Jiang Chenglan returns and gains nearly 16M followers

What happened Jiang Chenglan (姜乘澜), better known online as Chengshian (程十安), returned to Chinese social media on May 13 after a three-year hiatus, gaining 10 million followers within 24 hours. She now has nearly 16 million — one of the fastest audience-rebuilding acts in the country’s influencer industry. Under the handle @chengshian, she had amassed a combined 30 million followers across several of China’s leading platforms before going dark in May 2023, according to Sina. On Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote), the hashtag “Jiang Chenglan” (#姜乘澜) has 158.2 million impressions as of publication. Jiang’s three-year absence followed a dispute with her agency, Shanghai Jin Jia (上海缙嘉), which holds the trademark on her former alias and the Taobao storefronts built under it. Starting from zero, she returned under her real name on a new account. Her return drew followers back on the strength of a reputation built over years of unfiltered tutorials, candid product reviews, and a willingness to walk away from brand deals rather than recommend products she didn’t believe in. That credibility proved durable. Cosmetics brands are already posting partnership inquiries in her comments — a signal of the commercial opportunity waiting for her. For luxury beauty players watching China’s creator economy, her comeback is a reminder that authenticity, not scale, is what survives an absence. The Jing Take Jiang’s three-year absence was not voluntary. She signed with Shanghai Jin Jia (上海缙嘉) around 2020 to 2021, and the contract quickly became a trap. The agency required her to heavily promote its house labels Kimtrue (且初) and Everbab at a pace she felt the products’ quality could not support without deceiving her audience. She refused. When she tried to exit, the agency threatened to pursue her for 100 million to 200 million RMB ($14.8 million to $29.5 million) in damages for unmet promotional obligations and filed to register 59 trademarks on her “Chengshian” alias across 45 product categories, permanently locking her out of her own alias. Her Xiaohongshu account was suspended in May 2023. As of this month, she remains subject to a court enforcement order of over 11.19 million RMB ($1.7 million). The legal fight is not over. Her instinct to protect her credibility proved right. Kimtrue was later caught up in a Sudan Red contamination scandal, with Taiwan’s food safety authorities confirming the banned dye in one of the brand’s cleansing balms in November 2025. What her comeback shows is that the valuable asset was never the handle. The dormant Chengshian account has lost over 1.4 million followers since she reappeared; her new account crossed 16 million in weeks. People followed the person, not the trademark. For brands investing in Chinese Key Opinion Leader (KOL) partnerships, that is the sharpest due-diligence lesson of the year: before signing, establish who actually owns the account, the alias, and the trust. The Jing Take reports on a piece of the leading news and presents our editorial team’s analysis of the key implications for the luxury industry. In the recurring column, we analyze everything from product drops and mergers to heated debate sprouting on Chinese social media.

Jiang Chenglan returns and gains nearly 16M followers

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Jiang Chenglan returns and gains nearly 16M followers

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag