen couldn't stop laughing when she read the comments posted by netizens. "These netizens are so talented. Some even wrote poems praising us, like 'The setting sun hides behind the green mountains, and life is a half-day of leisure.' That's really amazing!"

"It's really interesting. As soon as I refresh the page, my daughter's video gets so many likes and comments. How many people are watching it right now?"

Old man Yang wore reading glasses and read carefully word by word. Someone in the comment area said that seeing him reminded him of his grandfather. His grandfather used to be a barefoot doctor and often carried a medicine box to visit patients at home. There was a medicine cabinet in the old house, which always exuded the smell of Chinese medicinal materials. Even when he grew up, he could not forget it.

Comments that are sincere and heartfelt are always touching, and Mr. Yang gave him a thumbs up.

Yang Hongwen can't read, but he watched the video over and over again and was satisfied every time he watched it.

"Dad, did you grow the watermelons or buy them?" Xia Wu suddenly asked while eating.

Yang Guojun: "I grew them myself, and the melons I harvested were the last crop, so they weren't very tasty."

"It tastes delicious to me. Can we plant it again next year?"

"Okay, don't spit out the watermelon seeds and throw them away. Collect them later and I'll pick out the big ones to grow seedlings next year."

"good!"

Xia Wu really likes to eat this old variety of watermelon. Although it is inconvenient because of the seeds, its skin is crispy, the flesh is sweet, and it is very juicy. After eating it, you can turn into a pea shooter, which is super cool!

When the time comes, I will plant watermelons and shoot many videos, hehe.

Two videos were released within three days, and the response to each video was good after it was broadcast, but it seemed to deviate from Xia Wu’s original intention of making money!

There are video views, but where is the money?

Xia Wu bit the melon angrily. Others can take advertisements when making videos, but who would ask her to shoot an advertisement?

Life is not easy, Xia Xia sighed.

There was originally less than 30,000 yuan in the small treasury. I added more than 4,000 yuan to buy my brother a mobile phone, so there was still 20,000 yuan left.

Yang Guojun wanted to give her the money, but she refused.

It seems like we are getting further and further away from Baoshan.

However, Xia Wu had no other choice but to continue to film his daily life, edit videos, and publish them, hoping for a miracle to happen.

Yang Guojun made a bamboo hat for Xia Wu. It was only used during the hot midday sun, but it would be cooler if she didn't wear it at other times.

After he finished making the bamboo hat, he started to build the beehive.

Bees have relatively high requirements for their homes, so when making beehives, you need to choose wood that is light, odorless, and not easy to deform. Yang Guojun uses white pine wood.

I have to say that Yang Guojun is really capable when it comes to hands-on work. He does everything by himself, from drawing the design, to processing the wood, assembling the box, and installing the hive frames and beehive doors. Xia Wu just hands him tools and asks why.

After two days of hard work, Yang Guojun finished the beehive. The next step was to introduce the bees.

Old Master Yang has already used his connections with Mr. Pu to get him to agree to give Xia Wu a box of his beloved wild bees. However, whether Xia Wu can keep these wild bees depends on his ability.

After the beehive was built, Xia Wu went to the mountain to ask Mr. Pu how to successfully swarm the bees.

Mr. Park was not at all secretive and taught her how to mix honey and sugar water in appropriate proportions to make bee-attracting water.

"Autumn has fewer nectar sources, making it a great time to move bees. Just put this beehive in the strawberry patch. I'll give you an old honeycomb later. The smell will attract the native bees from my mountain. Put some attractant water in the beehive, and bees will start to come in and build nests."

It sounds simple, but Mr. Pu couldn't guarantee Xia Wu that Nofeng would succeed.

In any case, Xia Wu decided to give it a try first. She used honey and water as Master Pu taught her, but she used spiritual spring water.

After cleaning up the vegetable garden, Xia Wu also planted a new batch of strawberry seedlings he had purchased, as they were about to bloom.

Xia Wu placed the beehive near the strawberry field and put bee-attracting water into the beehive, hoping for a miracle to happen.