Chapter 801: An Explosion Of Negative News

As both Mango TV and Sky Blue TV’s new mid-year drama series, “Legend Of Wu Zetian” was highly regarded by both TV channels.

Furthermore, with the director of the TV station attending the press conference, it made them think that there might be some inside information about the show that they did not know, so they paid more attention to it.

Therefore, due to various reasons, this drama naturally received the best publicity resources from Mango TV and Sky Blue TV.

Not only did the two TV channels invite the crew of “Legend Of Wu Zetian” (mainly Han Yi and a few other celebrities) to advertise their drama on the stations’ own variety show, they also released a large-scale trailer and TV series promotional video on their own channels.

Not only that, in order to achieve good results for the show, the two TV channels even specially hired professional marketing and planning companies. They also sent out many celebrities who worked with their channel to repost and promote the show on Weibo.

In fact, there were dozens of A-list and B-list celebrities, and the number of fans they sent to was around 4 to 5 hundred million people. This instantly made the entire show look good in front of the entire country.

Especially with such a large-scale repost and promotion, it instantly allowed many people to realize that a drama was going to be aired in a month’s time. Furthermore, this drama had received an investment of 200 million yuan, and Han Yi, who had been quiet for half a year, was leading the main production. Immediately, everyone started to look forward to it. Some netizens who were attracted by the trailer also started to leave comments on Mango TV’s Weibo, asking for more clips.

When Mango TV, which was the premiere broadcasting platform, saw this, they followed the public’s wishes and released another two clips for everyone to enjoy.

After the introductory video was released, Mango TV somehow managed to find some national media outlets to like their own trailers.

Two years ago, “Likes by the official media platforms” had become one of the promotional methods for TV series and movies. There were many advantages to this kind of promotional method. Firstly, it could protect the TV series that was about to be broadcast and prevent it from being snuffed out by certain companies who could literally cut them off like a pair of scissors. Secondly, it could use the official media’s backing to boast about the quality of the TV series.

After all, the official media had already given their likes, so it would be worth watching at the very least.

After the official media liked the post, Mango TV did not remain idle either. They found many professional entertainment media outlets and conducted an in-depth interview with Han Yi and the other main leads. They even started to set up TV series and posters in various major cities across the country to promote them.

This overwhelming publicity greatly increased the number of people searching for “Legend Of Wu Zetian”.

This also resulted in Zhao Licheng successfully signing an online authorization agreement with Youku, Tencent, and Galaxy. In fact, it was at a sky-high price of 60 million yuan per platform.

With the three online platforms signed, it was equivalent to them boarding a warship as they began to help promote the TV series as well.

There were two major TV channels that dealt with offline and official channels. They were using the advantages of their own internet companies, such as hiring fake reviewers to create topics on major film and TV websites, online media, forums, and so on, so that movie fans could discuss in depth and arouse their curiosity.

While they were promoting, these online platforms had various topics being spreaded.

Some were hyping up the quality of the movie. Some were hyping up the scenes, costumes, colors, and props. Some were hyping up the production of this show that had been “focused on preparation and polishing for many years”. There were also hyping up the production methods of “popularity and drama.”

The benefit of this was that ‘”Legend Of Wu Zetian”‘ really became popular before it was even broadcasted.

There were discussions everywhere about “Legend Of Wu Zetian”.

‘Have you heard? A blockbuster is about to be broadcasted.’

‘I heard it’s called “Legend Of Wu Zetian”. I’ve watched the preview. It’s simply beautiful. I must watch it when the time comes.’

‘I plan to watch it too. Han Yi is as beautiful as a fairy in it. Being a woman myself, I can’t help but fall in love with her.’

‘I heard that the palace fights in the series are very interesting. I heard that she even develops into a villain in the end.’

‘Anyway, it’s a very interesting series.’

The internet was filled with anticipation.

This made many people in the film industry jealous.

Everyone knew that if the quality of “Wu Legend” was not bad, it would definitely explode. With this theme, it was almost certain that Han Yi would become an A-list celebrity.

Hence, everyone was watching the development of this drama and Han Yi’s advancement, waiting for “Legend Of Wu Zetian” to broadcast in the meantime.

After all, the promotions were all just a facade. Only when the actual quality of the show is able to live up to its expectations would its publicity explode.

