Chapter 293: A Hundred Million Walking Around

"Then may I ask, Miss Fan Bingbin, why are you here? Are you two together now?"

Noticing Fan Bingbin, who was holding a plastic bag and dressed in a stunning short skirt, the reporter, realizing he could not extract any sensational statements from Zhou Yi, turned his gaze toward her.

"What? Of course not. I was just invited to help Zhou Yi shoot an MV."

Facing the camera, Fan Bingbin used her beauty as a weapon, showing off her face without hesitation: "Zhou Yi is shooting the MV for his brand new English album. He's short on people, so of course I came to lend him a hand."

"Since Zhou Yi has already started shooting the MV for the English album, may I ask how the progress on the Chinese album is going?"

As the main event for Warner (China) in the second half of this year, the news about Zhou Yi's two albums had long been spreading like wildfire.

The English album was one thing; two singles had already been released. Moreover, since not many people in the domestic market understood English well, the news discussion volume was actually lower than that of Zhou Yi's Chinese album, Lianshan.

Especially after rumors of internal strife broke out within the MV crew for Zhou Yi's Lianshan album, the public became even more curious about the reasons why the preparation for Lianshan had taken so long.

Was Zhou Yi holding back a big surprise? Or was he unable to handle everything because he was distracted by the English album? Or had the crew really fallen apart and was now reorganizing?

"The Chinese songs have also completed their arrangement work."

"May I ask..."

After dealing with the reporters, with the intervention of the crew staff, Zhou Yi finally stopped his wild talk and returned to the Yehai Bar.

The boss, Zhuo Sister Xiao Yan, had also been conscripted and got to indulge her acting itch in the bar.

"Big star, how long are you going to keep me tied up like this? I still need to open for business."

Seeing Zhou Yi return, Zhuo Sister Xiao Yan threw the ledger in her hand into Zhou Yi's hands, leaned against the bar counter with one hand on her hip, and teased, "Take a look at my ledger yourself. See how much we've lost."

"Is this amount of money even money to me?"

Zhou Yi, who hadn't even glanced at the ledger, chuckled lightly: "Shall I write you a check? You fill in the number yourself?"

"Tsk tsk tsk, no wonder you're a big star. Your backbone is so stiff that your words are so tough."

Zhuo Sister Xiao Yan's gaze then fell on Fan Bingbin beside Zhou Yi, and a meaningful smile immediately rose on her lips.

Noticing her expression, Fan Bingbin, although not knowing where this woman came from, politely greeted her: "Sister Xiao Yan."

Another pretty girl falling into the vortex.

She was a star, at least a big one, a celebrity. Yet, simply because she played the female lead in the song with the most screen time in Zhou Yi's English album, "Baby," she was overjoyed.

Fan Bingbin naturally did not know what Zhuo Sister Xiao Yan was thinking in her heart; she was simply very happy that Zhou Yi had come to find her to shoot an MV again.

Ever since riding the world cup wind and exploding globally, the position for Zhou Yi's new album MVs was practically being fought over to death; a huge crowd of models and minor stars were willing to pay money just to get on.

Even though Zhou Yi repeatedly emphasized that the plot of his English album MV this time didn't have much content, highlighting a showcase of looks, figure, and styling, and that he himself was the main subject with others having little screen time, it was useless.

"Alright, wrap up. Everyone worked hard."

On the evening of June 18, after the nightclub-style MV "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love," centered on Zhou Yi, was also finished shooting, Fan Bingbin, who had not yet received a new role, took him back to her small home in the Imperial Capital to treat him to dinner, and along the way, they watched the World Cup—

"How is Sister Chen Hao's father doing?"

"It's okay. The doctor said the recovery is quite good; he should be transferred next month. I just asked her this morning. She is still at the hospital taking care of her father today and said his complexion has improved a lot."

With Chen Hao having gone to the ward and Sun Yanzi being dragged out by Chen Zeshan to attend an event, Zhou Yi's greatest joy while shooting the MV alone was coming to Fan Bingbin's place to tease her.

For this reason, Fan Bingbin had changed jerseys to tease him many times—especially the Costa Rica jersey, the Turkey jersey, and the Brazil jersey.

Tonight, wearing an Italian jersey again, Fan Bingbin, who usually didn't watch matches much, was so shocked by the South Korean team's blatant refereeing that even she, who didn't understand football, was left scorched inside and out, and even swore—

"Holy crap, even that guy named Maldini got his head blown off. The South Korean team can do this?!"

Although she couldn't understand the game, at least her eyes weren't blind.

Zhou Yi, also watching this scandal and conspiracy in front of the TV, could only shake his head repeatedly with a "tsk tsk" sound.

Although he had long heard that the South Korean team's refereeing was too outrageous, seeing the actual broadcast situation all the way through, it was a bit too much to bear.

To say it defiled football was an insult to the word "defile."

Facts proved that South Korea, which had long been questioned for biased refereeing, completely tore off its disguise when playing against Italy, shocking the entire world.

"They won't use biased refereeing all the way to win the championship, will they?"

Fan Bingbin, who didn't understand football, was somewhat incredulous: "Then if I bet on them to win, isn't that a guaranteed win?"

"... If the biased refereeing isn't stopped, it's not impossible."

Zhou Yi, chewing on a meatball, said with a smile: "If you want to try your hand at it, you can give it a shot. Maybe the next match will be an upset through biased refereeing again."

"..."

That actually makes some sense?

Fan Bingbin thought for a moment and decided to observe the situation for two days first to see what statement the World Cup officials would make.

