Love? The Reborn Me Just Wants to Obtain Rewards
Chapter 911 - 377: Gu Family Has Not Finished with You

Chapter 911: Chapter 377: Gu Family Has Not Finished with You

Battle Through the Heavens was originally planned to be Penguin Video’s flagship drama of the year, but before their promotional phase even began, it was explosively exposed nationwide.

A Northeast elder brother during a media interview listed five major allegations against Battle Through the Heavens—

1. The production team had chaotic financial accounts. A crudely-made puppet prop was quoted at 12,000 RMB, but in reality, wasn’t even worth 20. The entire team was in cahoots, greedily pocketing funds and deceiving small and medium-sized investors.

Gu Tonglin sold nearly 300 shares of overpriced investments, with over 200 investors banding together to file lawsuits against the production team.

2. Violations involving actor contracts, where the production team paid actors fees below their market standards and pocketed commissions from the transactions.

This accusation threw the lead actors into a storm of public scrutiny, where speaking up or staying silent both seemed to make things worse.

Coincidentally, this happened to be during the strictest enforcement period of the government’s salary cap orders, drawing immediate attention from higher authorities.

3. The production company was suspected of embezzlement and benefit transmission.

Jiang and Xinli were overwhelmed with stress.

4. Penguin Video, as the purchaser of the project, colluded with the production team. Corruption spread widely throughout the platform, deceiving users and audiences alike.

Now having to shoulder the blame, Penguin began an internal investigation.

5. The fund circulation of the project showed high indications of money laundering, with nearly 100 investors who suffered financial losses now unaccounted for, and unusually silent on the matter.

The public pleaded for the government to thoroughly investigate these incidents and take severe measures against industry chaos.

The scandal went viral, and even crossed over to wider audiences.

Some marketing accounts tried to contain the fallout, and Weibo was assisting in cooling the hype, but the matter far exceeded what one or two companies could suppress.

With Potato and Battle Through the Heavens’ influence in the online fiction community alone, the scandal spread across 400 million web novel users.

Adding in the intentional promotion and streaming of the incident on the major short-video platforms Kuaishou and Douyin, it propelled "bean pulp" to the top of various media indices, remaining firmly at the peak.

Penguin had no choice but to delay the launch of Battle Through the Heavens, only for the masses to uncover "new evidence."

"They don’t dare to release it now!"

"Seems like there really were issues during filming. It’s a rare sight to see Tencent showing guilt."

"Lawyer letter warning!"

"Don’t laugh, bro. I posted about this on another forum and actually received a lawyer letter."

"Damn it, my Battle Through the Heavens!"

Male fans were furious, collectively voicing grievances for the drama.

Actually, if this had unfolded normally, the fans wouldn’t have bothered watching or even cared about Battle Through the Heavens.

The male demographic’s attitude toward male-oriented IP has always been one of neglect—don’t watch, don’t discuss. Only a select few might glance at it, then curse a bit and forget it the next day.

But now, a mysterious force had escalated the situation into a major drama, attracting overwhelming and unbearable attention toward the new series.

Gu Tonglin was at his wit’s end, smashing eight cups in one day.

He spent 50 million RMB buying out Su Huai’s shares, paid 20 million RMB upfront for internet trolls, but it couldn’t last for three days, so he added another 30 million RMB.

A billion in cash was thrown in, and while he had recouped over 300 million RMB by selling shares, this money was now temporarily frozen by judicial authorities—whether he could get it back remained uncertain. Moreover, his financial company was now under bank supervision.

"Damn it! Where exactly did things go wrong?!"

He glared ferociously at everyone present, his gaze wolf-like and menacing.

All the heads of the related companies were present, each angrier than the next.

"Director Yu, give an explanation—where did that evidence come from? Is it true?"

"Producer Jiang, is this how you manage the accounts?"

"President Chen, what does Penguin Video have to say?"

"Gu Tonglin! Why don’t you look into your own issues? If you hadn’t screwed people over so badly, would things have blown up like this?"

"Enough with the shouting! Shouting solves nothing! The situation’s already like this—can we focus on finding solutions and recover those funds instead?"

"Ha, as if it’s that damn easy! How do we solve it? Do you people even know what the hell that drama turned out to be?"

"Director Yu, Producer Jiang, you two are fully responsible for this project!"

"I’ve done all I could. The script was like this when I received it—then this person gets stuffed in, that person gets stuffed in. I’m just a filmmaker. Of course, I made adjustments for you all!"

"At this point, you’re still trying to shift responsibility onto me?"

"I’m not. I did my job by delivering quality and quantity. When it premieres, the audience will vouch for me."

Yu Rongguang, the director, showed signs of a "scorched earth" mentality. He had come to grips with reality—after this incident, his career path as a director was essentially severed. He wouldn’t get a chance to direct major productions for years. His priority now was avoiding the blame—he couldn’t bear the fallout.

Tencent President Chen sneered: "All advertising deals fell through—bare streaming?!"

Mr. Jiang slumped hopelessly in his chair: "Not a single sponsor left?"

President Chen mocked with a grin: "Well, there’s a tampon company that wants in—should I reserve them for you?"

"Damn it!"

Mr. Jiang slammed the table and cursed at Producer Jiang: "Who on earth did you offend?! They’ve been dragging us through the mud nonstop, and I still don’t even know where the issue is coming from!"

Producer Jiang firmly denied: "I’ve definitely not offended anyone. The production team is clean—it’s all our own people. I think the problem must be on Mr. Gu’s side, since the instigators are all the investors he screwed over."

The blame kept shifting around, and Gu Tonglin wasn’t about to take it lying down.

"How would they know about filming issues? If it weren’t for you guys filming so poorly that it caught their attention, this drama would’ve been released already! Damn it. If you couldn’t make a good drama, fine—but you can’t even keep things confidential?! You let someone infiltrate the production team like a sieve, and you still dare boast it’s all your own people?!"