Translator: Ink Hub

Editor: Yoog

Lately, Future Entertainment had been the center of gossip in the entire entertainment industry.

The top male and female stars had left one after another, and the company’s stock price continued to plummet. Future Entertainment was unable to salvage this decline. Among the three major top-tier satellite stations, Xingzhou TV and Qinglan TV were the first to express their refusal to cooperate with the agency.

While the stations wouldn’t issue a formal written statement, one only had to look at their recently launched projects to see that there were indeed no actors from Future Entertainment in the cast lists.

Dajiang TV wasn’t as blunt as Xingzhou or Qinglan, but they also had plans to cooperate with Lin Ji. This was a fact known to the entire industry.

A comment from the vice president of Future Entertainment at a cocktail party made their situation even worse: “Who does Lin Ji think he is? He’s just a third-rate screenwriter.”

“…What kind of brain-dead statement is this? Does he really think television dramas rely solely on hype to become hits?”

“A third-rate screenwriter? You’re calling our Little Lin a third-rate screenwriter? Little Lin might be able to take it, but I can’t!”

“Even though I don’t like Lin Ji personally, I still recognize his talent. Just looking at this statement, it’s no surprise Future Entertainment has reached this point.”

“Lin Ji wanted to cooperate with Qi Sui after filming Code 11. Now he already has Records of the Bai’s Return and The Harem. And he’s still a third-rate screenwriter? In the eyes of Future Entertainment, who isn’t a third-rate screenwriter?”

After the vice president’s remarks, the frequency of Future Entertainment’s artists terminating their contracts increased.

In the past, Future Entertainment’s partners might not have cared about Lin Ji’s attitude. But now, after The Harem broadcast its 20th episode, the ratings directly broke 6%!

What did 6% mean?

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that even if Qinglan TV failed to produce another hit drama after this, a single The Harem would be enough for the station to brag about for ten years.

To the television stations, Lin Ji was the type of screenwriter they desired most. If an actor wasn’t suitable, they could choose another, but if they lost the opportunity to cooperate with Lin Ji, the ratings would belong to their competitors.

Currently, aside from web drama platforms, all series were produced by satellite stations. The stations’ rejection of Future Entertainment meant that the actors under its banner had no way out.

Top-tier satellite stations were the trendsetters. Once they made a decision, other stations would only follow suit.

Most actors were not willing to go to web drama platforms to film. Even if they were, Rice Grains Video had already explicitly rejected Future Entertainment’s artists. If it came down to a choice between Lin Ji and Future Entertainment, Chaoxing TV and Qike Video would likely only choose Lin Ji.

Future Entertainment naturally tried everything to remedy the situation. They first fired the vice president who had served the company for many years, claiming his “personal remarks have nothing to do with the company.” Subsequently, the boss personally visited Lin Ji and offered many conditions, only asking him to show some mercy.

Lin Ji: Sorry, a third-rate screenwriter can’t do that.

Lin Ji temporarily had no need for anything from Future Entertainment.

Future Entertainment, on the other hand, wanted to dig up some dirt to deal with Lin Ji. This was their consistent way of handling opponents. Unfortunately, after digging around, they only found that Lin Ji had written Snow in Early May. Although that was ancient history, Future Entertainment didn’t mind bringing it up for some hype.

This time, it was Qinglan TV that wouldn’t stand for it.

Instead of reporting that the ratings of The Harem broke 6%, was it really interesting to keep staring at Snow in Early May every day?

Just one day after Lin Ji was smeared, an entertainment program under Qinglan TV reported on the “chaos” of actors acting like divas in the industry. The ones publicly named were the Little Flowers and young actors that Future Entertainment was heavily promoting.

When a wall is about to fall, everyone gives it a push. The stars who had terminated their contracts with Future Entertainment also began to cry out about the agency’s “bully clauses.”

Future Entertainment could no longer afford to worry about Lin Ji. The company had too many problems of its own to handle.

“…I can’t imagine it. Is this the power of Little Lin?”

“Personally, I think this is clearly the power of a good drama.”

* * *

The Harem had truly become a hit drama for the entire nation.

The longer they stayed in the palace, the more Wen Yiwan, Ji Surang, and Xu Huanchun differed in the favor they received and the encounters they faced. Each embarked on a different path.

