Chapter 13: Known as the Asian Little Dance King

"I have no objection. Thank you, General Manager Zhou. You can make the arrangements."

Faced with this sudden big pie, it was impossible for Zhou Yi to say he wasn't surprised. But he quickly came to his senses and sincerely thanked Zhou Jianhui.

Even though he was now a Warner artist, who was Guo Tianwang?

One of the Four Heavenly Kings of Hong Kong Island, the Asian Dance King, and a series of golden titles that could blind passersby.

Passersby don't care if Guo Tianwang initially rose to power by bundling and feigning injury; at the very least, one must have the ability to handle the overwhelming wealth brought by such bundling and feigning injury, and step by step secure one's position as one of the Four Heavenly Kings.

Thus, the concept presented to the public afterward would be that Guo Tianwang was one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Hong Kong Island's golden era.

To not exaggerate, in 2000, Warner relied on Guo Tianwang for its top male artists. Zhou Yi never expected that Zhou Jianhui would go so far as to approach this person just to promote himself.

However, perhaps because he himself had relied on bundling marketing to stand at the forefront back in the day, Guo Tianwang, while not outwardly too resistant to the idea of mentoring juniors, was inwardly not entirely willing, treating it completely as a task to go through the motions.

Zhou Yi was not sure how much of Guo Tianwang's popularity he could ride on under the company's arrangement.

But the fact that Zhou Jianhui called to notify him of this left him somewhat puzzled. If he remembered correctly, the packaging and promotion business for Warner artists should have been handled by the Deputy General Manager, Chen Zeshan.

When he first heard Zhou Jianhui say this, he thought it was Deputy General Manager Chen Zeshan planning some flashy hype for him, but he never expected it would be Zhou Jianhui himself doing it personally.

One can only say that for Warner to return to its peak between 2001 and 2005, Zhou Jianhui indeed made a monumental contribution.

After all, just regarding promotion and marketing, Zhou Jianhui as Warner's General Manager and Chen Zeshan, now the Deputy General Manager of Warner, held completely different philosophies.

For Zhou Jianhui, when playing the promotion game, he would first ask his artists' opinions, and only after clarifying the artists' bottom lines would he launch the promotion work.

Deputy General Manager Chen Zeshan was exactly the opposite; for the sake of heat, he would think of every possible way to utilize everything at his disposal for promotion.

A typical example was the so-called Egypt kidnapping incident Sun Yanzi encountered in 2007 in her previous life; that should have been Chen Zeshan's most notorious hype case, and also the root cause of the rift between Sun Yanzi and Chen Zeshan.

The reason this happened was that Zhou Jianhui, who was then the President of Warner Music Greater China and Sun Yanzi's discoverer, had left Warner Music in 2005 due to internal power struggles among the company's top executives.

Without Zhou Jianhui's favor at Warner, Sun Yanzi turned around and left Warner, accepting an invitation from Chen Zeshan, who was also considered one of her mentors, to join EMI Records (i. e., Victor Entertainment).

As a result, when filming the "Against the Light" album in 2007, Chen Zeshan used Sun Yanzi's Egypt attack incident for hype. After Sun Yanzi returned and, upon learning of this, said, "The situation wasn't actually that bad," she chose to retire again, not releasing an album for a full four years...

Rumors in the streets claimed the promotion method had touched upon Sun Yanzi's bottom line as a musician; facts proved that afterward, Sun Yanzi and Chen Zeshan had no further cooperation.

And the "buying chart positions" incident that Zhou Dong once publicly blasted in front of the media, specifically targeting the mastermind behind the scenes, was Chen Zeshan, forcing the latter to come out and apologize and admit it.

Subsequently, Zhou Dong ushered in a period of being blacklisted by the entire internet, with accusations like stealing instant noodles and actually being a Japanese person, and so on...

It is hard to say whether Chen Zeshan didn't contribute to this.

If such a person were to handle his popularity-riding journey, Zhou Yi felt he would have to weigh his options carefully; who knows if he would play some strange character settings to open up his fame, in which case he would respectfully decline.

After all, this lord was a grandmaster-level figure in the Chinese music scene when it came to playing with artist personas: pure jade women, dashing young ladies; literary youths, shy boys, and so on.

Many people say that Cai Yilin's change in style and persona relied on Zhou Dong, but in reality, the mastermind behind Cai Yilin's transformation starting in 2003 was actually Chen Zeshan.

