Chapter 53: Chapter Fifty-Three: The Spotlight

Although Luo Quan had become a public enemy online in both China and Korea, her reputation was in ruins.

But the promotion for the new album continued anyway; no one knew whether the China division had already given up, but they ramped up efforts dramatically, buying several days of trending topics to promote “Coming of Age.”

The praise on these trending topics had become so exaggerated that even Luo Quan herself felt goosebumps reading them.

“The best Japanese album in a decade is about to be born!”

“A musical genius from the East!”

“The pioneer leading Asian pop music to the world!”

“Thoughts on love, life, and society—a divine album balancing pop elements with humanistic concern!”

Perhaps realizing no effort could salvage their reputation, the China division’s head simply embraced this near-self-sabotage strategy for aggressive promotion.

Although these outrageous slogans quickly sparked massive online discussion and backlash, they objectively generated enormous traffic for the album—after all, being hated is still being noticed.

Now the entire internet was waiting for “Coming of Age” to drop, eager to see just how “divine” this so-called masterpiece could possibly be.

If the quality matched her previous singles, it might be acceptable—but if it fell far short, Luo Quan would become the biggest joke in Asia’s music scene this year.

Pressure naturally fell on the production side; they had already made bold claims, and if they failed, not only would Luo Quan become a laughingstock, but Sony Records, responsible for the promotion, would become a laughingstock among industry peers.

Although this mess wasn’t technically their fault, they had to take the blame for turning their own artist into a national enemy—other artists might think twice before collaborating with them in the future.

To handle this, Director Ishimura hadn’t slept for two full days.

In Japan, intense overtime is normal, but going without sleep for dozens of hours like him could only be called monstrous.

If his subordinates hadn’t intervened, fearing for his health and forcing him to rest, Director Ishimura would have kept working.

As for Luo Quan, she wasn’t the least bit anxious these days; she finished recording the album in two days and spent the rest of her time shooting music videos.

Calling them music videos is misleading—they were more like promotional perks, just her wearing various pretty outfits striking awkward poses, and even the best shots wouldn’t be included in the album itself.

These were exclusive bonuses prepared by Sony, visible only in the special edition, which also included one random photo card; each special edition sold for 5,000 yen.

Online pre-orders have opened, and sales in Japan are decent—over twenty thousand copies on the first day—while sales in China and Korea are dismal, totaling less than a hundred combined.

In Korea, the album was taken down within hours of launch due to massive reports, and its re-release date remains uncertain.

In China, netizens were relatively rational—mostly just mocking, calling the album’s price of hundreds of yuan a blatant exploitation of fans, claiming anyone who bought it was a fool.

The famous puffery website Zhihu even created a trending topic for Luo Quan.

Question: “Is Luo Quan’s new album making her fans pay a Zhishangshui ?”

The top-rated answer was:

“Thanks for the invite.

Luo Quan does have talent—her debut album sold massively across Japan, received rave reviews, and her single ‘Faded’ dominated YouTube’s music charts with over 600 million views—all achievements worth noting.

But no matter how talented a person is, they can’t write that many great songs in such a short time.

These five songs are likely all the material she had stockpiled before debut; whether the ten new songs on this album were even written by her is questionable, and even if they were, their quality couldn’t possibly reach half of her earlier work.

Personally, I think her company is exploiting her current popularity in Japan to cash in quickly by releasing more albums—a common tactic in Japan’s music industry, practiced by many top female idols.

Squeezing a new star’s popularity like this is as foolish as draining a pond to catch all the fish; give her time, and she might write truly outstanding songs—but the capital behind her clearly can’t wait.

The tragedy of Zhong Yong is unfolding before our eyes, truly lamentable—she could have had a far brighter future.

Whether this counts as a Zhishangshui is subjective. As the saying goes: those who get cheated do so willingly; if fans want to be treated like pigs, who can stop them?

Still, I personally recommend buying the special edition—it at least includes HD music videos and photo cards, since everyone can see Luo Quan’s looks; I think this bonus might end up being more worthwhile than the ten songs on the album.”

A balanced, rational evaluation that cleverly ticked all the boxes of current online mockery of Luo Quan—it quickly garnered tens of thousands of likes and thousands of comments.

Luo Quan saw this comment; how to put it? She couldn’t really get angry—it was a normal person’s reasonable view, not overly biased—but equally, it lacked imagination, rigid and mediocre.

He didn’t believe Luo Quan could write good songs in such a short time, nor that she could create any miracle; like almost everyone else, he had already decided from the start that “Coming of Age” would flop and Luo Quan would fail.

Perhaps this is one reason why geniuses are incomprehensible to ordinary people.

Luo Quan isn’t a genius—but in some sense, she’s more monstrous than one.

After being mocked and denied by the entire internet for four full days, Luo Quan, now fully prepared, began her counterattack.

“The ‘Coming of Age’ album is complete. The demo version of the lead single ‘Firstlove’ will be released on all platforms at 8 PM on August 12.”

Luo Quan posted this Weibo at 5 PM—three hours before the demo would drop.

This was days ahead of schedule and broke the usual rule of releasing a demo only after the full album announcement.

Still, after much thought, Luo Quan chose this method to respond; she had spent days trying to downplay the impact of the online backlash in China, but she wasn’t a saint—no matter how strong her heart, she couldn’t ignore it entirely.

On the other hand, this move also reassured her fans: in China, she’d been under daily attack, and doubts about her in Japan were growing louder—if left unchecked, who knew what might happen? So Luo Quan chose to give everyone a taste of sweetness first.

As expected, the announcement of the lead single’s demo release immediately drew massive attention and comments; no matter what happened tonight, the stage was already set.

Whether this would be the tragedy of Zhong Yong or the continuation of a genius’s legend—three hours would tell.