I Awakened to a Farming TALENT

**Chapter 100: Seriously? This Made It to Trending Topics Too**

Since all the tofu pudding was gone, the Qionghua crew packed up early and pushed the tricycle back.

On the way back, it suddenly started snowing.

Jiang Tingyun had always thought snowflakes came in individual flakes — at worst, they couldn‘t be smaller than the snow in Suzhou.

But who knew what kind of climate Phoenix had? The snow that fell wasn’t in flakes or crystals — just tiny, rice-grain-sized pellets of ice.

Even snow like that made Jin Feifan and Zhu Lili overjoyed.

“It‘s snowing! It’s really snowing!”

The two ran excitedly ahead, chasing the wind and snow, roughhousing as they went. Soon they disappeared from sight.

Before long, the wind picked up and rain started falling, mixing with the ice pellets and driving straight into the backs of their necks.

“So cold, so cold.”

This wasn‘t the gentle, fluffy snow of imagination at all — it was sleet. It didn’t accumulate on the ground, just mixed with mud, making everything wet and slippery.

Visibility was terrible too. Pei Jingmo pushed the tricycle in front, while Jiang Tingyun trudged behind, shivering. They struggled forward through the wind and sleet.

The few hundred meters felt like a pilgrimage to the West. Somehow, they finally made it back to Qionghua Restaurant.

Uncle Liu forced everyone to drink two big bowls of thick ginger tea before letting them go to bed.

---

The next morning — New Year‘s Day — the most relaxing day of the year for hardworking people.

Though the local area had banned private fireworks and firecrackers, it was the countryside, and no one strictly followed the rules.

Sporadic firecracker pops had been going off since midnight.

Jiang Tingyun had been woken up early, but she stayed cozy in her warm blankets, not wanting to get up at all.

New Year’s Day — no need to get up, nothing to do.

She lounged in bed, watching TV on her phone. The much-anticipated drama starring the big star Xu Zijun, *Falling for My Wicked Mentor*, had finally aired.

She watched three episodes in a row and couldn‘t help complaining. The plot was terrible, and the acting was downright painful to watch.

With acting that bad, she thought Jin Feifan could star in a drama himself — he actually looked a little like Xu Zijun, just not as polished.

As she watched, her phone kept buzzing with New Year’s greetings on WeChat.

Suddenly, a message from Cao Zhizhi popped up.

The notification flashed by too fast. Jiang Tingyun didn‘t even catch what she’d said — just saw a screen full of exclamation marks.

She quickly opened it.

**Cheese Not Sweet:** Jiang Tingyun!!! What are you doing?!! Check Weibo! You‘re trending again!

What??!!

What was going on?

She’d quit her job and become a small business owner, not a celebrity. How was she trending?

It wasn‘t like last time when a celebrity had come to her restaurant for a live stream.

“Did Zhang Xinzi do something?” Jiang Tingyun wondered as she opened Weibo.

Since she hadn’t used Weibo in so long, her account had been logged out. It took her ages to sign back in.

Once she was on, she scrolled through the trending topics.

**#Spring Festival Gala Sketch#**

**#Spring Festival Gala Dance#**

**#Cheng Yuanqi‘s Gala Debut#**

**#The Hardest Working People on New Year’s Eve#**

**#The Rope Always Breaks at Its Thinnest#**

She flipped through several pages and didn‘t see anything about herself.

What was Cao Zhizhi talking about? She’d gotten all worked up for nothing.

**Jiang:** What? I don‘t see anything.

**Zhizhi’s Cheese:** [Photo] Look — isn‘t this you and Xiao Pei? The faces are totally blurry, but I recognized that tricycle. It’s way too distinctive!!! Trending at #4 and #5. Just click and see.

!!!

Jiang Tingyun opened the photo. It was a bit blurry — their faces weren‘t clearly visible.

The scene was New Year’s Eve night, wind and sleet, the sky grey and dark.

Pei Jingmo pushed the beat-up tricycle in front. She followed behind, wrapped in Uncle Liu‘s tattered cotton coat with over a dozen patches.

The wind must have been strong, the ice pellets cold. Though their features were unclear, the photographer had perfectly captured their expressions — numbed and pained by the freezing wind.

And in the background — the colorful, twinkling lights of Phoenix Square and the warm glow of countless homes. The contrast made the two people in the foreground seem utterly miserable — weary, numb, bitter, suffering.

“...”

Damn it. Who had taken a sneak shot of them? Fine, but did they have to make them look so pathetic?

Even a heart of stone would look at that photo and sigh, “Oh, how pitiful...”

And what was this about trending topics?

She tapped on the **#The Hardest Working People on New Year‘s Eve#** thread and finally understood what had happened.

It turned out that someone — some genius — had taken a candid shot of them last night as they walked back.

That evening, the thread about **#The Hardest Working People on New Year’s Eve#** had gone viral. At first, it featured firefighters, police officers, doctors, cleaners — people from all walks of life who had stayed at their posts on New Year‘s Eve.

Then, the person who took the photo had posted their picture in the thread, along with a caption:

> *“Grateful to the hardest-working and most beloved people who stayed at their posts on New Year’s Eve. But I also want to say — there are those for whom just living takes everything they have. On New Year‘s Eve, they’re still out struggling to make a living, and there might not even be a warm light waiting for them at home.”*

Maybe the photo was just too striking, too raw.

Many people were moved by the image of these two — in ragged clothes, pushing a tofu pudding cart through the snow on a cold night.

That alone wouldn‘t have been a big deal. It was just a misunderstanding by the blogger.

But then some scummy social media aggregator stole the photo, slapped their own hashtag on it — **#The Rope Always Breaks at Its Thinnest#** — and made up a whole sob story to go along with it.

Something about a brother and sister whose parents had died when they were young. They were so poor they could only make a living selling street food. Then the sister suddenly got seriously ill, so they had to sell even on New Year’s Eve — selling congee that was their last bit of food.

And of course, countless netizens believed it.

> *“That‘s so sad. Does anyone have their contact info? I want to send them money.”*

>

> *“Seeing people like this makes me feel grateful for my own life and also want to cherish it more.”*

>

> *“Is there a way to reach them? I want to help.”*

>

> *“The rope always breaks at its thinnest. Misfortune always finds the most suffering souls.”*

>

> *“What illness does the sister have? Even though her face is blurry, she looks kind of blank and dazed. Is it psychological?”*

Jiang Tingyun: “...”

She wanted to punch someone. It was New Year‘s — how absurd could this be?

She immediately reported that aggregator account.

Then she**. confirmed with Cao Zhizhi that no one could recognize their faces from the photo — only the tricycle was distinctive.

Good. She’d been meaning to get rid of that tricycle anyway. After the New Year, she was buying a Wuling Hongguang.

She just hoped no one she knew recognized her.

Suddenly, her phone rang. It was Liu Yanghe calling. She quickly answered. Liu Yanghe‘s excited voice burst through.

“Hello! Sect Master Jiang, Happy New Year!!! Check your phone! Something big is happening!”

Jiang Tingyun was shocked.

“Did you see that trending topic too?”

On the other end, Liu Yanghe paused for a moment, confused.

“What trending topic? No — I’m calling to tell you to check the Xuanmen Pig Protection Forum! The invitation for the Xuanmen Skills Exchange Conference has been released!”