Taohe Platform’s S+ period political drama “Rising Winds of Chang’an” was scheduled to premiere January 19th, New Year’s Day. Announcing the schedule just one day in advance was basically equivalent to an “air drop.”
Fortunately, the preview trailer released by the official Weibo was high quality with cinematic blockbuster vibes. Plus Director Qi’s reputation for period dramas was decent, so audiences anticipated the drama’s official launch.
As the fifth male lead in a supporting role, Mo Xun only had 30 seconds of screen time in the 10-minute preview. He played the male protagonist’s loyal bodyguard in this drama, with the preview featuring only his action scenes.
The production team’s promotional group tagged them: “Teachers, everyone post on Weibo at 7 PM tonight with hashtag #Rising Winds of Chang’an Premieres New Year’s Day# for unified promotion. Thank you, teachers.”
Mo Xun didn’t quite understand the production team’s promotional strategy. Such rushed scheduling obviously meant several major dramas were competing for Taohe Platform’s winter vacation slot, with the platform unable to decide until “Rising Winds of Chang’an” finally secured this prime time slot.
But good time slots didn’t guarantee high viewership. Winter vacation slots involved fierce competition among three major platforms while facing impact from Spring Festival movie theaters—every year saw some major dramas flop badly.
Daring to take this slot meant success or death.
New Year’s Day at 7 PM, “Rising Winds of Chang’an” officially premiered.
The plot moved extremely fast, with the first episode clearly establishing several princes’ personalities. Court political intrigue unfolded with various factions taking the stage, creating an excellent atmosphere of open and covert struggles.
The ending showed the male protagonist Fourth Prince being pursued by assassins, making audiences sweat nervously as they hurried to continue watching episode two.
Mo Xun officially appeared in the second episode.
In the pitch-black rainy night, a black-clothed bodyguard descended from the sky with his sword flashing coldly. Every strike was lightning-fast—wherever his blade reached, assassins fell!
Mo Xun’s action sequences were crisp and decisive without dragging, his gaze ice-cold like blades, emanating chilling killing intent.
Director Qi truly deserved his A-list reputation with excellent camera work. Rather than deliberately slow-motion posing, the action scenes featured real combat with the martial arts director designing very stylish moves for Mo Xun.
This action sequence made viewers’ scalps tingle—so satisfying.
Audiences excitedly posted bullet comments.
“Amazing action scenes!”
“Feels like a martial arts movie”
“Who’s playing this bodyguard? His sword movements are insanely cool!”
“Quick, check if this actor named Mo Xun actually knows martial arts”
The highly skilled loyal bodyguard established his character in just one scene, with Mo Xun’s portrayal convincing audiences.
In moments, he’d killed dozens of assassins, leaving only two alive.
Mo Xun crouched down, looking at the assassin lying in blood with crippled legs. Suddenly, he lightning-fast grabbed one assassin’s throat, forcing his mouth open while his slender fingers rummaged inside, finding a poison pill for suicide.
He tossed the pill aside, then expressionlessly patted the assassin’s face: “Speak—who sent you?”
Many people were watching in real-time, with dense bullet comments.
“High-IQ bodyguard!”
“Holy crap, this time the assassin finally didn’t poison himself to death~”
“Assassin thinks: Suicide failed, I’m done for!”
“This bodyguard’s interesting—directly reached into the assassin’s mouth to fish out the poison hahaha”
“This drama respects audience intelligence—such efficient plotting!”
The two assassins glared viciously at him: “I don’t know—we just took money to eliminate disaster! It’s useless asking us!”
Mo Xun said coldly: “No rush—I have countless methods to make you talk.”
He tied both men up and tossed them aside, then walked toward the Fourth Prince huddled in the corner, holding an umbrella over him and extending his hand: “Your Highness, are you alright?”
The originally panicked Fourth Prince, after standing up with his help, swept away all fear from his face. Instead, his lips curved slightly with a hint of amusement in his eyes: “Fine. You came just in time—clean up the scene.”
Mo Xun respectfully replied: “Yes, Your Highness can rest assured.”
