Huayu: This celebrity doesn't follow the rules.

Chapter 53 Tops the Trending Search (Brothers, please vote with monthly tickets and recommendations! I'll update more frequently after the book goes on sale!)
The group exchanged pleasantries and walked towards the sofa. Jiang Ye was about to find a seat on the side when Meng Ziyi quickly grabbed his arm and pushed him towards the middle, saying, "Director Jiang, sit here. It's a good spot."

As she spoke, she deftly sat down next to Jiang Ye, shifting her skirt towards him until her shoulder was almost touching his arm, her movements as natural as if she had rehearsed them eight hundred times.

This is Sister Meng; she easily reveals her subtle schemes and doesn't hide them at all.

She wanted to sit in the center position, so she did, and even pulled Jiang Ye to sit with her...

Ou Hao watched from the sidelines, amused. He didn't try to take the girl's seat, but instead moved to sit on Meng Ziyi's other side. He deliberately pushed her closer to Jiang Ye, raising an eyebrow at him: "It's reasonable for me to sit next to the female lead, right?"

Yu Menglong, standing to the side, noticed Bai Lu wringing her fingers helplessly in the corner and quickly stepped aside, saying, "Teacher Bai, why don't you sit here with Director Jiang? It'll be easier to talk if you're closer."

Bai Lu paused for a moment, her face flushed slightly, and she whispered "thank you" before sitting down next to Jiang Ye on the other side.

Yu Menglong sat on the outermost side of the sofa next to Bai Lu.

The sofa wasn't very spacious to begin with, and Jiang Ye suddenly felt surrounded on both sides.

On the left, Meng Ziyi's sweet-smelling hair brushed against her arm; on the right, Bai Lu's faint body fragrance wafted over. The two girls were extremely close, their knees almost touching.

He dared not move his arm, because he might bump into the ball at any moment!

At 8 p.m. sharp, the countdown to the live stream reached "0".

Instantly, the screen was flooded with a dense barrage of comments, and backend data showed that the number of online users was soaring at a rate of thousands per second, breaking one million in just ten minutes.

"They're here! The crew of 'My Princess' is here!"

"Ou Hao's muscles! Yu Menglong's period drama look! Meng Ziyi's witty remarks! I want them all!"

"Wait... who's that handsome guy sitting in the center?! Zoom in! Oh my god, that profile is killer! Is he a new actor?"

"+1 to the one in front! This guy's looks are even better than the male lead's! Does anyone know who he is?"

"Looks like the director?! His name is Jiang Ye? Am I seeing things? Is this what the director looks like? You should have said so earlier! I was criticizing him for torturing Ou Hao during the rain scene, but I take it back now! He's more handsome than Ou Hao!"

"Wait a minute, don't you guys think... Jiang Ye and Meng Ziyi have more chemistry as a couple than Ou Hao and Meng Ziyi?"

"+10086! I was just shipping the male and female leads, but now I suddenly feel like the director and main characters' pairing is even more appealing. Why is that?"

"Director Jiang, was it because you were too poor to buy new grapes when you used them as props for repeated shots? By the way, just a casual question, is the director single?"

Seeing the sudden shift in the comments section, host Li Xiang smiled and waved his hand, saying, "It seems everyone is paying a lot of attention to Director Jiang's looks! Let me formally introduce him first. This gentleman in the middle is Jiang Ye, the director of 'Princess Promotion'."

"Next to her are the female lead Meng Ziyi, the male lead Ou Hao, the second male lead Yu Menglong, and the theme song singer Bai Lu!"

"Let me ask you five, are you nervous seeing so many netizens?"

Meng Ziyi took the microphone and said crisply, "Nervous? Not at all! We've worked our way up from the durian shell prop team, this is nothing!"

As soon as she said that, the live chat was flooded with "hahaha" and "durian shell yyds".

Ou Hao chimed in, a signature hearty smile on his face: "I was a little nervous at first, but when I saw the comments praising Director Jiang, all the pressure went away!"

"But to be honest, on the day we were filming the rain scene, Director Jiang was holding a fire hydrant and pointing it at me. He said to me in a serious tone, 'Oh, you have to act cool even when you're being struck by lightning.' I was completely dumbfounded at the time. Now that I think about it, this director really has a big imagination!"

When Bailu took the microphone, her hand trembled slightly uncontrollably, and her voice trembled almost imperceptibly: "I...I'm a little nervous."

This is a live stream with millions of viewers. How could a young girl who has just debuted have experienced anything like this?

The lights were too bright, my heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I couldn't even speak a complete sentence.