Ji Surang was once proud and arrogant, but after her family’s decline, she saw through the coldness of human nature and eventually became unscrupulous.

She cooperated with Wen Yiwan to bring down the Noble Consort and then relied on the evidence in the Noble Consort’s hands to topple the empress.

“I knew the empress and the Noble Consort would go offline at roughly the same time. If it weren’t for that, Peng Fangfang and Qian Yuzhu wouldn’t have appeared in the same drama at all.”

“+1. It’s hilarious. Being able to get them to cooperate is already a testament to Lin Ji’s skill. Other screenwriters couldn’t do it.”

“They both acted so well. As rivals for so many years, the people who know each other best in the harem are themselves.”

With the two major villains offline, the female lead finally caught her breath. However, as a viewer, Nie Ou didn’t feel very refreshed. Because in The Harem, whether it was the female lead Wen Yiwan or these high-and-mighty consorts, it gave her a feeling that the fighting would never truly end.

“The empress said she always wanted to be a good wife. When Emperor Jing was still a prince, they also had a period of warmth. But women entered the harem one by one. Both the empress dowager and Emperor Jing exhorted her to take good care of these ‘sisters.’”

“‘I, Zheng Su, am an only child. Where did all these sisters come from?’ The empress’s father and mother were a harmonious couple. If she hadn’t married into the royal family, the empress might have lived a happier life.”

“Think about Wen Yiwan again. She’s considered one of the winners of the palace intrigue now, but The Harem has only aired over 50 episodes. Wen Yiwan has to keep fighting. When she’s young, she can use her beauty to fight the older ones, but there will come a day when she grows old. Won’t she still have to use a face that is no longer young to fight the newcomers?”

A comment from Nie Ou attracted a series of likes: “This is also what I wanted to say. When I first watched Lin Ji’s The Harem, I felt it was satisfying, but the more I watch, the more tragic it feels.

“Climbing up by stepping on the corpses of companions, watching familiar people die or be forgotten, and some completely abandoning their original selves… yet there are always people sending their daughters to this cold prison.

“It gets more cruel the further it goes. Sigh, when I first saw the leaked set photos, I didn’t think a single garden could tell so many stories. Actually, the budget for The Harem wasn’t spent on the scenes but on the styling and arrangements. A screenwriter who can write a story is like this, even the simplest scene can tell a different story.”

Nie Ou liked the two “evil women,” the empress and the Noble Consort. Some viewers felt sorry for Consort Zheng, while others were heartbroken for Ji Surang and Xu Huanchun, who had lost their original hearts. There were too many restrained women in the story of The Harem. They had different personalities and encounters. For the audience, there was simply too much to explore.

“Even though The Harem has only finished its first run, I can’t help but ask: where do you plan to air the second run?”

“@Chaoxing TV @Qike Video @Rice Grains Video, which one of you is planning to buy The Harem? Come out and say something.”

The three video websites: “?”

Was it that they didn’t want to buy it? Qinglan TV hadn’t budged on the asking price at all!

“Hua Tai is just a profiteer!”

The popularity of The Harem had already spread through the streets and alleys. Which platform didn’t want a piece of this heat? It just so happened that Qinglan TV only insisted on high prices. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the quote for The Harem was the highest price Qinglan TV had ever asked for a drama. Hua Tai even acted as if he didn’t care if they bought it or not.

Who could help it when the ratings of The Harem were still rising?

[The finale of The Harem might break 10% ratings!]

[The birth of an epic hit: How was The Harem made?]

In the two episodes where the empress and the Noble Consort went offline, the ratings of The Harem rose to 6.5%. The popular entertainment sections were almost entirely occupied by The Harem. The homepage of the television drama forum was full of The Harem. On the screenwriter forum, a crowd of screenwriters, besides being salty toward Lin Ji, were also analyzing the prospects of this genre, planning to write one or two palace intrigue scripts themselves.

After the empress and the Noble Consort went offline, the Virtuous Consort and Consort He became the decision-makers of the harem. Consort He was closer to Wen Yiwan. Since Wen Yiwan had been instrumental in toppling the Noble Consort, Consort He frequently sent people to show concern and check on her.

