Chapter 1: He Will Be More Popular Than Guo Fucheng

(The characters, plot, and place names appearing in this novel are all artistic creations of a parallel timeline; any resemblance is purely coincidental.)

In May of the year 2000, the temperature had gradually risen with the arrival of summer.

Zhou Jianhui, the general manager of Warner International Music Co., Ltd., was now sitting in his office looking at the documents in his hand, his hands feeling somewhat cold.

As a former "outsider," his time in the record industry was not particularly long, but the results he delivered were impressive.

In '96, he entered the Taiwan record industry giant EMI, and in '97, using his unique ideas and marketing skills honed in the advertising industry, he successfully made the long-haired cut Leung Wing-kei famous across the entire province of Taiwan before her album "Short Hair" was even released.

The success of this case made Warner Flying Disc, whose market share had nearly plummeted to the bottom at the time, see a savior; they made a great fuss to poach him from EMI to serve as the general manager of Warner Flying Disc.

Initially, Zhou Jianhui was unwilling to come.

After all, in 1997, the situation of Warner Flying Disc, while not at its peak, could at least be described as declining.

Not only was there chaotic internal strife within the management, but the singers under the label were either jumping ship or not renewing their contracts, directly causing the huge company to be left with only Guo Fucheng and Zheng Xiuwen, a king and a queen, to hold up the show.

If Warner had not offered conditions full of sincerity to poach him, Zhou Jianhui might still have been thriving at EMI.

Precisely because of this, Zhou Jianhui, having obtained great power, took office in 1998 at what was then still unnamed Warner Flying Disc, and in the same year secured the distribution business for two current popular artists, Gu Juji and Leung Wing-kei, which can be considered a good start for his Warner career.

Of course, it was merely a start.

Since there were truly no promising talents worth cultivating among the artists under the label besides Guo Fucheng and Zheng Xiuwen, and no good singers could be signed in the market, Zhou Jianhui, upon taking office, did something in '98 that people found incredible—

A proper general manager of Warner was actually stubbornly pursuing a female college student still in school, leading his team to negotiate and spar with the wealthy parents of this female student, all just to sign their daughter.

In fact, to sign this female college student he had his eyes on, Zhou Jianhui even made the promise of "willing to wait until she graduates before signing."

Although not explicitly stated, many people privately felt Zhou Jianhui had simply lost his mind. After all, the woman named Sun Yanzi was not some Asian diva; she was just a college student still in school.

But Zhou Jianhui still overruled the opposition and reached an agreement with the Sun family, making the decision that Warner was willing to wait two years for Sun Yanzi.

After doing this, Zhou Jianhui, on one hand, began continuing to look for promising talents, and on the other hand, started actively sorting out the historical problems left by his predecessor and adjusting the strategy.

In 1999, the second year of Zhou Jianhui's tenure at Warner, Warner Flying Disc officially became history under his leadership, replaced by the reorganized Warner International Music Co., Ltd., commonly known as Warner Records.

And the current year 2000 was his third year at Warner.

This year, his schedule originally had only three major events: preparing Sun Yanzi's first album and attempting to sign the Taiwan diva A-Mei and the mainland diva Na Ying.

Yes, as a singer Zhou Jianhui overruled the opposition to wait two years to sign, the moment Sun Yanzi graduated from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the Warner team immediately went to her door with a contract and signed her.

For two years, the Warner under Zhou Jianhui's leadership truly did not forget Sun Yanzi; they truly treated her like a treasure.

The reason for wanting to sign A-Mei and Na Ying was a concept proposed by Chen Zeshan, the deputy general manager of Warner: to create a "Palace of Divas."

Although Warner Records at the beginning of the millennium still had Guo Fucheng and Zheng Xiuwen, a king and a queen, stationed there, the keenly perceptive Zhou Jianhui had already noticed that these two were no longer as dominant in the record industry as in the past and was preparing to develop new markets.

Especially the mainland market.

To open up the mainland market, he had long started contacting music companies rooted in the mainland, frequently running back and forth between Hong Kong/Taiwan and the mainland.

It didn't matter that he ran; once he ran, he discovered a pearl from the mainland—Zhou Yi.

The documents in his hand were the points summarized by his team that might be able to persuade Zhou Yi after yet another failed attempt to sign someone.

"Zhou Yi, male, born December 13, 1981, in Raozhou City, Gan Province; currently a junior law student at Peking University. Ordinary family background; his mother was formerly a general worker in a garment factory, his father was formerly a painter; now his parents operate a small supermarket in their hometown."

