Chapter 351: Yi'an

March, Hengdian

The TV series "The Beauty's Scheme," produced by Yi'an Investment and Yu Zheng Studio, officially commenced filming.

The director of the drama is Wu Jingyuan, who previously worked with Tangren, participating in projects such as "The Legend of Sword and Fairy," "New Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio," and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes."

Later, Yu Zheng brought him on board for "Locking the Autumn," and the collaboration went well; now they’re working together again on "The Beauty's Scheme."

This is now the standard practice at Yi'an.

In the past, when Yi'an was still developing, it sought to bind or recruit every director and screenwriter with even moderate ability.

Even some behind-the-scenes staff were personally poached by Yan Li, the boss.

Now, times have changed; Yi'an’s status and strength are no longer what they were, and its approach has shifted.

Aside from a few core creators who are signed and bound, secondary directors and screenwriters are more commonly engaged on a project-by-project basis.

The reason is that the former often have fame and industry influence, bringing soft benefits; binding them benefits the company, and they possess a degree of irreplaceability, preventing rivals from poaching them.

The latter may have some recognition within the industry but are virtually unknown to the general public, and are mostly replaceable—alternatives can always be found.

As a result, many talents who once desperately sought by Yi'an now fail to meet the signing threshold; Yi'an works with them mostly through project collaborations.

This is the advantage of a company growing large: directly accessing the entire industry, with talent reserves and coordination capabilities that small and medium companies envy.

To be blunt, if Yi'an now targeted Tangren, it could drain half of Tangren’s talent within a short time.

But there’s no need; given Yi'an’s current scale and its control over Tangren’s distribution lifeline, Tangren won’t dare defy Yi'an.

Except for a few core individuals, as long as their schedules allow, Yi'an can directly assign others, and at most assign some roles to Tangren’s actors.

Tangren’s directors and some teams are also willing to come to Yi'an—more money, better prospects; often, even when working on Tangren’s own productions, they prefer to join Yi'an.

"The Beauty's Scheme" boasts impressive investment and cast, making it a highly watched project in the industry; many media outlets attended the launch ceremony.

Yu Zheng, as both screenwriter and producer, was full of determination.

With consecutive hits like "The Qing Dynasty Harem," "Crimson Snow," and "The Last Princess," though none became massive blockbusters, their performance was solid, and Yi'an has heavily supported him; online, he’s already been dubbed Yi'an’s number-one producer.

Yu Zheng is quite interested in this title—not just a hollow honor, but one tied to real financial gains.

Yi'an’s IPO has long been a public goal; recent moves by Huayi Brothers have served as a model, and Yan Li has subtly hinted at this within the company.

Yu Zheng is a veteran at Yi'an with some contributions; he certainly holds a share of the original equity.

In Yu Zheng’s mind, the only people who might overshadow him are Fan Xiaopang and Ning Hao; Deng Chao and Wang Ou are on equal footing with him.

Deng Chao is the top male star, with celebrity charisma, high popularity and recognition, which can help promote the company’s stock.

Just as Huayi promotes Huang Xiaoming and Li Bingbing as celebrity shareholders, Yi'an’s female artist is Fan Xiaopang, and the male artist will likely be Deng Chao.

Wang Ou also has considerable fame; he’s the company’s first artist, a true elder, and with his close relationship to Yan Li, he’s certainly received special consideration.

When Yu Zheng says he’s on equal footing with them, it’s just polite talk—he knows his studio is a joint venture and thus inevitably affected.

But Yu Zheng hasn’t given up; Huayi and Yi'an are different.

At Huayi, the largest shareholder is undoubtedly Feng Xiaogang, and considering Li Bingbing’s situation, they’ll likely lean more toward promoting Huang Xiaoming.

At Yi'an, aside from Yan Li, no one can surpass Fan Xiaopang; even Fan Xiaopang is merely one card in Yi'an’s deck—the true core is unquestionably Yan Li.