Only then did Wen Yiwan discover that after toppling the Noble Consort and the empress, there were still the Virtuous Consort and Consort He. These two had merely been avoiding the spotlight when Zheng Su and Liu Qingmei were at the height of their power. Now, they too revealed their true colors as the rulers of the harem.

Consort He had coaxed Xu Huanchun away. Xu Huanchun stood respectfully behind her, looking even closer to her than to Wen Yiwan, the sister who had entered the palace at the same time.

The Virtuous Consort and Consort He were merely low-key, but their hearts were not necessarily any kinder.

Wen Yiwan only realized after peeling back the clues that Zhao Yulan’s death years ago actually had Consort He’s hand in it.

She had befriended Zhao Yulan just as she had befriended Wen Yiwan. When Zhao Yulan first arrived, she only felt that she had met a gentle and kind sister, unaware that it was precisely this innocence that cost her her life.

“In the harem, where are there any sisters? Stupid people won’t live long after all. They just rely on their faces to hold on for a while.”

“Since she was so foolish, how can she blame me?”

Xu Huanchun knew many secrets of Wen Yiwan and Ji Surang. Since she had submitted to Consort He, she naturally put Wen Yiwan in a passive position.

“Consort He is actually the final boss???”

“When Yan Ling first showed her face, I thought she was a good person. It seems I forgot the lesson the trailer gave me.”

“Another bad woman +1. But thinking about it carefully, it seems very reasonable. I can only say Lin Ji is too amazing. He can round up all the plots he has written. The details of Consort He’s blackening were actually already present in the previous plot.”

“Linked ring by ring, after one boss leaves, there’s a new boss. Summary: Little Lin is awesome!!”

“Little Lin is awesome!!”

The hashtag #ConsortHeIsTheBoss quickly trended on the hot search. In the episode where Consort He revealed her true face, the ratings of The Harem rose to 6.8%!

Yan Ling originally had a very narrow range of roles. In the audience’s impression, whether she acted in ancient or modern dramas, she was good at playing the “refined lady” type of character. But her interpretation of the character Consort He broke the audience’s fixed impression.

Yan Ling rarely made it onto the hot search, and her followers increased significantly.

When reporters came to interview her, she talked about her experience filming in The Harem crew, “At first, I really couldn’t act it out. When I joined the crew, Consort He’s character setting wasn’t complete. I thought she was a good person. Later, there was no other way, so Screenwriter Lin had me practice starting from my eyes. It had to be evil, but not stereotypical.”

“Hilarious. I feel like every actor mentions Little Lin. What exactly did Little Lin do?”

“Director Sun Zhounan’s interview is the funniest. He said Lin Ji is the only one in the crew who can control Peng Fangfang and Qian Yuzhu. The two of them also whispered with their assistants in private, worried that Screenwriter Lin would suddenly say ‘No Peng Fangfang’ or ‘No Qian Yuzhu.’”

“Yes, he said every time the two of them acted, it was like thunder and lightning. Lin Ji told them to put out the fire a bit and not be so fierce right from the start.”

“Is Little Lin the fire brigade captain?”

In the audience’s impression, Lin Ji had always had a persona that liked to go crazy. Previously, he had squeezed Gu Lenian endlessly. But in the mouths of the actors, Lin Ji, as a screenwriter, was not what he usually displayed.

“Have you noticed that Little Lin is actually quite popular in the crew?”

“I’m so happy. Peng Fangfang and the others said that Lin Ji would treat the actors and staff to milk tea. If they treated him back, Lin Ji would also accept it. But he didn’t want any bribes other than milk tea.”

When Code 11 and Records of the Bai’s Return were big hits, Lin Ji had already gained many fans. As it turned out, the audience for palace intrigue dramas was much broader than imagined—Lin Ji’s fans were double what they were at the finale of Records of the Bai’s Return.

“I want to see the final outcome of Consort He and Wen Yiwan!!”

“Little Lin, you’re not resting, are you? Hurry up and write the script! Even the donkeys in the production team wouldn’t dare rest like this!”

“I hate it. Crazy Little Lin, can’t you give Xu Huanchun a good ending?”

Lin Ji: …I’m just a third-rate screenwriter, thanks.

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