From being personally crafted by Chen Zeshan into a sweet girl style upon debut, walking the path of American Britney Spears to earn the title of "Boy Killer," to passing through her low point and transforming in 2003 towards the direction of Asian Diva Ayumi Hamasaki, Chen Zeshan made a monumental contribution.

The most ridiculous part of this was that Cai Yilin once had a rift with Chen Zeshan due to contract disputes, and in 2001, she jointly held a press conference with lawyers to accuse Chen Zeshan of deceiving her into signing a contract while he was at Universal, and so on.

Chen Zeshan, who had already jumped ship to Warner at the time, also publicly stated he would never cooperate with Cai Yilin again.

But who could have thought that privately the two still kept in touch, and gave transformation advice to Cai Yilin, who was still in her low point, to follow Ayumi Hamasaki's styling and stage presence. After the transformation succeeded, Cai Yilin reconciled with Chen Zeshan, became hugely popular, and then signed a new contract with him...

How to put it? It's quite amusing.

One shouldn't say there are no real enemies in the entertainment industry; everyone sees each other up close and down close; isn't it better to be harmonious and make money?

Only Zhou Dong, young and impetuous back then, made the named Chen Zeshan lose face, and in turn, Zhou Dong himself was blacklisted by the entire internet.

Sun Yanzi, that sister, belonged to the willful type; after the rift with Chen Zeshan over the "Against the Light" album hype incident, she simply stopped releasing albums, voluntarily retiring from the industry for four years, only returning to release a new album after her contract expired.

"Hello? Zhou Yi? Zhou Yi? What are you thinking about? So distracted? What love potion did General Manager Zhou feed you?"

Just as he was immersed in his wandering thoughts, a call from Sun Yanzi across the table brought Zhou Yi back to his senses—

Looking closely, both Sun Yanzi and Zhang Shaohan were looking at him curiously.

"Ahem, nothing, just asking if I had any resistance to riding on Guo Tianwang's popularity or something."

After coughing once with a single fist held to his lips and tossing the Nokia in his hand onto the table, Zhou Yi proudly raised an eyebrow: "You two remember to keep this confidential; this matter requires strict confidentiality. Don't let a third person know."

"Ride on—ride on Guo Tianwang's popularity?!"

Sun Yanzi was fine; she had entered Warner before Zhou Yi, and she had met Guo Fucheng, Warner's current number one male, and Li Yijie, the number one female. But Zhang Shaohan beside her was different.

She was just a nobody in Fomusic Records; where did she have the qualification to meet a figure like Guo Tianwang standing at the very peak of the current entertainment pyramid?

Her state of mind at this moment could be said to be no different from that of an ordinary Guo Tianwang fan.

"So, Brother Yi, you are going to be on a program with Guo Tianwang?" As an aspiring entertainment industry person paying attention to the scene, Zhang Shaohan was not entirely ignorant of the methods of mentorship in this circle.

She herself had once fantasized whether the company's number one female would take a liking to her, then mentor her, take her on programs to accumulate popularity and increase her face recognition.

But unfortunately, reality was cruel to her, at least in this current stage.

"If nothing unexpected happens, yes. At that time, I might have to go to Hong Kong Island. Being an artist is indeed quite busy; you have to run around everywhere."

Since they were already deploying Guo Tianwang as a trump card, the promotion front certainly wouldn't be limited to just Taiwan. Zhou Yi estimated he would have to run around Hong Kong Island as well, since that was Guo Tianwang's home ground.

As for the mainland, at present, although everyone's promotion centers had intended to start shifting attention to the mainland, none had truly moved there yet.

Zhou Jianhui was one who saw the potential in the mainland; for this reason, he even cooperated with Mainland's Warner Warner Maitian. At that time, the promotion and distribution of his album in the mainland would mainly rely on Warner Warner Maitian's channels and connections.

"Don't get the benefit and then complain. The Hong Kong Island market is well-captured; sales there are no worse than here in Taiwan. I just feel you need to pay more attention over there; it's too aggressive recently."

Having somewhat seen through his junior brother's show-off nature, Sun Yanzi, as a senior who had already gone to Hong Kong Island to pay respects to the company's number one male and number one female, offered a warning: "Xie Tingfeng is about our age, but he is incredibly popular, squeezing the record sales space for many young people.

"And due to competition, the people over there actually don't get along well with us."

Zhang Shaohan, who had transformed into a melon-eating little sister on the side, sat quietly with her big eyes sparkling, not moving a muscle.