Qin Luo, who played the male lead, was among the younger generation of actors with decent acting skills. He portrayed this character who appeared gentle and harmless but was actually ruthless without any incongruity.
What surprised audiences was that Mo Xun could match his performance, not being overshadowed when sharing scenes, delivering several eye-acting moments that perfectly fit his character.
Mo Xun transformed instantly into a cold bodyguard in period costume, completely merging with his character without any trace of his usual self.
This was natural actor material, right?
Watching Mo Xun in the drama, Fang Yinnian couldn’t help feeling proud—he believed Mo Xun would definitely achieve greater success on the acting path.
“Rising Winds of Chang’an” premiered with 4 episodes at 7 PM, with video platform popularity soaring continuously, reaching 7500 by midnight.
Taohe Platform’s popularity calculations comprehensively considered viewership, bullet comments, interactions, and other data. A premiere popularity of 7500 had already exceeded last year’s annual champion drama.
Promoters were overjoyed, immediately buying a trending hashtag #Rising Winds of Chang’an Premiere Popularity 7500#. Taohe Platform leadership was also very satisfied—once the year-opening major drama became popular, the first quarter’s KPIs could be completed ahead of schedule.
The platform immediately organized promotional activities—lead actors’ joint livestreams, building visits, interviews, etc.
As the fifth male lead currently on another production set unable to take leave, Mo Xun didn’t participate in building visits or interviews, only doing joint livestreams to support the show’s promotion.
January 20th, the second day after premiere.
Several lead actors made surprise appearances on Taohe Platform to watch with audiences, posting live bullet comments. The drama’s popularity rapidly exploded beyond its circle, unstoppably breaking 10,000 at 10 PM that night!
The hashtag #Rising Winds of Chang’an Popularity Breaks 10,000# was pushed to trending.
Breaking 10,000 on the second day—definitely annual champion material.
Audiences following the drama said the plot was full of suspense with intense, thrilling pacing. All protagonists and antagonists were intelligent without forced stupidity—political intrigue with open and covert struggles was simply too entertaining!
Mo Xun was also very happy his drama could achieve such results.
Breaking 10,000 the second day meant that as long as subsequent plot didn’t collapse, final average episode views would definitely be high—he’d successfully gained screen presence.
As the plot became increasingly exciting, all lead actors began gaining followers crazily.
What no one expected was that Mo Xun, just a fifth male lead, actually had higher character popularity than the third male lead Crown Prince!
Gaining 300,000 followers in one day!
This was comparable to explosive drama male leads!
Many audiences loved Mo Xun’s bodyguard character. On Taohe’s character rankings, Mo Xun’s bodyguard was second in popularity only to the male protagonist.
This drama also had great ships—bodyguard × male protagonist’s loyal protection, Crown Prince × male protagonist’s forced brotherhood, Second Prince × male protagonist’s childhood friends, etc.
Audiences enjoyed shipping them.
But the production team’s creators had absolutely no intention of promoting couples.
Qin Luo was an A-list actor—shipping with newcomers would lower his status. Mo Xun even less wanted to promote this, so everyone deliberately avoided suspicion and reduced interactions during promotion.
Mo Xun didn’t have many scenes in this drama, but every appearance was effective. Finally, he died protecting the male protagonist’s escape, providing rear guard, dying under countless masters’ siege.
The bodyguard’s sacrifice scene brought many tears from audiences, making Mo Xun’s character popularity peak. Though he exited after 20 episodes, his character was established, becoming white moonlight many audiences missed, with his action scenes and eye-acting receiving massive praise.
“Among young actors in domestic entertainment, his action scenes are second to none!”
“This is what you call a master—can those pose-striking pretty boys stop insulting audiences?”
“Mo Xun is indeed surprising—acted very well!”
“Tired of pale, weak pretty boys—can we have more masculine actors like Mo Xun?”
A massive wave of organic buzz appeared online, with edited highlight videos of Mo Xun’s action scenes set to various high-energy music, breaking through circles again and attracting countless passersby to become fans.
This drama made Mo Xun’s follower count surpass Fang Yinnian’s, becoming the first among FTM’s five to break 15 million.