This is the biggest difference between Huayi and Yi'an: because the Wang brothers at Huayi lack sufficient fame and clout, they need a celebrity strategy to boost stock prices.

Yi'an also needs one, but with Yan Li as a business celebrity, the importance of the celebrity strategy is somewhat diminished.

To many, even Fan Xiaopang plus all of Yi'an’s other stars combined can’t match Yan Li.

So it’s foreseeable that Yi'an’s celebrity shares won’t be as “generous” as Huayi’s, and Yan Li holds absolute authority in this matter.

If Yu Zheng performs well and earns Yan Li’s approval, the boss might generously increase his original equity share.

At Huayi, the most original shares were held by Feng Xiaogang, followed by Hu Zi.

The reason is that Hu Zi is the core of Huayi’s TV drama business.

Yu Zheng feels that although he can’t match Hu Zi’s seniority or status, within the company, he still has a chance to rival Hu Zi and become Yi'an’s representative in TV drama production.

Of course, Yi'an now has many strong figures in TV drama; for Yu Zheng to outshine them all, he needs real, tangible achievements.

Thus, Yu Zheng takes "The Beauty's Scheme" very seriously, aiming to create a super-hit like "The Legend of Lu Xiaofeng."

To boost morale and generate buzz for the project, Yu Zheng made bold statements at the launch ceremony.

“They say I’m the screenwriter who understands women’s stories best—I don’t like that label, but I won’t deny that in the past two years, my dramas centered on female leads have performed the best.”

“I don’t pay attention to criticism or controversy; I only care whether my dramas are well-received, whether audiences love them, whether the company makes money, and whether the actors become famous—that’s enough.”

“I’ve prepared this drama for a long time; it’s the largest-budget project I’ve ever directed. I believe it will become a new peak in my career.”

“I’ve made a military pledge to Boss Yan: 'The Beauty's Scheme' will definitely be a hit. If the company loses money, I’ll personally bear the loss.”

“...”

As Yu Zheng chattered to the reporters, Zhao Ke couldn’t help nudging Qin Lan.

“Sis, aren’t those remarks a bit arrogant? Won’t this get him criticized?”

“You don’t understand.”

Hu Siyan chuckled: “Old Yu is deliberately stirring up attention—you think anyone cares about those bland platitudes? Netizens and media love sensationalism.”

Qin Lan nodded: “When your brother-in-law first started directing, he was constantly making bold claims and arguing with others.”

“Later, when Yi'an grew strong and Weibo emerged, he used this tactic less. Yu Zheng’s personality… is tenacious, unafraid of controversy, so he picked up the same habit. If you dig through news from a few years ago, you’ll see his words echo your brother-in-law’s old style.”

Zhao Ke thought back and grinned: “Your brother-in-law’s become so steady now—I’d almost forgotten the old Feng Diao showdown.”

Liu Yun appeared out of nowhere: “Back then, Yan Li was even more arrogant than Yu Zheng.”

Yu Zheng merely ranted a bit; Yan Li directly challenged Zhang Da Hu Zi, the most powerful figure at the time, openly scolding him and giving the public plenty of entertainment.

Unfortunately, Yan Li now upholds his status—or has no worthy rivals—and rarely engages in public feuds anymore, instead continuously cultivating his image as a refined business elite.

As a result, people like Zhao Ke, who aren’t close to him, have barely any memory of Yan Li’s [youthful recklessness] persona.

“Speaking of which, there’s a funny story: recently, when Zhang Da Hu Zi announced he was making 'The New Journey to the West,' reporters interviewed him and subtly brought up 'The New Three Kingdoms,' probably trying to provoke him for publicity—but your brother-in-law completely ignored him.”

Li Xiaolu remembered this and happily shared it; Qin Lan laughed upon hearing it.

“I know about this. Back in the Jin Gu rivalry, and now with the Four Great Classical Novels, Zhang Da Hu Zi wanted another publicity stunt—but your brother-in-law looked down on him, thought his status was too low and would drag down his own prestige, so he sent Wang from the TV department to handle it, which really pissed Zhang Da Hu Zi off.”

