Chapter 307: The Top Pressure Monster of the Chinese Music Industry

Zhou Yi was unaware of Zhou Jianhui's thoughts, as his phone had not stopped ringing since he landed, leaving him no time to meet Zhou Jianhui for now—

Ever since he landed and turned his phone back on, congratulatory calls and messages had been coming in one after another.

Classmates, teachers, friends, and even people he had only connected with after the Spring Festival Gala—he couldn't bring himself to reject them all outright, after all, these were sincere blessings.

At this moment, he wished everyone used QQ, so he could copy and paste a single reply to send to the whole group, saving trouble and—uh, wait, QQ in 2002 apparently didn't have that feature yet.

Similarly, Qian Jiang, whose phone had not stopped ringing since he turned it on, pressed his lips, which were slightly dry from talking for so long, stood up with his cup to drink water, and poured a cup of warm water for Zhou Yi as well.

"I expected your triumphant return to cause a huge stir, but I didn't expect it to cause such a huge stir; so many people want to meet you."

After hanging up the last call, Qian Jiang looked at Zhou Yi, who was still replying to others via text message, and smiled until his eyes squinted into a single slit: "Among them, there were even people representing official bodies. You've really put on a show this time; mainstream domestic media are unanimously praising you."

"It's all empty talk; give me something practical instead."

Back in the familiar city, looking at the familiar scenery, Zhou Yi, in high spirits, put down his phone, took a sip of water, and joked: "A tax reduction or rebate would be more practical than anything else."

"You can rest assured about that. With achievements of your current magnitude, even without us saying a word, the relevant authorities will give you a green light all the way."

Qian Jiang also smiled, shifted his bulky bottom, leaned against the corner of the table, and said with certainty: "Guess whether any of the people who just called me were staff from the relevant authorities?"

For a music superstar like Zhou Yi, who was unique in his kind, the treatment he enjoyed was naturally completely different from before.

"I will handle these trivial matters for you; just focus on rehearsing for your concert these next two days."

Qian Jiang, who had also built up many connections during his trip abroad, suggested: "Also, regarding the global financial audit issues involved in your English album, my advice is that you should hire a specialized team to handle them separately.

"You can assign some people from your own investment company, and also pull in some connections from Peking University; this way, with cross-verification between the two, you can feel more at ease."

Regarding Zhou Yi's investment activities, everyone at Warner was well aware; the key was that Zhou Yi hadn't been hiding anything, he had just been burning money "playing" with the internet and the stock market, not taking it too seriously.

According to Qian Jiang's estimate, under Zhou Yi's dazzling achievements, after the official green light and subsidies, the tax he needed to pay this time would, upon final settlement, result in him receiving much more than under normal settlement.

"Also, this is a document compiled by the company summarizing the situation in the Chinese music industry since you left; you can take a look."

After speaking, Qian Jiang threw a document lying on his office desk to Zhou Yi, who was sitting on the sofa; the latter opened it and immediately laughed.

Another familiar face from his memories had appeared—

The band Xin, which debuted with their self-titled album, rose rapidly in Taiwan and the mainland thanks to "Si Le Dou Yao Ai" and "One Night In BJ"; after two months of fermentation, they became thoroughly popular across the two shores and Hong Kong, and were specifically highlighted in red in Warner's document.

SHE's new album "Youth Stock Exchange," which lost the Best New Artist award at the Golden Melody Awards to Zhang Shaohan, had continued for half a year without breaking into the mainland market; for this reason, Him Records had already brought in many songwriters to customize a new album for them, "Beautiful New World"—

scheduled for release on August 5, and the intensive promotional mode has already begun.

Fish Leong's "Breakup Happiness" quickly opened up the market upon entering the mainland; nowadays, it has basically spread to every street and alley. Her extremely high sing-along rate propelled her to become a young female singer in the mainland market whose songs are sung only less frequently than those of Elva Hsiao and Sun Yanzi, firmly securing her position as the new top female singer at Rock Records.

Eason Chan, who began his official entry into the Mandarin music market, released a Mandarin album in April; "Xie Xie Nong" and "Your Backpack" have fermented until now, directly allowing him to emerge in the mainland and gain some sing-along popularity in non-Cantonese regions.

Meanwhile, in the Cantonese regions, Eason Chan also released his latest Cantonese album today. The Cantonese song "Tomorrow Today" from the album, released as the lead single before the album, went wild in Guangdong and Hong Kong upon release, ranking above all songs in Zhou Yi's English album.

