Into the Song, China's top AI drama, is a grassroots hit on an all-ByteDance stack

Into the Song (持械入宋), an AI microdrama made by a part-time online crew under 54-year-old Zhang Hansheng, has run ten 100-episode seasons on ByteDance's Hongguo app since Saturday 22 August. The producer counts 4 billion plays, Guduo Data counts 6.6 billion, and the team says compute passed 1 million yuan (roughly $140,000).

For AI creators it is the clearest proof yet that a small remote team can win the vertical-drama charts on craft and cadence rather than a studio budget. The version trending in China this week gets three things wrong, though, and it misses the bigger point: every layer of this grassroots hit, from the source novel to the app it streams on, belongs to one company, and that company's vice president is now using the crew as a showcase.

What the trending version got wrong

The trending topic that topped Weibo on Friday says a 54-year-old paid off his debts with an AI drama. No interview with Zhang or his producer says Zhang was in debt. Producer and head writer Li Chaohua said one team member joined carrying debt and has since cleared it. The Zhang version starts with a Weibo post from the Zhejiang broadcaster China Blue News at 17:24 on Thursday 5 November and spread from there.

The view count needs its owner too. The 6.6 billion figure is a third-party estimate from Guduo Data covering eight seasons on Hongguo and Douyin. The producer's own announced total in early October was 4 billion, and Yangcheng Evening News wrote on Friday that most outlets count "over 4 billion" (our translation). Both are cumulative plays, and neither one counts viewers.

Zhang also does not run the show alone. He is chief planner and owns the IP, Li Chaohua is producer and head writer, and the chief director, per a Tuesday 3 November interview with the trade outlet Duanju Heima, is He Xiushan, who builds the character assets and oversees the whole chain. And "taught himself" undersells it: Zhang started in March 2025 as trainee number 11 at Xuebao Studio, a paid online AI-drama course, and spent a year on paid commission work before any of this aired.

How the crew makes 100 episodes a week

Zhang told Red Star News on Tuesday that he came to AI video after a string of failed businesses. "I suddenly realized one sentence could generate an image, and one sentence could turn an image into a video," he said, adding that he studied more than ten hours a day (our translation). The crew he built now numbers more than 30 people across six provinces, all working online. Into the Song is made by a core of about ten, six of them making the episodes: a stay-at-home mother, a former ride-hail driver, a wholesaler, a van courier and two office workers.

The method they describe is more disciplined than the amateur label suggests. One person owns each episode end to end, from assets and storyboard to generation, before a central edit. He Xiushan builds the lead characters and the team keeps a shared asset library that covers even bit-part ministers, soldiers and passers-by, so faces do not drift between characters. Ordinary shots take about three generations, battle shots often 20 or more. There is no script bank: the arc is plotted ahead, and each weekly season is adjusted from the comment section and fan groups before the next one goes up.

He Xiushan also argued that current models make every face too perfect, so the crew keeps fixed identity markers such as the lead's headset and glasses, and he says later seasons hold more than 70% completion. These craft details come from one interview that we read through a summary, not the original.

One company at every layer

Here is the part the coverage skipped. The source novel comes from Tomato Novel, which is owned by ByteDance. The director says the video and the voices are generated with Seedance 2.5 and the edit and music are done in Jianying, the Chinese version of CapCut, both ByteDance products. The series streams on Hongguo, ByteDance's free short-drama app, and its biggest booster this week was Li Liang, vice president of Douyin Group, also part of ByteDance.

Li posted about the crew on Weibo around midday on Thursday 5 November, calling the series mass creation and writing that AI technology is letting thousands of ordinary talents from every walk of life become directors of hit dramas (our translation). The same post opened with Li saying the company had criticized him for his recent heated remarks. He has been in a public fight with the commentator Qin Shuo, who sued him for defamation on Monday 2 November, and Chinese business outlets read the post as a change of subject.

The regulator's mood runs the other way: the National Radio and Television Administration counts nearly 550,000 microdramas online this year, over 94% made with AI, and an official said on Thursday that the line is to support live-action dramas and regulate AI ones.

The money, as far as anyone can check

The economics are the team's own figures, and nobody outside has checked them. Li Chaohua says compute for the series passed 1 million yuan and the series has brought a commercial return of about 10 million yuan (roughly $1.4 million). He also says every title so far has been profitable, but the 1 million yuan covers compute only: wages, the novel license, the platform's share and marketing are not disclosed, so the profit claim cannot be tested from what is public.