Suddenly, her hand, which was under the table, was gently grasped by a large, warm hand. The palm was warm, and the fingertips gently squeezed her fingertips, as if conveying a silent strength.

Bai Lu was startled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jiang Ye looking at her with a calm and gentle gaze and a reassuring smile on his lips.

A warm feeling spread up their clasped hands, and their previously chaotic heartbeats strangely calmed down.

Her cheeks flushed bright red, the color spreading from her ears down to her neck. But as if suddenly given courage, she took a deep breath, and although her voice was still a little soft, it was much more steady than before: "Actually... I'm really happy to be able to participate in this live broadcast. The fact that everyone likes this song is all thanks to Director Jiang... He was very patient when he was guiding me."

After she finished speaking, she secretly glanced at Jiang Ye, who had already let go of her hand and was casually taking the microphone.

"I'm not nervous, I'm just afraid that you guys will expose all my secrets later."

His words drew laughter from the crowd.

At this moment, Li Xiang read out a question from a live comment: "A netizen asked, Director Jiang, why did you think of using curtain fabric to make clothes? Was it really because you were poor?"

Jiang Ye tapped the microphone, then suddenly laughed out loud, his tone tinged with self-deprecating honesty: "To be honest, the inspiration is real, but so is the poverty."

As soon as he said this, Meng Ziyi immediately nodded vigorously beside him: "Yes! I can testify! At that time, the props team was running out of funds, and they had to be very careful with even buying a decent piece of fabric. Director Jiang stared at those few old curtain fabrics in the warehouse for an entire afternoon, and suddenly slapped his thigh and said, 'That's it!'"

Jiang Ye didn't refute, and spread his hands, saying, "There was nothing we could do. Back then, the whole crew had to count the number of people when pooling money to buy boxed lunches. But then again, after the curtains were washed and ironed, they actually had a certain ethereal quality when hung on us, and the effect in the filming was better than expected. Now netizens are calling it the most cost-effective costume of the year, right? It was a lucky accident."

Ou Hao added, "I remember once when we were filming an outdoor scene, the wind blew a loose thread off Meng Ziyi's dress. She ran while pulling at the curtains, afraid that the dress would fall apart. I still laugh when I think about that scene now."

The screen was instantly flooded with "hahaha" comments, mixed with jokes like "So real," "So openly poor," and "This production crew is so cutely poor." Even Li Xiang couldn't help but laugh: "It seems that being poor is also a major feature of this show."

The atmosphere in the following live stream became increasingly heated.

Netizens asked all sorts of questions, from "Which scene between the male and female leads was improvised?" to "Was Yu Menglong secretly scared when he was suspended by wires?" and some even asked "Did Bai Lu sing off-key and get criticized by Director Jiang when recording the theme song?"

The cast and crew were also very open about sharing their behind-the-scenes stories.

Ou Hao complained that during the filming of a fitness scene, he was asked to take off his coat in the dead of winter, and his lips turned purple from the cold, but he still had to maintain his domineering CEO aura.

Yu Menglong admitted that he spent an entire afternoon filming the scene where he was shot by an arrow. He almost fell asleep while lying on the ground, and when he got up, half of his body was numb.

Meng Ziyi revealed that Jiang Ye deliberately told lame jokes off-camera to make her crying scenes more realistic, and as a result, she laughed so hard she burst into tears and got it right in one take.

Bai Lu blushed and said that she kept breaking her voice at the same place while recording the song. Director Jiang was not impatient. Instead, he practiced with her until late at night and even bought her hot milk tea as a consolation prize.

Anyway, what people say is a mix of truth and falsehood, and most of it is packaged and prepared in advance, which is a common advertising tactic.

During the event, Mr. Zhang from Tencent Video went on stage to present Meng Ziyi with the "Most Boyfriend-like Actress of the Year" award, jokingly remarking that her comedic scenes in the drama were more endearing than her romantic ones.

As the live stream drew to a close, the five of them bowed together to the camera to thank the viewers for their support.

Backend data shows that the peak number of online users exceeded two million!

More importantly, after the live stream, the hashtag #PrincessPromotion# topped the trending searches!

This drama, like a lit fuse, has finally ignited its sparks across the entire internet.

The low-budget web series, once ridiculed as "poor" and "nonsense," has now completely broken through the barriers between different fandoms thanks to the lively atmosphere of the live stream, the candid interactions between the creators, and the real stories hidden behind the "curtains, costumes," and "durian shell props."

It's gone viral! Not just any viral sensation...

(End of this chapter)