Fang Yinnian was also very happy—Mo Xun was indeed suited for the acting path. The shining young man he liked had finally been seen by everyone!
***
Late February, Mo Xun finished filming his new drama and returned to the Jiangzhou dorm.
Fu Fei rushed to help with luggage while saying: “Brother Mo, congratulations! Your first drama achieved such great results!”
Mo Xun smiled: “Just good luck. This drama’s popularity is mainly because Director Qi filmed it well—my contribution wasn’t actually that significant.”
Fu Fei said: “Don’t be modest. Your bodyguard × prince CP with Qin Luo even topped the film and TV CP rankings.”
When Fang Yinnian came out, Xiao Fei had just finished saying this. He obviously heard it, stopping and looking up at Mo Xun.
Meeting his gaze, Mo Xun quickly explained: “I won’t promote CP with Qin Luo. As long as actors don’t promote CPs, once the drama finishes airing, that CP won’t have much buzz.”
Fang Yinnian pretended not to care, smiling: “Promoting CPs in film and TV is quite common now. This political drama isn’t suitable for it, but your next period romance will definitely have people shipping you with the female lead, right?”
Mo Xun: “…”
Tan Junwen suddenly came over, grinning teasingly: “Yinnian, you’re not jealous, are you? Don’t worry, no matter how many roles Brother Mo plays, his official CP will always be you. MoFang’s main wife position is unshakeable.”
Fang Yinnian’s ears burned red as he rolled his eyes at Tan Junwen: “What nonsense are you talking!”
Mo Xun patted Junwen’s shoulder: “Since you’re so free, you two go to the supermarket to buy groceries. Let’s eat noodles at the dorm tonight, okay?”
He looked at Fang Yinnian, smiling: “I want to eat noodles made by Yinnian.”
Fang Yinnian nodded: “Okay, I’ll make them for you.”
Junwen and Xiao Fei enthusiastically went downstairs to buy groceries. Tang Che was shut in his room studying, leaving only two people in the living room. Fang Yinnian’s heart raced as he avoided Mo Xun’s gaze.
Mo Xun said quietly: “Yinnian, CP stuff is all netizen speculation. Besides, they’re shipping the bodyguard and Fourth Prince characters, not Mo Xun and Qin Luo.”
Fang Yinnian’s cheeks burned: “There are tons of film and TV CPs—you don’t need to explain to me.”
Mo Xun asked quietly: “You don’t mind at all?”
Actually, when first seeing those CP-oriented video edits online, Fang Yinnian felt quite uncomfortable, but what position did he have to mind? Their relationship was limited to teammates.
Fang Yinnian said stubbornly: “I don’t mind.”
With that, he turned and went to the kitchen to prepare today’s lunch.
Mo Xun: “…”
He really wanted to hug Fang Yinnian and tell him his feelings. But President Zhou had assigned assistants to follow them with obviously malicious intent—he absolutely couldn’t show any weakness now.
Those assistants who’d been in entertainment circles for years were all shrewd. Once he and Yinnian started dating and substantial evidence was caught, it would affect his future plans.
He couldn’t be impulsive—just endure it.
Mo Xun took a deep breath, smiling: “I’ll help you.”
He’d just entered the kitchen and closed the door when his phone suddenly rang. Seeing the caller ID, Mo Xun quickly answered: “Hello Director Qi, mm… what script?”
The smile on Mo Xun’s face gradually disappeared, his expression becoming serious: “Sorry Director Qi, I didn’t see the script you sent me. Maybe my manager hasn’t had time to tell me?”
Director Qi’s voice came through the phone: “Mo Xun, I was very happy working with you on ‘Rising Winds of Chang’an.’ You’re talented, hardworking, and good at action scenes, so I sincerely want to invite you to film my next drama.”
“Period detective drama ‘Qingzhou Mystery Files’—the script has been carefully polished for years. I want you to play a highly skilled, humorous detective as second male lead. This character has a very different personality from your previous bodyguard role and is quite challenging.”
