The highly-rated television show The Princess Weiyoung, which aired in November 2016, starred one of China's most popular celebrity couples, Tiffany Tang Yan and Luo Jin.
The series soon became the most-watched show on Shanghai Dragon TV and Beijing TV.
It was streamed more than 200 million times in just 24 hours on Youku, a video-sharing platform, and 1.5 billion times over 10 days.
"The Princess Weiyoung" hashtag topped the rankings during the time the show was broadcast and topics related to the series were viewed nearly 2 billion times on Sina Weibo.
Despite the ongoing copyright controversy, the show has pocketed many awards, including Favorite TV series on Dragon TV, the 2016 Popularity Award on Beijing TV, as well as Best Chinese Language Drama at the 5th Annual DramaFever Awards.
It was adapted from a popular book written by Zhou Jing under the pseudonym Qin Jian. It was initially titled The Poisonous Daughter and released in installments on online literary platforms in 2012.
Its heroine, Li Weiyoung, is the third daughter born to a concubine in the prime minister's family who was never loved by her parents.
She was married to a prince and became empress when her husband took the throne. However, her husband never loved her. He deposed her as empress and forced her to kill her son. Li died after drinking poisoned wine in desperation but was somehow reborn.
In her new life, she was no longer a weak woman who tolerated all kinds of humiliation. She began to use her wisdom to seek revenge against her enemies.
To avenge those who killed her family and destroyed her realm, she moved to another kingdom, where she also met romance.
The novel is a typical story featuring imperial struggle, treachery and romance, a popular genre in Chinese literature.
