Chapter 13: Release

The album officially started selling. Miss Luo Quan immediately posted on Twitter to "announce to the world," notifying fans that they could buy the album.

Currently, her Twitter account had 100,000 followers, but the Heat Value returned to her was only 6,000, which meant that the number of true fans would not exceed 30,000 at most. And a considerable part of these people were middle school students. These people usually used mobile phones to listen to songs and rarely used record players. Very few people were willing to buy records.

However, there were still many people willing to come to support her Twitter. Within ten minutes of posting, she had thousands of likes and hundreds of comments, about a dozen of which indicated that they had bought the record, but more were buying virtual records on iTunes.

The data of virtual records was not counted in the Oricon Chart. If you want to be on the chart, you have to have solid record sales. However, Miss Luo Quan was embarrassed to remind fans to buy solid records.

What was even more uncomfortable was that after the record was officially released, she couldn't even see the sales data, and she couldn't find her name on the Oricon Chart at all.

"Sigh..." Miss Luo Quan put down her phone, feeling lost in her heart.

Wen Xia, who was already wearing an eye mask and preparing to rest, heard Miss Luo Quan's sigh and comforted: "Sleep. It's useless for you to be anxious now. Won't you know how it's selling when you go to the record store tomorrow?"

Hearing this, Miss Luo Quan could only temporarily relax her heart, got up to turn off the lights, and slept back-to-back with Wen Xia on the tatami.

Uneasy breathing lingered in the room. Both of them were full of worries. The dream of this night would definitely not be easy...

When Miss Luo Quan woke up, it was already nine o'clock in the morning. Looking at Wen Xia beside her, her body was spread out in a large shape, her right leg was on her stomach, her mouth was slightly open, and faint, shiny saliva could be seen.

Miss Luo Quan shook her head and laughed, moved Wen Xia's leg away gently, and walked into the bathroom to start washing.

The sound of the shower head spraying water woke Wen Xia, but she had no intention of getting up, just wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth and shouted to the bathroom: "Luo Luo, I'm hungry..."

"There's bread in the refrigerator!" Miss Luo Quan said while applying shower gel.

"I want to eat hot ones~~" Wen Xia acted like a baby.

"Wait until I finish my shower!" Miss Luo Quan gritted her teeth in the bathroom. She really was an ancestor!

After Miss Luo Quan finished cleaning up and came out of the bathroom, Wen Xia changed her sleeping position, lying face down on the pillow, with her butt arched high.

To be fair, it was round and perky. If she kicked it, it should bounce, right? She really deserved to be from a girl group; her figure was truly good.

"I'm going out to buy breakfast, and by the way, see how my record is selling." Miss Luo Quan said while putting on her shoes.

"Hmm..." Wen Xia responded lazily.

Japanese people are used to eating hot rice for breakfast. There was a restaurant with good craftsmanship near the apartment that made teriyaki silver cod very well. Unfortunately, Miss Luo Quan had a shadow in her heart because she was once stuck by a fish bone when eating fish when she was young. Except for canned dace with salted black beans, she didn't eat any other fish.

Moreover, she and Wen Xia were both Chinese, and they didn't have the habit of eating rice in the morning. Fortunately, besides teriyaki silver cod, this shop would also prepare some rice balls and sushi. The quantity was sufficient, and the taste was good. Miss Luo Quan bought four of each when passing by, which cost her more than 300 yen.

After buying breakfast, Miss Luo Quan continued to move forward on the street. There was a record store not far away. She wanted to go in and see how her record was selling.

After walking for two minutes, Miss Luo Quan came to the front of this record store called Kawaki Record Store. The owner was squatting at the door, fanning himself leisurely, driving away the heat brought by the morning sun. After seeing Miss Luo Quan coming, he didn't get up, just said: "The store just received a batch of new records from Sony yesterday, all of which are liked by young people like you."

Miss Luo Quan asked: "Are there any by Izumi?"

The old man lowered his head and pondered: "Izumi... seems there is such an album." Saying that, he pointed into the store: "Go to the shelf at the very back and take a look. It should be there."

Following the direction of the old man's finger, Miss Luo Quan walked into the store.

The area of this store was not large, only about 20 square meters. The toy store near the school when she was young was about the same size. A plump aunt would always stand at the door and make a very tempting shout to the primary school students passing by. This was a whisper from the devil, and the power was terrifying enough to harvest the pocket money of every primary school student.

In that small store, every corner contained unexpected goods, and if you wanted to find the real treasure, you needed to go to the deepest and most inconspicuous place in the entire store. 【13-2

Miss Luo Quan was now struggling to advance toward the deepest part of the record store. Although she had already turned her body sideways to enter, the overly narrow and crowded shelves meant her slim figure couldn't provide much of an advantage. The main issue was that her upper and lower body proportions weren't balanced; her well-developed chest caused her to knock down one or two records every time she shifted her body.

