Chapter 474 - The Program Group Was too Harsh!

Fang Qiu and Luo Jie directly advanced because of the other contestants’ inferior ability!

It was inevitable that Fang Qiu and Luo Jie would advance, and so were their chances to stay in the show. Otherwise, how could this show continue being recorded?

If everyone except Fang Qiu and Luo Jie was eliminated in the fourth episode, the fifth episode would go straight to the final.

Obviously it would not work.

Therefore, Director Li Huawen could only make this arrangement after knowing that most people were not able to process herbs.

Hearing Li Zhengtang’s question, many people thought that this arrangement was okay.

After all, processing herbs didn’t belong to medical skills and was not something that medical students must learn; Crucially, learning to process herbs was not so useful to them.

Fang Qiu and Luo Jie just managed to advance to the top 15 because they were lucky, like a blind cat coming across a dead mouse.

“The announcement has been made.”

Li Huawen said, “Let’s keep shooting.”

As a result, the shooting continued, but Fang Qiu and Luo Jie had nothing to do.

The two of them were in the top 15 and didn’t even need to be in this episode.

Fang Qiu was going to tell the director directly that he would like to leave. He wanted to have a good tour in the downtown area of Bozhou and buy something like snacks for Jiang Miaoyu.

But just as he was about to leave, the PD who had been following him when he was collecting herbs suddenly came over.

“You can’t leave now,” the PD said directly, as if having seen through Fang Qiu’s intentions.

“Why?”

Fang Qiu got confused by what he said.

“You can’t leave anyway, just stay and watch,” the PD insisted.

Fang Qiu went speechless.

But when he thought about it, he realized that he had been the attractive point of the show for a long time, and that if he left, it would be hard for the show to record.

Who was going to watch this show without an attractive point?

Especially, considering the trailer for the third episode, Fang Qiu understood the PD’s words better.

80 percent of the trailer was about Fang Qiu, so if Fang Qiu wasn’t there, there wouldn’t be anything interesting to watch.

The ratings would go down a lot.

As a director, Li Huawen would never allow that to happen.

Fang Qiu had advanced, but Li Huawen never said that he wouldn’t be on the next record!

“The competition of this episode is medicinal material identification!”

Director Li Huawen announced, “Now, all contestants are requested to hand in your mobile phones and follow the crew down the stairs to the recording place.”

Then everyone took out their mobile phones and handed them in. Then they left the hotel with the staff members and took a bus to the recording place.

After the 28 contestants had left, Director Li Huawen came up, held out his hand to Fang Qiu and Luo Jie, smiled, and said, “Hand in your phones, too.”

“Director, haven’t we already advanced?”

Luo Jie asked blankly, “Do we still have to do the recording?”

“You did advance, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to do the recording.”

Director Li Huawen grinned and said, “As for how to record, you’ll know when you get to the destination.”

Helplessly, Fang Qiu and Luo Jie had to hand in their phones and took the bus to the recording place with the rest of the contestants.

Half an hour later, the bus stopped in a very large factory area.

Straight ahead was a huge factory building.

As soon as he got out of the bus, Fang Qiu smelled Chinese Medicine.

Evidently, this place was a medicinal factory.

When the film crew and director group arrived, the contestants walked into the building led by the film crew.

Fang Qiu and Luo Jie were right behind them.

Walking into the factory, the crowd found that there were actually three rows of rooms that were temporarily built inside. With each row having 10 rooms, there were a total of 30 rooms.

“Recording begins!” shouted the director.

Every one of the film crew turned on the cameras and started recording.

…

When the 30 contestants got together, Director Li Huawen called out, “Please welcome our three judges.”

Then Highly-skilled Doctor Huang Zhengren, Yang Juanyong, and Li Zhengtang, the three judges, came from outside the factory, and several cameras filmed them from different angles.

The rest of the cameras were shooting the 30 contestants.

There was even a camera that was pointed at Fang Qiu all the time.

Soon, the three judges were in front of the contestants.

“First of all, welcome to Bozhou. Bozhou is the largest medicine trading market in the country, and today our competition will be held here.”

At this point, Huang Zhengren smiled, reached out to point to the 30 rooms which were temporarily built in front of him, and said, “In this round, 20 of the 30 contestants will advance, and the competition is about medicinal materials identification!

“In front of you are 30 rooms, in each of which is a packet of 50 kinds of herbs. Everyone goes into a room and sorts out all the fake herbs from the 50 kinds of herbs as quickly as possible.

“When you’re done, press the red button on the wall and your timer will stop.

“Of course, I won’t tell you how many of these 50 kinds of herbs are fake.”

At this point, Huang Zhengren smiled and said, “Take your places. When the competition starts, all the boxes containing herbs in the 30 rooms will be opened at the same time. As to which room to enter, it’s up to you.”

After hearing the rules of the competition, the contestants began to choose rooms.

Meanwhile, Fang Qiu and Luo Jie were dragged into the last two rooms by a PD respectively.

As soon as he got in, Fang Qiu saw the panoramic camera hanging on the wall, and he was speechless.

“Show your strength and identify the fake herbs as soon as possible,” the PD said to Fang Qiu.

“Hey, can’t you just give me a break?” Fang Qiu said with a bitter smile, “I’m already in the top 15 in the country, and you’re dragging me to take part in this competition. That doesn’t make sense!”

“Don’t worry.”

The PD laughed and said, “Your score won’t count. No matter what your score is in this round, you’ve definitely advanced. So you don’t have to worry.”

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

Fang Qiu curled his lip and said, “I’m indeed in the national top 15 right now. If I make a fool of myself in this room and you show it on TV, what can I do if the audience thinks I’m not so good?”

“It won’t be shown on TV. How can we show it?” the PD said quickly.

“So you really fool me?” Fang Qiu said in a speechless voice, pointing to the camera hanging on the wall.

Seeing this, the PD was speechless.

Fang Qiu was so smart!

He was right.

They did plan to record more about Fang Qiu. After all, the show depended on Fang Qiu to increase discussion and ratings, so they couldn’t do it without Fang Qiu.

“Can I take it that you’re acting like you don’t have confidence in yourself?” the PD asked.

“Are you kidding me?”

Fang Qiu rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t have faith in your show, because I’m worried that your question is too easy!”

“This time it was the three judges who gave the question.”

The PD spread out his hands and said, “I will tell them that you think their question is too easy.”

“Hey, are you up to something?”

Fang Qiu gave a wry smile and said, “I didn’t say that.”

At this point, he immediately walked over to the wall and said to the camera, “Everybody, please testify that I didn’t say that.”

“Well, would you like to test your limits by sorting out fake herbs as quickly as you can?” the PD asked.

“Okay, I’ll try,” Fang Qiu replied, looking back.

Hearing the words, the PD smiled.

…

Soon, time was up.

In the room, with the whistle of the start of the competition, boxes containing herbs on the table were opened simultaneously.

The moment when the boxes were opened, the 30 contestants quickly took out the package and put it on the table. Then they opened the package, spread all the herbs on the table, and began to identify them.

Fang Qiu did the same thing.

As soon as Fang Qiu opened the package, he saw a gallnut.

At the sight of the gallnut, the true and false description of the gallnut flashed through his mind.

“The gallnut is divided into the round type and the horned type.”

“The round gallnut is long and round or spindle-shaped. It is long and big, with a few hairs on the surface. It’s crisp and fragile. Its cross section is lustrous. There are bodies of black and brown aphids and powdery excreta. It smells special and tastes astringent.”

“The horned gallnut is mostly rhomboid or branched, small, densely villous, with thin fragment walls.”

Fang Qiu picked up the gallnut and observed it.

He found that although it looked like the real gallnut, it had a smooth surface, without villi, and had two layers of broken walls, and there was a layer of white excreta on top of it. It was a different species.

“It’s fake!”

Fang Qiu immediately put the gallnut outside the package.

Then he turned his eyes, and at once fixed his gaze on a herb in the package.

It was herba eupatorii!

“Genuine herba eupatorii stems are mostly flat, less branched, cylindrical or flattened. It’s about 1.5 to 4 mm in diameter. The surface is yellowish-brown or yellowish-green. There are longitudinal lines and obvious nodes. The node is not expanded. Its leaf is much wrinkled, broken, with large central lobe and coarsely serrate margin, and is glabrous on both sides. The leaf is dark green or yellowish. It’s easy to break, with kind of white cross section. It has marrow in the center, sometimes hollow. It smells a little sweet and tastes a little bitter.”

As he picked up the herba eupatorii, the real herba eupatorii’s features flashed through his mind.

With another glance at the herb, he decided, “It’s genuine.”

At a glance, Fang Qiu instantly knew that it was genuine herba eupatorii and put it on the other side.

The next!

Chicken’s gizzard-membrane!

“The chicken’s gizzard-membrane is long, oval, curly, yellow, with wavy wrinkles. It is thin and translucent. Its cross section is gelatinous and lustrous. It smells slightly fishy and tastes slightly bitter.”

Picking up the chicken’s gizzard-membrane, Fang Qiu immediately noticed that the herb was round and flaky, yellow and white, looking smooth and dull.

“It’s fake!”

Fang Qiu quickly made up his mind and put this herb to the place where it was supposed to be.

Then he went on to identify herbs.

Meanwhile, the contestants in the other rooms were frantically trying to distinguish herbs.

Some people even grabbed one herb in each hand and identify two at a time.

Besides Fang Qiu, Luo Jie and Li Sanxiao were also very fast.

The three people almost reached the degree that they could differentiate genuine and fake herbs at a glance!

Of course, this was only for the majority of commonly used herbs, but of the 50 herbs, there were many herbs that were not commonly used.

As a result, the competition among the 30 contestants became fiercer and fiercer.

Soon, a cue sounded.

“Beep!”

The light in Fang Qiu’s room suddenly went red.

In the room, the herbs in the package on the table had been divided into two piles by Fang Qiu.

And Fang Qiu sorted out 31 fake herbs!

“That’s harsh, isn’t it?”

As he pressed the red button, Fang Qiu couldn’t help but sigh, “There are 31 fake herbs in the 50 kinds of herbs. There are too many fake herbs. If contestants don’t have enough confidence, they will think they’ve made a mistake and sort them again when they see so many fake herbs.”