However, it was not that there was nobody who could tell that there was a problem with this large-scale publicity campaign… The “Legend Of Wu Zetian” was being hyped up too much.

After all, the audience were smart and rational people. They would not think that it was a good show just because it’s trailers were exceptional.

At that moment, with “Legend Of Wu Zetian” being hyped up so greatly, there was going to be a huge backlash if its quality was just average.

In fact, even if its quality was not bad, it still might not satisfy the audience.

Thus, many people were waiting to see what would happen. Many of them had different thoughts…

Before anyone could do anything, Su Yang, who had been watching “Legend Of Wu Zetian”, made his move…

…

Just as “Legend Of Wu Zetian” had been promoted for a week on Wednesday…

Some posts had suddenly appeared on the previously publicized movie forums and websites.

Those posts were all leaked anonymously or through a sub-account, saying that Jiadian Pictures and Sister Mi’s company were suspected of tax evasion and tax embezzlement.

Han Yi’s payment for the breach of contract did not go through Jiadian Picture’s public account. Instead, Han Yi had personally paid Sister Mi.

They suspected that there was something illegal about this.

Soon after, various social media platforms started to spread the news that Su Yang and Han Yi had an unusual relationship and that the former had invested hundreds of millions of yuan into this drama for Han Yi. Furthermore, the remuneration for this drama did not match Han Yi’s normal net worth and was suspected of money laundering.

When they were talking about this, those people vividly described how much the production crew had spent, including Han Yi’s expenditure. They wanted to prove that even though they had claimed to have invested 200 million yuan, they did not actually spend that much money. Instead, all the money had been moved, and this series was also a huge failure.

After that, there were a few more stories on Weibo about Su Yang’s family history. They said that Su Yang’s corporate tax was not transparent and had many problems.

Thus, “Legend Of Wu Zetian”, Han Yi, Su Yang, and Jiadian Group, which were originally on the trending topics to begin with, had naturally become an even hotter topic.

The moment this information was revealed, it immediately attracted the attention of many people.

The netizens rushed over one by one, browsing the posts as they munched on melon seeds and let out sighs.

‘Are you serious? Did Han Yi take the money from the breach of contract for herself? This could actually be a case of tax evasion.’

‘Why is she being suspected of tax evasion? I don’t understand, please explain.’

‘Because under normal circumstances, this kind of cooperations are required to issue an official receipt, which would require stamp duty, value-added taxes, and so on. And the company’s money has to pay income tax when they receive a profit. When it is transferred to Sister Mi’s private account, it also has to pay personal income tax. So, the total amount of tax is about 18%. However, Han Yi directly paid Sister Mi, so these taxes have all been saved, and Sister Mi saved a lot of money. She probably discussed it with Jiadian Group and agreed to lower the price of the breach of contract for them.’

‘I see.’

‘Compared to the tax evasion, I feel that the issue with “Legend Of Wu Zetian” is more troublesome, right? In the beginning, I was aiming for a big production. However, if it is really a money-laundering series, it’s definitely going to be very lousy.’

‘That’s right. Not only is it going to be lousy, they even managed to have Mango TV buy it over. Wouldn’t they be taking over a loss project then?’

‘Those two TV channels are state-owned assets after all, would it be a big problem for them?’

Compared to the fierce news about Han Yi and Wu Yang Legend, Su Yang’s history was not very eye-catching. However, because of these two topics, many people would chat about it.

As a result, these topics immediately started to take over the rankings of various websites, and they started to spread.

Some people who had always been jealous of “Legend Of Wu Zetian” and Han Yi were now gloating. Some celebrities even secretly liked a few of the specious Weibo posts, guiding the public’s opinion and making it even more popular.

On top of that, most of the people within the entertainment industry were privately guessing who did it.

After all, it was obvious that someone was behind this.

Right when “Legend Of Wu Zetian” was about to be broadcasted, such a problem happened. Thus, it was obvious that someone didn’t want both “Legend Of Wu Zetian” and Han Yi to become famous.

At first, everyone’s prime suspect was Sister Mi.

After all, as the owner of the company Han Yi had jumped out from, she would be the one who loses out the most if the series was a big hit.

However, the moment the matter was investigated and verified to be true, Sister Mi would not be able to escape the blame. Hence, the public dropped her as a suspect].

Thus, due to the lack of information, everyone could only speculate the possibility that it was Han Yi and Jiadian Entertainment’s competitors who were behind this. For example, the A-list celebrities, a few large entertainment companies, management agencies, and so on…

Meanwhile, the A-list celebrities, large entertainment companies, management companies, and even… Wang Jiang, were all confused.

This was because when they saw “Legend Of Wu Zetian” and Han Yi about to become popular, they did want to do something about them. But… They could not make it in time.

After all, ‘”Legend Of Wu Zetian”‘ was promoted too quickly. They did not plan ahead of time and did not have any ready-made dirt on them, so they could only try and scour for it.

Hence, before they were able to find anything, the negative news had exposed itself.

Hence, they were also left confused. ‘Who is it… Who is that that could have dug out so much information on them so quickly?

After analyzing for a long time, they felt that it was not possible to have done it based on the resources and connections within the industry, it was not possible.

Coupled with the fact that Su Yang was involved in the leak, they could not help but suspect… ‘Could it be Jiadian Group’s enemies?

‘After all, Jiadian Group is slowly rising in the country. Although it hasn’t reached the level of a first-tier company, there’s no doubt that it will eventually become one of the giants, maybe even surpassing Tencent and Alibaba.

‘So, it’s possible that a powerful force that dislikes Su Yang would take action against him.’

At the same time, Wang Jiang was also confused about Su Yang’s enemy.

Actually, Wang Jiang himself did have the dirt on Su Yang, which were all sent to him by the middle-aged man that he sent out. Even though the middle-aged man was captured by Su Yang, he had already received the information beforehand.

Still… He hadn’t thought to expose that information because he knew it would be useless.

He needed the dirt so that he could have a legitimate excuse to capture Su Yang and control him. He needed to win this battle, rather than spreading the news…

Therefore, when he saw these trending topics and negative news, Wang Jiang was stunned.

He called his subordinates over and asked them about it. After confirming that they did not send these things out on their own, he fell silent.

‘If it’s not me, who is it?’

Wang Jiang was a smart person. As soon as the question echoed in his mind, he came to a conclusion. ‘Only myself and Su Yang are the ones who know about this information. So, if it’s not me, it must be Su Yang.

‘But… Why would Su Yang do that?

‘Why would he spread such negative news when his TV series is about to become popular and the celebrity under him is about to take off?’

Wang Jiang thought quietly for a long time, but still could not understand the logic behind it…

In fact, he felt like he was too old to understand the youngster’s thoughts.

‘The next generation nowadays is just too weird. The things they do are completely unimaginable and incomprehensible.’

After cursing in his heart, Wang Jiang could only wait and see. He felt that no matter what Su Yang thought, at least he would not lose out…

‘In the online world, negative news would always be more widespread than positive news anyway.’

After all, it’s simple human behaviour… You hear that a movie is good, but you wouldn’t actually believe it unless you personally verified it. Plus, it would have to be extremely good before you would recommend it to the people around you.

However, if a celebrity that everyone was familiar with had an affair, and a company was threatened by America and had to kneel down and submit to them, then there would definitely be countless chat groups that would discuss and spread news about it.

Therefore, those who did not pay much attention to the trending searches, celebrities, and TV series would also start to know about this matter because of the negative news.

Therefore, many users and viewers who had not been enlightened had heard that there was a celebrity called Han Yi, and there was a drama called “Legend Of Wu Zetian”. Finally, they would hear that there was a company called Jiadian that seemed to have some problems.

As the negative news spread, Jiadian Pictures became chaotic.

As a company that expanded the special effects industry, it was already good enough that Jiadian Pictures could invest and help with filming the TV series. However, faced with such a sudden promotional event, there was no way to deal with it.

Hence, they immediately reported it to the organization and found Li Zijun and Zhao Licheng.

However, for some reason, when they were making the phone call, they felt like Zhao Licheng and Li Zijun were very calm, it was as if they already knew about this.

Hence, there was a lot of doubt in their minds, but they didn’t know where to start, so they could only resentfully hang up the phone and console themselves… Since they’d already reported it to their superiors, who didn’t seem to be bothered, they decided to leave it to their superiors to handle.

However, just as they had this thought, they received a call from Mango TV, Sky Blue TV, Youku, Galaxy, Tencent, and a few other companies. The matter was brewing…