“Pissed him off? I heard he smashed his office.”

Hu Siyan worked at Huayi, same company as Zhang Da Hu Zi, and had access to insider rumors.

Smashing the office might be exaggerated, but Zhang Da Hu Zi was indeed furious.

After all, what’s more humiliating than someone who once tried to ride on your coattails now looking down on you?

What made him break was that this was indeed a widely accepted fact—even he himself was subtly trying to provoke Yan Li this time—but Yan Li, damn him, didn’t play by the rules, so his scheme failed.

“In another two years, maybe Old Yu will go head-to-head with Zhang Da Hu Zi.”

Hu Siyan sighed. Although Wang Decai at Yi'an also serves as producer, he now leans more toward company management; people see him as an executive, not a producer.

Among Yi'an’s producers, the most prominent and publicity-seeking is Yu Zheng.

Qin Lan shook her head: “I doubt it’ll take that long.”

It’s only because Zhang Da Hu Zi has such deep seniority that Yu Zheng still lacks sufficient depth; otherwise, he’d already have clashed with him.

Last year, Zhang Da Hu Zi’s "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" performed averagely, showing signs of decline, while Yu Zheng has been steadily rising.

The person climbing uphill and the god descending—when they don’t meet, it’s fine; when they do, friction and conflict are inevitable.

“Enough chatting. Get back to work. I’ve got an interview—after that, let’s all get together. Once filming starts, things will get busy.”

Qin Lan didn’t dwell on it—it had nothing to do with her. She clapped her hands and assigned tasks.

This time, she was also listed as producer and invested in the drama through her company, Shan Feng Pictures.

After all, publicly, Qin Lan has no official connection to Yi'an; even if everyone knows, it’s still not formally legitimate.

So Qin Lan made a small investment, brought capital into the project, and naturally became a producer with some influence.

Notably, the Shan Feng Pictures Qin Lan founded, besides partnering with her own studio to secure her agency rights, also signed one artist: Zhao Ke of the Teddy Sisters.

The Teddy Sisters: Ma Yi and Li Xiaolu are with Chengtian; Hu Siyan and Liu Yun are with Huayi; Xiong Naijin left Huayi for Yinghuang; Ying Cai’er is with China Star; Gan Wei is with LeTV; Yang Mi is with Yi'an.

Only Zhao Ke and Qin Lan are independent—not quite solo, since Qin Lan was previously signed to a Hunan TV subsidiary, and Zhao Ke was with a freelance agent.

After the Bloggate incident, Qin Lan didn’t want to be affected by the company, so she terminated her contract and founded Qin Lan Studio.

She never planned to expand aggressively—just a small team to manage her personal entertainment affairs.

But her agent, Lü Jie, thought it was a waste for Qin Lan to have such great resources and only run a small studio; encouraged by Lü Jie, and with this investment in "The Beauty's Scheme," Qin Lan established Shan Feng Pictures.

Qin Lan provided the capital and connections, holding 85% of the company; Lü Jie handled management and operations, holding 15%.

Shortly after Shan Feng’s founding, Zhao Ke came to join Qin Lan.

Most of her resources already came from Qin Lan; joining her company deepened their bond and aligned their interests further.

They’re sisters, but since Zhao Ke gives Qin Lan part of her earnings, it’s obvious who Qin Lan will prioritize with her resources.

Besides Zhao Ke, Lü Jie plans to poach talent from her old company, determined to grow Shan Feng into a major force.

Qin Lan herself isn’t very invested—she even signed Zhao Ke to a short-term contract with lenient termination terms, so her sister won’t be held back by this casual venture.

She leaves the rest to Lü Jie: if resources and connections are available, she’ll allocate them to the company; if not, she waits. Wherever it goes, it goes; if it fails, it doesn’t matter—a studio is enough.

But while she doesn’t care much about Shan Feng, Qin Lan is genuinely invested in "The Beauty's Scheme."