The public numbers show how hard the market has become. The crew's commission work paid up to 3,000 yuan a minute in 2025, and the team says rates fell to 200 to 300 yuan a minute after Seedance 2.0 arrived this year, which is why they switched to their own IP. DataEye counts 221,900 new AI and animated-comic dramas on Douyin in the first half of 2026, with 1.3% reaching break-even and 0.48% passing 100 million plays. He Xiushan's own estimate of the odds is a few hits in every ten thousand.

What it means for AI creators

The lesson here is about workflow more than tools, and most of it transfers to any platform.

• Consistency is a library, not a prompt. A shared asset bank for every character, down to the extras, is what lets six people ship 100 episodes a week without faces drifting.
• Budget the re-rolls, because three generations per ordinary shot and 20 or more per battle shot is where compute money actually goes.
• Weekly release plus comment-driven rewrites works like a writers' room with live notes, and it only works if you plot the arc in advance.
• Commission work is a training ground with a falling floor, so the crews that moved to their own IP before rates collapsed are the ones with something to sell.
• Your stack has an owner, and when the novel, the model, the editor and the shelf all belong to one company, that company also sets the payout terms and picks who gets the spotlight.

Our take: the craft here is real and copyable, and it beat bigger budgets on the platform that matters most in China. But a hit built entirely inside one company's tools is a showcase for that company first, so creators should copy the workflow and keep their audience somewhere they own.

Timeline

• Date: Mar 2025. Event: Zhang starts as Xuebao Studio trainee number 11; commission work at up to 3,000 yuan a minute; Source: Team profile (Phoenix, Yangcheng); Red Star
• Date: Early 2026. Event: Seedance 2.0 arrives; commission rates fall to 200 to 300 yuan a minute; Source: Team profile
• Date: Mar to Apr 2026. Event: Two solo titles by Zhang pass 10 million and 100 million plays; Source: Team profile
• Date: Sat 22 Aug 2026. Event: Into the Song season 1 premieres on Hongguo; Source: Jiemian, QQ News, Yangcheng
• Date: Thu 10 Sep 2026. Event: Season 4 tops Hongguo's AI new-drama chart the next day; Source: QQ News
• Date: Early Oct 2026. Event: Producer announces 4 billion cumulative plays; Source: Jiemian
• Date: By Thu 15 Oct 2026. Event: Guduo Data puts eight seasons at 6.6 billion plays; Source: Dianyingjie
• Date: Sun 1 Nov 2026. Event: Season 11 goes up; Source: Yangcheng
• Date: Mon 2 Nov 2026. Event: Qin Shuo files a defamation suit against Li Liang; Source: 21jingji, Beike Caijing
• Date: Tue 3 Nov 2026. Event: Red Star interviews Zhang; Duanju Heima interviews director He Xiushan; Source: Red Star; AITOP100 summary
• Date: Wed 4 Nov 2026. Event: NRTA: nearly 550,000 microdramas in ten months, over 94% made with AI; Source: Caixin
• Date: Thu 5 Nov 2026. Event: Li Liang's Weibo post; NRTA official on regulating AI dramas; China Blue News posts the debt version at 17:24; Source: Beike Caijing, Xinhua, Sina
• Date: Fri 6 Nov 2026. Event: Debt hashtag tops Weibo; Shanghai Daily English write-up; Yangcheng print analysis; Source: Sina, Shanghai Daily, Yangcheng

Sources and what is unconfirmed: Red Star News interview with Zhang Hansheng, 3 Nov 2026; team profile with Zhang and Li Chaohua (Phoenix, Yangcheng Evening News), 5 Nov 2026; Jiemian, 5 Nov 2026; Yangcheng Evening News, 6 Nov 2026; AITOP100 summary of the Duanju Heima interview with He Xiushan, 3 Nov 2026; Li Liang on Weibo, 5 Nov 2026, as quoted by Beike Caijing and Phoenix; 21jingji and ZAKER, 6 Nov 2026; China Blue News on Weibo via Sina, 5 Nov 2026; Dianyingjie, 15 Oct 2026; Caixin and Xinhua, 5 Nov 2026; Shanghai Daily, 6 Nov 2026. Unconfirmed: the compute, return and profit figures (team statements, no financials), the tools and craft details (one interview, read through a summary), the Hongguo chart and play counts (not accessible to us), and The Paper's 29 Oct interview with Li Chaohua (not opened). We have not watched the series. Dollar figures use roughly 7.1 yuan to the dollar. We did not seek comment from the team, ByteDance or Li Liang.