After two generations of Hong Kong circle princes, Zheng Zhongji and Xie Tingfeng, who were both heavily promoted, successively fell at the same threshold, the Hong Kong circle began to consciously promote this talented young singer with excellent vocals; the title "Successor to the God of Songs" started to be used for tentative promotion to gauge public market feedback.

Of course, the most heavyweight ones were undoubtedly the two recognized geniuses of the music industry, Jay Chou and Tao Zhe.

On July 18, Jay Chou officially released his third personal album, "Eight Degrees Space."

Although many people criticized the album at the beginning of its release for showing no progress and merely replicating the successful formula of the previous album "Fan Texi," this did not prevent the album from selling massively.

However, compared to the previous two albums, Jay Chou produced relatively few hit tracks in this album; currently, there are only three songs: "Ban Dao Tie He," "Hui Dao Guo Qu," and "Long Quan."

Among them, the song "Long Quan" became known to young people only because it rode the coattails of a Pepsi Cola advertisement, and for this reason, many people said he had exhausted his talent.

Especially when compared with Zhou Yi, the "Big Zhou" who had already gone international and dominated the scene.

Tao Zhe, who announced he would release his new album "Black Tofu" on August 9, had also recently started intensive promotion; however, his problem was slightly more awkward compared to Jay Chou's—

It is well known that Li Zongsheng once said, "Musicians like Tao Zhe can be found by the thousands anywhere in the United States." Although the original intent of this statement was not to belittle Tao Zhe, but to express from another dimension that Tao Zhe's musical expression belonged to a more authentic American R&B style.

But after Zhou Yi achieved such dazzling results, the questions asked to Tao Zhe by the media became quite awkward—

Some remarks, such as "Tao Zhe actually returned because he couldn't make it in the American music industry" and "Love, So Simple originally had English lyrics, written in '93, and was later re-filled with Chinese lyrics before exploding in popularity," began to spread across the internet along with Tao Zhe's promotional activities.

Seeing this, Zhou Yi's eyebrows raised imperceptibly; he skillfully opened a secondary account and began surfing the web to eat melon—

The cause of the incident was very simple: his fans were shouting loudly online without noticing the context, with words inside and out declaring "Zhou Yi is the only true god of the Chinese music industry," which directly caused Tao Zhe, a musical genius who had worked at a US police station and done behind-the-scenes work, to be caught in the crossfire.

Suffering the same fate was Wang Lihong, who had earned a seat at the table with "The Legend of the Dragon" and "The Only One."

"Wang Lihong is a pure American; according to his fans, when he first came from the US, he couldn't even speak Mandarin; what he wrote and spoke was all English.

"If that's the case, why didn't he debut directly in the American music industry? Look at Zhou Yi, who grew up in China and exported himself back to the US! He went to earn Americans' money. Wang Lihong, an American, still crossed the ocean to earn Chinese people's money."

Wang Lihong: "..."

Wang Lihong, who was preparing the recording work for his next album "Unbelievable" at Sony, almost got so angry his blood pressure spiked when he saw these comments—

How could I get hit by stray fire?

Aren't you talking about Tao Zhe??

Tao Zhe and Wang Lihong, whose pain points had been struck, were unable to refute for the moment; after all, Zhou Yi was currently powerful, with real gold and silver achievements on display; facing a swarm of media following like flies, they could only smile and make empty talk—

"I listened to Zhou Yi's English album; it's great, and I also sent him a text message to congratulate him." Tao Zhe, who had to appear before various media due to the promotion of "Black Tofu," became the boy with the fake smile.

Then, under the media's relentless questioning, the fake smile on his face was somewhat hard to maintain—

"So, may I ask Tao Zhe, do you have plans to release an English album in the future?"

"Uh, I think there will be; I do indeed have such a plan, but currently my focus is still on the upcoming new album 'Black Tofu'."

For Wang Lihong, the media's questions were even more fatal—

"Hongyi, may I ask if you are confident in your new album? There are rumors that your new album will also be released in October; is this true? Are you going to compete with Zhou Yi's new Chinese album 'Lianshan'?"

"Uh, the release time of the album actually doesn't overlap much with Zhou Yi's; my next album should be around mid-October next year.

