In Cangxi County, Guangyuan, Sichuan Province, an entrepreneur named Luo Jie, who runs an e-commerce business for local agricultural specialties, assembled a team of local youths with no prior filmmaking background back in May. Not long ago, their AI-generated short drama, 《重回高考，我只为自己赴约》, amassed over 200 million views on one of China's leading short drama platforms. Ordinary people from a small county have seized the AI short drama trend, carving out a new path in the digital creative industry. On September 3rd, Luo Jie shared the story behind their creation with reporters.

This AI short drama, adapted from a novel and centered on the youth theme of the Gaokao (college entrance examination), quickly went viral after its release. It surpassed 200 million views on a major short drama platform, emerging as a dark horse in the AI short drama sector. "I've always been in e-commerce, selling local kiwifruit, pears, dried green beans, pickled vegetables, and other agricultural products," Luo Jie said proudly, discussing his business. The producer behind this hit is a new company in Cangxi County, established just four months ago.

Luo Jie, a native of Cangxi County, has long been dedicated to agricultural e-commerce. With the rapid proliferation of AI technology, he began considering entering the AI industry. After connecting with educational resources, he sent four team members to Hangzhou for a 40-day intensive training program. They returned in June and, using a mentorship model, built the AI short drama production team. Initially, only about ten people, all from Cangxi, worked on the drama, later expanding to twenty. These young people, previously disconnected from the entertainment industry, used AI tools to complete the entire creative process for this viral hit in nearly 20 days. Everyone in the team has become multi-skilled, with each member capable of independently handling tasks like script breakdown, AI image generation, editing, scoring, and subtitling.

Reflecting on the production process, Luo Jie remained calm rather than just excited. "The hardest part was crafting the prompts for the AI. The team had to repeatedly calibrate and adjust them to achieve the desired visual results," he noted. For these young creators, the Gaokao feels like it was yesterday. "They would discuss their own experiences with the exam during production," Luo Jie added. In their retrospective, the team gave this hit drama a self-score of only 50 points, acknowledging it lags behind their current new production, which they rate 80 points, leaving room for technical improvement.

From telephone sales and summer jobs to high performance

Except for Luo Jie, all team members are from the post-2000 generation, with diverse backgrounds including students working summer jobs, clerks, accountants, and telemarketers. Recalling the early days, Luo Jie said the company's job postings clearly stated "newcomers can receive free training," attracting many local youths to try. One architecture graduate, seeing the recruitment ad, joined tentatively. "His internship was on construction sites. He probably never imagined he'd do this, but now his skills are at the mid-level of the team."

What surprised me most was a summer intern. He had just taken this year's Gaokao and joined in June. Within just eight or nine days, he quickly grasped the work and reached the top five in the team's rankings," Luo Jie praised. "The summer position had a base salary of 2,500 yuan, but with commissions, he could earn over 4,000 yuan a month. He even said he never expected a part-time job to pay this much." After the summer ended, the young man left to start university in Chengdu. When asked about his return next holiday, Luo Jie smiled, "I'll extend an invitation. He's quite willing."

A 25-year-old female employee is another inspiring example. Luo Jie eagerly introduced his key members: "After graduating, she worked in telemarketing for a year, then stayed home for two years raising a child. After being away from the workforce so long, she is now our technical department manager." Luo Jie revealed that the company adopts a commission model calculated per minute, allowing tasks to be transferred internally. Faster workers can take on the remaining workload of their colleagues. "Even the lowest-paid employee consistently earns at least 5,000 yuan a month," he stated. In 2025, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in Cangxi County was just over 43,000 yuan a year, making this a decent salary for them.

Summer success and plans for a local AI drama and specialty sales

Luo Jie attributes their first work becoming a hit to three factors: entering the field early, the drama's release coinciding perfectly with the Gaokao results announcement period, and promotional support from the local government. However, behind this success, the company has not yet turned a profit. "When we produced this drama, we only had four skilled members. We originally intended it as practice, but the combined costs of labor and computing power reached 70,000 to 80,000 yuan," Luo Jie told reporters. To date, the company's total investment has reached 500,000 yuan without generating profit.

"The project wouldn't have landed without government support. Our office space is provided locally, and they also helped with recruitment and promoting our work. We just cover utilities," explained Luo Jie, calculating costs. "Rent and labor in the county are advantages, so our costs might be only half of what they'd be in a big city. As long as we create good content, we can dare to compete in the national short drama market."

Looking ahead, Luo Jie has a clear plan. Beyond striving to become a top-tier content supplier for short dramas, he aims to use AI to deeply integrate with local Cangxi resources. "Especially in cultural tourism—we are already in active talks. We want to vividly present our local specialties using AI," he said. Currently, the team relies on existing novel IPs, but in his vision, "We want to discover local writers so that both scripts and production are rooted in the county, while also attracting more local youth to the industry, forming a complete industrial loop."

Following the success of their hit, Luo Jie's team is now busily producing their second work. As technological dividends extend down to county-level regions, these non-professional local entrepreneurs, supported by their hometown, are rushing towards a new track using AI as their medium.