Early on June 19, after eliminating Italy using biased refereeing tactics, Japan, which co-hosted this World Cup with South Korea, could no longer stand it and started to smear the South Korean team in the news.

Before this, although they were dissatisfied with the suspected biased refereeing behavior of the South Korean team in their hearts, they had always maintained silence to the outside world.

But this time, they really couldn't be a turtle hiding its head anymore.

You damn thing! We played seriously and got eliminated without causing trouble, showing the full style of a host nation. What the hell do you little Koreans want to do?!

Do you damn people want to destroy the reputation of Asian football?!

The Japanese and South Korean football associations, which were already friendly on the surface but hostile underneath, now tore off their masks, but the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) remained unmoved. This time, it was Zhou Jianhui's turn to go crazy with joy.

He, who had been handling public relations for Zhou Yi for a long time, never expected such exciting biased refereeing to be waiting for him. He immediately unleashed the strategy of forming alliances and connections, hooking up with the Japan Football Association.

At the same time, Warner and Coca-Cola both exerted force through public opinion channels, pushing the South Korean team directly to the edge of the cliff of public opinion.

Under Warner's public relations efforts, FIFA President Blatter had already begun to waver.

On June 22, under the attention of football fans and even political figures worldwide, the audacious South Korean team's act of defeating the Spanish team again through biased refereeing completely pushed FIFA, UEFA, and the Asian Football Confederation into opposition against them.

This also gave Zhou Jianhui the opportunity to send Zhou Yi up to the closing ceremony in one fell swoop—

Among this, the Chinese official authorities, which had benefited from the World Cup promotion, also contributed great effort, having Zhang Jilong, the Vice President of the Asian Football Confederation, come out to help lobby and apply pressure.

"The key now is to get Japan to loosen their stance. As long as they loosen their stance, your performance at the closing ceremony in front of football fans worldwide is not a fantasy."

Zhou Jianhui, who had been running this project for some time now, spoke with extreme excitement: "I have already smoothed things over with the other sponsors in Japan, but now Sony has a requirement. If you succeed in the end, they want an opportunity to cooperate with you in the future."

"An opportunity to cooperate? Sony?"

"I guess they're jealous because you made too much money this time, plus you're famously hard to cooperate with, so they want to reserve you in advance."

Zhou Jianhui gave Zhou Yi a reassuring nod: "Do you know how much economic value your song generated directly or indirectly between May and June?"

"Warner's marketing team estimated it at least one hundred million—U. S. dollars!"

Just the single sales revenue generated for Warner Records exceeded thirty million U. S. dollars, not counting licensing fees from various channels; together they totaled roughly thirty-seven million.

Not to mention the market impact this song brought Coca-Cola: it outright surpassed its longtime rival Pepsi during the hottest part of summer, saving Coca-Cola at least twenty to thirty million U. S. dollars in marketing hedging costs alone.

The reputation boost was even more overwhelming—Coca-Cola's revenue-generating power surged noticeably this summer, and the economic gains made Coca-Cola practically giddy.

At the same time, it drove continuous growth in Zhou Yi's merchandise sales and a rebound in sales of his older albums…

Even tourism in Chinese cities was affected by Zhou Yi's music video.

Coca-Cola's headquarters no longer held back—they reached out to Qian Jiang directly, offering to promote Zhou Yi to global ambassador under a three-year contract worth sixteen million U. S. dollars per year.

"Don't rush, Yi. I'm helping you hold out for more—you're at your peak right now. Start negotiating from twenty-three million, and your bottom line is eighteen million U. S. dollars per year."

Fearing Zhou Yi might be swayed by Coca-Cola, Qian Jiang called immediately: "Your English album is currently being recorded and produced, perfectly timed to ride the momentum from your World Cup closing ceremony performance."

"If the album sells well, I don't think breaking into the twenty-million-dollar club will be a problem."

"If they won't pay, Pepsi will definitely pay."

Poaching a top-tier popular singer from a rival company is itself a blow to Coca-Cola's brand image.

Of course, how exactly to negotiate without provoking Coca-Cola depends entirely on Qian Jiang's skill as an agent.

Having worked together this long, Zhou Yi had full confidence in his abilities.

On June 25, news outlets both internationally and domestically began running stories with phrases like "Zhou Yi created one hundred million U. S. dollars in economic value" and "the Zhou Yi effect."

Alongside this news came two official announcements from FIFA—

First, replacing the referees for the Germany vs. Korea match;

Second, announcing that Chinese singer Zhou Yi would be a featured performer at the World Cup closing ceremony, singing live before a global audience.

As soon as these three announcements dropped, China exploded in outrage!

"Damn, the World Cup closing ceremony?! Zhou Yi's got serious clout! That's global viewership—he's really made his name now."

"Isn't this basically the Spring Festival Gala? Except one watched by most of the world?"

"Too bad the national team didn't make the final. Otherwise, Zhou Yi singing while the national team won the trophy—perfect."

At first, people were still focused on the World Cup, but once the one-hundred-million-dollar figure broke, discussions about Zhou Yi surged instantly—

"Fuck, wait a minute—Zhou Yi made one hundred million U. S. dollars in two months?! I make four hundred and fifty yuan a month!"

"Exaggerated, exaggerated—it's indirect revenue, not money Zhou Yi actually gets. He probably only gets a share of single sales and licensing fees; all added up, maybe a little over ten million U. S. dollars?"

"Maybe? Converted and rounded off, that's nearly one hundred million RMB?! He's been earning in dollars all along, right?"

"Twenty-one years old and earning over a hundred million?! I was still hitting on girls in college at twenty-one, damn it!"

(End of chapter)