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Besides that, at Ye Mingzhao's insistence, the five-star hotels, racetracks, golf courses, resorts, and other leisure venues featured in the drama were all businesses operated under Ye Group.

By the end of filming, director Li Zhengzheng and screenwriter Yu Mingze were both laughing. "This drama is called Beggar Prince, but it's really a promotional film for Ye Group!"

Meanwhile, Unit B was responsible for filming scenes involving the other characters when the male lead and second male lead were not needed, as well as location shoots in several cities featured in the drama.

Yu Mingze and Director Li Zhengzheng wanted to speed things up through split-unit filming, ensuring both quality and quantity as they wrapped Beggar Prince before The Prince's Transformation.

As for Li and Yu Mingze's decision, Ye Mingzhao thought it was acceptable, but unnecessary.

"There are two possibilities for The Prince's Transformation to ride on Beggar Prince's coattails and become a massive hit through marketing. One is that its plot and pacing are genuinely better than Beggar Prince, and viewers prefer it. The other is that it can exploit the timing and information gap by airing before Beggar Prince is scheduled, gaining the upper hand in public opinion."

"That's exactly what I'm worried about!" Yu Mingze slapped his thigh. "Zhou Yueze hired a production crew from Hong Kong Island this time. Don't you know how efficient people from Hong Kong Island are? My source told me that The Prince's Transformation is already more than halfway through filming."

At most, The Prince's Transformation would wrap in another half month. Yet their Beggar Prince, despite starting production a month earlier than The Prince's Transformation, would finish at least a month later.

How could Yu Mingze not be anxious?

"If you neglect the drama's quality just to wrap early, what would it matter even if you aired before The Prince's Transformation?"

Yu Mingze choked, then said dejectedly, "I don't have a choice! Beggar Prince has a production budget of 120 million. Zhou Film and Television Company is not only the drama's largest investor, but also its distributor. They have close ties with all the television networks. If The Prince's Transformation really gets scheduled and airs before us, I'm worried it'll affect Beggar Prince's normal asking price, or worse..."

Yu Mingze took a deep breath and said reluctantly, "No television station will be willing to take our drama at all."

Ye Mingzhao curled his lips. Seeing a gossip news alert suddenly pop up on his phone screen, he handed the phone to Yu Mingze.

Yu Mingze accepted it in confusion, lowered his head to scan the news on the screen, and his eyes widened in shock.

The headline on the screen read: [The Prince's Transformation lead actor Chu Qingyi's background exposed. New Sea University's brilliant finance student turns out to be a human trafficker's relative...]

Yu Mingze scrolled down the screen and saw that nearly a hundred media outlets had reported related news under the tag #ThePrince'sTransformationLeadActorIsAHumanTrafficker'sRelative#. Since the news had only just been released, it had only a few million real-time views, but it quickly rose to the trending searches.

With his sharp instincts, Yu Mingze immediately deduced that someone was pushing the tag. But other than them, who else hated Zhou Yueze and The Prince's Transformation this much?

Ye Mingzhao took his phone back from Yu Mingze and said gently, "If you're worried that someone else's actions will disrupt your own rhythm, the best solution isn't to casually change your plans. It's to find a way to disrupt theirs."

As he spoke, his phone suddenly began ringing.

Ye Mingzhao glanced at the phone vibrating frantically, then answered with a smile and said calmly, "The Hong Kong Island team's filming efficiency is indeed high. I hope their PR efficiency is just as good."

With that, Ye Mingzhao hung up without caring what the person on the other end wanted to say.

Zhou Yueze furiously smashed his phone to the floor!

He had long guessed that Ye Mingzhao would make a move, so he had people closely monitor news outlets that had good relations with Ye Group and Yu Mingze. The moment those outlets made any move, Zhou Yueze would receive the news immediately.

But Zhou Yueze never imagined Ye Mingzhao's reach could extend so far. He had actually persuaded Xingyue Film and Television to use its own media channels to expose Chu Qingyi's affairs, even pushing it onto the trending lists across major platforms.

