Chapter 621: I Am Willing to Be Lord Zhou Yi's Dog

At the end of 2003, an actress no one had heard of before rocketed to fame overnight with a long-shelved drama, growing ever more popular amid a storm of criticism, her momentum at one point even surpassing that of the two leading ladies—

The drama was called *My Fair Princess 3: Heaven on Earth*, and the young actress was named Qin Lan.

Due to censorship review reasons, on December 1st, its premiere day, the ratings in HUN Province reached 15.9%, with a market share of 33.4%; in the Changsha region, ratings hit 11.9%, with a market share as high as 28.15%.

One could say that, riding on the fame accumulated by the first two installments, even though the public rained curses on the fact that only Zhou Jie remained from the original lead cast of the third installment, people still had to tune in to see how the recast *My Fair Princess* would turn out.

Unfortunately, this heavenly opening hand was blown apart in just two short weeks—

The original leads of the first two installments had simply sunk too deeply into people's hearts. In the third installment, Huang Yi who played Little Yan, Ma Yili who played Ziwei, Gu Jujii who played Fifth Golden Age Yongqi, and the rest were all drenched in a torrent of abuse.

Even Huang Xiaoming, who played Xiao Jian, couldn't escape the roasting—people felt he wasn't as dashing as the original Xiao Jian from the second installment.

Ratings in the major rating regions outside HUN Province basically plummeted off a cliff—Guangzhou dropped to around 3, further dragging down the average ratings for the Guangdong region; the Imperial Capital's ratings were even below 6.

From the initial chorus of boos and applause flying together to the present where the boos drowned out the applause, *My Fair Princess 3* had visibly lost its qualification to compete for the annual ratings crown, unable to become a generational landmark like the first two installments.

And in this situation, the new character Zhihua played by Qin Lan, precisely because she carried no first-impression filter from an original role, instead garnered extremely high attention—

As the plot progressed, the green-tea flavor she brought to Zhihua had already made plenty of viewers grind their teeth in hatred; some even equated Zhihua with Qin Lan directly, escalating from the character to attacking the actress herself.

There were even those cursing her as a vixen destroying other people's relationships—for instance, the relationship between Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi, between Zhou Yi and Xiao Yaxuan, between Zhou Yi and Fan Xiaopang, between Zhou Yi and XXX…

No way around it—before her overnight fame through Zhihua, the most famous labels on Qin Lan were "Zhou Yi's MV leading lady" and "Zhou Yi's rumored love interest."

"Zhou Yi and I are actually just very good friends. All that is the media reporters making things up."

At the *My Fair Princess 3* Shenzhen promotional event, Qin Lan—who as a supporting role had stolen the spotlight from the leads—handled the flashing cameras with effortless ease: "Besides, I currently have no thoughts of dating either. Career comes first."

"You and Zhou Yi had no prior interaction before this—so why did he choose you as the leading lady? Is there really nothing else between you two?" Certain reporters who didn't dare bare their teeth at Zhou Yi had finally caught a soft persimmon to squeeze, pressing relentlessly.

"I don't know. My manager just submitted my resume to Warner Records."

Qin Lan smiled, her pure-silver earrings dazzlingly bright under the lights: "I'm very grateful he gave me a hand during my low point. If it weren't for him, I might have already gone back home to become an accountant, instead of staying in showbiz.

"So, we are very good friends—nothing more."

"But someone saw you two entering and leaving a hotel together. How do you explain that?"

"The entire cast stayed at the same hotel. Thanks."

"You…"

Huang Xiaoming, who had come to promote the show as Xiao Jian, was in a very complicated mood.

He was furious!

But powerless to do anything.

Zhou Yi really wasn't someone he could touch—Zhou Yi's pulling power alone left him unable to even see the taillights.

And those whose mood was even more complicated than his were only the people who had lost out on the MV leading lady spots—

Because of Qin Lan's overnight fame, the title "Yi Girl" grew ever more resounding, its gold content ever richer, and the discussion around "the Emperor's personal pick" kept amplifying the online buzz around these MV leading ladies.

Tang Yan, the leading lady of the hit *Blue and White Porcelain*, saw her invitations surge—a flood of signing offers nearly knocked her silly.

As everyone knows, showbiz is a circle that places extreme stock in metaphysics.

With Zhou Yi's every album producing an MV leading lady who caught fire, his MV leading lady roster had instead become a signing list for quite a few companies—

Don't know who to sign or who to promote?

Then go try signing/promoting one of Zhou Yi's MV leading ladies.

At the very least, the odds of catching fire are higher than signing some random person, and the looks are guaranteed—after all, they've already passed Zhou Yi's personal selection, clearing the number-one hurdle of showbiz.

"Zhou Yi, you big pervert—every single one that catches fire is a leading lady! Damn!"

"To be fair, there is one male lead—someone called Deng Chao. Seems like he's also Wan Ren Mi's junior, and also Zhou Yi's hometown buddy? Both from Jiang Xi."

"Deng Chao? His *Young Son of Heaven* was pretty good."

"For women you cast them from Tiannandibei no problem, but for men you only lift up your hometown buddies? Is Zhou Yi discriminating by region?"

"Wait, who's that person in the same MV as Deng Chao? By screen time he's the male lead too, right? Where's he from?"

"God knows, just some random passerby Warner pulled in? After all, the one who caught fire was Deng Chao."

"I'm willing to be Zhou Yi's horse and ox, please please let me catch fire!"

"Get in line at the back—Zhou Yi's door threshold is probably about to be kicked in by now…"

"…"

Originally *Gui Cang* was still selling hot, and while Qin Lan's starring *Write a Poem for You* wasn't as explosive as *Blue and White Porcelain*, it was still in the same tier as *Qi Li Xiang*, with comparable sing-along appeal.

Now, after being blasted by the Zhihua role in *My Fair Princess 3*, *Write a Poem for You* directly surpassed the two leading ladies' *Qi Li Xiang* in Japan, and on the Mainland Music Charts actually overtook *Qi Li Xiang*.

*Write a Poem for You* cashed in on the character popularity dividend from *My Fair Princess*, and Qin Lan, through her pure-hearted performance in the MV, let people discover she wasn't just the green-tea side of Zhihua—the drama itself also reaped further discussion—

A three-way win. Winning so hard it numbed.

Hunan TV, eager to ride the wave of buzz, kept contacting Qian Jiang every few days to nail down the details of Zhou Yi's appearance on *Happy Camp* in Changsha for promotion, terrified he would bail and not show up.

Zhou Yi, currently in Hong Kong at Warner producing the song "Don't Want to Grow Up," had recently also noticed that the number of women fluttering around in front of him was growing—

Among them was a Hong Kong female singer named Xue Kaiqi.

She had come along with Fang Datong, and Fang Datong had been summoned by Zhou Yi.

"The demo for *Sun Wukong* is excellent. The fact that you can produce music at this level surprises me."

Paying no particular attention to Xue Kaiqi, Zhou Yi handed a demo to the utterly delighted Fang Datong: "If you're willing, you can go find the company people directly when the time comes. You deserve the chance at an album, Datong."