"Moreover, the relationship between us is not one of competition; I really like Zhou Yi's music, and our exchanges began very early on at the Global Music Awards."

Mainland China, Shenzhen, Wahaha event site.

Holding a large pile of microphones, Wang Lihong wore a prince-like smile on his face and answered reporters' questions amidst the screams of fans: "As for the English album, I do indeed have this idea; I personally do want to release one, but it mainly depends on the company's arrangement."

Meanwhile, Jay Chou, who was promoting his new album "Eight Degrees Space," also did not escape the treatment of being interrogated by media reporters: "I did call Ah Yi to congratulate him."

When asked about the achievements of his good brother, the smile on Jay Chou's face became somewhat more vigorous: "As for the English album, I do indeed have some ideas; I can't let Ah Yi monopolize the glory."

Among the most watched group of geniuses in the music industry, up to now, only Jay Chou has so directly and straightforwardly stated that he also has plans to release an English album.

The energized reporters immediately pressed, "So how many songs have you written so far?"

"Oh, not yet. I'm still having A-Yi recommend me a few reliable English teachers. I'll learn English first."

A brilliant smile spread across Zhou Jielun's face, whose English was terrible: "You all know my English was never good when I was in school."

The reporters: "……"

Are you fucking messing with us?

Learning English?!

A quick check of the grades — damn! His English grades really were terrible.

His past as a poor student became Zhou Jielun's best camouflage at this moment, while Wang Lihong and Tao Zhe, who had long been marketed as graduates of prestigious foreign schools, ended up in serious trouble.

And as if they had caught sight of Wang Lihong and Tao Zhe's awkwardness, once Zhou Yi began going to the concert venue to scout the stage and rehearse, everyone from Hong Kong's Four Heavenly Kings to the new generation of singers was asked countless times about their English album plans—

The most embarrassed among them was the God of Songs, Zhang Xueyou.

He had actually released one English album, but its real sales had flopped so badly they were unbearable to look at, and over the years all his publicity had simply ignored that album, acting as if it had never been released.

Nobody had cared about it originally, but under Zhou Yi's passive pressure, Zhang Xueyou's old history was dug up by the media all over again…

"And this guy's the God of Songs?"

"Bah!"

"Zhou Yi is the new God of Songs!"

"No way — what level is the God of Songs? Can he even be compared to Zhou Yi? Let's just call him the Asian Song Saint. The power of the Investiture of the Gods — a saint is way above a god."

Zhou Yi's fans, inflated to the extreme, went on the offensive everywhere, directly pinning the title of "Asian Song Saint" on Zhou Yi.

Don't ask — ask and we'll just tell you our Zhou Yi is the Billboard singles and albums double champion. What championships have you got? How many sales?

What? International awards? Those don't matter! Sales are king!

With only one World Sales Award to their name, Zhou Yi's fans tacitly avoided talking about awards.

Sun Yanzi sat at home eating watermelon, browsing the fan-circle war on a burner account, sitting cross-legged on a chair, laughing herself silly like Lady Gaga. But before long, she too got a taste of friendly fire—

"Can you even hype? What do you mean, 'World Sales Award, China Region Best-Selling Artist'? Don't you know you shouldn't have said that last part?

"Kick him, kick him — pig brain, holding us back."

Sun Yanzi, black watermelon seeds still clinging to the corner of her mouth, froze.

Three seconds later, she blinked, opened her mouth in disbelief, her hand gripping the watermelon trembling with rage — and then she bit down hard!

Kick me?

Kick me?!

Sun Yanzi, who wanted to go argue, failed to win the argument again and again…

"Tch, what kind of people."

Broken, Sun Yanzi tossed aside the watermelon rind, tapped the tabletop irregularly with her right index finger, wiped the corner of her mouth with a tissue — after thinking for a while, she started clacking away at the keyboard, her expression growing increasingly ferocious as time went on.

In the end…

Screw it, I'm done playing!

Sun Yanzi, resorting to spiritual victory, decisively fled the scene, grabbed her backpack, hummed a tune, ran downstairs, took a car to the company to find Zhou Yi.

PS: The ECG is fine, but my transaminase is a bit high — purely from staying up late.

I got back from the hospital waiting for the report a bit late tonight, so just this one update.

I owed one update yesterday, I owe one update today, I'll make them up tomorrow.

Four updates tomorrow.

(End of chapter)