“All my other actors are set—only this detective role remained undecided. I recommended you to the producers. They initially disagreed, but after ‘Rising Winds of Chang’an’ aired recently with your outstanding performance and growing reputation, the producers relented.”
“I sent the script to your work email long ago. Hurry and read it, consider it carefully, and get back to me soon!”
Mo Xun quickly said: “Thank you Director Qi, I’ll ask my manager what happened right now.”
After hanging up, Mo Xun immediately called Xu Baichuan: “Brother Xu, Director Qi said he sent me a script. Did you receive it?”
Xu Baichuan was silent for two seconds: “FTM’s schedules now all go through President Zhou—he took over the work email. I only know about a recent fantasy drama’s second male lead looking for you… Director Qi’s drama? Haven’t heard of it.”
Mo Xun’s heart tightened slightly. He quickly understood the reason—FTM’s work email was taken over by President Zhou’s people, with all collaboration invitations needing Zhou’s approval first.
Mo Xun’s recent popularity was high, so many production teams must be sending him scripts. But which scripts actually reached Mo Xun’s hands—the company had that choice.
Many actors actually didn’t know which production teams had approached them. After layers of company filtering, only the remaining scripts were what actors could see.
Companies with poor script selection easily harmed actors, making them miss opportunities for good or hit dramas. There were too many such industry cases.
Mo Xun just hadn’t expected “concealing scripts” to happen to him so quickly.
If not for Director Qi’s impatient nature, calling him directly, perhaps even after Director Qi’s drama finished filming, he wouldn’t know he’d once received an invitation.
Mo Xun’s temples throbbed as anger churned in his chest—Director Qi was a director he really liked, and they’d collaborated on “Rising Winds of Chang’an.” No matter what, the company shouldn’t have hidden this from him.
Fang Yinnian sensed Mo Xun’s wrong emotions and immediately stopped what he was doing, asking gently: “Maybe President Zhou just didn’t have time to tell you? Why don’t you go to the company and ask him?”
Mo Xun was silent briefly: “Okay, I’ll go ask him.”
Junwen and Xiao Fei quickly returned from grocery shopping. Fang Yinnian efficiently processed ingredients and made them delicious zhajiangmian.
Tang Che also came out from his room. Seeing Mo Xun, he casually said: “Brother Mo’s back. Your drama had great results—I saw recent viewership topped charts with over 100 million daily.”
Mo Xun said: “Mm. But I was only fifth male lead—the success doesn’t count toward me.”
Tan Junwen smiled: “Don’t be modest. With such explosive dramas, even supporting roles get benefits. Many production teams are probably sending you scripts recently. Brother Mo should choose carefully—explode in two more and you’ll have solid footing.”
Mo Xun smiled: “It’s not that easy getting explosive dramas—take it slowly.”
Mo Xun didn’t elaborate about the phone call.
After lunch, Mo Xun was about to find an excuse to return to the company when he suddenly received a call from the president’s office saying President Zhou wanted to see him.
Mo Xun went with the flow to the company, knocking on the office door: “President Zhou, you wanted to see me?”
President Zhou smiled kindly, handing him a contract: “Mo Xun, this fantasy drama’s second male lead has an excellent character setup—cold demon lord, super fan-attracting. The production team sent us the script, we evaluated it internally, and it’ll definitely be popular!”
“The fee is also very high, starting production next month. The company already signed a letter of intent. Take a look—if there are no problems, sign the official contract in the next couple days.”
Mo Xun: “…”
The company hid Director Qi’s script because among many simultaneously submitted scripts, they’d found a better choice.
Mo Xun asked directly: “I heard Director Qi also sent me a script—a detective drama. I’m very interested in that genre. Can I compare and read both scripts?”
President Zhou was stunned, probably not expecting such a major director to privately contact Mo Xun.
His face showed no embarrassment as he said matter-of-factly: “Oh, we evaluated that script—no value. Detective dramas are very niche, plus they want you as second male lead with low pay. Better to play second male lead in fantasy romance—the production team is well-funded with double the salary.”
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
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I enjoyed your perspective on this topic. Looking forward to more content.