After much painstaking effort, Miss Luo Quan finally reached the last row of shelves, where a row of brand-new records was displayed.

Judging by the placement of the records on the shelves, the old man seemed to prefer putting classic old records in the front, while the records released by these young singers were placed at the very back. This also had to do with the fact that there weren't many young people in the neighborhood; usually, those who came here to buy records were middle-aged people around forty.

At the very bottom of these records, Miss Luo Quan discovered the record printed with her own name. The cover was that photo of her holding a lemon, and in terms of production, it looked a bit more refined than the other records released by Sony.

After counting carefully, there were only twenty copies of her record on the shelf. The stock quantity was pitifully low, but considering the store was so small, Miss Luo Quan wasn't particularly bothered.

Organizing her records, Miss Luo Quan pulled one out from the pile, then took all the remaining ones outside and placed them in the most conspicuous position.

The old man didn't see any of this; he was still facing away from the shop, looking out at the street, slowly fanning himself with the round fan in his hand.

"Old man, how much for this record?" Miss Luo Quan asked politely, holding her record.

The old man looked up and said, "This one? This one is only 2,800 yen."

"So cheap?" Miss Luo Quan was a bit surprised. The pre-sale price online was 2,500 yen, and the wholesale price should be about the same. Generally speaking, it was very normal for such physical retail stores to add 700 to 800 yen to the wholesale price, but this old man had only added 300 yen. This price was truly conscientious.

Who would have thought the old man would turn his head and complain, "It's all my fault for being old and dim-sighted; I grabbed the wrong records when stocking up. I originally thought I had gotten Hoshino Sakura's records, but when I got back to the store and looked closely, it turned out to be some eighteen-tier female singer named Sister Quan Shui. I've never even heard of her. It's a good thing I didn't take too many. Now I can only set the price lower to break even."

"Oh... so that's how it is." Miss Luo Quan's face was now a capital display of embarrassment.

Sighing dejectedly, her once golden hair appearing somewhat wilted, Miss Luo Quan took three thousand-yen bills out of her pocket and handed them to the old man.

The old man held the banknotes up to the sunlight. After seeing the portrait of Hideyo Noguchi appear in the white oval blank space, he turned around, pulled open the drawer on his left, and carefully placed the thousand-yen bills at the very bottom of a pile of cash in the drawer. Then, he picked out four 50-yen coins and handed them to Miss Luo Quan.

Having suffered a huge setback, Miss Luo Quan was just about to leave this place of heartbreak. As soon as she turned around, she saw two young people, about fifteen or sixteen years old, walking toward her.

Both boys were dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and baseball caps. They looked very similar and were likely twins. As soon as they reached the shop entrance, they saw Miss Luo Quan.

"Ah, is it Sister Sister Quan Shui!" one of the taller boys exclaimed, his face full of surprise and joy.

"My stage name is Sister Quan Shui," Miss Luo Quan said with a smile and a nod.

"Really? I didn't expect to see you in person here!" The shorter boy said, noticing the record in Miss Luo Quan's hand, and asked curiously, "Is that your new album in your hand, Sister Sister Quan Shui?"

Miss Luo Quan nodded gently: "That's right. I was passing by this record store and wanted to see how my records were selling, but it doesn't seem very ideal."

"How could that be!" The taller boy seemed a bit excited. "All the students in our class are discussing your album. Everyone says they want to buy a copy to listen to!"

"Really?" Miss Luo Quan finally revealed a smile: "So you mean my album is quite popular with students?"

The shorter boy nodded vigorously: "Of course! Many of my friends have tweeted that they've already set 'Lemon' as their ringtone, but my brother and I prefer your song 'Sparkle'!"

"By the way, Sister Sister Quan Shui, can we take a photo with you?"

The boy's eyes were full of anticipation. Miss Luo Quan had no reason to refuse such a request, so she nodded happily: "Of course you can."

Because she was a bit tall, Miss Luo Quan had to squat on the side of the road with the two boys to take a group photo. Miss Luo Quan held her breakfast and the record, posing with a 'Yes' gesture.

The two boys were very excited, their faces flushed red. The brothers each took a photo with their phones, then bid farewell to Miss Luo Quan with satisfaction and entered the record store.

Miss Luo Quan watched from afar as they quickly discovered her records, which she had placed on the outermost part of the shelf, and revealed smiles as if they had found a treasure.

And Miss Luo Quan, in the gentle sunlight, also revealed a brilliant smile, her golden hair behind her becoming even more dazzling.