Under the strong boycott of netizens, the preparation work for the TV series Women Prime Minister was forced to suspend. Except for Cheng Xitian who had already been exposed as the heroine, other actors who had talked about cooperation before were now avoiding this drama like a plague, hurriedly cutting ties in case they were swept over by the furious netizens.
But how should I put it, the public still underestimated the ruthlessness of the investors.
The cooperative partners who were still sitting at the same table and clinking glasses with Yuan Zhiyong in the private room earlier, now kicked him out in a blink of an eye.
The official Weibo account of Women Prime Minister directly released a notice to severely condemn such shameless illegal behavior of Yuan Zhiyong. It said the crew was also implicated by him, and sold their misfortune that so much hard work of the behind-the-scene team was obliterated because of a scumbag like Yuan Zhiyong, which was truly innocent.
Now they have severed ties with Yuan Zhiyong, extracted the IP Women Prime Minister out of this egregious incident, keeping it clean and innocent. At the same time, they also took this opportunity to earn enough hype and discussion.
Related hashtags like #Women Prime Minister is innocent#, #What wrong have the original fans of Women Prime Minister done# and #A different producer and it will be a good drama again# were endlessly trending, brainwashing marketing that really made the audience endorse the statement of the investors. Not only did they stop boycotting, they even started to look forward to it, reaching the point that the drama became popular before even starting the filming.
There were even crew members who revealed to the media anonymously that they had started re-inviting Zhong Ruanxing for audition. The new team looked forward to working with her.
This made the audience even more expectant.
It was crystal clear who was piggybacking on Zhong Ruanxing’s popularity.
Ran Ting felt truly disgusted when she saw all these news: “Disgusting! Who wants to cooperate with them! There were so many people in the private room that day, yet no one stopped Yuan Zhiyong. They are all birds of a feather! The only difference is that this bastard Yuan Zhiyong got exposed, while they are still wearing human skins!”
“How dare they say they are a brand new innocent team! And even use you to embellish themselves!”
If Zhong Ruanxing believed these lies, or if she was a person with weaker principles, choosing to cooperate with Women Prime Minister would actually be a very good opportunity. It was a big IP with high popularity. Adding to the incident, the crew would definitely not dare to cross the line with her anymore. With double buffs, it would bring the drama to an unprecedented popularity. As long as she joined Women Prime Minister, the benefits she could reap would be immeasurable.
But Zhong Ruanxing had always been a person of strong principles. And now Song JinXing in Zhong Ruanxing’s body also had strong principles, except when facing his girlfriend.
Moreover...
Zhong Ruanxing looked at the investigative information Song JinXing gave her, a bit surprised: “Women Prime Minister plagiarised this novel?”
There really were such unfair things in this world. The original work was unknown and ignored, yet the plagiarism became well-known and even sold its copyright to be adapted into a TV series. The original work Letters with You was a novel with an overall serious and heavy style, compared to popular web novels nowadays, its style was more traditional.
That was why although the original had more ups and downs in the plot, intricate scheming and designs, thrilling twists and turns in the royal court, its readers and popularity still couldn’t match the plagiarised standard escapist fiction Women Prime Minister which took its main plot and changed it into a growth story of a female lead.
What made readers most captivated by Women Prime Minister was the witty and adept scheming of the female lead when she was deeply mired in court struggles. The unparalleled wisdom of the heroine was the most outstanding plot of the book, and these stories were almost copied from Letters with You. With the same plot, changing illegally manufactured weapons into smuggled salt, changing the Ministry of Justice into Embroidered Uniform Guard, changing the prince into a prince Consort, it became a brand new story. Such a substitution without any change at all couldn't even be convicted of plagiarism by the law.
Moreover, Letters with You was too unpopular with too few readers. And the author was a university professor who wrote as a hobby and published on free reading websites casually without caring about other matters, also lacking the time to manage it. This resulted in Women Prime Minister becoming so popular, yet no one knew about the plagiarism.
After Women Prime Minister sold its copyright, with mighty investors backing it up, all discussions about plagiarism were suppressed tightly.
If not for Song JinXing sending someone to investigate specially, this might not have been discovered.
After reading the information, Zhong Ruanxing was even laughing from anger: “Plagiarising even the original work yet still pretending to be innocent and clean!”
She flipped through parts of the downloaded Letters with You that Song JinXing prepared. Yes, downloaded, because Letters with You was published on a free website without being published, now these words were just printed on a few thin A4 papers. “So how do you plan to deal with this?”
Song JinXing said calmly: “I’ve contacted the author of Letters with You. He works in a university in the capital city. I mentioned about buying the copyright during the call, but he has no experience in this field and was hesitant. I made an appointment to meet him over the weekend to discuss.”
Zhong Ruanxing had guessed what he wanted to do even before he said it. This was Song JinXing’s style after all.
“Women Prime Minister is stalled because of this matter now. I plan to buy Letters with You’s copyright and prepare a crew, starting the filming before them. When it airs, we can compete with it.”
Zhong Ruanxing raised her palm excitedly: “Great minds think alike. GiveMeFive!”
Song JinXing smiled and high-fived her.
She spoke enthusiastically: “I don’t believe the original plot will lose to the plagiarism. Didn't they boast about how popular this IP was? Let them see the difference between the original and the pirated version then, make them end up with nothing!” She paused. “But I don't have an agency now. So I'm using my own name to set up the crew?”
Speaking of this, Song JinXing felt a headache coming. He took out his phone and showed her his chat with Song Shuling.
As a steadfast “brother-con”, Song Shuling paid close attention to developments daily, calling Song JinXing at least ten times every day. Thus, she came to know about Women Prime Minister's plagiarism and Song JinXing’s plan to buy the original copyright and compete with it even earlier than Zhong Ruanxing.
Then she came up with a brainwave, wanting to start an entertainment company purely to promote Zhong Ruanxing.
You couldn’t fault her seemingly tempting reasons.
— Sis is under close watch of the public now. Those people tricked by you this time must be waiting for a chance to deal with her! If you do this under your name or the Song family’s name, once it's exposed, those with malicious intents can use it to bring Sis back into the eye of the storm! I’m different, although I’m also surnamed Song, I’m a girl! They can’t possibly say I’m keeping Sis as a lover!
— I’ve also saved up some money over the past half year. The capital to register a company is enough. I can find more investments and such, and set up an entertainment company purely for Sis in minutes! And you won’t have to worry about Sis being bullied by bad bosses anymore!
— Please please please, bro, just give me this opportunity! I also want to chase my dream in the entertainment industry!
After listening to the voice message, Zhong Ruanxing laughed hard. “She's really smart.”
Song JinXing felt a headache coming: “She's already made a ruckus all the way to grandma. Grandma even agreed to invest in her. Both of them said they want to start a company purely to promote you.”
Zhong Ruanxing’s pride surged again immediately: “What a pampered life I’m living. Even grandma has joined in. What else is there to hesitate about for such a good thing? Hurry up. From now on, I’m going to freeload!”