Chapter 948: Midnight Diner

"Is everyone not sleeping, or did you all wake up early?"

Miss Luo Quan walked downstairs and found the staff already at their respective posts. She checked the time; it was only 6:15.

The place where the staff stayed was quite far from the guests' quarters. To get everything packed up and arrive here, they must have woken up by at least 5:00.

"I remember we finished recording the show past 11:00 last night. Doesn't that mean you've had less than five hours of sleep?" Miss Luo Quan walked over to the water dispenser to get a drink while chatting with the staff.

"No, we work in two shifts," the staff member replied to Miss Luo Quan's question with great enthusiasm.

"That's a relief. If you only slept five hours every day, it would be too hard to bear."

"You're up quite early yourself," the assistant director said with a smile.

"I have to make breakfast for everyone, don't I?" Miss Luo Quan tied up her hair, grabbed a basket and some money, and headed out the door.

She planned to make meat buns for breakfast. Since it was a last-minute decision, she intended to hurry to the morning market to buy two pieces of meat.

This had been unanimously agreed upon by everyone, as the money was earned by the two teachers, He and Wang, by trading the vegetables they grew with the production crew.

In fact, this system didn't exist in the previous seasons; it was only added after this season began airing.

The reason the first three seasons of *A Yearning Life* had the best reputation was that the celebrities grew their own food and ate it themselves. After hard labor, they enjoyed the joy of the harvest, bringing the audience a very relaxed and natural feeling.

But by the fourth season, the guests had become a bit too "floaty."

Choosing a seaside resort as the filming location was one thing, but the food was all brought from home, and each item was more high-end than the last—things like steaks worth thousands, massive portions of seafood, and luxury yachts taking everyone out to sea.

This kind of treatment wasn't called a "yearning life"; it was called a "yearning vacation."

So, after the fourth season aired, the production team was criticized miserably from top to bottom. Netizens even suggested they might as well go to Europe to film the next season, since it was all a paid vacation anyway, and the scenery would be nicer and more pleasing to the eye.

Of course, if the production team had actually listened to these words and implemented them, the reputation of *A Yearning Life* would have truly collapsed.

After reflecting on their mistakes, the production team decided to return to their original intentions and learn from similar variety shows in the Kimchi Country.

That meant restricting the food and money the guests could bring, so that their economic resources would not be so abundant while staying at the Mushroom House.

Only in this way could they return to the period where they relied on farming and labor to earn their rewards.

Sure enough, after changing the program's strategy, the reputation of the fifth season of *A Yearning Life* immediately reversed the decline of the previous season, reaching a level just slightly lower than the first three seasons.

In fact, the show should have been filmed this way from the start.

The selling point of this type of variety show is hardship and authenticity. The fans are all here to see how the celebrities live under difficult conditions.

But you, on the other hand, arranged so many resources that everyone lost their sense of immersion. If the netizens don't roast you, who would they roast?

In short, after the reputation of this season turned around, the pressure on all the staff was alleviated.

Of course, the pressure on the two teachers, He Qiong and Wang Lei, was a bit greater. After all, they had to rely on hard work in the fields to improve their lives, and they also had to urge the other guests to work together. The workload was indeed greater than before.

Fortunately, both of them were idle now.

Teacher Wang Lei hadn't filmed in a long time. Ever since the failure of the remake of the Japanese TV series *Midnight Diner*, Teacher Wang seemed to have given up on acting, turning instead into a variety show regular.

To be fair, the variety shows he appeared on had decent ratings, and he was always the big brother among the guests, often stepping in to lead the direction when opinions diverged.

In *A Yearning Life*, he also utilized his skills as a teacher, often teaching those young artists the principles of how to conduct themselves in the world.

But what was most praiseworthy was his cooking and his love for food.

Because he loved it so much, he even went to film that epic disaster of a show, *Midnight Diner*.

Of course, the fact that this show became one of the lowest-rated domestic dramas on Douban wasn't entirely his fault; it was mainly due to factors like the screenwriter's reckless changes, the poor acting of the supporting cast, and excessive product placement.

As for how good Teacher Wang's cooking was, that was a matter of opinion, but it was certainly better than the average person's.

But after Miss Luo Quan arrived yesterday, the meals at the Mushroom House were basically left to her.

"Since the Chinese God of Cooking is here, I won't make a fool of myself," Teacher Wang joked with a smile, and then happily played the role of Miss Luo Quan's assistant on the side.