Even more insidiously, Ye Mingzhao had deliberately struck after ten on Saturday night. At that hour, company employees were on break, while huge numbers of netizens were active across social media platforms. Caught completely off guard by Ye Mingzhao, Zhou Yueze could only angrily summon the PR team back to work overtime through the night. "You must suppress this. We absolutely cannot let it ferment."

Fortunately, from the moment Zhou Yueze chose Chu Qingyi as the male lead of The Prince's Transformation, he knew the man would inevitably become Ye Mingzhao's target. Zhou Yueze had prepared for this long ago.

Two hours later, the production team of The Prince's Transformation responded to netizens' doubts about Chu Qingyi's identity. Chu Qingyi, who played the male lead in the drama, appeared barefaced before the camera and tearfully spoke of how his second uncle had lost contact with the family more than twenty years ago. He admitted, "My second uncle was indeed a human trafficker, but he died more than twenty years ago. No one in our family knew that he had committed such utterly inhumane acts..."

At the end of the video, Zhou Film and Television Company and the main creative team behind The Prince's Transformation all came forward to announce that they would donate five million yuan to the General Charity Federation in the name of the production team, establishing the Family-Reunification Charity Relief Fund to help families searching for missing loved ones cover the costs of DNA collection.

Chu Qingyi then stated that he would also donate in full the one million yuan in pay he had earned as the male lead of The Prince's Transformation, doing his small part for separated families across the country who could not find their relatives...

In a five-star hotel, Yu Mingze angrily shut his laptop and said indignantly, "I never expected Zhou Yueze to set up a special charity relief fund just to whitewash Chu Qingyi. He really thought of everything!"

Ye Mingzhao analyzed calmly, "He may not necessarily have done it for Chu Qingyi."

At the very least, establishing the Family-Reunification Charity Relief Fund was highly beneficial to the image and publicity of the The Prince's Transformation production team and Zhou Film and Television Company.

Of course, for this kind of whitewashing tactic to work, Chu Qingyi himself had to be a flawless victim.

Beside him, Yu Mingze was still grumbling angrily. Ye Mingzhao looked at the darkened screen, where the black LCD clearly reflected his blurred outline.

Ye Mingzhao closed the laptop with some regret. It seemed Chu Qingyi had not told Zhou Yueze every detail of what had happened.

Zhou Yueze believed he was well prepared. He had indeed reacted quickly and done plenty, and his overall approach had been correct. If Ye Mingzhao were to evaluate it, he would give this crisis PR effort a six out of ten. What it lacked were merely some details.

Unfortunately, it was often the small, unremarkable details that decided the course of the game.

Ye Mingzhao picked up his phone and forwarded a backup of an audio recording to Yuan Jing.

At this point, Chu Qingyi's value as a card in Zhou Yueze's hand had been fully exhausted.

Ye Mingzhao stood up and said coolly to his friend, who was sprawled on the sofa and constantly wailing, "It's late. Go to sleep."

Chapter 28

At eight o'clock on Sunday night, an audio recording, pushed by interested parties, quietly climbed the trending charts on major social media platforms and spread across the entire internet in the blink of an eye.

"...The Ye family already knows about Second Uncle. I called you dozens of times. Why didn't you answer..."

The recording, only a few minutes long, clearly showed that Chu Qingyi did not seem as innocent as he had claimed in his clarification video. Unless Chu Qingyi could explain why he knew that the second uncle who had "lost contact with the Chu family for more than twenty years" was the human trafficker who had abducted the Ye family's youngest son all those years ago.

Then, considering how the Chu family had raised Chu Hengyi for eighteen years yet treated him terribly, forcing him to drop out after middle school and work to support the whole family; how the Chu family clearly knew their adopted son's true identity but had never uttered a word about it; and how, even in dire financial circumstances, they had ignored the enormous reward offered by the Ye family and stubbornly guarded the secret, the gossip-hungry masses online instantly pieced together a grand tale of wealthy-family grudges and revenge spanning hundreds of thousands of words.