"Music is said to have been self-taught in high school to chase girls; after entering university, he followed up and learned quite a bit of music-related knowledge..."

"He is very confident, having rejected two versions of contracts previously, both due to unresolved copyright issues; it can be confirmed that reaching a signing agreement with him requires relaxing the copyright terms."

"Note: Zhou Yi personally possesses quite forward-looking music composition concepts and production capabilities, and also has an eye for international and domestic economic situations far beyond that of ordinary people."

"If the company still needs to tightly control the full copyright of his songs, I am afraid he really has no interest in entering the music scene, because he has other channels to make money..."

Reading through it all, Zhou Jianhui, a middle-aged man, couldn't help but sigh, subconsciously taking off the glasses resting on his nose and wiping them.

What kind of terrible luck is this.

To say it's bad, in '98 he encountered Sun Yanzi, who felt like a diva-in-the-making, and this year, while going to the mainland, he encountered a Zhou Yi with the potential of a superstar;

To say it's good, in '98 he wanted to sign Sun Yanzi but was rejected, only succeeding after pestering the Sun family into agreeing to sign in two years. This year he wanted to sign Zhou Yi but was rejected again, and this time even pestering didn't work...

He had the heart to give up, but as soon as he thought of the Zhou Yi he had seen, Zhou Jianhui found it hard to let go.

In his heart, this man, overflowing with talent from head to toe, could perfectly combine with Sun Yanzi to lead the currently bottomed-out Warner on a path to revival.

In fact, between these two, he was more optimistic about Zhou Yi's future development.

The reason was nothing else; it was simply because Zhou Yi not only had an extremely handsome appearance but also possessed the ability to write and produce his own songs, and the quality was extremely high. Top-tier singer-songwriters are the most scarce wealth in the music scene; this is an industry consensus.

Zhou Jianhui even felt that this child would definitely become more popular than the current Warner number one, Guo Fucheng.

Thinking of this, Zhou Jianhui, having put his glasses back on, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled to calm his thoughts—

He picked up the phone on his desk and issued an order: "Sign him, relax the copyright terms."

"What? Jianhui, have you gone mad again?" The person on the phone obviously found it hard to believe.

"He will be more popular than Guo Fucheng, believe me."

Just as in '98 when he overruled the opposition to reach an agreement with the still-student Sun Yanzi, Zhou Jianhui pushed his glasses up and said word by word seriously: "He will become a pillar of Warner together with Yanzi, just like Guo Fucheng and Zheng Xiuwen once were."

"... Jianhui, what exactly are you thinking? Betting the treasure on two kids? I don't understand, I really don't understand."

The person on the other end of the phone was obviously somewhat broken: "Only stars can save us, only big stars, big stars like Guo Fucheng and Zheng Xiuwen."

"Relying on kids accomplishes nothing; do you understand?"

"Betting the treasure on two kids, do you even want results anymore?"

With Warner's market share declining year after year, instead of signing big stars to improve results and enhance the company's influence, they were giving the green light to two young people; what kind of thing was this?

"Of course I want results, but the problem now is that the Warner brand is no longer enough to attract people. Chen Zeshan wanted to sign A-Mei and Na Ying to create the gimmick of a 'Palace of Divas,' and what happened? Neither of them has come yet."

"I also wanted to sign Xie Tingfeng, I wanted to sign Richie Ren, but do you think they would come to Warner now?"

Zhou Jianhui's speech rate was not fast, and his tone was not heavy, but it made the person on the other end of the phone fall into silence.

After a long while, the person on the other end of the phone finally spoke: "You are gambling; you have already gambled until your eyes are red, Jianhui."

"Since I signed Yanzi back then, this gamble has begun. If I win, I go further. If I lose, I accept it willingly."

Sitting in the general manager's office chair, Zhou Jianhui turned his head to look out the window, his eyes beneath the lenses filled with determination: "Yanzi will become more popular than Zheng Xiuwen, and Zhou Yi will definitely become more popular than Guo Fucheng."

The copyright of a singer-songwriter's songs, compared to the results and position he currently needed, was insignificant.

After all, if Sun Yanzi's debut album, prepared with such manpower and resources by Warner this year, were to fail, he would most likely be forced to slink away from his position as general manager, which he had held for three years.

By then, all copyrights would have nothing to do with him.

Rather than drawing water with a bamboo basket and ending up with nothing, it would be better to concede a step in the contract, bet on this young man he favored, and let him possess the copyrights that already belonged to him.