However, Teacher Wang was quite eager to learn. When observing Miss Luo Quan cooking, he often asked questions about ingredient preparation, marinating, and heat control. Miss Luo Quan always answered patiently, and they got along quite happily.

As for Teacher He Qiong, last year was quite unfavorable for him.

First, a celebrity fan revealed that he hinted for fans to send gifts, and then a large group of people came forward with solid evidence that he had been accepting gifts for several years.

As a host with a public position, this behavior was certainly very inappropriate, so he immediately became the target of public criticism on the internet.

Over the past dozen years, Teacher He had always been famous for taking care of his juniors, having a clean record, and never making enemies with anyone.

At his peak, when his birthday came around, more than half of the celebrities in the entertainment industry would send him their blessings.

But after the incident, when his birthday came around again, the number of celebrities who sent blessings could be counted on one hand.

Within that single year, he deeply tasted what it meant to see the fickleness of human relationships.

And just at the beginning of the year, the domestic ace variety show *Happy Camp* announced its conclusion. A group of hosts left this variety platform, which could be called the king of traffic, and none of them had found a better job yet.

Teacher He was the exception. Although accepting gifts was indeed not quite right, his professional ability accumulated over decades of hosting was completely flawless, and there were plenty of shows for him to appear on.

In *A Yearning Life*, he and Teacher Wang Lei also acted as partners, welcoming every guest who came here.

Because neither of them was doing their former main jobs anymore, variety shows became their main occupation, so they treated it with more dedication. It could be seen that the performance of the two teachers this season was better than in the previous seasons.

The flow of each episode was basically that during the day, the two teachers led the guests to work. After finishing, Teacher Huang was responsible for cooking. At night, after eating, Teacher He was responsible for heart-to-heart talks with everyone, while deepening the theme.

They didn't talk for too long last night because everyone was exhausted from the journey, so they went to sleep quite early.

This was the current situation. Miss Luo Quan, as the first guest to wake up, bought two pieces of pork at the not-so-bustling market.

Because funds were limited, Miss Luo Quan didn't spend money as lavishly as she usually did.

But she was actually capable of living frugally; after all, financial freedom was only a matter of the last few years.

In order to buy the best meat with the least amount of money, she walked around the market twice, asked for the prices at four butcher shops, and finally spent fifty yuan to buy two pieces of good meat.

"Eh, you're awake?"

After Miss Luo Quan returned to the Mushroom House, she found that Teacher He and Teacher Wang were both up, and they had already helped her proof the dough.

"You woke up even earlier than us, and you've already bought the meat back." Wang Lei was even more surprised when he saw Miss Luo Quan returning with the meat.

According to the planning of *A Yearning Life*, guests generally wouldn't interact with the filming crew; they would just pretend they didn't exist and live their own lives.

Just now, Miss Luo Quan was able to say a few words because she woke up too early and there was no one else around.

And after Miss Luo Quan left, when the two teachers came downstairs, there was no one to interact with them, so they didn't know that someone had woken up earlier than them.

Teacher Wang Lei took the meat and said with a smile, "Don't young people nowadays only wake up at eight or nine o'clock? It's really rare to see someone who can crawl out of bed at six."

"Actually, I don't usually wake up this early either, but I promised to make breakfast for you all."

Miss Luo Quan said, glancing at the dough; it seemed like there was a bit too much.

But it didn't matter; if there was leftover dough, she could make fried dough sticks.

"How do you plan to use these two pieces of meat for breakfast?" He Qiong asked Miss Luo Quan, holding the meat in his hand.

"One piece will be minced for meat buns, and the other piece will be saved for braised pork tonight."

As she spoke, she took one piece from He Qiong's hand, preparing to boil it first to remove the gamey smell.

She planned to make two types of meat filling: fresh meat and soy-sauce meat.

The most troublesome part of the entire cooking process was mincing the meat.

Miss Luo Quan held two kitchen knives, which fell rapidly onto the chopping board, emitting a crisp sound like horse hooves. Before long, the meat chunks had turned into fine mince.

Wang Lei watched for a while on the side and then walked away, exclaiming that he couldn't learn this skill.

In fact, many techniques in cooking are just a matter of practice.

At first, you might feel it's very difficult, but as long as you practice for a long time, you can basically master it.

It's just that Wang Lei didn't have a proper chef to teach him, so he felt these things were very difficult.