She was also in the entertainment industry and had some understanding of the situation where major companies fought to the death in their respective markets, but she felt it was better not to get involved in such topics for now, otherwise she might lose points in front of these two "big shots" that Warner was determined to promote.

"I know, Xie Tingfeng is indeed popular. But I am going to ride on Guo Tianwang's popularity; even if I have to participate in a program, I probably won't run into him."

Zhou Yi nodded, expressing gratitude to Sun Yanzi for providing experienced advice.

In this era, Xie Tingfeng's popularity was unquestionable. Moreover, due to his clean and upright background, Hong Kong Island was basically building him up as the number one male of Emperor Entertainment.

Although Wang Jie still held the title of Emperor's number one male at this time, his decline was visible to the naked eye; he basically just had the advantage of being older.

To put it this way, two years after Ren Xianqi dominated the Chinese music scene, the singer launched in Hong Kong who could match his popularity was not Wang Jie, but Xie Tingfeng.

Around the millennium, Xie Tingfeng was truly the number one "Little Heavenly King" of Hong Kong Island, a star so huge across the two shores and three regions that his popularity became utterly uncontrollable after he performed on the Spring Festival Gala.

His future was as bright as one could see with one's own eyes.

Even the Hong Kong and mainland media were already hyping him as the "next Heavenly King," aiming to counter the suppression from the Taiwan music scene in previous years by artists like Zhou Huajian and Ren Xianqi.

Is Zhou Dong awesome?

Of course, he is awesome.

But before 2002, his popularity, whether in Hong Kong Island or on the mainland, could not match Xie Tingfeng's.

One could even say that before 2002, if you lined up all the young-generation singers from Taiwan, male or female, Xie Tingfeng could have wiped them all out.

"Not necessarily; there might be private gatherings where you could run into them."

Sun Yanzi shook her head and shared some things she encountered when she went to pay her respects to the local powers, offering them for his reference: "For instance, I once attended a gathering with Zheng Xiuwen, and Wang Jie was there."

"..."

Zhou Yi, who had initially thought it was a big deal, raised an eyebrow upon hearing this, momentarily at a loss for words.

Was he supposed to say that Wang Jie probably wanted to run away?

This guy was quite funny; as a singer, he didn't properly protect his voice, but instead implied every now and then that someone was poisoning him.

The key point was that the claims and details about the poisoning, spoken solely from his own mouth, came in several versions, leaving the Hong Kong and Taiwan media, who loved a spectacle and wanted to boost sales by hyping him, staring at each other in silence.

Such behavior made it hard not to suspect whether his voice was actually damaged by poison or if his brain was the one injured.

Until later, when Wang Jie had faded into obscurity and could no longer stir up even a ripple, the story of his voice being poisoned by poison became a traffic tool for mainland internet marketing accounts seeking eyeballs and KPIs, squeezed for its last drop of traffic value.

"Who knows? We'll see when the time comes; if it's really as you say, maybe I really will run into them..."

Shaking his head, Zhou Yi cast aside those amusing thoughts from his mind and began to focus on eating his meal.

After finishing his meal, Zhou Yi was supposed to go receive Sun Yanzi's secret lessons, but as soon as he stepped into the company, he was called to the General Manager's office—

Pushing open the door, he saw Zhou Jianhui, dressed in a suit and wearing gold-rimmed glasses, sitting on the guest sofa in the office, with Li Saisong, wearing round-framed glasses, beside him.

"General Manager Zhou, Brother Li, you called for me?"

After exchanging greetings, Zhou Yi sat down at their gesture and, seeing that they seemed to have something major to say, asked curiously.

"Zhou Yi, let me ask you something: can you write dance music?"

The two sitting on the sofa exchanged a glance, then Zhou Jianhui raised his hand to adjust the frames on his nose and asked.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Yi was momentarily stunned: "Dance music?"

"Yes, dance music."

Zhou Jianhui nodded: "Saisong told me your brand-new compositions are excellent and have great rhythm. Considering that Guo Fucheng, our company's most famous artist, is renowned for his dynamic pop dance tracks, I wanted to ask if you have any idea to include several songs with dance elements in your new album?

"In this way, our initial promotional focus for you can revolve around this aspect, and we can maximize the traffic and popularity Guo Fucheng brings to you.

"For example, if Guo Fucheng is the Asian Dance King, then you could be the Asian Little Dance King."

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Saisong on the side immediately chimed in: "I have analyzed your melodies; if we make slight adjustments to incorporate dance elements, it should be quite good.

"Or perhaps, when you wrote this song, you already referenced some pop dance music?"