The process of wrapping the buns that followed was based on the same principle.

In the time it took the two teachers to wrap one, Miss Luo Quan could wrap five or six.

Although their efficiency was a bit lower, they had at least helped out.

By the time the fried dough sticks were fried and the buns were out of the steamer, the other guests had also arrived downstairs one after another.

A few of them were clearly just awake, still looking sleepy.

Zhang Zifeng, Guo Qilin, Peng Yuchang, and Cheng Feiyu were the four young people, along with the long-lost Qin Yi.

Ever since the show he starred in, *Beijiao Gentlemen*, flopped, Qin Yi seemed to be a bit more decadent than before.

He was probably broken by the boundless abuse on the internet, so he was a bit unkempt.

But being unkempt didn't mean he wasn't confident. Although there weren't many female guests on the show this time, he still acted like a domineering CEO when he spoke.

However, this act had already been demonstrated by Teacher Wang before—the "I don't want what you think, I want what I think" routine—and he was mocked to the heavens by netizens after saying it.

If Qin Yi continued to act like this, he would probably end up being cursed onto the trending searches again.

But he seemed to have a "broken pot, broken throw" attitude, so he kept doing things his own way.

In comparison, Cheng Feiyu appeared very reserved.

Like Guailing, he was also a returnee born and raised abroad.

However, his parents were both Chinese, and his father was a famous domestic director, the kind with a very high status.

So, under the influence of his parents, Cheng Feiyu chose to renounce his American citizenship after becoming an adult, acquired Chinese citizenship, and officially entered the Chinese entertainment industry.

His first work was appearing in the unit drama "Daytime Meteor," filmed by his father, for the National Day tribute film two years ago, which was widely criticized.

However, as a "resource-backed" actor, Cheng Feiyu didn't receive too much attention from trolls; instead, he was quite pitied by netizens.

Back then, the phrase "Arthur, please sit" made the whole internet laugh their heads off and also let netizens know how pretentious his famous director father was in real life.

It wasn't like they were a super-rich family, yet they acted like European blue-blooded nobles, with so many fussy requirements just for a home-cooked meal.

The most ridiculous thing was that he could actually talk at length about the philosophy and aesthetics contained in a bowl of diced meat, which really left people not knowing how to roast him.

Finally, the finishing touch, "Arthur, please sit," became one of the annual trending memes in the entertainment industry last year.

It was precisely because of this that netizens pitied Cheng Feiyu.

Living with such a father in real life was truly not easy.

After Miss Luo Quan arrived yesterday, she had originally intended to make a joke and say "Arthur, please sit" while eating.

But after thinking about his father's petty nature, she gave up on this idea.

After all, this famous director wouldn't even allow netizens to criticize his own bad films.

When *The Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun* became popular back then, he immediately sued them in court.

And even now, if anyone brings this up, he will immediately start roasting you.

Given this, Miss Luo Quan felt it was better not to make this joke.

As for the lively Guo Qilin and Peng Yuchang, they were very active, getting along well with every guest, and were the comedic pillars of the show.

If there was a moment of silence, the two of them would jump in with some banter to liven up the scene.

As for Zhang Zifeng, she was also a carefree girl. Because she was one of the only two girls, she talked the most with Miss Luo Quan, but the topics weren't very compatible.

After chatting for a few sentences, Miss Luo Quan discovered that this carefree girl was actually a literary girl who liked photography and writing short, fresh sentences full of life philosophy.

And what Miss Luo Quan hated most was literary youths.

Of course, she certainly didn't mean literary youths like Zhang Zifeng, and she definitely couldn't say such things out loud.

In short, this guest lineup, a mix of old and young, got along very harmoniously.

Except for Qin Yi occasionally saying some annoying things, it was basically in a perfect state.

"Everyone, hurry up and wash up. Come eat the buns and fried dough sticks after you're done."

As Miss Luo Quan spoke, she was stirring the soy milk in a large glass.

This was made from soy milk powder; it tasted great with just a little sugar added. Drinking a cup at breakfast made the whole stomach feel warm.

But you couldn't drink it too fast, or your esophagus would feel a bit burnt.

"My god, it smells so good." Guo Qilin mimicked the tone of a certain fat brother from his troupe, expressing his surprise.

The others also inhaled deeply, praising it non-stop after they finished.

Miss Luo Quan's skills were such that just smelling the aroma was enough to make one's mouth water for three thousand feet. ===== CHAPTER 949 =====